Fireworks MX?

[Shannon]

What exactly is it. I thought it was just another Image Editor like Adobe Photoshop, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Ulead PhotoImpact, etc. I was checkingout the Macromedia site and it says it can create rollover effects and popup menus so is it an image editor as well as an animation program in one or what?

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Fireworks is an image editor that has been expressly designed to provide round-trip functionality with over Macromedia products Director, Dreamweaver, and Flash.

It does indeed allow you to create 'active' graphics that can go straight into web pages. So you can create a button bar with rollover buttons, each of which is a link to a page. In Fireworks, you 'slice' the image into the buttons, and use layers and frames to define the rollovers. After that, you define the link targets, and then export the graphic. The image is sliced into all its constituent parts, and the HTML is written.

Best part is, you save the whole lot as a PNG somewhere, and if you need to change anything, all your layers and definitions are still present, so you can edit the image really easily.

 

[Pako]

As Giles stated, there's an emphisis of features that are targeted towards the web designer. I have also used it for post-script printing and high-res screaning as well. The file formats that it supports is vast and you can even use your most of your favorite Adobe Photoshop Plugin's if you like.

And yes, it supports full animation, QuickTime, Animated Gifs, AVI, and perhaps a couple more animation formats that I can't recall at the moment.

 

[Jon]

Best part is, you save the whole lot as a PNG somewhere, and if you need to change anything, all your layers and definitions are still present, so you can edit the image really easily.

Pretty much just like .psd.

 

[epic]

Fireworks MX has font styles... I wish adobe had them :sigh:

 

[Shannon]

Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
Fireworks is an image editor that has been expressly designed to provide round-trip functionality with over Macromedia products Director, Dreamweaver, and Flash.

It does indeed allow you to create 'active' graphics that can go straight into web pages. So you can create a button bar with rollover buttons, each of which is a link to a page. In Fireworks, you 'slice' the image into the buttons, and use layers and frames to define the rollovers. After that, you define the link targets, and then export the graphic. The image is sliced into all its constituent parts, and the HTML is written.

Best part is, you save the whole lot as a PNG somewhere, and if you need to change anything, all your layers and definitions are still present, so you can edit the image really easily.

I see. Thanks Giles.

 

[sn00pie]

Originally posted by epic
Fireworks MX has font styles... I wish adobe had them :sigh:

In Adobe Photoshop, select the font (being typed out in a layer) and hit ctrl+t.

 

[Shannon]

Originally posted by rufrgt_sn00pie2001
In Adobe Photoshop, select the font (being typed out in a layer) and hit ctrl+t.

I never even knew of that! Thanks sn00p.