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Adobe hastens release of HTML5 developer tool

Even as opposition mounts against Adobe Systems' Flash technology, the company is showing Wednesday it's working hard to ensure it's not the only arrow in its Web programming quiver.

At the Google I/O conference, Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch is expected to announce the release of an HTML5 update to Adobe's Dreamweaver tool for creating Web sites. HTML5, a still-developing revision to the Web page standard, is a key part of the threat to Flash, but Adobe is indicating it's willing to embrace the alternative.

Adobe has been telegraphing its interest in HTML5 and … Read more

Firefox 4 release plan: The need for speed

Mozilla hopes to release Firefox 4 in October or November, a new version that has speed among its top goals.

"Performance is a huge, huge, huge thing for us," said Mike Beltzner, vice president of engineering for Firefox, in a Webcast on Tuesday about plans for the browser. "We created the performance story, and we've got to keep at it."

Among other features planned for Firefox 4--and Mozilla emphatically cautions that plans can change--are support for high-speed graphics and text through Direct2D on Windows; a tidier user interface with more prominent and powerful tabs; support … Read more

Scribd picks new Web technology over Flash

In one of the clearest examples so far of just how much Flash is threatened by next-generation Web technologies, Scribd, a service for hosting and sharing documents online, is moving to a future that doesn't require Adobe Systems' plug-in.

"After three years of building on Flash, Scribd is starting over and moving everything to HTML5," said Scribd co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Jared Friedman in prepared remarks for a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo. "I think it's the largest deployment of HTML5 to date, and it's a bet-the-company decision for us." … Read more

Tip: Use stylesheets to customize web page behavior

Cascading style sheets (CSS) are extensively used in websites to apply styling properties to specific HTML tags or categorized classes and tag IDs. This is why on many sites you will see items like links appear in custom colors instead of the default underlined blue text. In Safari you can easily include a user-supplied style sheet in which you can set custom styles for web pages that do not already have styles assigned for tags, allowing you to customize link colors and cursor behaviors, just to name a few.… Read more

Steve Jobs sets the record straight with Adobe's Flash

Since the original iPhone was release a few years ago, the major knock on the iPhone OS was its lack of support for one of the Web's most ubiquitous plug-ins--Flash. Steve Jobs, on Apple's homepage has set the record straight, leaving little doubt where Apple's stance is on the much maligned Flash.… Read more

Microsoft sponsors new Web font standard

With a surprise boost from Microsoft, the promise of rich typography on the Web just got a big step closer to reality.

The software company's involvement emerged Monday with sponsorship of a newer effort at the World Wide Web Consortium to standardize Web-based fonts with technology called the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). It's a fresh indicator of Microsoft's serious engagement with new Web standards--and it's a big boost for designers' attempts to stretch the Web beyond just the few typefaces that today can be expected to be already installed on people's computers.

It's … Read more

Microsoft modernizes Web ambitions with IE9

For those who doubted that Microsoft was serious in its effort to re-engage with the Web, it's time to put the skepticism aside.

At its Mix conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Microsoft gave programmers, Web developers, and the world at large a taste of things to come with its Web browser. Specifically, Microsoft released what it's calling the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, a prototype that's designed to show off the company's effort to improve how the browser deals with the Web as it exists today and, just as important, to add support for new Web technologies that are coming right now.

The new software is only a framework, raw enough that it's still missing a "back" button. But with "a few" updated preview versions set to arrive at eight-week intervals, the project will develop into a beta, a release candidate, and eventually the full-fledged product IE9, said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer and the executive who'll describe the project at Mix.

Coming in the new version is support for new Web standards including plug-in-free video; better performance with graphics, text, and JavaSript by taking advantage of modern computing hardware; and a new effort at gathering and responding to feedback from those using the prototype software, Hachamovitch said. … Read more

Going beyond Flash, Adobe shows off Web tech

Sure, Adobe Systems spends a lot of effort developing and promoting its Flash technology. And sure, a lot of the new "Open Web" technologies are a competitive threat to Flash.

But that doesn't mean Adobe isn't interested in HTML5 and CSS3--the updates to Hypertext Markup Language for describing Web pages and to Cascading Style Sheets for Web page formatting--that are two of the most important parts of that Open Web work. After all, Adobe does have its DreamWeaver product for Web site development.

But there's a new sign that Adobe is taking more interest in … Read more

One window Web editor

Created by the developers behind the popular CSSEdit, Espresso is another option for Web developers who want a relatively low-priced, one-window Web editor that also gives you an intuitive code-editing environment along with organizational tools and other extras.

Espresso uses a two-paned, single-window interface organized around a single, logical workflow: the app has Workspace, Files, and Publish sections, and it's easy to drag and drop files and sites. A third Navigator pane lets you view and quickly manipulate the organizational structure of your docs. Espresso also gives you a full set of editing features, including multilanguage support (boosted by … Read more