Nearly a year ago I posted a blog entry called "Photoshop + Fireworks: Where to from here?" Customer response was immediate and overwhelming, making it my most commented-upon entry (thanks for all that feedback, by the way). At the time people were a little freaked out that Adobe would bury Fireworks, but I’m pleased to say that just the opposite has happened.
The app is finding new life as a great environment for rapid prototyping & quick interface development. At MAX in October the team demonstrated Fireworks creating an MXML layout for use in Flex, and now the Adobe Edge news letter has posted "A sparkling future for Fireworks." I’ll let you check out the article for complete details, but based on the comments made here, I think folks will really dig the enhanced Photoshop and Illustrator integration, among many other things. [Via]
I remember Alan Musselman from the beta for Fireworks 4 and MX I was on, and he’s a good chap, so good to see him at Adobe.
I’m pleased Fireworks has a future, as it is a very good application for building web designs, and this seems to be the way they are taking it. Perfect.
But my real hope for the next version is a fix to the frustrating rendering bugs that exist in the current version, then all will be well.
Here’s the deal. CSS2 needs to be implemented into fireworks or else developers/designers like myself will simply have to code by hand and break images up in photoshop like days of old before fireworks. In the old days. The times they are changing.
I am asked to develop standards based CSS sites and that can’t be done in fireworks. Something has to give or else this software product will be used less and less.
Phew. I’m quite relieved. I’ve long used Photoshop and Illustrator for print work, but Fireworks is simply a much better tool for developing web graphics.
I can’t wait to see how the new FW pans out–from the Edge article, it sounds like Adobe is really taking it in the right direction.
Im very glad Fireworks is being improved, but I do not agree with the previous comment.
For creating web graphics/interface elements, Fireworks is great. It’s combination of vector/raster elements far outshines Photoshop’s “raster with a bit of vector kinda tacked on” approach. I dont expect ANY graphics tool to produce optimal (X)HTML/CSS, if it did, we (web designers) wouldn’t have a job.
A year since this blog entry: look at Adobe’s website and product list now.
Do you see FIreworks promoted as a top tier product?
Adobe is burying Fireworks as well as making it an orphaned product by ONLY including it in the CS3 Web package and leaving it out of the Design Premium package.
Fireworks is not in the home page product list or even the initial Product page list. Looks buried to me.
[I just know that Adobe has plowed more resources and features into Fireworks than Macromedia had done in *years*. And I don’t see signs of that slowing down. –J.]
When I go to Adobe’s home page I don’t even see it under their list of products. I have a hunch they are trying to figure out what to do with Fireworks, I like the product and hope it finds itself at least blended into some other product.
I was just looking at a post about Fireworks and why it is still relevant. User said that for.png images you have alot more options for transparency. In Photoshop not so much.