For those of you not aware, Hype is a new OSX app for building interactive HTML5 in a Timeline / WYSIWYG interface.
It’s not the first product in the space (Sencha Animator), it’s the first well publicized version 1.0 I’ve come across. It’s also pretty reasonably priced at 29.99 a seat.
First the good points:
- Ease of use: This is definitely a pretty straightforward tool in this regard.
- Interoperability: The Hype API and ability to execute arbitrary javascript inside the page DOM make this a great option for extending the capabilities of an existing web app. I’d obviously like it to be richer, but it’s a decent compromise for a rev 1 product.
- OS integration: For those of us on OSX, the drag and drop support and polished UI are incredibly nice.
So what needs improvement:
- Animation along a path with key frames: I realize this isn’t as embodied in css3 transforms as other options, but YUI Animation and Sencha Animator do it, so It’s demonstrably possible.
- Dynamic Sprite creation: The fact we can play arbitrary timelines from javascript is nice, but I would like to be able to add timelines to the frame.
- Direct Sprite manipulation: Changing sprite colors or the text in a block might be useful.