Look at the great stuff Adobe's putting into WebKit

Seriously, look at it: Blending modes, better typography, Web inspector improvements, lots of CSS Regions improvements, a WebKit HUD in Dreamweaver, and more–and that’s all in the course of three days.  (Boy, Adobe sure is stuck in a Flash-only mindset…)

10 thoughts on “Look at the great stuff Adobe's putting into WebKit

  1. Yep, it’s almost as if they haven’t completely 180’d on Flash in the past 18 months..
    Seriously though, Adobe is definitely stepping up their web game with these contributions.

  2. +1, very cool stuff. Then, we just need photoshop to HTML/CSS code snippets, and we will be all set 😉
    [Yeah? How would you go about using that, and how would you rate the capability relative to other things you’d like to see PS do? I think CSS generation could be cool, but I’d like to know more about exactly what people want, and how badly they want it. –J.]

    1. I don’t think that photoshop to HTML/CSS snippets will work the same every time, I feel like you’d be exporting a lot of images. I would like to see the opposite. I want a layer where I can control text or color with HTML/CSS. Especially since you’re so into webkit these days; you could use it to render the layer. That way i can make mockups with elements I’ve already built in my website. It feels like the CS6 type controls are headed that with style control, I just always want more!

  3. Actually, would argue that it is stuck in the flash (but without the ‘only’) mindset. Adding proprietary features outside the standards systems was exactly what flash was all about 😉
    [Well yeah: Put another way, that means “Delivering cool stuff years & years before the whole design-by-committee thing can do its thing.” I mean, all this stuff they’re adding to HTML is wonderful–but it’s been available in Flash for years. –J.]

      1. Pedro, actually not exactly. Open source is good and cool and shiny and spiffy (I like open source stuff!), but that does not “make all the difference”. There is nothing inherently wrong with privately owned and maintained code. There is plenty of good, well written code the rights to which are owned by a private entity who uses and licenses that in a fair and reasonable manner.
        Here’s what happened with Flash. (before I go further I should note that I’m a staunch flash hater, so I find it odd to be defending it in this case… but I digress) The state of web interaction and usability when flash was first developed, and throughout much of Flash’s existence was very poor. As John so eloquently pointed out, “design by committee” can really, really suck in some aspects. It can move at a positively glacial pace. Flash provided a powerful tool to enhance user experiences on the web long before such a thing would have been possible with *standards*. Thats awesome, and a win for everyone. Where Adobe failed is they became overly reliant on Flash being their own little bit of leverage on the market, and attempted to exert unreasonable influence to force continued use of Flash in areas where it’s usefulness was diminishing as a result of natural market forces and standards catching up, in order to maintain their advantageous status quo, rather than evolving with the market. I’m happy to say it looks like over the past year + it looks like they’ve realized that they can’t hold onto the past, and need to innovate and drive forward the future. *That* is what John’s post ^^^^ way up there is all about.

  4. Isn’t this mostly for the benefit of Adobe’s own authoring tools though? I mean this doesn’t really feel like the Amish drove down the road and fixed the neighbor’s barn after the storm so much as the politician went to Washington to change the law for their own benefit.

    1. These additions are going through the web-standards process. Yes, it’ in Adobe’s interest to push and help create these improvements, and that would help sell authoring tools. But if these additions were useless, pointless, and nobody wanted them, they wouldn’t help sell more authoring tools.
      I’m looking forward to using CSS Regions — and am fine with Adobe creating an authoring tool that would help create the proper CSS. If the Adobe authoring tool is sub-par, the standard is out there and anyone can create a tool that does the same thing. If they wanted, they could make it free. This should be a win for everyone.

  5. Welcome to the party! I’m glad to see Adobe getting their head in the game 🙂
    [Thanks for the condescension. Just because you never read about stuff like this on Daring Fireball et al. doesn’t mean is doesn’t happen (or that it hasn’t been happening for a long time). –J.]

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