Adobe Releases Flash to HTML 5 Converter Wallaby

Wallaby is an application to convert Adobe Flash Professional CS5 files (.FLA) to HTML5 and its primary design goals were to get the best quality and performance on browsers within iOS devices like iPhone and iPad.

Wallaby has a very simple user interface, which accepts as input a FLA file and exports HTML and support files to a user-selected folder. There is also an option to launch the default application assigned for the .html extension, Adobe said.

The focus for this initial version of Wallaby is to do the best job possible of converting typical banner ads to HTML5 and supported Webkit browsers include Chrome and Safari on OSX, Windows, and iOS.

Meanwhile, Apple has improved the performance of its Safari browser in its software update to iOS 4.3 by adding the Nitro JavaScript engine, which runs JavaScript up to twice as fast as in iOS 4.2.2 allowing faster page loads.

Adobe said its conversion tool allows reusing and extending the reach of one's content to devices that do not support the Flash runtimes. Once these files are converted to HTML, a user can edit them with an HTML editing tool, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, or by hand if desired.

Adobe makes it clear that Wallaby's design goal was not to produce final form HTML ready for deployment to web pages. Instead it focuses on converting the rich animated graphical content into a form that can easily be imported into other web pages in development with web page design tools like Dreamweaver.

However, this initial version of Wallaby offers no support for conversion of ActionScript, Movies and Sound.

Wallaby is delivered as a stand-alone native AIR application installer and is a 32-bit application available for both Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Wallaby for Macintosh will work on both OS 10.5 and 10.6 although primary testing was with 10.6. For Windows, it will work with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP although primary testing was with Windows 7.

Following table shows the features supported and unsupported by Wallaby:

Feature
Implementation
Status
Notes

3D transforms
 
  Unsupported
 

ActionScript 1,2
 
Unsupported
 

ActionScript 3
 
Unsupported
 

Blend Modes
 
Unsupported
  Unsupported by HTML or CSS

Button - visuals (normal, hover, active)
 SVG, CSS
Complete
  Buttons inside of a button are not supported

Button - events
 
Unsupported
  Requires JavaScript for actions

Compiled Clips
 
Unsupported
  Requires Actionscript support

Components
 
Unsupported
  Most require Actionscript and Compiled Clip support

Fills - gradients or images
 SVG
Complete
 

Fills - solid colors
 SVG
Complete
 

Filters (DropShadow, Glow, Blur, ColorMatrix)
 SVG
Unsupported
  Supported by SVG but not Safari and Safari Mobile

Filters - Advanced (Bevel, Gradient Bevel/Glow)
 
Unsupported
  No SVG, HTML, or CSS support

FrameSets
 HTML and Javascript
Complete
 

Gradients
 SVG
Complete
 

Images
 HTML or SVG
Complete
  A few formats have issues with alpha

Inverse Kinematics
 
Unsupported
  Right click on the Armature and select 'Convert to Frame by Frame Animation'

Layers - Art/Normal
 SVG
Complete
 

Layers - Folder
 
Complete
 

Layers - Guide
 
Complete
 

Layers - Mask
SVG Mask Artwork, Webkit Clip
Partial
  No support for multiple framesets in Mask layer, several Webkit bugs

Scale 9 graphics
 
Unsupported
  Need to dynamically scale

Paths - Cubic & Quadratic
 SVG
Complete
 

Scenes
 
Complete
 

Sound - Stream, Event
 
Unsupported
 

Strokes - gradients or images
 
Unsupported
 

Strokes - solid colors
 SVG
Partial
  No advanced dashing (i.e. Dotted, Hatched, Stippled, Ragged)

Text - Classic Static
 SVG
Partial
  Text Limitations

Text - Classic Dynamic, Input
 SVG
Partial
  Text Limitations

Text - Font Embedding
 SVG
Complete
  Text Limitations

Text - TLF
 SVG
Partial
  Text Limitations

Timelines
 
Partial
  Nested timelines difficult and there are a few known bugs

Tweening - Shape
 
Complete
  One SVG file is created for each frame of a Shape Tween. This can cause a large number of SVG files for complex animations using Shape Tween leading to playback performance issues on iOS devices. Some of the complex cases may not convert correctly.