Bye Bye Flash - Animation in Website Design
There was a time that Adobe Flash ruled the roost when it came to interactive, animated Web Sites. That day is no more.
I haven’t opened Flash for a couple of years now and I deactivated the plugin a few weeks ago and haven’t really missed anything on the web.
In the past 5 years Web Developers and Designers have been working on disparate solutions, independently of one another. There’s some awesome stuff out there now but what is needed is a uniform approach to speed development and bring down associated costs.
Enter The Web Animation API. It’s a new W3C spec that will provide an API, enabling Web Developers to create new Web designs that adhere to standards. There will be support for motion paths, sequenced animation and pause, play, slow animation objects.
All in all, these are fantastic developments that should speed up and smooth Web animation across browsers. Early days yet but Chrome and Firefox are both beginning to support the standard.