Adobe Backs HTML5 In Dreamweaver

By Paul Krill

Adobe Systems, embroiled in a Web technology feud with Apple that is at least partially attributable to the HTML5 specification, will nonetheless add on Wednesday HTML5 and CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets) support to its Dreamweaver HTML authoring tool.

Developers and designers use Dreamweaver for building Web sites. With the Adobe HTML5 Pack extension for Dreamweaver CS5, developers leveraging HTML5 and CSS3 gain such capabilities as code-hinting, in which the tool helps finish lines of code based on what already has been entered on the keyboard, Hickman said. Developers also can design for multiple screen sizes within Dreamweaver.

[ Could HTML5 kill Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight? See InfoWorld's report. ]

HTML5 Pack extension also features WebKit engine updates and improvements to support video and audio in the Dreamweaver Live View capability for previewing designs. Also, HTML5 starter layouts are featured.

"Now, you have world-class tooling support for HTML5 whereas before you would be hand-coding," said Lea Hickman, senior director of Creative Suite product management at Adobe.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch will demonstrate Dreamweaver's new capabilities during a presentation at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. HTML5 Pack is accessible at Adobe's Web site.

Adobe's addition of HTML5 capabilities to Dreamweaver is "not surprising," said analyst Ben Bajarin, director of consumer technology at Creative Strategies. "First of all, obviously there's been a lot of noise made about HTML5 and the importance [of the specification] to really move the Web forward now from a language standpoint," Bajarin said.

Adobe recently has been arguing publicly with Apple over the value of Adobe's Flash rich Internet plug-in technology, with Adobe insisting on its importance and Apple contending HTML5 negates the need for Flash. HTML5 adds multimedia capabilities to HTML. Adobe embraces HTML5 as having a place on the Web alongside Flash.

"I think one of the challenges around HTML5 right now is there's different implementations," across browsers, said Hickman. Flash, meanwhile, offers consistency on different browsers, she said.  HTML5 encompasses CSS3 and JavaScript, she said.