On Converting Flash to HTML

I received a question from Bob (no, really), who wrote:

I have a question about the newest version of Flash and its HTML publishing option using CreateJS. What do you think of that approach going forward?

I started to write an email response but figured I should probably post it here.

I haven’t been paying much attention to Flash, so I don’t know what the ‘HTML export’ is capable of these days. In general, I’m very wary of converting Flash-based projects to HTML. When Adobe Captivate first released a “publish to HTML5” feature, all it did was convert the SWF animation to a video file, losing all interactivity along the way.

The limitations of the browsers and the HTML5 spec mean you can’t expect a fully 1:1 conversion from Flash to HTML, regardless of libraries like CreateJS. Some of the features found in Flash are still not quite supported in browsers, or might not work quite the way you’d expect. For example, CSS transitions, CSS gradients, and SVG/Canvas support vary widely from browser to browser (though it’s getting better, and there are workarounds aka “polyfills”). Streaming video, which is a breeze in Flash, is not part of the HTML5 Video spec (yet) and is unsupported in browsers. Video and audio codec support is inconsistent. In some cases, devices add new limitations — last time I checked, iOS devices wouldn’t autoplay audio or video in Safari. ‘Play’ couldn’t be scripted, it required the user to press a button.

Publishing to HTML (with the aid of JavaScript libraries like CreateJS) is definitely the way of the future, but I would flip the workflow: use a tool that’s “HTML first”. For my workflow, I always start in HTML then only fall back to Flash if I absolutely have to. I hand-code, but if you want to stick to a WYSIWYG editor, maybe try some of the Adobe Edge products, or go with a third-party product such as Tumult Hype.

If you continue to use Flash as an HTML development tool, temper expectations and test widely, as some things might not work the way you expect when converted to HTML.

And regardless of whether you publish to Flash or HTML, always test the accessibility of your project. Just because it’s HTML doesn’t mean it’s accessible; HTML by nature is more accessible than Flash, but libraries like CreateJS add a lot of complexity to the page, which can easily impact accessibility.

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