Ten Online Resources - The Part of Tens - Adobe Edge Animate CC For Dummies (2013)

Adobe Edge Animate CC For Dummies (2013)

Part VI

The Part of Tens

Chapter 23

Ten Online Resources

In This Chapter

arrow Finding tools

arrow Expanding skills

arrow Staying in touch

As you’ve no doubt noticed, you can find URLs to useful websites throughout this book; all can lead you to very handy information that you can use with your Adobe Edge Animate CC project. Some of the URLs point to websites, such as Adobe, where you can access the different software in the Creative Cloud. Other URLs point you in the direction of fonts that you can use in your Edge Animate project. Then there are the educational URLs that send you to API references, the W3C, and other informative sites.

I’ve grouped all of these URLs into one comprehensive chapter and grouped them into ten sections for easy reference. This includes finding a web host, a content management system, and FTP software, all of which is invaluable in getting your project online.

Last, I provide two links that I hope you consider visiting. These are links to my Adobe Edge Animate CC For Dummies Facebook page and Twitter account. I plan to keep these accounts running for as long as there’s an active audience. I’d love to hear from you and see what kinds of projects you conjure up after reading this book.

Adobe Links to the Creative Cloud

In case it's escaped your attention (not likely, but hey, it can happen), Adobe has a ton of software residing in the virtual cloud. A great place to start is at a page called "Adobe & HTML," located at http://html.adobe.com (see Figure 23-1).

image

Figure 23-1: Adobe wants to help you create the web.

At the Adobe & HTML page, you can learn about Adobe’s mission for the web, how it adheres to HTML standards, how it’s committed to Open Source projects, and there’s a section on Edge Tools & Services. It’s really an interesting corner of the Internet to check out what Adobe is doing in terms of helping you create web content. There’s even a link to events, which take place around the world.

Here are more great Adobe URLs to check out:

check.png Adobe Edge Code: http://html.adobe.com/edge/code

check.png Adobe PhoneGap Build: http://html.adobe.com/edge/phonegap-build

check.png Adobe Edge Reflow: http://html.adobe.com/edge/reflow

check.png Adobe Edge Inspect: http://html.adobe.com/edge/inspect

Online Font Resources

Even though Adobe Edge Animate CC doesn’t work great with tons of text, it does work well with small amounts of text, and it enables you to import tons of fonts. In Chapter 12, I show you how to import fonts from places such as Google. Figure 23-2 shows the Adobe Edge Web Fonts page.

image

Figure 23-2: Adobe offers its own Edge web fonts.

Here is a short list of good places to find excellent fonts:

check.png Google's web fonts: www.google.com/webfonts

check.png Adobe also has Typekit: http://html.adobe.com/edge/typekit

Referencing the APIs

For the developers out there, APIs serve as an excellent resource to find new coding information. For non-developers, APIs can at least provide background information that can help you make sense of the code you’re staring at in the code window.

Here are three useful API sites:

check.png Adobe's Edge Animate JavaScript API: www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/edgeanimate/api/current/index.html

check.png The jQuery site: http://jquery.com

check.png Google's Hosted Libraries Developer's Guide: https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/devguide

Google’s Hosted Libraries page has a ton of links that you can explore to learn even more.

The W3C

At times, I’ve felt that the W3C is antiquated and rather slow moving in terms of keeping HTML standards fresh and relevant, but the W3C site still serves the important purpose of being an excellent resource for learning how to use HTML tags. You may find this site beneficial while learning how to use HTML and CSS with your Edge Animate projects.

A separate source from W3C is the W3C online school (www.w3schools.com/tags). You can click around the W3C school to learn a thing or two about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and more.

Adobe Fireworks

Adobe Fireworks has been around for awhile, and I've heard varying opinions on the design tool. Certain sites, like Smashing Magazine, still run many articles praising the software. If you do check it out and like it, you may be happy to know that it's available through Adobe's Creative Cloud. Here's the URL: www.adobe.com/products/fireworks.html. Plus, Fireworks works great with Edge Animate, as I discuss in Chapter 13.

You can find a great resource to find out more about Fireworks at John Dunning's site: http://johndunning.com/fireworks.

Browser Usage

Chapter 1 has an entire section on browser compatibility — a very important concern for most web designers and developers. Adobe Edge Animate CC does work great on all modern browsers, but that doesn't include previous versions of Internet Explorer (older than version 9). To keep up to date on the current usage of Microsoft's browser, check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers.

Hopefully, this page stays fresh with new updates, and even more hopefully, that old versions of IE will disappear from users’ computers so that we won’t have to worry anymore about whether our animations work in everyone’s browsers.

FTP Recommendation

Unless you host your own servers, or if you're simply going the way of the downloadable app, you're going to need a way to upload your animation files to the web. Luckily, FileZilla provides excellent software for you to do just that, which you can find at http://filezilla-project.org.

Even though FileZilla's FTP software is intuitive and easy to use, you still may have some questions. In that case, check its online documentation at http://wiki.filezilla-project.org/Documentation.

Web Hosts

If you're looking around for a web host so that you can show off all your animations, look no further than this site to compare all of the different offerings: http://webhostingchoice.com.

I can personally vouch for Bluehost, as I've been using the company for many years for several sites and I've never had a problem. And no, the company did not pay me to say that. I don't mind recommending it based on several years of great service. You can find it here:www.bluehost.com.

Content Management Systems

If you want to start a blog, or some kind of news site with tons of content, you may want to add some animations to it. Several different types of Content Management Systems (CMS) are out there perfectly suited to serve this task. My personal choice has always been Joomla! You can check it out at www.joomla.org.

Another option for a CMS is WordPress. It even has a plug-in for Adobe Edge Animate CC: Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/edge-suite.

Adobe Edge Animate CC For Dummies Online

In this day and age of social media, I would be remiss if I did not host a Facebook and Twitter account for my Adobe Edge Animate CC For Dummies book. You can find the Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/AdobeEdgeAnimateForDummies.

And the Twitter account is here: https://twitter.com/AnimateDummies.

I would be very happy to interact with you on both Facebook and Twitter. We can share projects, tips, and lessons learned. If you have a question about something, feel free to pose your question on either of these sites — hopefully, I’ll have an answer, or maybe someone else from the community can chime in.