From Software Informer
Adobe Fireworks
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Fireworks CS4 on Windows Vista | | Developed by | Adobe (formerly Macromedia) |
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| Latest release | CS4 (10.0) / 2008-9-23; 457 days ago |
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| Written in | C++ |
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| Operating system | Mac OS X, Windows |
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| Type | Graphics editor |
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| License | Proprietary |
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| Website | Adobe Fireworks Homepage |
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Adobe Fireworks, known as Fw for short, is a bitmap and vector graphics editor. It was originally developed by Macromedia, which Adobe acquired in 2005, and aimed at web designers (with features such as: slices, the ability to add hotspots etc.). It is designed to integrate easily with other former Macromedia products, such as the Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Flash. It is available as a stand-alone product or bundled with CS4. Previous versions were bundled with Macromedia Studio.
[edit] Vector and bitmap editing
The emphasis of Fireworks is on vector editing. Vector objects in Fireworks can be resized with no loss of quality, just as in Adobe Illustrator. A range of Macromedia FreeHand's vector tools were incorporated into the release of Fireworks 8. Bitmap objects by their nature suffer a loss in quality (known as "pixellation") whether resized in Fireworks, Adobe ImageReady, Photoshop, or any other program. Adobe has recently announced the proposal for future upgrades, or possibly even an extended version to Fireworks for Microsoft's new operating system Windows 7.
[edit] User Interface
Fireworks' user interface is in line with the rest of Adobe Creative Suite 4. Its interface is similar to that of Adobe Photoshop CS4.
At least on Mac OS X, it is possible to display the application in Multiple Document Interface mode or the standard viewing mode where all toolbars float freely on the screen.
[edit] CSS Sprite Support
As of Fireworks CS4, CSS Sprite support is currently not supported. However, some workarounds involved manually creating a CSS Sprite in a separate file from the main comp, then draw Image Maps on top of the CSS Sprite. After export, 3rd party tools would import the Image Map, read coordinates from the Image Map and re-calculate CSS positioning during CSS Sprite Export. It remains to be seen whether native support for CSS Sprites will be released in the next version of Fireworks.
[edit] Hierarchical Layers
Fireworks supports layering the graphic file. Deep child layers are also possible. All the layers can be accessed from the Layers panel
[edit] 9 Slice scaling
This is a feature that can ensure the rounded rectangles to maintain their roundness when transformed depending on where the guides are placed. CS4 has this feature exposed as a tool. With this feature introduction in CS3 version, its usage was limited to symbols.
[edit] Symbols
Re-usable elements can be converted into symbols and placed at multiple pages or on the same page. When the master symbol is edited, the changes are propagated to all the instances of that symbol automatically.
[edit] Adobe Creative Suite Integration
Fireworks understands the file formats ai, psd, eps, which designers use in a team allowing for better workflows across multiple Adobe applications.
[edit] Export to
A file can be exported as tiff,flat png (8,24,32 bit), JPEG, Animated GIF, gif, psd, swf, PICT, BMP, WBMP. The individual pages in file can also be converted to multiple pages of a single PDF file.
[edit] States
Earlier known as Frames, these are used for animation purposes. They are also used for defining the behaviors in cases of symbol buttons like Up, Down, Over.
[edit] User Base
Most web designers who design with Fireworks are usually coders of front ends who enjoy Fireworks Object Oriented approach to web design. With its powerful vector tools to create non-destructive scalable elements combined with tools specialized for the web, its been an attractive tool of choice. Long time users of Photoshop make it difficult to migrate their workflow to Fireworks since Photoshop has been the web design tool for many over a decade, regardless of the web advantage that Fireworks has over Photoshop. As of CS4, Adobe supported long time Photoshop users with Fireworks' improved support for import of .psd files, preserving all slices made in Photoshop. However, Adobe's cancellation of Image Ready in favor of Fireworks implies that Adobe Fireworks was the better tool for the web design community. Someweasel words web designers who have made the transition from Photoshop to Fireworks refer to Fireworks as "Adobe's best kept secret".
[edit] References
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