Adobe: Flash.app as an HTML5 IDE

Okay, either I’m completely missing something, or there is a huge void waiting to be filled by some intrepid team of coders.

I did a bit of Flash development for the Coil Guitars website (I did the page content, e.g. the in-page animations of the electronics, etc. … Aditya did the site’s structure, meaning the lion’s share of the work). Flash is a powerful tool for doing animation, and our entire site is animated … to a fairly comprehensive [read: extreme] degree. Early on, I decided I wanted it to be more of an immersive experience than a bulletin board, and Aditya really came through with a spectacular design.

Anyway, it’s Flash. I have an iPhone.

If that isn’t bad enough, I’ve now discovered what all site maintainers know: developing the site is far less than half the battle. Keeping it up to date is so much more … and having to write Flash every time you want to make a minor change is, well, painful. Which is why I haven’t updated it any time recently.

So — HTML5 anyone? Seems like a good idea to explore (I’ve been hand-coding HTML since the mid 90s), and I’ve been hunting for IDEs that rival Adobe’s Flash IDE for animation. What am I missing? Really, do none exist?

I’ve been told that the HTML5 spec isn’t finalized, especially wrt its animation support … but I have seen numerous examples of animation in HTML5, some of it 3D, so there has to be some sort of existing base, no? How are these guys developing their animation code? Surely someone could build a minimal-featureset IDE to be expanded later when the spec finalizes?

What is the chance Adobe will port their Flash IDE to support HTML5? Seems like it would be a no-brainer — Adobe is not really in the Flash business, they are in the content-development-tools business, and in theory they, as a company, should be language-agnostic. I can’t imagine they would cut off their nose to spite their face. But that seems exactly what is going on.

#madness