Introducing Sencha Animator: The CSS3 Alternative to Flash

http://www.sencha.com/blog/2010/10/26/introducing-sencha-animator-the-html5-css3-alternative-to-flash/

by shawndumas • 16 years ago

51 13 16 years ago

Get ready for animated banner ads on your iPad...

Seriously though this looks like an amazing piece of software that will finally bring the full power of CSS3 animations to a much broader range of designers.

antimatter15• 16 years ago

It's really missing the point by requiring the desktop installation. It's apparently only a "native shell for additional features" but what are those features? You can save to/load from the desktop with data-urls and the file api. I think it's because of some dysfunctional DRM that they're using.

Nonetheless, it's an extremely impressive piece of software. Not sure that CSS3/Transitions is the best tool for this, SVG/SMIL are much more suited for animation. I made a similar tool ~4 years ago (using HTML5, and Ext as well).

http://antimatter15.com/ajaxanimator/

taitems• 16 years ago

Agreed, at first glance I assumed it was a web-based editor like the Aviary suite of tools.

Being CSS3 based also threw me completely. Adobe has already demoed some great things with their canvas export functionality. One would also assume that the browser acceptance of this type of animation would be far greater than CSS3 transitions. It could even degrade to VML for older IE versions to achieve the more basic effects.

revjx• 16 years ago

I think the point is that CSS3 is hardware-accelerated on platforms like the iPad / iPhone, whereas the canvas isn't - it runs like a bit of a dog on those two.

I personally would prefer using the canvas though, especially if it becomes HW accelerated across the board.

kj123452• 16 years ago

I download the "developer preview", unzip the dmg, open the dmg, put it in Applications, open the app, and now I need a username and password? It should require a login before downloading to avoid annoying people.

norova• 16 years ago

Agreed. The only spot I'm able to find that it mentions this prior to install is on the actual download page, just above the download button. I'd recommend they make that little blurb stand out a bit more. Nevertheless, I'm excited to try this out!

mmullany• 16 years ago

Apologies for the annoyance - we should have added a warning up front. In fact, I'll add it to the blog post right now.

kj123452• 16 years ago

Thanks. Cool tool by the way, there's a big need out there for this kind of functionality.

jluxenberg• 16 years ago

We’re pricing standard edition like a traditional design tool: on a per user basis in the low hundreds of dollars

Brilliant space to be in; customers are used to paying big bucks for Adobe solutions. These guys are probably going to make a lot of money.

wheaties• 16 years ago

Except doesn't IE9 suck at rendering CSS3 with any semblance of style? Correct me if I'm wrong but another article was on here not too long ago bemoaning the fact that web developers will yet again have to craft custom applications for Microsoft browsers. However, I wish them the best. I'm not going to turn a blind eye to something which could benefit everyone in the future just because it might not benefit them now.

pedrokost• 16 years ago

That's great, they released sooner than Adobe. However, Adobe is preparing and updating its tools which include HTML 5 animation.

Adobe Edge Prototype - their new HTML5 animation tool:http://www.gizmag.com/adobe-edge-html5-animation-tool/16741/

and also Flash Pro can export to an HTML file.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryZP00_KhYE

jonpaul• 16 years ago

Too bad they don't invest more resources in GXT.

ericHosick• 16 years ago

Will be a great tool!

Please note that when I view the demos on your site the animation starts before all the content used in the animation is downloaded. It is kinda cool in a way because I see an image downloading as it animates off the screen.

Introducing Sencha Animator: The CSS3 Alternative to Flash

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