Keeping Up to Date with Animate Releases
As we have seen, Animate receives a significant amount of features between major versions! It's always a good idea to stay on top of changes with any software for the benefits provided through new features, general improvements, and overall compatibility with other software. Aside from the software itself, it's beneficial to understand how others are using the software and general thoughts around intersections with others in the industry.
Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop
Just like any other Adobe Creative Cloud desktop application, Animate is managed through the Creative Cloud desktop application. You can download the desktop application from https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/desktop-app.html, either if you need to install it for the first time or if you need to perform a forced update.
The Creative Cloud desktop app will alert you whenever a new version of Animate has been released:
Figure 1.25 – Creative Cloud Desktop
If you have the application installed, you can easily see whether Animate is up to date by viewing your installed applications.
Any that are up to date will indicate this and those that have an update will display that information as well:
Figure 1.26 – Animate is up to date!
It's a great mechanism for staying on top of new updates across all Creative Cloud software.
To manually check for updates, click the Updates tab along the side and locate the More Actions button at the upper right of the screen. Clicking this button allows you to either Enable Auto Update or Check for Updates. With auto-update disabled, you'll need to manually update Animate when a new version is released.
Adobe Blog
The Adobe Blog at https://blog.adobe.com/ is a great resource for keeping up to date on all things Adobe. Of course, articles having to do with Animate are included here as well!
Figure 1.27 – Adobe Animate blog
Subjects range from animator interviews and project showcases to new feature announcements. Many of these are written by Ajay Shukla from the Animate team and can be found under his profile: https://blog.adobe.com/en/authors/ajay-shukla.html.
Adobe MAX
Generally, new versions of Animate (and most other Adobe Creative Cloud software) are released at the annual creativity conference: Adobe MAX. You can learn more about Adobe MAX at http://max.adobe.com/ and even register to attend if it is that time of the year. MAX normally takes place in the autumn and runs for about 3 days.
It is a great opportunity to learn more about Animate and other creative software while being inspired by industry experts:
Figure 1.28 – Adobe MAX Creativity Conference
Adobe Animate 2020 was released at Adobe MAX 2019, and Animate 2021 was released during MAX 2020. You can see how important this conference is to Adobe and their release strategy!
In this section, we examined how to keep Animate updated with the most recent version and explore news and happenings in the wider community.
