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Flash is not dead - but now renamed Adobe Animate Pro CC
April 17, 2017

Flash is not dead - but now renamed Adobe Animate Pro CC

Stephen Hustedde | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Flash

I teach classes in Adobe Animate Pro CC (formerly Adobe Flash CC) in our Web & Graphics certificate/degree program. In the beginning class I cover drawing, animating and very basic scripting. In the advanced class I focus much more heavily on programming with ActionScript. I personally use Animate/Flash to create learning materials for classes, animated title sequences for instructional videos, and create front-end apps that utilize a PHP-MySQL backend for data collection. I have created textbook ancillaries and other instructional apps with Flash in the past, as well as Android/iOS apps for personal use.
  • Nice, simple vectored drawing environment (I prefer it to the more complicated Adobe Illustrator for most projects)
  • Animation (this is the main selling point of Flash/Animate Pro)
  • Powerful scripting language (ActionScript), now having the ability to also use JavaScript
  • Better error reporting in testing code
  • Better seamless move from ActionScript to JavaScript
  • Relatively inexpensive, considering that you can purchase it with the whole Adobe Creative suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc.)
  • Production time can be fast. The tools are intuitive for those with experience in other Adobe products
Adobe Illustrator has a lot more drawing capabilities and features than Flash, but for most tasks, I prefer to use Flash.

For cross-platform development, Xamarin offers a true full, native development environment, but Flash is good for prototyping. The big diadvantage here is the Flash does require the Adobe AIR platform be installed on the end mobile device. (And yes, you can run Flash/AIR apps on an iPhone or iPad and can distribute them through the Apple Store.)
Flash/Animate Pro is well suited for creating animation sequences. Coupled with the drawing capabilities, it is a great environment for cartooning. But I think its greatest feature is the ability to create interactive cross-platform apps for WIndows, Android, and iOS devices. Unfortunately, this is a mostly-hidden ability. Adobe does not market much to this capability nor does the mobile development industry tout Flash/Animate Pro much. Great for prototyping apps as well.