The thing I still miss about Flash is the authoring tool.
It is one of the few bits of software that bridged a gap between artists and creators and coding in a way that totally democratised creating interactive websites.
I see some similarities with Instagram filters and TikTok effects. The visual-layout-you-can-add-code-to approach, but Flash was so mainstream and capable in a way filters aren’t.
I wish Adobe had done a better job with flash and just converted the Flash Player into html5. Surely that could have been done?
Website creation is far too complicated now compared to then and I think the level of experimentation - especially by lone artists - has plummeted since flash died.
It's not just flash, all of web development has become very complex. In the early days, people would learn to make websites because they wanted to be web developers. They could make something in 5 minutes that was reasonably similar to what they would make if they achieved their goal of getting a job doing it. Now, in 5 minutes you can make a squarespace page, which is still impressive, but nowhere near something you could get a job doing. People either do this and give up, or they get lost in a maze of studying (bootstrap vs MUI??? Tailwind vs SASS??????) and emerge a fully-formed web designer (having made no cool personal site along the way).
>Now, in 5 minutes you can make a squarespace page, which is still impressive, but nowhere near something you could get a job doing.
there are tons of ppl who just need an interface that lets them efficiently gather money for their good/service. in that context the squarespace page is all they need.
most ppl STILL can't figure that out and pay someone to do it.
As a web dev who’s made good money, yes yes and yes. We often get too hung up on the technology when most of the websites in the whole world fall into a category well served by sites like squarespace.
I fondly remember when I first discovered how to attach a goto action to a button and I went nuts with it making choose your own adventure type animations. Drawing was also really easy to make thing look decent even with a mouse. I haven't found (or admittedly looked for) a similar vector drawing tool like that ever since.
Yes, the generated brush strokes were really good. I was at one point just making static comics in Flash, using just a mouse because the brush strokes looked like they were drawn by someone way more skilled than myself.
The creation tool still exists (it's been renamed to Adobe Animate) and even still lets you make interactive content with, I can only assume, a similar workflow. But what I really can't understand or forgive is that Adobe killed ActionScript, replacing it with a JavaScript library (CreateJS) that's similar but not quite the same AIUI. That meant you can't just re-export existing Flash content for HTML5, and Flash creators' existing skillsets aren't directly applicable to the new system…
There's no good technical justification for this. Adobe could have ported Flash Player to WebAssembly or asm.js, or they could have written an ActionScript to JavaScript compiler and a set of support routines. They could have gotten even very complex old Flash projects working on HTML5, they could have charged money for this feature, and many people would have forked out for it! Instead they were content to let their platform die. It makes no sense.
Yes, I still haven't found a good alternative to easily build simple interactive animations for the web. Flash was fun, even with my limited artistic skills.
It is one of the few bits of software that bridged a gap between artists and creators and coding in a way that totally democratised creating interactive websites.
I see some similarities with Instagram filters and TikTok effects. The visual-layout-you-can-add-code-to approach, but Flash was so mainstream and capable in a way filters aren’t.
I wish Adobe had done a better job with flash and just converted the Flash Player into html5. Surely that could have been done?
Website creation is far too complicated now compared to then and I think the level of experimentation - especially by lone artists - has plummeted since flash died.