[UPDATE (February 2013) – Adobe has just released a free software upgrade and everyone can now download Edge Animate 1.5 (still) for free! They've also now made available for all users a free preview version of Edge Reflow, their new responsive-web design tool.]
Perhaps the biggest news from Adobe’s Create the Web event earlier this week is how much they’re giving away their new mobile-ready web development software… The new Edge Tools & Services collection includes some great products for free download and use, including the final official release of Edge Animate 1.0 – the full and permanent version at no charge (regularly US$499) – for creating interactive and animated web content.
Edge Animate (formerly known as “Adobe Edge” during its long Preview period) is effectively Adobe’s “Flash Pro for the HTML5/CSS3 world” – this new application works similarly to how Flash Professional does for creating rich media – but instead of generating Flash, it outputs standards-based HTML that can be viewed in browsers all across the web, on desktops and laptops as well as mobile devices and tablets.
So now Adobe has made the first official release of this $499 professional tool free for everyone, and it’s not a trial – it’s a full lifetime license! And it comes with In-App Lessons to easily get started learning how to use it. All you need to do is sign up for the free level of membership for the growing Creative Cloud, and it’s yours to download and use forever with no payment required. There are other benefits to having the free Cloud membership as well – including storage, sharing, and syncing your files and projects if you desire, plus more…
Adobe introduced other cool tools in the Edge family for building content and apps that will run anywhere there’s a modern browser. Edge Inspect (formerly Adobe Shadow during its beta period) lets you easily preview your designs live on mobile devices from the desktop in fast, remote-control fashion. Edge Code (based on the open-source Brackets) is a free and open in-context code editor for web developers. Edge Reflow (sneak peek only) is a new responsive design tool for managing how your content will lay out and flow on many different screen sizes. And lastly PhoneGap Build exits its beta test and stands ready to package common HTML, CSS, and JavaScript content into complete mobile apps built for all platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, webOS, and Symbian.
Best of all, all free Creative Cloud members also get to all use these additional Edge tools for at least one project or app of their own. And if you already have an Adobe ID or account, it only takes seconds to sign up. Tell your friends and colleagues too!
[ Learn how to create your first project in Edge Animate. ]
Lest folks wonder how all these new products relate to Dreamweaver, Adobe is also keeping up with that as well with the availability of a Dreamweaver CS6 update that brings expanded support for HTML5, among other enhancements.
Get 500 Completely Free Web Fonts for Any and All Online Uses
But wait, there’s more… In addition to Adobe’s online font service Typekit finally cutting a deal with the popular Monotype foundry, their other major news is the launch and immediate availability of the completely free Adobe Edge Web Fonts. This is here now for anyone and everyone to add real fonts to their website with the addition of a single line of code for their font(s) of choice. Normally you’re restricted to a very limited number of font faces that are built into all browsers (the so-called “browser-safe fonts“) – but here now with this new service you have a large selection of beautiful fonts for free, which will work compatibly and render in all browsers everywhere. And naturally the text created is fully editable and selectable like that from any font.
No signup or configuration is required and all you have to do is grab the single line of code and embed it anywhere you want and voilà, in a matter of seconds you now have hundreds of fast and free online fonts available on your site, worldwide… This is a truly amazing setup because Typekit will be dynamically serving these fonts for you permanently at no cost, forever. Check out this nice visual compilation of the collection, and then go get ‘em!
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