Adobe & HTML(html.adobe.com)
html.adobe.com
Adobe & HTML
http://html.adobe.com/
70 comments
> the only sane way to build the layouts was to absolutely/manually position every paragraph
To me, this looks like the most INsane way to build a layout. What is wrong with a "let browsers and users choose their font size, their text widht, etc."?
For instance, both my wife and I are Kindle users, we have different font size, the text reflows almost always correctly, and who prefers bigger font has bigger font. My father is also a Kindle user and use an even bigger font because of his age. Soon he will have to read book on this device, because all fixed-font books will be too small for him.
To me, this looks like the most INsane way to build a layout. What is wrong with a "let browsers and users choose their font size, their text widht, etc."?
For instance, both my wife and I are Kindle users, we have different font size, the text reflows almost always correctly, and who prefers bigger font has bigger font. My father is also a Kindle user and use an even bigger font because of his age. Soon he will have to read book on this device, because all fixed-font books will be too small for him.
There are two big "design movements" on the web, and dustin represents one end of the spectrum. His side argues that great design makes things better, and that we all should put more time into design.
The other side says "design is not needed", and that each user can manage their design settings themselves. These are the people that pushed for RSS and Responsive design, and that see design as more of an optional addon.
None of the sides are always correct.
The other side says "design is not needed", and that each user can manage their design settings themselves. These are the people that pushed for RSS and Responsive design, and that see design as more of an optional addon.
None of the sides are always correct.
This is a terrible representation of the issue.
In the end, designing for the web is designing for a lack of control. I can't control your screen geometry, display technology, browser compliance, fonts, and more. There is no fixed canvas like I had in print.
This isn't a limitation, this is simply the medium. Designing for this medium means that you must take your canonical ideal and figure out how it would be transformed under different stresses: tiny screens with partial user attention, big screens viewed from couch distance, monochrome screens which don't refresh quickly, modern browsers with fast javascript, and old broken browsers.
Great design does make things better, but it isn't about pushing the design decisions onto the user. There's no argument that Dustin produces beautiful works of art, but designing with manual layout of the kind he describes is designing against the grain of the medium. CSS has limitations, but so does print. Design is what you accomplish within those limitations, and how you go about accomplishing it in a timeframe that allows you to complete your project and make a living.
In the end, designing for the web is designing for a lack of control. I can't control your screen geometry, display technology, browser compliance, fonts, and more. There is no fixed canvas like I had in print.
This isn't a limitation, this is simply the medium. Designing for this medium means that you must take your canonical ideal and figure out how it would be transformed under different stresses: tiny screens with partial user attention, big screens viewed from couch distance, monochrome screens which don't refresh quickly, modern browsers with fast javascript, and old broken browsers.
Great design does make things better, but it isn't about pushing the design decisions onto the user. There's no argument that Dustin produces beautiful works of art, but designing with manual layout of the kind he describes is designing against the grain of the medium. CSS has limitations, but so does print. Design is what you accomplish within those limitations, and how you go about accomplishing it in a timeframe that allows you to complete your project and make a living.
I read this, thought "gee, this guy gets it", then clicked on your profile and saw "developer/designer hybrid unicorn".
From my experience, it's mainly such hybrids that have this perspective on designing for the web. It makes it hard to work with people who don't see it the same way - either designers like Dustin or developers who don't fully appreciate the value of design.
From my experience, it's mainly such hybrids that have this perspective on designing for the web. It makes it hard to work with people who don't see it the same way - either designers like Dustin or developers who don't fully appreciate the value of design.
Wait, are you arguing that the "developer/designer hybrid unicorn" isn't a worthwhile pursuit? I think it's these people who are the ones pushing things forward by experimenting with their designs and trying to think of new ways to approach designing for the web.
No, I was arguing in favour of them. I'm one myself. :-)
>Designing for this medium means that you must take your canonical ideal and figure out how it would be transformed under different stresses:
But the medium lets you account for this with style sheets. You can have a totally different layout for mobile, etc.
But the medium lets you account for this with style sheets. You can have a totally different layout for mobile, etc.
This is half true; you still can't achieve exact output even with CSS (try viewing even very large sites with FF vs Chrome, they won't be identical to the pixel).
Media queries also let you adapt to devices/monitors, but realistically you can only cover the largest 5 or six cases.
At some point you're going to get user who's on some crazy screen resolution with a sideways monitor, or a strange tablet, and you'll have to sacrifice total control. 'Nature of the beast.
Media queries also let you adapt to devices/monitors, but realistically you can only cover the largest 5 or six cases.
At some point you're going to get user who's on some crazy screen resolution with a sideways monitor, or a strange tablet, and you'll have to sacrifice total control. 'Nature of the beast.
Total control is an optical illusion. Even with books you'll have printing defects, bad lighting in readers room, coffee cup rounds, and so on. A solid design is the one that can survive in worst environment. It do not have to be pretty, pretty is optional and often not really desirable (Mona Lisa is not pretty is she?)
> after a while, I noticed that I had started to subconsciously alter my designs to fit within the limitations of the display technology.
Isn't that what always happens? That's one of the reasons designs from different eras look different: not just that fashions change, but that the output technology changes and allows a different set of design choices. No matter how much somebody in the 1940s might have wished to set some type a smidgeon wider or narrower, that just wasn't possible until the advent of phototypesetting in the 60s, and 1940s designers would have subconsciously altered their designs to fit within the limitations of their technology.
Isn't that what always happens? That's one of the reasons designs from different eras look different: not just that fashions change, but that the output technology changes and allows a different set of design choices. No matter how much somebody in the 1940s might have wished to set some type a smidgeon wider or narrower, that just wasn't possible until the advent of phototypesetting in the 60s, and 1940s designers would have subconsciously altered their designs to fit within the limitations of their technology.
At the fringes of every fashion era, there have been things that've peeked out into the future and tried to push things forward.
As a designer, if you aren't constantly trying to build stuff that's better than what other people think is currently possible, then you may have just become a cog in a machine.
As a designer, if you aren't constantly trying to build stuff that's better than what other people think is currently possible, then you may have just become a cog in a machine.
> In 10 years, we'll look back on today and think about how barbaric and stupid it was that we didn't have re-flowable text in multi-box CSS layouts or absolute control of typefaces on the web.
I believe that's the purpose of this W3C Candidate Recommendation: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/
I agree that it seems silly that we still don't have columns in html, especially considering how wide monitors have gotten.
However, I'm not Adobe has the answer.
I believe that's the purpose of this W3C Candidate Recommendation: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/
I agree that it seems silly that we still don't have columns in html, especially considering how wide monitors have gotten.
However, I'm not Adobe has the answer.
CSS column flow will help a lot. However I hope print-minded-fixed designers will not end up flooding the net with rigid fixed-width designs mainly accessibility, edit ability, customisability is important in the word of flexible contents. papers or older forms of fixed rigid tech mediums have so many drawbacks, which ended up being a long exploitation area for designer hacks. in short I am for css-reflowing columns but i am against paper.
I am with Dustin on this one, but from a different angle. By creating flowable text, Adobe will ridiculously enhance the usefulness of their current publishing tools. A few years back I dabbled into newspaper publishing, and you can't imagine just how frustrating it is to have a beautiful layout in InDesign, which isn't really portable to the web. Having these tools will allow 'normal' people who don't do web to easily create stunning experience; that is a big undertaking!
> to easily create stunning experience
I know that I've lost this battle and that I'm in a minority, but to me "stunning experience" comes from the content, and not the presentation.
I know that I've lost this battle and that I'm in a minority, but to me "stunning experience" comes from the content, and not the presentation.
Really?
I'm really really struggling to find any human experience that is not improved by the "presentation". Can you name a single one that is wholly about the content and derives no value from the 'presentation'? (For any of the 5 senses?).
To my mind there is basic quadrant setup:
To my mind there is basic quadrant setup:
* Low Content and Low Presentation == Worthless Junk
* Low Content and High Presentation == Useless Fluff, Polished Turds
* High Content and Low Presentation == Useful but Boring and hard to understand
* High Content and High Presentation == Life Changing Content. Valuable AND easy to grok.
Books. Books don't need sound and video and special effects and gradients and rounded corners and 8 different fonts and mouse-over effects and transitions and etc. You get one font for 40,000 words. You get justification, and paragraphs, and if you're lucky a nice font.
An online example would be "Readbility" - that turns weirdly presented text into a very simple presentation.
I accept that it's a carefully chosen well designed presentation, but the simplicity is key to allowing access to the information.
See also all the various HN redesigns. HN is presentationally fairly simple. Almost all the redesigns add more stuff, but decrease usability, and distract from the actual content.
> That's "Presentation" that clearly adds value to the content.
I'm not saying presentation is pointless. But, if we're doing either / or, would you rather have bug free code with no indentation or buggy code with lovely formatting?
An online example would be "Readbility" - that turns weirdly presented text into a very simple presentation.
I accept that it's a carefully chosen well designed presentation, but the simplicity is key to allowing access to the information.
See also all the various HN redesigns. HN is presentationally fairly simple. Almost all the redesigns add more stuff, but decrease usability, and distract from the actual content.
> That's "Presentation" that clearly adds value to the content.
I'm not saying presentation is pointless. But, if we're doing either / or, would you rather have bug free code with no indentation or buggy code with lovely formatting?
Books are designed. Lots of consideration is put into the typography, layout, rhythm and form of printed books, and those design choices stretch back over a hundred years. There is much more at play than "justification, and paragraphs, and if you're lucky a nice font."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tschichold
http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tschichold
http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St...
> Books
> very simple presentation
"Good design is invisible". Not to be taken literally, but there is much wisdom in these words.
Yes but just giving examples of shit design doesn't make all design shit. Read Eric Gill on typography or look at an Edward Tufte book and you will understand how much design has gone into books over the ages. One of the ways you can tell when a design is really high quality is when you don't notice it.
Readability is good exactly because of well executed "design".
You seem to have seriously misunderstood what great presentation is and you are selling books way short. Good presentation is only about rounded corners if those rounded corners are actually an improvement. If they distract they are bad presentation.
There are good and bad ways to present text in books and this is not some subtle improvement, this is noticeable. Typesetting books is seriously hard and there are tons of pitfalls, even if all you need are paragraphs and chapter headings. To make this short, here are all things books can do and the web cannot (yet or in most browsers) do: Complete control over the font. A lot of microtypography. Complete control over justification. Easily creating and maintaining a rhythm.
I'm sure there are a lot more. (Those points are also the reason why typography in ebooks still sucks for the most part, some of that is caused by the ineptness of those who create those books.)
Anyone who has ever had the book of someone with no design background in their hands will be able to testify that there is a huge difference between books done by a professional typesetter and an amateur (if that amateur isn't self-taught and doesn't otherwise care about design).
There are good and bad ways to present text in books and this is not some subtle improvement, this is noticeable. Typesetting books is seriously hard and there are tons of pitfalls, even if all you need are paragraphs and chapter headings. To make this short, here are all things books can do and the web cannot (yet or in most browsers) do: Complete control over the font. A lot of microtypography. Complete control over justification. Easily creating and maintaining a rhythm.
I'm sure there are a lot more. (Those points are also the reason why typography in ebooks still sucks for the most part, some of that is caused by the ineptness of those who create those books.)
Anyone who has ever had the book of someone with no design background in their hands will be able to testify that there is a huge difference between books done by a professional typesetter and an amateur (if that amateur isn't self-taught and doesn't otherwise care about design).
> Anyone who has ever had the book of someone with no design background in their hands will be able to testify that there is a huge difference between books done by a professional typesetter and an amateur (if that amateur isn't self-taught and doesn't otherwise care about design).
I've read books double spaced with monospaced fonts on shitty LCD monitors - I was able to ignore the terrible presentation because the content was amazing. I've read books where there was a lot of attention paid to design. The paper was nice, the font was carefully chosen, the drop caps were just right, the chapter bullets were spot on, and the cover art was exquisite. The content was awful. The great design did not make me think I'd spent the money well. The great design did not make me rate the book higher on Amazon.
I never recommend a book because of the nice typeface, or the lack of rivers. I only ever recommend a book because of the plotting or characters or writing.
I have not said (but some people seem to think I have) that design is a pointless waste of time. I have said that given the choice between great content or great presentation that I'd much rather have great content.
These are all visual examples. I want to try and avoid analogy (because I usually pick poor choices) but the same is sometimes true for sound. Some early Beatles[1] records are, technically, decidedly sub-optimal compared to today's technology. But that's okay, because they're still amazing. Some awful dull band recorded with 128 track and a bunch of processing and a great engineer is still going to be bad and bland because, well, just because.
[1] I say Beatles but better examples would be all the music on Trojan records, which are pretty lo-fi. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3AbgBOcYHg&feature=fvwre...)
I've read books double spaced with monospaced fonts on shitty LCD monitors - I was able to ignore the terrible presentation because the content was amazing. I've read books where there was a lot of attention paid to design. The paper was nice, the font was carefully chosen, the drop caps were just right, the chapter bullets were spot on, and the cover art was exquisite. The content was awful. The great design did not make me think I'd spent the money well. The great design did not make me rate the book higher on Amazon.
I never recommend a book because of the nice typeface, or the lack of rivers. I only ever recommend a book because of the plotting or characters or writing.
I have not said (but some people seem to think I have) that design is a pointless waste of time. I have said that given the choice between great content or great presentation that I'd much rather have great content.
These are all visual examples. I want to try and avoid analogy (because I usually pick poor choices) but the same is sometimes true for sound. Some early Beatles[1] records are, technically, decidedly sub-optimal compared to today's technology. But that's okay, because they're still amazing. Some awful dull band recorded with 128 track and a bunch of processing and a great engineer is still going to be bad and bland because, well, just because.
[1] I say Beatles but better examples would be all the music on Trojan records, which are pretty lo-fi. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3AbgBOcYHg&feature=fvwre...)
I don't really get you then. You seem to claim that design is important but at the same time deny it.
I do not want to live in a world where the current state of thwart CSS defines what is possible. That is an awful world. The earlier we can flee it the better. I do not want to live in a world where good presentation is not possible.
I do not want to live in a world where the current state of thwart CSS defines what is possible. That is an awful world. The earlier we can flee it the better. I do not want to live in a world where good presentation is not possible.
What? It's really simple. The most important thing, to me, is excellent content. Good design will help excellent content, but excellent content is still great even if it has poor design.
Great design does not help shoddy content.
If an aspiring author asks me for advice do I tell them to work on the plotting and characters? Or do I suggest some bike-shedding around nice fonts and paragraph indentation styles?
Great design does not help shoddy content.
If an aspiring author asks me for advice do I tell them to work on the plotting and characters? Or do I suggest some bike-shedding around nice fonts and paragraph indentation styles?
Uhm, as a rule, authors should do none of those things. (I will make an exception for Douglas R. Hofstadter. If you want a book where presentation is interwoven with content and you can't really separate one from the other you have to read Gödel Escher Bach. In general, though, it’s safe to say that most authors are not Douglas R. Hofstadter. Gödel Escher Bach is also one of those books that’s hard to make into an ebook – and hasn’t been for that reason – because web technologies are lagging behind the printed book so badly.) They need experts to do that.
I’m not suggesting that authors start bikeshedding. I want professionals to do their profession. Authors are rarely good designers.
I’m not suggesting that authors start bikeshedding. I want professionals to do their profession. Authors are rarely good designers.
I don't disagree with that hierarchy, but if you're talking about the visual presentation of text-based content on the internet it seems to me you have to actively put effort in to get from #4 to #3.
Isn't HN itself an example of your 'high content, low presentation' category?
Presentation without content isn't much, but content without presentation isn't either. When you are competing for users' attention, having an option to present the content in a memorable and outspoken way is quite important.
It's much like code, no one cares what your backend looks like, if users can't work with your apps.
It's much like code, no one cares what your backend looks like, if users can't work with your apps.
I agree that this technology is absolutely necessary for certain use cases.
However, this will certainly be abused by lots of people to create "an amazing experience online", with the effect that texts become harder to read.
However, this will certainly be abused by lots of people to create "an amazing experience online", with the effect that texts become harder to read.
This may be off-topic, but progress with CSS (flowable text, etc.) is not only glacially slow, but we're still stuck with the terribly-designed CSS standard.
I find myself wishing for some kind of "layout bytecode" -- basically, machine-readable instructions which would size every element in a browser's page using custom layout algorithms that would depend on the size of the page and the size of font glyphs.
CSS would be compiled into this bytecode, but we'd be open to inventing new and better style languages which could be compiled as well. So we could create layout languages based on columns instead of floats, for example.
If this were actually implemented in newer browsers, it could actually be emulated in older browsers using JS libraries (although it would be much slower).
Note that this really only has to do with the layout properties of CSS. Things like color, rounded corners, drop shadows -- all that would still be implemented traditionally, but these aren't generally what people have problems with. It's the terrible layout algorithms of CSS which generate endless headaches.
I find myself wishing for some kind of "layout bytecode" -- basically, machine-readable instructions which would size every element in a browser's page using custom layout algorithms that would depend on the size of the page and the size of font glyphs.
CSS would be compiled into this bytecode, but we'd be open to inventing new and better style languages which could be compiled as well. So we could create layout languages based on columns instead of floats, for example.
If this were actually implemented in newer browsers, it could actually be emulated in older browsers using JS libraries (although it would be much slower).
Note that this really only has to do with the layout properties of CSS. Things like color, rounded corners, drop shadows -- all that would still be implemented traditionally, but these aren't generally what people have problems with. It's the terrible layout algorithms of CSS which generate endless headaches.
Anyone else noticed that this move comes a week shy of the two-year anniversary of Steve Jobs's infamous open letter? (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)
"New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."
Write-up here: http://webdev360.com/adobe-lays-cards-on-table-with-standard...
"New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."
Write-up here: http://webdev360.com/adobe-lays-cards-on-table-with-standard...
Let's leave the Steve Jobs PR bullshit out of this. When it comes to Web Standards, Adobe was on the bandwagon before Apple even knew such a thing existed. For example, before any browser had support for SVG, Adobe Illustrator could export SVGs, and Adobe wrote and distributed for free a plugin that made SVG available in all the major browsers (IE, Mozilla, Opera and Safari). After it acquired Macromedia, Adobe finished and made open source the first VM with a JIT for ECMA script and donated it to Mozilla, it also licensed Opera's HTML/CSS rendering engine (by far the most standards compliant at the time, KHTML/WebKit was not around) and put it into Dreamweaver. Most of Adobe's products use JavaScript as the default scripting engine since a long long time ago (close to a decade by now), and it goes on, and on. Yet in the Steve Jobs distortion field, it's actually good ol' Apple who are twisting Adobe's hand to join the Web Standards movement. Hilarious, especially since it's the same Apple who had for years an obsolete, nonconforming, slow browser that was dead last in performance and implementation of Web Standards, so much so that Zeldman, in his "Designing with Web Standards" recommends IE 5 for Mac over Safari. Imagine that, for years (until Apple forked KHTML and KJS from KDE), the best browser running on Macs was made by Microsoft.
I don't seen the point of the venom in your reply.
In fact, the Jobs letter that the grandfather comment mentions, recognized Adobe's historical contributions to publishing and graphics.
Here are its first sentences:
"Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times."
You may disagree with Jobs' conclusions, or dislike Apple for various reasons, but the letter shows considerable insight.
In fact, the Jobs letter that the grandfather comment mentions, recognized Adobe's historical contributions to publishing and graphics.
Here are its first sentences:
"Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times."
You may disagree with Jobs' conclusions, or dislike Apple for various reasons, but the letter shows considerable insight.
The entire letter is typical of the Jobs rhetoric, a web of lies, omissions and half-truths and I fail to notice any insight at all. Sure, in the opening paragraph, Jobs tries to pretend he doesn't loathe Adobe [1], but in the rest of it it makes sure to push the idea that Apple is some sort of white knight of open standards fighting the good fight against the visionless Adobe who still doesn't get this thing called Web Standards. For example he writes
"HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member."
Notice it doesn't even mention that Adobe is also a member of the standards committee just like Apple? Or how about this gem:
"Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit [bla bla bla] Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers."
You may not know it, but KHTML was pretty competitive, shipping with Konqueror, the default web browser in KDE, and it also had a lot of users including Nokia before Apple forked it and started to add their own code to it, a lot of the times Mac specific and non portable. It also fails to mention that Apple's own contribution to WebKit is far lower than that of KDE's developers, authors of the original codebase and later additions to WebCore like KSVG2, KCanvas, KDOM [2], or Google, the current largest contributor. It's pretty deceiving to claim that Apple just took a "small open source project" and gave WebKit to Google, Nokia, Adobe (they use and contribute to WebKit also) etc to use, and it's extremely deceiving considering the bad blood between KDE developers and Apple caused by the way Apple forked KHTML and managed their fork originally ([3] for an episode of that open source drama).
Anyway, this letter is just an episode in a long and entertaining grudge match between Jobs and Adobe, dating back to the days when Apple's own survival in the holy war against PC\Microsoft depended on Adobe's commitment to support MacOS, which was apparently not enthusiastic enough by Jobs' standards.
[1] Via a review for the recently released Final Cut Pro X, I found this old article about the origins of Final Cut, where Jobs claims
"But a 1998 meeting in which Jobs asked Adobe Systems executives to develop a Mac version of their consumer video-editing program changed his mind. "They said flat-out no," Jobs recalls. "We were shocked, because they had been a big supporter in the early days of the Mac. But we said, 'Okay, if nobody wants to help us, we're just going to have to do this ourselves.' "
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/...
Poor little Apple left to dry by the evil Adobe. Just look at the Wikipedia entry for Adobe Premiere to find out that outside the Jobs distortion field the software was released on Macs from day 1, in fact it was exclusive to Mac for the first versions. By version 3, a less advanced port to Windows is released, and the Mac version continues to be far ahead until... (surprise) 1998 when Mac and Windows versions reach parity and begin being released at the same time. It sure looks like Apple is trying to punish Adobe for giving the Windows peons access to software that was exclusive to Macs until then.
[2] http://tech.slashdot.org/story/05/07/10/199244/apple-to-adop...
[3] http://blogs.kde.org/node/1049
"HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member."
Notice it doesn't even mention that Adobe is also a member of the standards committee just like Apple? Or how about this gem:
"Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit [bla bla bla] Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers."
You may not know it, but KHTML was pretty competitive, shipping with Konqueror, the default web browser in KDE, and it also had a lot of users including Nokia before Apple forked it and started to add their own code to it, a lot of the times Mac specific and non portable. It also fails to mention that Apple's own contribution to WebKit is far lower than that of KDE's developers, authors of the original codebase and later additions to WebCore like KSVG2, KCanvas, KDOM [2], or Google, the current largest contributor. It's pretty deceiving to claim that Apple just took a "small open source project" and gave WebKit to Google, Nokia, Adobe (they use and contribute to WebKit also) etc to use, and it's extremely deceiving considering the bad blood between KDE developers and Apple caused by the way Apple forked KHTML and managed their fork originally ([3] for an episode of that open source drama).
Anyway, this letter is just an episode in a long and entertaining grudge match between Jobs and Adobe, dating back to the days when Apple's own survival in the holy war against PC\Microsoft depended on Adobe's commitment to support MacOS, which was apparently not enthusiastic enough by Jobs' standards.
[1] Via a review for the recently released Final Cut Pro X, I found this old article about the origins of Final Cut, where Jobs claims
"But a 1998 meeting in which Jobs asked Adobe Systems executives to develop a Mac version of their consumer video-editing program changed his mind. "They said flat-out no," Jobs recalls. "We were shocked, because they had been a big supporter in the early days of the Mac. But we said, 'Okay, if nobody wants to help us, we're just going to have to do this ourselves.' "
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/...
Poor little Apple left to dry by the evil Adobe. Just look at the Wikipedia entry for Adobe Premiere to find out that outside the Jobs distortion field the software was released on Macs from day 1, in fact it was exclusive to Mac for the first versions. By version 3, a less advanced port to Windows is released, and the Mac version continues to be far ahead until... (surprise) 1998 when Mac and Windows versions reach parity and begin being released at the same time. It sure looks like Apple is trying to punish Adobe for giving the Windows peons access to software that was exclusive to Macs until then.
[2] http://tech.slashdot.org/story/05/07/10/199244/apple-to-adop...
[3] http://blogs.kde.org/node/1049
I'm very cross with Adobe for forcing me to install Adobe Reader today. Makes it hard for me to have any interest in their new ideas.
https://plus.google.com/108917965951523281393/posts/MJqS8pF7...
https://plus.google.com/108917965951523281393/posts/MJqS8pF7...
Reply to the sender that this is not acceptable.
On the Tools and Services page, this piqued my interest:
> Code
> We think there’s a need for a different type of code editor – we’re working on something and will have more to share soon.
> Code
> We think there’s a need for a different type of code editor – we’re working on something and will have more to share soon.
Same, but I've never used an adobe product thats fast, responsive, and made for power users. I don't want another editor that's trying to hold my hand like dreamweaver.
Photoshop is fast, responsive and made for power users, illustrator and in-design more-so. In fact, all three are absolutely best in class with nothing even close to challenging them.
The problem is more that they don't compete well when the opposition are just text editors, and where people are perfectly happy to remove all the visual stuff.
The problem is more that they don't compete well when the opposition are just text editors, and where people are perfectly happy to remove all the visual stuff.
Not originally Adobe, but Homesite?
Bit embarrassing, but I actually still use Allaire's Cold Fusion Studio from 1999. I think that was, at the time, the big brother to Homesite.
Bit embarrassing, but I actually still use Allaire's Cold Fusion Studio from 1999. I think that was, at the time, the big brother to Homesite.
Homesite was the first thing I thought of, which was definitely one of those trips down memory lane that leaves you thinking "wow, that was how long ago?!"
have you looked at muse (http://www.adobe.com/products/muse.html) and the sort of sites that come out the other end (http://juliegratz.com/)
I hope that's not what they have in mind, quite why they are showing off a website who's homepage doesn't have a single bit of text (view-source:http://juliegratz.com/) other than a copyright assertion I have no idea
I hope that's not what they have in mind, quite why they are showing off a website who's homepage doesn't have a single bit of text (view-source:http://juliegratz.com/) other than a copyright assertion I have no idea
But what's wrong with Dreamweaver? /s
Joking aside, Dreamweaver got me into HTML and CSS six years ago when I was 13 and now I have a pretty awesome job developing. Like pdenya states, it's definitely not for power users. But it has its place.
Years ago, when CSS layouts were the new thing and hadn't quite been figured out yet, I used Dreamweaver's code editor and WYSIWYG view to teach myself the basics of CSS layouts. This was before I knew how to "program," and I'm sure there are better ways to learn, but it was an effortless way to get instant code-output feedback which really helped at the time and probably helped in my foray into programming.
I do agree with you and was definitely was in the same boat. Dreamweaver actually functions pretty well for a starter/basic FTP and code editor, but beyond that it's very, very outdated and needs a massive overhaul.
Sad how the samples don't have any working fallback but break hideously on Chrome 19.
They're working fine for me in Chrome 18 and Webkit nightly, though not in Safari 5.1.5.
Yes, but are you using the experimental --enable-css-regions switch?
If it's experimental, I don't think either Adobe or Google can be blamed for the fact they don't work. Naturally the css doesn't degrade – the browser is advertising support for a feature that's currently broken in the browser and thus disabled by default.
I was asking if the parent was using the experimental feature and wondering if it worked for him because of it. I am not using the experimental feature.
Of course samples are only samples, but they would be better if they showed a real life scenario where you have to make it work for the current generation of browsers and the upcoming generation. You don't have to degrade it with CSS, just make it work somehow.
Of course samples are only samples, but they would be better if they showed a real life scenario where you have to make it work for the current generation of browsers and the upcoming generation. You don't have to degrade it with CSS, just make it work somehow.
They lost on flash. Will they lose on html and CSS?
They did not "lose" on Flash. 99% market penetration[0] is not losing. I doubt they'll "lose" on HTML and CSS any more than they lost on Dreamweaver, they'll simply pull an Autodesk[1] and target the education and training market. It's hard to beat the Flash IDE for ease-of-use, and I imagine their new HTML-based product(s) will be the same.
[0]: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplatformruntimes/statist... [1]: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center
[0]: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplatformruntimes/statist... [1]: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center
> 99% market penetration
By that metric, Java has 73%, but I basically never encounter a Java applet on the web (except when digitally signing my taxes) and increasingly hardly any Flash.
By that metric, Java has 73%, but I basically never encounter a Java applet on the web (except when digitally signing my taxes) and increasingly hardly any Flash.
99% market penetration is a bullshit statistic, it completely ignores mobile which is the fastest growing method for accessing the web.
> 99% market penetration[0] is not losing.
IE had 98% marketshare once too…
Oh, wasn't aware flash is now supported on apple products.
My comments were referring to the shift away from flash. Penetration in a constricting market is not ideal.
My comments were referring to the shift away from flash. Penetration in a constricting market is not ideal.
Flex on iOS and Android kind of not making it a loss for Flash at the moment. Just check top rated games on those app stores.
"If you can't improve them with your own plugin, join them."
I hope this will be relevant for Adobe's Digital Magazine Distribution Suite - I'm really tired of waiting for new New Yorker issues to download on my ancient 1 MBit connection (rural area in germany). There's no need to provide text as a bunch of huge images resulting in several 100 MBytes in size.
Doesn't this work on Firefox? It has Canary, IE10 developer preview, Chrome and Webkit builds... no Mozilla!
Gecko seems to be behind on a lot of things lately... it took until FF11 for them to support the loop attribute on audio tags(!)
Wow! At first I thought Adobe had jumped into the browser market. That would be interesting.
They might. They have been contributing to WebKit.
Anybody got a useful example of reflowable text? On my large screen, a lot the boxes are just empty.
I'd suggest resizing the window.
I did to see the example work, but my point was that by default this gives a bad UX.
Already seen few sites abusing CSS Regions and making paragraphs harder to read. PLEASE use them wisely.
I have come upon the edge of what CSS is capable of multiple times, especially when building http://dustincurtis.com, and what happened surprised me: after a while, I noticed that I had started to subconsciously alter my designs to fit within the limitations of the display technology. As I realized that the only sane way to build the layouts was to absolutely/manually position every paragraph, I slowly stopped writing and designing the articles. It was just too much work because the tools to do great custom layouts on the web just don't exist.
Compared to what should be possible by now, CSS is pretty primitive. It's a limiting factor in the digitization of traditional media, like magazines. What Adobe is doing here is awesome, and I commend them for pushing forward the status quo.