Adobe has unveiled Edge, a new motion and interaction design tool that lets creative pros build Flash-style animated Web content using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. It is available now as a free public preview release from Adobe Labs.
Adobe is making this software available much earlier in the development process than usual—before it reaches beta—to accommodate user feedback to help shape the final product. Edge is planned for commercial release sometime next year.
Adobe Edge, designed to work in concert with the company’s existing professional design tools—Dreamweaver CS5.5, Flash Professional CS5.5, and Flash Builder 4.5 (as well as earlier versions)—is targeted to designers seeking an efficient way to use Web standards like HTML to create content featuring motion and transitions.
Adam Berenstain is a freelance writer in upstate New York and a longtime Macworld contributor. More by Adam Berenstain
[The is the second of a two-part series on how to create and print a comic book or graphic novel on your Mac. Part one was published on Friday, July 29th.]
In my last article I talked about using your Mac to create printed comic books by scanning, editing, and enhancing your original comic book art. This time the focus is on organizing that artwork in a page-layout document, adding word balloons or sound effects, and working with your copy shop to create the best-looking book for the money.
Bert Monroy paints with pixels. His canvas is a monitor, his paintbrush is a stylus, and his art looks like you took an HDR-panorama photo of a vivid dream. When you look at his paintings, you can see every tiny detail in the scene without depth of field or frame distortion—the effect aims to be more true-to-life than mere photographs.
As a design veteran, professor, artist, and Adobe Photoshop pioneer, Monroy has been using Photoshop since 1988 for everything from clip art to still life. He even helped develop the software over the years, from testing it to creating brushes. (You know the maple leaf and the blades of grass brushes? Those are his.)
Portrait of the artist as a young cab driver. Bert Monroy depicts his younger self in Times Square.His latest piece—called Times Square—is a gigantic painting of the New York City thoroughfare, measuring 5-by-25 feet. It has a breathtaking 750,000 layers and took four years to complete.
Adam Berenstain is a freelance writer in upstate New York and a longtime Macworld contributor. More by Adam Berenstain
[This is part one of a two-part series about how to create and publish a comic book or graphic novel on your Mac.]
Years ago I used my Mac and the services at my local copy shop to create small print runs of comic books to sell at comic conventions. Times have changed, but there’s still something to be said for making comics the old-fashioned way, with ink on paper. Using your Mac and some additional hardware and software, you can create your own comic books and graphic novels that look good without breaking the bank. In this first of two articles, I’ll discuss the materials you’ll need, how to scan your artwork into your Mac, and how to make those scans look their best.
Over time, we've gotten used to Adobe's Creative Suite release cycle of roughly 18 months or so for every major version of its software packages: Design, Web, and Production Premium, and Master Collection. And now comes Creative Suite 5.5. Are Adobe's new Flash releases just minor updates that we can ignore, or is the new version of the Flash family a must-have tool? Here's the scoop on why this Flash update is particularly compelling for rich Internet application developers.
Flash started out as a simple vector-based animation tool for the Web. After Adobe acquired Flash via its buyout of Macromedia, it gradually developed the app into a full-fledged tool for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs). There was only one problem: Flash was not a great development tool for programmers or interface designers. Adobe addressed this problem by developing Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst. Flash Builder is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) based on the popular Eclipse IDE, while Catalyst is specifically designed as an easy-to-use tool for non-programmers to create interfaces.
With the release of Bento 4, Filemaker's consumer-oriented database application offers vastly improved printing features, making it possible to create and print mailing labels without any Address Book voodoo or other parlor tricks. But Bento handles these printing tasks in a fashion far different from any other application that you may be using.
First select the collection that contains the data you want to print on your labels.
Setup: Unlike most database applications, which require you to create some kind of label document and then merge your data into that document, Bento handles the layout and merging of data from within the application's print dialog.
A year after releasing InDesign CS5, Adobe has released InDesign CS5.5, a paid upgrade available by itself or as part of Adobe's newly minted Subscription Editions. This version focuses on new features for producing electronic publications such as iPad apps, e-books, and accessible PDFs. Here's the rundown on what's new.
Folio Producer tools
Converting a magazine, catalog, or other publication into an iPad app can be as simple as allowing InDesign to export a .folio document for you—more on that later. But to create a compelling app, you'll want to add some interactivity.
