Adobe Is Killing Contribute, Director, and Shockwave (venturebeat.com) 58
Reader Krystalo writes: Adobe today announced Adobe Contribute and Adobe Director will no longer be for sale nor supported as of February 1, 2017. At the same time, Adobe is also stopping Shockwave for Mac updates and support on March 14, 2017 after the last release of the product. The reason Adobe gives for the death of Contribute and Director is simple: The company's customers are embracing "the new features and efficiencies offered by Creative Cloud." As for Shockwave, its content is made with Director, so the company is merely tying up loose ends. It's about time.
That's a start (Score:1)
Now let's get Adobe to kill Flash, and then the entire company.
Re:That's a start (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems they'd cover all their bases with that, as that there are still a lot of holdouts that do not want to rent their software.
I'm still holding at their CS6 suite of tools...while there have been some nice additions to like Photoshop, there's nothing that radical that I can't still do in CS6 for the most part.
I'm working a lot with the Affinity Photo, and even their Affinity Designer....both are about 98% of what Adobe offers in PS and AI...and I gotta say, AF is quite a bit faster and less of a resource hog than PS, and the updates are free, and is a stand alone license.
I like Adobe products, but I am still not able to allow myself to go for the rental model.
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Other than the money grab of reoccuring licensing, there's another reason why they can't do a "rent" and "own" on the same product line is because of Sarbanes-Oxley. Essentially, when you create a software version, you book R&D costs against that version. So, you make version 11.0, and it takes you three years to make that version, you book all of your costs against that version. You then identify features and push it out. When people buy that new version, you then report revenue against that versio
Re: That's a start (Score:3)
Adobe does have both a rent and standalone license for Lightroom. They're just using that accounting rule as justification and forcing people onto a rental model.
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Flash isn't going away. It's just changed it's audience. Flash is the premier animation creation tool and it's used to make most of the animated shows you see today.
You know all those kids that cut their teeth making animations on newgrounds a decade ago? Now they're grown up and they do it for a living.
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Very much this. Adobe had a good run, when they invented Postscript and later PDF and they had some good tools. By now, they are just lingering around as an utterly incompetent tech-zombie that needs to die.
Speaking of starts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, Adobe. Just finished dealing with them this morning. And by "finished", I mean finished.
I just set up a Mac with MacOS Sierra 10.12, and attempted to install my copy of Photoshop CS5. Sierra advised me to throw the installer in the trash. Seriously. That's the dialog I got. [fyngyrz.com] Adobe "support" told me "not compatible with 10.12", and also "there is no fix or upgrade" other than enter into a permanent wallet-sucking fest for their "subscription" based product. No. Not a chance.
So, that's the end of a multi-hundred dollar investment. Thanks, Adobe. Also, thanks, Apple. Whoever is responsible for the idiocy. Both, perhaps.
Well. So I'm screwed, right?
Not necessarily.
I know a "little bit" about image manipulation from making Windows image manipulation software. I'm retired, and previously really lacked the motivation to build an image manipulation app of my own for the Mac. Previously.
Insofar as my own needs go, I can definitely handle this, and in fairly short order, too. Others might end up benefitting as well. We will see.
Surely just an empty claim, amiright?
Well, take a Look: My bonafides begin right here. [datapipe-b...ystems.com]
Let's just see how many of those features I can move over from my (mostly very portable) existing image manipulation code. And how quick. Today serves as the starting line. Assuming age doesn't kick me nipples north in the short term, and no other unforeseen disaster shows its ugly face, I expect to be raising my figurative middle finger in Adobe's direction quite soon as these things go.
Re:Speaking of starts... (Score:4, Informative)
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It may run as an upgrade or something, or by jumping through some hoops I was not informed of, but when I went to install it, I was not given the opportunity to let the installer run by the OS, so that was a pretty solid roadblock in this fresh install of 10.12. And Adobe tech support straight-up told me it wouldn't work. So that leaves three possibilities: They are lying; they are ignorant; or you are wrong.
I expect the vendor of a particular bit of software to be informed, and to inform me clearly in turn
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No one should bring up Trump here (Score:2)
No, my guesswork was precisely accurate. Adobe told me the upgrade would not run. They were either ignorant or uninformed, and, the way to get this to run, according to their own web pages, was to go inside the installer bundle and execute code from within the MacOS section of the bundle directly as well as downloading Oracle's legacy Java support, which is exactly what I meant when I said "jumping through hoops I was not informed of." Neither the installer or Sierra suggested any such thing, nor did you.
Al
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Well, if Adobe can't tell people how to do it and you can't tell people how to do it then your actual experience means jack diddly.
Yes. Installation instructions with a screenshot walkthrough. Thanks for offering.
Definitely you're equally useless as of the quoted reply. But there's room for improvement.
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Runs perfectly? Screw that [adobe.com].
If you attempt to launch a CS5 product from the GUI, you'll receive an error message that the app requires Java SE 6. Your options are to either install Java or launch the apps from the command line.
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What issue did you run into specifically? Adobe even has instructions for installing on CS 5 on sierra.
Older versions like CS5 can run on Sierra if you install the legacy Java Runtime from here: https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1572?locale=en_US
For instructions on installing older versions of Creative Suite on Sierra: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/install-creative-suite-mac-os-sierra.html
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Sierra refused to run the installer. Pretty straight up. I linked to a screencap of the problem.
Slashdot's AC provides the key. Read at 0! (Score:2)
Yes, this was correct; it didn't solve everything, but with that in hand, above to point out to their customer service that they had a page on it, I got Adobe to get me the rest of the way. Then, installing the "legacy java" from Oracle handled the rest.
Guess it was really a good idea to blow a huge bitch here. :)
Thank you very much.
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Let's just see how many of those features I can move over from my (mostly very portable) existing image manipulation code. And how quick. Today serves as the starting line. Assuming age doesn't kick me nipples north in the short term, and no other unforeseen disaster shows its ugly face, I expect to be raising my figurative middle finger in Adobe's direction quite soon as these things go.
In other words you want to compete with people like Affinity Photo [serif.com] which sells for $US40 or even The GIMP [gimp.org]. Both of which are mature projects. So what are you going to do to differentiate yourself in the market?
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There's quite a bit I can do differently, for one thing - such as far more and far more functional layer modes. Been there, done that - but for the other, who says I'm going to be marketing it? This isn't about competition in the marketplace. This is about "Screw me? No, screw you." I just said others might benefit, that's all.
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So, your complaint is that software you bought 8 - 10 years ago won't run on the most modern operating system without a bit of fidgeting? Oh, and you are pissed at the company you haven't bought anything from in that amount of time won't make it instantly compatible for you? You do realize that version is 6 version behind now, and it was designed for an OS that is now 7 versions behind now too.
I need to try calling up Microsoft to see how well IE 6 installs on Windows 10. I'm sure it will work just as we
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No, the problem is that Adobe wants to force you into their subscription model. This is not about the age of his software.
And if you think subscriptions are no big deal, there are early termination clauses for these annual subscriptions. I just got hit with a $100 credit card charge because my daughter's dingbat college professor bought into the annual plan when the class is one semester. Fine, I'll eat the cost because an agreement was entered into.
But the point is to look at the bigger picture for prop
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Yeah, Adobe. Just finished dealing with them this morning. And by "finished", I mean finished.
I just set up a Mac with MacOS Sierra 10.12, and attempted to install my copy of Photoshop CS5. Sierra advised me to throw the installer in the trash. Seriously. That's the dialog I got. [fyngyrz.com] Adobe "support" told me "not compatible with 10.12", and also "there is no fix or upgrade" other than enter into a permanent wallet-sucking fest for their "subscription" based product. No. Not a chance.
I hear your frustration, but don't lose sight of the fact that this is actually on Apple for failing to ensure their operating system is compatible with some of its most commonly-used products.
Back in the day, the Classic -> 10 and PPC -> Intel transitions were pitched to us as necessary one-time jumps to ensure the future health of the Mac. And we could accept it because we could see that we were talking about fundamentally different operating systems and fundamentally different hardware architectur
Re:Why does Shockwave exist? (Score:5, Interesting)
My memory is hazy, but Flash was a subset of Shockwave that was optimized for the web.
I vaguely remember it being called "Shockwave Flash" for a brief time.
Of course, it's been a while so I could be wrong. :)
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That seems right. Back in the day it seemed that Macromedia Flash was used for animations while Macromedia Shockwave was used for games.
I miss the Shockwave Machine.
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Yep. Hence the ".swf" extension.
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No. They kind of pretended it was, but it was actually a completely separate product that Adobe acquired from a company called FutureSplash. Later on, they rolled it into the Shockwave plugin along with support for Shockwave for Director.
Re:Why does Shockwave exist? (Score:4, Informative)
Close, gramps.
Macromedia, the company who had a presentation product called Director and a browser plugin called Shockwave for Director, bought Flash (and the rest of FutureSplash) in 1996.
Adobe then bought Macromedia in 2005 for $3.4 billion.
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Why did Shockwave ever exist? I don't understand what the differences between it and Flash were.
To be a malware vector that everyone forgets about seems to be it's main purpose these days. "Our Flash plugins are always up to date!" "Yea, what about shockwave?" "Shock-what?" Scans machines "It's only 5 years out of date, so not the worse I've seen."
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Shockwave was a brand that macromedia had. It was used to describe the web viewers and players they had for all their software. There was Shockwave Flash (SWF ring a bell?), Shockwave Director, and Shockwave Freehand. The branding was understandably confusing and they simplified it later to just Shockwave player (the browser plugin to view content created in Director) and Flash player (the browser plugin to view content created in Flash). The Freehand plugin died quickly; it was replaced with the ability to
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Flash was a completely different product and code base...
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As a courtesy to everyone they could discontinue Flash, too.
Then who would be the savior of the universe?
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Kid Flash - duh.
Contribute (Score:4, Interesting)
At the time, Contribute was a decent idea which, unsurprisingly, Adobe implemented badly. The idea, though, was to provide a way to allow non-technical people to directly maintain web pages containing information they know about, without hitting them with too much complexity and also limiting what they were allowed to edit. A payroll manager, for instance, could keep payroll policies on an intranet page up to date without having to know how Dreamweaver worked.
With the proliferation of Content Management Systems nowadays, the need for something like Contribute is waning. The thing that CMSes don't really do very well (compared to Contribute), though, is permissions lockdown.
It's typical of Adobe, in any case, to say "you don't need this inexpensive product anymore - just buy lots of expensive subscriptions to Creative Cloud for everyone!"
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As for Director, I first thought that they had fired their director...
So..... (Score:1)
Eventually they will learn... (Score:2)
Old versions for super cheap (Score:2)
As a pirate of their software going back to PS3, that's about the only way they'd get me to pay.
The same goes for windows. I only recently bought my first legit copy(sans pre-install on laptops and the only non-self-built, a Compaq back in 98) of 7 to upgrade to 10, because I bought the key off G2A for under $30.
If you want to compare digi
I did not know it was still around (Score:2)
I used Macromedia Director extensively about 15 years ago. It had a scripting language called lingo, with a few unique features. It supported an old syntax, something like "set the visible of sprite 10 to true", and a new syntax, more like "sprite(10).visible = true". While most usual statements could be expressed in any way, some statements could only be expressed in the old syntax, and some other statements only in the new syntax. Worse even, there were a few corner cases where a statement written in
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We worked our asses off to make Director not awful in 1994 - 1998. After that, the team was shuffled off to the basement and then the product shipped off to India and they fucking destroyed it.
Director made my career. (Score:2)
I'll miss it so much.