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February 22, 2006
Photoshop + Fireworks: Where to from here?
Now that Adobe and Macromedia have come together, we're busily planning our next moves, and it would be great to get your input. Fireworks Product Manager Danielle Beaumont has posted a message saying that Fireworks is alive and well at Adobe, and we're working to define the best course for each app.It might help to define the players:
- Fireworks offers a hybrid raster/vector editing environment for creating and editing designs for use on screen (typically the Web). Rather than going as deep into vector or bitmap editing as Illustrator or Photoshop, Fireworks opts to bring together a mix of tools for each function, plus symbols (edit once, update many), slicing and optimization, CSS menu generation, and more.
- Photoshop is "the professional image-editing standard"--or, if you prefer, a ten-foot-tall, two-ton son of a gun who could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing (or something like that*). Photoshop offers an unmatched range of capabilities for image manipulation, plus basic vector drawing tools, gallery and contact sheet creation, and a set of Web optimization functions.
So, some questions:
- If we could do one thing to improve the process of making graphics for the Web, what would it be?
- Are there tasks (e.g. rapid prototyping of Web and app interfaces) at which we should target Fireworks more than Photoshop? (Or, to take the other side, would you rather there be a single über-app with a customizable interface?)
- Do we need to improve integration between Fireworks and Photoshop (e.g. better file format compatibility, Jump To), or does it work well enough?
- What about compatibility with Dreamweaver? What tasks could/should we improve?
- Are there interface elements or ideas from one app that we should emulate in the other?
By the way, we're not, as I've seen suggested a couple of times, going to rip out the Web features we've developed in Photoshop. I'm not sure what motivates this idea, but I'm guessing it's based on 1) a desire to make the positioning of the apps more distinct, and/or 2) a desire to avoid/reduce "bloat" in Photoshop. Re: 1, rather than crippling Photoshop for the many people who use it all or some of the time for Web design, let's make Fireworks stand out by adding kick-ass, never-before-seen features. (Of course, it's to identify these that we need your help.) Re: 2, I have more to say, but in the meantime consider this.
And with that, I'll wrap up and open the floor to discussion. We're really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the future of these two applications.
Thanks,
J.
* This is, of course, why I will never be allowed to write our marketing copy.
Comments
The vector/raster hybrid feature for Fireworks literally changed my work life. It would be a huge disapointment to lose this sort of functionality.
I personally see a clean split for future versions of Photoshop in terms of UI design - web-image manipulation and photo-image manipulation. It would be nice to have the option to go into a web-centric environment or a photo-centric environment when desired.
Seems to me there's a culture-conflict issue. Let me begin by saying that I'm a huge Fireworks evangelist. If that program disappeared, I'd probably get out of design. I'm that dependent on it.
Adobe has always kept vector graphics over here (Illustrator) and bitmap graphics over here (Photoshop). Oh yeah, and image slicing goes over here (ImageReady). The model has made them a lot of money, but once you get used to having all three tools in one environment, the idea of moving stuff back and forth between applications is simply untenable.
When it comes down to it, Photoship is a marvelous image editor but it's a horrible design tool. Setting type in Photoshop is simply unacceptable. The vector implementation is so clunky it's virtually useless. And they've added so many "gimmicky" features since version 6 that it's really become a "bloaty" piece of software. At the end of the day, I think the professionals are using mostly the Levels Control, the clone tool, and the old standbys. Wild and wacky filters and brushes are fun but they typically make a piece of design work look like a "photoshop" piece unless the designer really knows his/her stuff.
Illustrator is a much better design tool (you could actually lay out a publication in it and emerge with your sanity intact) but you have to jump outside to an image editor to deal with bitmaps. On top of that, you have to remember what control-option-shift-tab-F12 does in order to take advantage of all the features.
Fireworks doesn't handle CMYK, but for a fraction of the price of Photoshop and Illustrator, it provides 95% of the functionality of both along with a slicing/optimizing tool that I find much easier to use than ImageReady. Also, I can grab a vector and adjust the hue and saturation. Fireworks doesn't really care what kind of graphic it is. It just does what you want and there's a lot of freedom inherent in dumping a few of the unnecessary distinctions between bitmaps and vectors. ImageReady might have had some utilty as a standalone app, but it's tied to Photoshop like a Saimese twin that just slows itself down.
I think Macromedia did a poor job of promoting a fantastic graphics program like Fireworks. However, by dropping the Fireworks effects engine (shadows, blurs, etc.) into Flash, they insured Fireworks' survival in some form. Macromedia admittedly had the advantage that Photoshop and Illustrator (and FreeHand, too remember Aldus?) were there first so they wound up in a different place. However, it won't make stockholders happy to see Illustrator and Photoshop and Fireworks rolled up into one, affordable do-everything app.
I predict that Fireworks will either continue to stand alone as a web-focused graphics program while Photoshop/Illustrator continue on with sales based on the industry's acceptance of them as the tools of choice.
If the empire is threatened, we'll see Flash and Fireworks rolled into a single webdev application or perhaps they'll adopt the ImageReady model and transplant Fireworks in as a module attached to Flash or Dreamweaver (of course the Dreamweaver / GoLive scenario is another conundrum).
Ultimately, there are a lot of conflicts for Adobe to resolve. There are existing models that generate a profit regardless of efficiency. There are very different "workflow cultures" between Adobe users and Macromedia users, and there are risks of pleasing nobody by trying to please everybody. There's also the fact that the folks who own the PDF format now also own the Flash format. Now that Adobe essentially owns the ingredients for the "universal document format," we may see massive changes in the kinds of documents we create, the way we view them and the tools we use to create them.
"MacroDobe" has a huge opportunity as well as a huge mess on its hands. I'm very curious to see what the future brings, but for now, I'm glad to hear that Fireworks is alive and well. I'll be praying for its continued well-being.
Dave Bricker
I never used Go Live, but one feature that intrigued me was it's ability to place PSD files and have them be resized based on what a person did in the Go Live environment. I would love to see that make its way in Dreamweaver.
Please make one Super App. There are too many apps open all the time for me and I dream of just having 1 web publishing app and 1 graphic app to do it all. I don't want 12 commuter jets to get me to where I'm going, I want a 747.
As far as to improve the process of making graphics for the web, I like to create transparent JPGs with a matte, but Photoshop does not keep a history of matte colors I've recently used, and I have to keep looking them up and plugging in the numbers. So remembering them would be an amazing feature. At least the last 10!
>>
The vector/raster hybrid feature for Fireworks literally changed my work life.
>>
Ditto on that -- to the extreme -- I haven't had alt+tab repetative stress injuries since I picked up Fireworks.
I would like to see more seamlessness with Illustrator and photoshop -- particularly pasting editable vectors (with effects!) as much as possible (ala Flash 8).
Also -- better text handling in fireworks -- columns, lists, and easy indents please
I do all my Web graphics in Fireworks.
Pros:
-When you draw a line, it's a line. in photoshop, drawing a line is bizarre.
-Autoshapes (it would be cool to have more autoshapes and the ability to plug in autoshapes from vector templates. like a visio?)
-Frames: Frames allow there to be multiple iterations of designs that you can step backward through.
-Vector masking: I like using a vector for masking, like a clipping mask in Illustrator.
-Export slices: I like the idea of drawing the export slices. However, I wish you could have more layers of export slicing (perhaps tying them into what frame you're on).
Cons:
-Image optimization: Sometimes you want to improve image quality without having to jump back and forth to Photoshop. The image editing tools (like Levels, Curves, etc.) are painful to use.
-Brush tools. I like Photoshop's brushes a lot better.
-Layer masking: The layer masking in Illustrator should be replaced with Photoshop style layer masking.
-Memory handling: Larger images cause Fireworks to choke and stall.
If it ain't broke...
Both products have their die-hard fans, both are suited very well to the tasks to which they are designed. Do you really need to get peanut butter in your chocolate and vice versa?
* Roundtrip workflow between all applications. Let me context-click on a raster layer in FW, and let me edit it in PS, saving it back to the layer when I'm done.
* Unified web export dialogues. Pick one, modify it, use it for everything.
* File format sharing. PSD's can get big for the likes of FW users, why not let PS read FW PNG data?
Don't mess around with too much, people tend to like these products as they are save for a few quirks. Just make switching and sharing between them easier, don't try to integrate.
This is a recent article going into depth about the difference between the two products that I found informative.
http://www.pixelyzed.com/pixelforge/whychoosefireworks/
I am also a long time and devoted Fireworks user that couldn't stand seeing it disappear. Dave Bricker above has said pretty much all I would have liked to say very well and all he said applies for me.
The very last thing I'd want to see is the creation of a "uber app" that would loose the best qualities of its former separate components. Another one of Fireworks' advantages is its agility. It's fast and intuitive and fun to use for design work.
I completely agree with Dave when he says that Photoshop is a horrible design tool... it really is. People who use it for layout work are misusing it for something it was not designed to do. Vector based applications like Illustrator, FreeHand, InDesign... and of course Fireworks are much better suited to layout work.
Please leave Fireworks and Photoshop alone. They both are the best at what they do respectively and are far less alike than many people think.
To answer your original question though, I would definitely appreciate better interoperability between each application's file formats. It simply is not good enough right now. Importing/opening a Photoshop .psd file into Fireworks more often than not results in disaster (why so many designers *insist* on doing layout work in Photoshop is beyond me). Going the other way is even worse as opening a native Fireworks PNG file into Photoshop or Illustrator or InDesign is simply not possible at the moment.
What I'd like to also see is pushing the concept of InDesign snippets even further by making them sharable between all Adobe graphic apps (PS, Illy, ID, FW and Flash). We had been requesting this from Macromedia for a long time between Fireworks, Flash and FreeHand but it of course never was implemented. I would love to see something like that happen now. Talk about really sharing assets...
Beyond that, what I'd really love to see as a long time Fireworks user is evolution and refinment in Fireworks' vector toolset. Macromedia has given a lot of attention to other aspects of the app in the last releases and, IMO, neglected to improve Fireworks' core vector toolset.
Whatever happens, please oh PLEASE let Fireworks live as a standalone application...
Fireworks would be a mega-killer app if it could build custom Flex .mxml widgets - similar to the way Microsoft Sparkle builds .NET code. Perhaps this is outside of the scope for Fireworks, but I'd love for the tool to have the vector/bitmap hybrid toolset that Fireworks implements so well.
In terms of a more traditional web design workflow, it would be handy if Fireworks could generate CSS layouts along with bitmaps. Perhaps it would be possible to specify regions of Fireworks content that would transfer to CSS classes?
Perhaps this would be better as a Fireworks/Dreamweaver hybrid? It'd be useful to be able to draw bitmap/vectors directly in Dreamweaver.
One thing I love about Fireworks is the non-destructive effects. It'd be great to add a few more of these into the next Fireworks version. Perhaps "auto-clean" or "remove artifacts" or "clean up .jpg".
Props to the Fireworks team!
One more thing that could be improved with Fireworks - and Flash too - please integrate InDesign's wonderful typographic control tools (Opentype is great!).
So, some questions:
* If we could do one thing to improve the process of making graphics for the Web, what would it be?
Provide a print-screen tie-in somehow. I take tons of print screens, and it's always a laborous process to get them into Flash, PPT, etc.
Keep Fireworks quick, agile, and customizable. Put the v8 in Photoshop.
Yes. Please make Photoshop have a "Convert for Fireworks PNG" button. Really, this is a "save Jesse 2 hours" button.
- flatten effect layers
- flatten text layers
- kill hidden layers
That way, when I take a Designer's PSD, I can quickly pull the necessarey pieces out of Fireworks for importing into Flash.
OR, export out each Photoshop layer as a trimmed PNG. When I say trimmed, meaning, trim the excess alpha channel.
If you're really frikin' brave, write an export to MXML button, complete with embeds.
no comment
Photoshop's input fields work and have good indentation; Fireworks seems to be made for small graphics. For example, numbers abouve 99 don't fit into the width and height fields. The "feeling" of Photoshops textinputs just "feels" better.
All right John, I'll ask for an easy one, for a change:
In Photoshop, when clicking once and then shift-clicking again creates a straight line. I would welcome THAT in Fireworks and every other ex-Macromedia application.
On Fireworks per se: as so many say: keep it fast, agile, easy. Adobe's prone to make bloatware. That was always the big difference between Adobe and Macromedia.
I think one issue that won't let me make the correct analysis here is ImageReady's fate. What will be of it? Without knowing that it's hard to evaluate Fireworks capabilities into the future.
I love working with FW and Photoshop. To me they are two entirely different apps and I often work with them together when creating layouts. All my mockups are created in FW because it just so much easier. I get frustrated with Photoshop's text handling and not being able to see the selection on canvas when I have a layer selected. I love to see the blue bounding box when I have something selected. IMHO that is way FW is so much easier to use when creating mock-ups.
Improved text handling in FW. It is very difficult to get text to look the way you want on a path. I wish it worked more like it does in AI.
Please keep the apps separate. PS is way too bloated as it is with IR on for the ride.
People love FW because of its speed and agility so please leave it alone in this respect.
Ditch GoLive and make creative suite for web designers.
DW, FW, Flash, PS, AI, Contribute
Ability to import FW pngs with layers intact to PS
Better handling importing PSD to FW
There is a reason why there are many color scheme apps and online color scheme generators on the market now, because none of adobe or MM apps handle custom colors very well. Please improve the color picker in DW and FW. I would love to be able to create a scheme in FW and use in DW and then pick the colors quickly with the color picker.
I like the way AI handles text on a path. I wish FW could do the same.
More custom shapes in FW
Ditto on these things other people have mentioned
*Provide a print-screen tie-in somehow. I take tons of print screens, and it's always a laborous process to get them into Flash, PPT, etc.
* Roundtrip workflow between all applications. Let me context-click on a raster layer in FW, and let me edit it in PS, saving it back to the layer when I'm done.
wishlist where to go: better (real) Flash integration for Fireworks !
Integrating a vector user interface designed in Fireworks into Flash is still a pain in the butt: too many properties get lost and vector shapes are converted into bitmaps only because they've got an alpha value. So one has got to make sure all the alpha values are 100 before importing into Flash, where the alphas then can be set back to their original values....
To make a long story short: there's lots of room for improvement here, I'm still waiting for the day when you can really speak of integration between Flash and Fireworks.
Definately don't bloat Fireworks to the extent of Photoshop. Most "developers" will have many apps open at once, browser, IDE eg Dreamweaver, SQL Server Enterprise Manager, etc. So big isn't necessarily better.
I prefer separate apps over a single uber-app, but would like to see a transition toward a shared user interface standard to make switching between the apps more seamless.
Glad to see Fireworks is here to stay.
As a web developer I would like to see FW in combination with DW b etruned into a versatile html+css layout tool where one can turn a design in a fluid page with css classes and image slices.
This would require some clever way of slice layers that can be floated so that when you resize the image/view port all would be as it should be.
Might be too complex as it would be able to support different types of layout.
Fireworks is not PhotoShop: it should not be compared to it. As a fast "just do it" image manipulation and rapid prototyping tool, Fireworks is simply a better fit than PhotoShop. I've used Fireworks since version 2.0 and have grown fond of it. PhotoShop is best of breed industrial strength and does lots of things that its smaller cousin cannot do - there is no reason for PhotoShop to be jealous of Fireworks.
John--
Just picking up on a few of the comments here, it seems to me that the correct direction to take is to bring over some of the vector capabilities of Illustrator and marry them with Fireworks rather than attempting to force a shotgun wedding between Photoshop and FW.
If you think of Fireworks as a layout *and* creative tool you've got it right. In that respect it's almost akin to inDesign--a place to composite, create, and publish images for use in web pages. Seen in that light, better integration with PSD files certainly makes sense. And of course, I want to be able to do my layouts in Fireworks and generate the information I need to publish to multiple formats--a CSS file drawn from the colors in my composition, images for use in my HTML docs, or comps for final publication in Flash with my layers, masks, effects, and other bits completely intact.
Oh, and I'm in agreement on the color picker. That interface hasn't changed, well, ever. Time to move past a web safe palette as the default and look for a better methodology for presenting color combinations to designers.
Kim
I have made Fireworks my standard for screen design mockups. The combination of vector and raster and its handling of text make it far superior than Photoshop/ImageReady.
It has NOTHING to do with code though. I haven't used it for code creation in about 4 years.
I can't use Photoshop any longer. I'd be doomed if you combined the two in some way. They are just so different from each other.
Here are some of my favorite features:
1. Printing frames creates multiple pages if you print to PDF (Mac OS version; I wish this was also in the PC version.) I live on this. Of course I also hoped that there would be a lot better management around this. If you did more on "page" management instead of this "hack" it could be a real Visio killer. Having backgrounds (or shared layers) in a more controllable (not all or nothing like it is now for frames) it would be much better.
2. The fact that when I draw a rectangle it doesn't become part of the canvas or the layer that it is on. This I guess you can call the vector aspect of it. But I love this.
3. I think there is more that can be done with the Library/Assets feature. I like it in spirit for creating a component set for my team to share. The problem is that resizing components doesn't work the way I want it to. It just stretches everything equally. What I like in Visio is that you can create stencil items and tell it what sizes and what doesn't so that for example if I create a scrollbar widget as a library symbol, I don't want the top and the bottom to change size ever, but just the bar part. it would even be great if fireworks provided these components (browser components) that when you exported to Flash or Dreamweaver it was able to interpret these component widgets to work correctly in Flash (text box, checkbox, combobox, etc.). But right now having the Library is a huge asset (pun on purpose).
4. Like the Library the style area is also really useful. I do wish this was designed better though so it acted more like a style sheet and so if you tweaked a style after you already applied it to some elements it changes those elements that you applied it to. Also, I seem to have problems trying to create styles for graphical elements. I've tried to use fill and border colors.
5. The features for exporting many types of images is just much cleaner in Fireworks. The way you go into ImageReady first when you say save for web drives me crazy. Fireworks is much better easier for creating transparent (alpha channel) graphics than Photoshop. I love how you can make the canvas a color and when you export it w/ transparency on and that becomes what your transparency anti-aliases towards. If I don't want that, just leave the canvas as transparent and it is very dynamic alpha channel transparency. It might be in there in Photoshop, but I haven't found alpha channel transparency.
Really, in the end what I'm looking for is not a Photoshop killer. Photoshop is great for well photos and that is what you should keep focusing it on. it is really its core market. Fireworks should go after OmniGraffle and Visio and just cut them down. There is no reason that any designer should need 2 or 3 drawing tools for interface design.
I also think that coding should be left to Dreamweaver and interface graphic design should be left to Fireworks. While slicing is very useful and so creating a table of sliced images can be nice (but who uses tables any more anyway), I don't think its a big part of what at least I use Fireworks for. I used to, but I don't think that many web sites are designed this way anymore as there is more text than not text and the text I use in mockups is usually for dynamic applications or part of a CMS so exporting text in most cases isn't quite so valuable.
Well, pppppplease! keep fireworks .. don't combine it w/ Photoshop, and don't get rid of it thinking that Photoshop is enough. I'll be doooooomed!
-- dave
Besides a lot of stuff mentioned above I would like to add some new perspectives and use cases for the next generation Fireworks. Most webapplication developers and designers need to create wireframes and UML diagrams for presentation purposes only (no code generation). It would be very useful if Fireworks contained a set of UML autoshapes and connectors as well as a set of interface controls and containers developers and designers can drag and drop from a library, rearrange them, style them and BINGO! A great-looking diagram or wireframe for presentations purposes created in minutes instead of hours. Just make it the one-stop shop for ALL web application graphics-related activities.
1) I'd definitely like to see a focus on developing FW as a strong web/ui design tool. If you can incorporate more on the "rapid prototyping of Web and app interfaces" that'd be perfect.
I already use FW for wireframing. A UI guy I worked with last year was really impressed by it, and commented there wasn't another tool on the market these days which would let you rapidly do that kind of text/vector layout. Look at any info.arch. discussion and you'll see endless threads basically bemoaning the lack of a good wireframing app, with everyone stuck hacking about in Visio/PowerPoint. There's a market there keen to be tapped!
I have a fantasy scenario in which you could rough out an interface in FW and then easily "export" it into a simple interactive version (the way people use PowerPoint for wireframes). Currently I have to redo everything in DW when we want to do an interactive wireframe. Being able to specify what to spit out as HTML tags and what as graphics (with attendent CSS) would be amazing - though I'm wary that this might a) export nasty bloaty code and b) be easily abused to get FW to "export" entire finished page design with kludgy HTML/CSS!
2) More auto-shapes would be really useful for this, with a focus on UI widgets (similar to Flash's built in tools???), and being able to import your own library of auto-shapes would be great. Currently I create my own by screen grabbing browsers, but they're a pain to work with cos they're not vector based.
3) I'd love the ability to easily share libraries/colour pallettes over a network - similar to how you can place Word templates on a network drive. Great for keeping consistency across design/developer teams.
4) I'd echo Bryan's desire for more flexibility working with slices across frames. I also use frames heavily to store design iterations, and to literally create frames for a wireframe/storyboard.
I'd love to see Fireworks replace ImageReady.
Wow what a question!
The vision here is definetely to accomadate web designers. Right up my ally. :)
SuperSize or Jump to? I like the Jump to feature personally.
Jump to Fireworks to perform:
1. Layout, Slice and dice for the web
2. Improve CSS & Xhtml output that ImageReady attempted to achieve. Medialabs, Sitegrinder can do this with a plugin for Photoshop, certainly room for integration here with Fireworks.
3. Improve Flash integration without the actionscript - Xtivity - has a great program that accomplishes this and makes great use of Photoshop layers to streamline flash animations.
4. Cross browser dhtml and/or css menu creation. Static and dynamic (database driven).
Darrell
I definitely appreciate the open discussion your providing on your site to better the products. Thanks John.
1). One thing I have been looking for between the two applications is the harmony of one or many plug-ins working in Photoshop AND Fireworks, since we are one big happy family now. :-) There have been a couple of inconsistencies with some third-party plug-ins that work in Photoshop, but crashed horribly in Fireworks.
2). I definitely agree with P.J. and Dave Bricker (the first and second comment) -- Keep the Raster/Vector features in Fireworks. Instead of going into three Adobe graphic apps, I just startup Fireworks.
3). For design work, I still use Freehand for the overview/wireframing of the site, and dig into the details/graphics of the site with Fireworks. It would be nice if Adobe focused more on the designing/layout/wireframing capabilities in Photoshop. or just implement more design features in Fireworks?
4). Keep the Data-Driven graphics in Fireworks. I have found this to be a definitely help when someone has asked me to "update" the graphic images. Change the data source and re-run the wizard. BAM! (Sorry, fan of Emeril)
Adobe, so far, so good.
I am a big FW user along with DW and use PS and Illy a little. The things I like about both are quite similar. In CS2, the context bar at the top of the pages, is really usefull, I wish you could transplant that into the Macro apps, but also transplant the IDE from Macro to CS: ie, I like to have the tools docked and out of the way of the workboard and not floating over the top of it like some of the pallets in PS and Illy. Also I agree with others on here that making round tripping between file formats easier would save a lot of time on my workflows.
Ok, first of all - this is just me, but I DO NOT want one super app. The existing ones (read PS, AI, DW and Flash) are sluggish an unstable enough. I think instead of that, each one should be streamlined, not made just fatter with each release. This is one of the things I love about Fireworks, it feels so tidy and smart. I love Illy and PS, and I wouldn't use any other alternative over them, the same with Dream and Flash. But I do think they need to follow Fireworks example, where most of the stuff is accesible and simple; there are no workarounds, you just do it and that's it. I would like to see interface integration, for example, tabbed documents in Adobe apps a la MX, the possibility of stacking, sticking, grouping and whatever u want with palettes. I think the InDesign and MX interface is the way to go. Dreamweaver should get sth similar to smart objects, and I think FW should do all the heavy web work and leave PS the simple web tasks. Integration between FW and AI would be really nice too. ImageReady should be replaced by FW, keeping anything considered better from IR.
I could go on and on, but these are things that came first to mind. Cheers :D
I want to add one more comment (since I went off and editorialized and threw out a lot of conjecture about the Adobe / Macromedia business model and all that stuff in my earlier post, but didn't actually make any suggestions).
One of the potentially powerful missing elements in Fireworks that seems like a natural is a really full-featured warp text tool. I did like the suggestion made about implementing openType (a la inDesign) but a built-in version of Typestyler with some special tweaking controls on top of the template-driven stuff (arched text, banner text, fish(?!), etc. ) might integrate nicely into the FW toolset for those of us who like working with Victorian type.
While we're dealing with type, type set on a curve shouldn't place the letters tangent to the curve (like most programs do). It should actually curve the baseline of the letters. Letters set on a circle should actually be widened at the top so that both stems of a letter "H" are aimed at the center of the circle.
I'm sure that's a godawful programing task, but tangent type is ugly, and the warp text tool in Photoshop doesn't handle circles. Anything you can do to accommodate us type geeks would be welcome.
Many thanks for the opportunity to give input here. Design is my profession and my passion so let me know if there's anything I can do to be involved in the development of these tools.
-Dave Bricker
*Begs*
Please, keep FireWorks simple! Cut DreamWeaver down, its too 'heavy' in all manners!
kplzthnx.
James
16yo.
FireWorks? Please, give me a new Freehand!!!
Uwe Seifert
2 wishes which I'd love to see come true in the next Fireworks version...
Grouping history steps using the FWAPI.
and the killer feature for me...
Edit symbols in place like you can in Flash.
Firefox all the way. I am a photographer who creates websites as well (both as designer and a fulltime IA)
Photoshop serves my first need. Dreamweaver and Fireworks serve te second. ImageReady is too clunky - and reduces my productivity to about a third. It seems like I'm always, always fighting with it.
Fireworks is just amazing at what it does, and I would leave well alone. I could see adding some features - esp. the kind of togetherness Fireworks has with Dreamweaver.
seamless transferring b/wPhotoshop & Fireworks, being able to save PSDs in Fireworks would be at the top of my lists.
Replacing ImageReady with Fireworks in Photoshop CS3 would be the right way to go.
Hi
I haven't had time to read every comment but I definitely want to add my vote AGAINST FW + PS combination. They should be separate products. Each does the best job in its area. Although a nice integration between them (and them with DW) would be appreciated.
Mauricio
I appears Fireworks is a very popular application I might have overlooked. My feeling is that several small supporting apps with common interface feel, good intergration (copy and paste, send to commands, what ever works best).
What is really missing from the Adobe family is a site creation tool - something that an information architect, like myself, can use. Dreamweaver okay for creating pages but has little concept of what a site is. If any can suggest an application that does, let me know. If you want me to explain what I mean drop me a line.
Stew
I could not imagine my web design workflow without Fireworks. It is a powerful tool, I use it constantly since version 3. Adobe, don't ya dare to take it away!
All the feature requests for the FW I can think of, are pretty much already presented in this thread. I try to go over these and maybe introduce a couple of my own.
Firstly, 2 must-haves from Nathan:
1) Grouping history steps using the FWAPI.
2) Edit symbols in place like you can in Flash.
And then some...
3) Some kind of color scheme generator + improvements in color picker. Possible sources for inspiration: web-based Color Scheme Generator 2, desktop utility ColorPic.
4) Better roundtrip workflow between all applications -- PS/AI/FW/DW/Flash (and what about Freehand, it would be great to hear, that this app also survives the merger).
5) Some flexible solution to quickly include browser chrome in mock-up's. It could be done with Auto Shapes, with a library (like Halo Lite in FW 8), or maybe with an extension (choices in a panel: 1-- define the website area, 2-- choose between major browsers, which chrome gets inserted around the layout area (on a locked layer?)).
6) Jesse's idea of some kind of print-screen tie-in is interesting.
7) A decent New From Template feature, like in DW or Flash. Browser-safe areas for common screen resolutions, IAB standard banner formats. Also a possible place for the "include browser chrome" feature. Could be updated through the FW update system, when IAB introduces new standards.
8) I wonder if it is possible to develop some kind of components system for FW. Something like advanced Auto Shapes, like the UI components in Flash -- skinnable and resizeable through dedicated panel + inserting some kind of JavaScript/DHTML/CSS functionality on export. Or maybe some kind of advanced templates can be implemented providing this kind of functionality...
--Lembit Kivisik
I'd love to hear good news like this about Freehand..my daily companion for more than 10 years now.
In reading these posts, and your own comments, I can see many misconceptions - at least to my mind.
First, the idea of not taking the web features out of Photoshop. Is this a reluctance to let go of something even if it means a better product? There is just too much redundancy between Photoshop, Imageready and Fireworks. Actually I would throw Dreamweaver in there, as there are things you can do in it that are better accomplished in FW.
In a previous life I was head of marketing for one of the largest packaging companies in the US. It always got me that we could never get rid of any of our printing presses. Some were 50 years old, and never run, but we just couldn't let them go. They were "paid for" which is the equivalent of IP in the software business. But there are hidden dangers in this approach.
Second, it seems to me that many of these correspondents, perhaps naturally enough, are blinded by their dedication to a product or a discipline. The avid FW user really has no idea of the things that can be done in the current version of PS. The dedicated web designer has no clue of the needs of the print designer. Someone who thinks Fireworks is a vector program has never spent much time with Illustrator--there is no comparision.
I design identity for small(er) companies. This means logos, letterheads, brochures, web sites, etc. I use all of these apps, interchangeably. I may have my favorites, but I know that I need something in all of them. And I know that what starts out in RGB (for example) on a monitor is someday going to have to be printed in CMYK. So, over the years I have learned what works best for each of my needs in each app. Adobe and Macromedia have helped me considerably by having their respective apps recognize each other much better: SmartObjects are wonderful. Now it's time to work on the Macromedia apps and their recognition of the PDF file format. (And get FW working with a Wacom tablet on a Mac!)
I do not advocate stripping down any of these apps, rather redstributing redundant features and targeting each app to its best market segment. You don't loose IP that way; after all, it is all Adobe. Strictly from a business point of view why would I pay for someone to be developing, say, slice and CSS technology in Photoshop while someone else is doing it for Fireworks?
Frankly I was surprised to learn that Fireworks had a future. If it does, it can't be as a Swiss army knife. That was fine when it was in a stable with no Illustrator or Photoshop. To make Fireworks vital it must do things that can't be done in other Adobe apps. That is Fireworks' only future.
I would like to see better text anti aliasing in Fireworks (like the sharp feature in PS, or even multiple color antialiasing like the clear type setting in XP).
Also, something that really bugs me with Fireworks 8 is the way gradients are set up. You cannot make to colors touch to make a sharp line of contrast. I like the way PS has an adjuster for the gradients between colors. Maybe this could be implented in FW.
Just my two cents...
David,
It seems to me that you are the one with misconceptions here.
My dedication to Fireworks comes from its value and usefulness, not from blindness about the (former) competion. Since I started using it, Fireworks has become essential to my workflow because it made tasks that were tedious and awkward in Photoshop easy and fast.
I switched to Fireworks from Photoshop many years ago when FW was at version 2.
I am well aware of the abilities of the current Photoshop version. It is still a terrible layout tool which is something Fireworks excels at. I use Photoshop to enhance, correct and fix my camera's pictures or the images I scan. It is really the best at that.
I've also been using Illustrator for almost 10 years now (I use CS2 now) so I'm also well aware of its capabilities. It's a fantastic application that I use almost daily at my job at a screen printing company (Web design is my second job... for now). I use Illustrator there to draw membrane switch keyboard circuitry and tooling as well as some basic technical drawing (with the aid of the fantastic CADTools plugin). I couldn't live without Illustrator for those tasks. Its Smart Guides feature in particular is a God send to me.
So, to claim that my/our allegiance to Fireworks is rooted in ignorance of other applications' capabilities is not only extremely presumptuous, it is downright insulting.
I'm saying all that to drive home the point that it's not for lack of familiarity with Adobe's existing products that I keep using Fireworks for Web design and layout work. I use it because to me, IT IS the best at that kind of work because, on one hand, its hybrid vector/bitmap toolset saves me from having to switch between two different apps to do the creative/layout work. Everything is done withing one streamlined interface. Secondly, it saves me from having to use a third application (ImageReady) or truly awkward "Save For Web" features within PS and Illy in order to slice, optimize and export my Web images. I can also do all that within the same efficient interface. This means I don't need to deal with 3 types of native files and converting them between 3 different applications.
All the above advantages are aboslutely priceless for me. Fireworks' true value is in workflow efficiency which is derived from its hybrid toolset.
Lastly, no one here is saying that Fireworks' bitmap or vector tools are on par with Photoshop's of Illustrator's. To claim that Fireworks is not a vector app because its toolset is not the same as Illustrator is simply ludicrous though. The two apps have very different histories and purposes. Fireworks' vector tools are strong enough for most of the things I need to do to create Web graphics. Not only that, many of its tools are more intuitive than in any other graphic application I tried.
When I need to do something that is beyong Fireworks vector toolset like a blend for example, I'll fire up FreeHand or Illustrator, do it there and open it in Fireworks. For me it is a rare occurence.
With all that said, I don't know what Adobe will do with the Web features within Photoshop and Illustrator or with ImageReady which is probably the weakest application they ever made but that doesn't mean that Fireworks should be killed and its features scattered around within Adobe's existing apps. That would effectively eliminate Fireworks real workflow advantages which come from its hybrid toolset.
Fireworks deserves to keep being improved and developed and to have its place amongst Adobe's product line as the fantastic, dedicated Web graphics application that it is.
I'd very much like to see Fireworks kept as a separate app. It's a great tool. I think you can guess I'm a fan.
Dreamweaver + Fireworks = First class workflow.
Leave Fireworks alone Adobe, don't try and kill it off, be clever with it or turn it into something it was never meant to be. It is a web graphics program and it is the best out their. We dropped Photoshop in favour of Fireworks sometime ago, it was best thing we ever did. Fireworks really is a brilliant piece of software for anyone concerned specifically with web graphics creation.
This conversation is interesting to me. I started off designing for the web in Photoshop. Then moved to ImageReady and thought this was the Bee's Knees. The Fireworks came along and I was amazed at the great that program was and never looked back.
One idea we all ned to grasp is the idea of more or less when it comes to software. I feel Adobe's pain in adding a feature and never being able to take it out. But by not doing this, you end up with a program that is so bloated and feture laden it becomes a liability.
It's akin to the discussion of creative shops. Is it beeter to have an agency that does everything...Advertising, Design, Web Development, Branding, PR, Media Buying or to have these disiplines separate? I would say separate. The BEST graphic design does not come from BBD&O or Chiat Day. The best design come from studios like Duffy, Cahan and Associates, Jennifer Sterling, Pentagram.
I say break ther programs out into what they do best. The truth is, Adobe added web festures into PS because of Fireworks. They needed those fetures to "compete" in the category. The playing field has changed. let PS deal with images and image manipulation. Let Fireworks deal with Web/Interactive graphics. Let InDesign deal with page layout and let Illustrator.Freehand deal with vector graphics.
Does this mean that there will not be some overlap of features? No. I would love to see Firworks share PS's custom brushes, but I don't need all those cheesy filters in PS also.
I left Fireworks behind when CSS replaced web buttons. Illustrator is used to visualise sites and Photoshop for production. As image maps have dropped away slices seem less important. I cannot understand Image Ready anyway – I crop, export and step back in P'shop. If Illustrator was improved then Firweorks could be retired.
I spent 20 minutes trying to like Fireworks when I upgraded to Studio 8. It made no sense, and the interface didn't even seem like something a Macromedia-phile would love. Then I deleted it from my hard drive. Photoshop CS2 is just fine, thanks.
To answer a few of those questions in no particular order:
1. No way should Photoshop or any of the CS apps adopt the "look and feel" of Dreamweaver or any other MM app. The Adobe GUI is more visually elegant, a known quantity to many more users, and is more flexible in terms of managing workspaces. Particularly when compared to DW.
2. I presume these question in general sound the death knell for IR. That being my assumption here, I wouldn't mind seeing a move in Photoshop to Round-trip web optimization features, rather than continuing on with SFW. Fireworks seems to be very popular in terms of its capabilities, so if we can get an image to a certain point in PS, then click the FW icon to quickly open the image in that app, then optimize, animate or slice and dice as needed, that would be great.
They should absolutely remain separate apps. If anything this is a good chance to pair down Photoshop a bit and make it more streamlined, rather than heap another entire application on top of it. : )
3. Rapid Web Prototyping is more logically a Photoshop function than a FW one, at least in so far as many of the pros writing books out there, recommend Photoshop (specifically its layering capabilities) as a great prototyping tool. I tend to agree though I don't use it for that purpose too often. If I were to go that route though, MUCH better to have all of PS' tools at my disposal to speed the process.
FW is definitely the app for Web design where the combined use of vector and bitmap graphics is so necessary.
Only issue I have with FW is that I've created many vector-based graphics with it that eventually, in another life, were needed to scale into some printable document, you know, at more than 300 dpi. And it's here that Fireworks chokes, and there is no easy way to get those vectors out of it into another illustration app (upto v4 at least), be it *.ai, SVG, *.eps, or whatever. It would be nice to have this capability.
I am a big Photoshop fan, but I use Fireworks for all my web graphics, it's just easier.
Here are my suggestions:
1. CSS Layout integration- If you are going to have rollover support, and export HTML with slices, it would be REALLY REALLY cool to have that all created by CSS (or options available to do so!).
2. Layer tools from Photoshop- It would be nice to pull some of the layer features from Photoshop over to Fireworks.
3. Resources- Not to go the way of frontpage, but it would be really nice to have a lot more in the way of template options to build from.
4. Increased integration between photoshop and fireworks. Fireworks is great for web design layout, much more than photoshop. There are occasions, though, that I need to retouch a photo and of course photoshop is the way to go if you are going to do that. If I could edit a png file with layers in photoshop with no problems, life would be great!
Those are my suggestions!
If you used some of FireWorks features in PhotoShop I don't see a real downside, but completely combining the two might mean getting rid of FireWorks. The big advantage with FW is that you can do web page layout with it. It allows you to work with whatever graphics formats you want and lay them out how you want. Here's what I would like to see -
Adobe having design tools for both print and web, but keep them separate. Keep InDesign as a page layout tool for print, and turn FireWorks into a web layout tool. Web design is a distinctly separate kind of design because it's not based on page constraints. We all still need image editors like PhotoShop and Illustrator, and likewise we web designers need layout tools that fit what we do, and so far FireWorks is the closest thing to it. Maybe you could even make a web version of InDesign that wasn't based on physical pages, but more on web pages. It's hard to come up with designs that flow with content and expand with browser windows if you're stuck working with tools made for static design. I also like how FW is so easy to use for pixel based layouts. Most web designers don't work in inches, they work in pixels. Keep that in mind.
Here's something else I'd like to see. Use the best features from both GoLive and Dreamweaver for a WYSIWYG app, but spinoff a lightweight code based app also. WYSIWYG apps are just far too large and heavy for most coding needs. Both DreamWeaver and GoLive, as well as Flex, have some great coding tools. If you could release something with just that, and not the integrated layout tools, you'd have a real winner with people that like to hand code things. Keep the code collapse, drag and drop integration with databases, GoLives code tree view thing, DreamWeavers great CSS tools, all that stuff, but make it lightweight, fast, and don't worry about design features. One uber application that does everything will push away users who don't want everything combined like that. It makes things klunky and loses focus on what they are trying to do. Kind of like how iLife gets so much praise for keeping things simple and to the point. And if you'll notice, there are a ton of web developers out there who don't use DW or GL for just that reason.
A lot of my time in FW is spent making web page mockups. But not to export to DW, but to recreate with CSS, exporting just the parts I need, and avoiding code bloat. With so much focus on clean, valid code recently using image editors and layout tools to generate web pages just doesn't cut it. It makes a mess of everything when you have to do anything more than a brochure site.
Adobe has made a great name for itself by making great software, and now you've got a lot more software to work with, so don't lose focus of who you're selling to. Designers and developers don't think alike, and they don't work alike. Please don't force them to.
1-i'd love to see a color scheme widget -similar to Color scheme generator 2.
2-I'd like to see a tigter intergration to flash. Buttons from FW converted to Flash buttons. Effects like drop shadows being converted to flash effects-better yet have it generate stub filter actionscript so it can be reused while continueing development in flash.
3-I've found that fireworks is the best tool to use when working flash. Photoshop is to layer heavy. I think they should stay seperate and let each do what it is really good at. If you go that route then better file i/o between them would be important for workflow production speed.
4-I'd like to see fireworks pickup the plugin presentation of photoshop. FW always seems to have them tacked on without previews etc.
5-I'd like to see FW support XMP metadata AND if imported to flash the FLA file picks up that metadata as well. Very important for us that pour or work into LCMS's
6-bridge integration for flash and fireworks.
Yes, please, just one big app.
I didn't use Fireworks up until about a year ago, and now I don't think I could go back to anything else.
Fireworks is just about the perfect blend of vector/bitmap tools that I need for my work in Flash and HTML.
To answer your questions:
* If we could do one thing to improve the process of making graphics for the Web, what would it be?
Here are three things:
- Drop ImageReady and replace it with Fireworks.
- Integrate Firework's excellent vectors tools into Photoshop.
- Implement Export Area in Photoshop. I know we can create slices, but using the slice tool (in PS or FW) is clumsy in my opinion and always seems to create extra garbage.
* Are there tasks (e.g. rapid prototyping of Web and app interfaces) at which we should target Fireworks more than Photoshop? (Or, to take the other side, would you rather there be a single über-app with a customizable interface?)
No Single Uber-App! Please no more bloating of the software. Keep the tools to their target market and make them the best at what they are intended for, but spend the extra resources to improve the work flow between the apps.
* Do we need to improve integration between Fireworks and Photoshop (e.g. better file format compatibility, Jump To), or does it work well enough?
YES!! Better PSD support for Fireworks and allow PS to open PNGs from FW. As noted above, replace ImageReady with FW. Better PSD CMYK to RGB conversion for Fireworks.
* What about compatibility with Dreamweaver? What tasks could/should we improve?
Smart-Objects for DW would be cool. Link to a PSD file and automatically scale it for the size requested and then places the JPG/GIF into the web folder.
* Are there interface elements or ideas from one app that we should emulate in the other?
- Improve the vector tools in Photoshop to be as good as Fireworks.
- Improve Fireworks anti-aliasing and bitmap sampling to meet Photoshop standards.
- Keep the apps separate and make them the best they can be for their target audience, but improve the workflow between them.
I would say, put the slicing features of ImageReady into Photoshop and put IR to bed. I see no reason to have two apps there. Then take that left over space and plop Fireworks in as a jump-to.
I wanted to emphasize again:
No Single Uber-App! I don't want Adobe Photo-ustrator-flashing-works-weaver.
If the world worked better with uber-tools that did everything, we'd be using Swiss Army knives at the dinner table. Some cross over is good, workflow is key between apps that do their job and do it well.
I'm very much a Photoshop user rather than a Fireworks user, but my focus is definitely Web work. That said, I'd prefer that Photoshop continued to grow its feature-set, whilst Fireworks was refined to be the universal web graphics application. Sometimes Photoshop is just too heavy—RAM doesn't grow on trees, sadly.
I've only played with Fireworks, but I've listed the things I need it do before I can use it seriously for day-to-day work:
• Both applications need to treat the same files the same—if you open a Photoshop PSD in Fireworks, it should look identical; notably Fireworks needs to support Photoshop's layer styles. Beyond that, it should be a matter of UI and what you can do with the document that separates Fireworks and Photoshop.
• One-click round-trip editing of Fireworks raster layers in Photoshop would be nice to have, but isn't essential.
• Fireworks needs the same ‘Powered by ImageReady’ ‘Save for Web...’ that Photoshop has.
• Fireworks needs Photoshop's colour-management; if nothing else such that round-trip editing isn't a highly confusing experience.
• An option to have Fireworks use the same toolbox set-up as Photoshop (with the same icons on the buttons!) would be fantastic.
Please keep fireworks standalone. I've been using Photoshop these past two weeks and I can't help but to fall back on Fireworks each time. Maybe it's a developer thing, hard to nail down...but I remember first learning Fireworks, whenever I needed to "do something" I'd guess on how to do it and 95% of the time it worked. Just logical that way...Two weeks of many hours in Photoshop and I'm still lost. (except for lighting effects, cool discovery!)
Just add CMYK support and better photoshop inter-operability!
Just keep them as separate programs, yet bundle them together, like Photoshop and ImageReady are. I use Photoshop and Fireworks together, because combined as 2 separate apps, I can do anything, and it kicks ass.
I use Fireworks for its simplicity, quick editing and web graphics. Photoshop is relegated to the heavy-duty use.
The only "integration" I'd want to see is the MX workspace showing up in Adobe's apps. I still want my separate Fireworks and Photoshop apps, though.
Please leave Fireworks as a stand-alone.
It could be improved but if it gets integrated into Photoshop, I'll stick with version 8 and check out Microsoft's "Sparkle" or whatever its called for future technology.
I think FW should stay as standalone app. As somebody said: it's a web graphics program and it is the best out their! It's fast enough and really easy to use.
There are some elements that are needing to improve:
* Text part. That's a huge pain spot. Justifying text, fonts, loads of bugs etc.
* Fw on mac. I recently moved to Mac and I noticed a huge speed comedown. It's a G5 and had a amd 2800. When i click something the program reacts very slowly. On Windows it took tiny part of one second. Now it takes a sec or so. It very disturbing.
I use Fireworks to make prototypes of my web GUI's. Integrating it into photoshop would give me a lot of clutter I hardly use. My two cents? Use fireworks to design the layout of a webpage, slice it and use photoshop as a tool to edit/prepare the slices for the web. Pleaaaase don't complicate my prototype tool....
well! about vector creation and layout design i prefere use the fireworks, usability is so much more easy. I always dream w/ one program with easely use like fireworks and seriour performance and exatcly definition like photoshop. ll be one fireworks w/ functions and precision from photoshop. if possible ll be other sucess froooooooom adobe!
Keep Fireworks and PS appart! I use FW all the time for web images, and my only gripe is that the font selection is poor (unlike InDesign CS) and giving FW a CMYK option would realy make my life easier. I much prefer FW's GUI over photoshop - and I've been using both for many years.
I'd like to see:
First and foremost, please DO NOT create a super, all-in-one app. As a web designer I do not need to spend $800 on a super app when all I need is what Fireworks already has included. However, I truly think both apps can learn from each other. I like the simplicity of the Fireworks UI and as I saw stated before: "When you draw a line in Fireworks, it's a line, but in Photoshop it's something bizarre." Clicking on an object selects it whereas in Photoshop you have to click on the layer first then the object. I have also noticed that optimization in Fireworks seems to provide better quality when compared to the same optimization in ImageReady. Slicing, hotspots, css menus, all web related image editing and controls Fireworks handles beautifully. However, in Photoshop you have amazing control of the image, filters, layer effects, etc.
All in all I would say keep both apps seperate, but add a few common features between them. More filters and image editing in Fireworks and easier controls and better optimization in Photoshop.
I work in both programs, though I loathe to open Fireworks - and do all I can to avoid it and its horrendous working interface whenever I can.
Its been my experience that "old school" web designers - those that may have worked in Print Design prior to Web Design lean more toward the tools in Photoshop, Illustrator and of course ImageReady; and those who have 'grown up' with the web prefer the confusing menu & method structure of Fireworks.
Easy to see where I'm from, eh?
So - to answer your questions:
(a) If we could do one thing to improve the process of making graphics for the Web, what would it be?
Immediate visual representation (while choosing options) of what you are getting with each option.
(b) Are there tasks (e.g. rapid prototyping of Web and app interfaces) at which we should target Fireworks more than Photoshop? (Or, to take the other side, would you rather there be a single über-app with a customizable interface?)
Well...while I'm tempted to suggest an über app, I think that creates more problems than it fixes and will ultimately push more users from it than to use it.
But I'm of the mind that proven strengths from Fireworks should just be ripped out of the program - it should be discontinued or remade into an LiveMotion-like program; with the remaining pieces added to Illustrator or Photoshop.
(c) Do we need to improve integration between Fireworks and Photoshop (e.g. better file format compatibility, Jump To), or does it work well enough?
no opinon not already expressed
(d) What about compatibility with Dreamweaver? What tasks could/should we improve?
Improved export, Preview
(e) Are there interface elements or ideas from one app that we should emulate in the other?
Fireworks UI sucks!!! Taking any hint from the classic Adobe UI masters and applying them to Fireworks would be an improvement.
I would like Dreamweaver to deserve it's name and gets one button "copy dream" and you stick your head...
Now seriously,
Photoshop cs2 hardly loads his new (compared to cs) interface on my tablet pc... It is already became so slow that I can't even use the pen any more. If it fuses with Fireworks I wouldn't even be able to use mouse any more.
Photoshop should be even splitted to Photoshop Image editing & Photoshop effects, or something like that, or at least te make them load on request...
Fireworks is a very useful program for web designers! It should be developed as a standalone application, and not integrated into any other product!!
Photoshop is Photoshop and Fireworks is Fireworks. Let them be! :-)
About future imporvements in Fireworks:
1) Is it possible to keep EXIF data when making batch resize-export of a lot of images? This would be useful for creating photo galleries on the web. Making images smaller, and at the same time, save the EXIF info in the smaller files for visitors to the web site, who might be interested in the original details about the photo they see. IS it possible? Someone told me that in Photoshop it's already done?
2) Fireworks 8 opens Adobe .PSD files pretty well, but does not keep vectors (of course...). IS it possible to make such changes in Fireworks, so it could open existing Photoshop formats with no (or almost no) loss? Preserving layers nesting, vectors, etc. I suppose it would be too difficult to implement, but just wondered... (And also maybe vice-versa;-)
BTW, concerning the last opinion (of Michael Briney) - I must now say that Fireworks' interface is a VERY GOOD ONE!
And it does not SUCK in any way!
It sucks only for those who are FAMILIAR WITH PHOTOSHOP interface.
So, let me tell you something? For me, Adobe Photoshop UI SUCKS, a lot!
I consider myself now advanced Fireworks user. It's so easy and simple to do a lot of tasks in FW. It's intuitive.
And in Photoshop it all is very different. VERY different.
So... let's not say things like SUCKS, please!
Let's say, there are people accustomed to Photoshop UI, and people accustomed to Fireworks UI.
Maybe none of them is the BEST. Everyone has learned something.
So, for me Fireworks UI is very good. Do not touch it or only improve it slightly, but don't change the BASICS. It's the BASICS that appeal to FW fans, like myself.
For someone else, Photoshop UI is good. Well, then, buy Adove Photoshop and use it.
Let others use Fireworks:)
So i said :-P
About the (possible) integration of the two programs - no, no, no!
They are different. Do not try to merge them!
The only good thing that could be done is to offer FW users the possibility to open and (maybe at least in some way) edit PSD files, and for the Adobe user, let them open and (-""-) edit PNG files:)
Have a good day!
Keep the good work on Fireworks!!!
Michel
I can understand why you'd not strip Photoshop of web capabilities at this point. Its old user-base would flip.
But now that you have a truly powerful dedicated web tool (FW), please leave Photoshop as it is - the ultimate print and video behemoth.
I don't want, need, or appreciate all that interface and memory overhead when I normally have to simultaneously run different browsers and web authoring tools for daily building and checking. Fireworks alone is perfect for this scenario; Photoshop + Illustrator are absolutely not.
******
While I'm at it, I eventually preferred Freehand for its text-handling and multi-page capabilities over Illustrator. I use it to build presentations (rather than PowerPoint) and am able to keep many pages in one file, which I can not do in Illustrator. I run these presentations in Acrobat -- full-screen -- to have them lightweight, portable, zoomable, and highlightable.
I would agree that the Adobe CS look and feel should be kept and only the strong benefits of Macromedia prouscts adopted over. I am especially interested in Photoshop and GoLive
I would like to see hopwever Flash seamelessly integrated into both these packages, or else added as an extra application.
I use a Mac and miss the loss of Livemotion which I used instead of Flash.
Having taught both digital imaging and web design, and taught both Photoshop and Fireworks for web graphics - I can safely say that I would loose absolutely no sleep if there were no new versions of Fireworks.
True, the Adobe family of applications can learn the odd thing from Fireworks (or simply from listening to end users comments in discussions like this) - but Fireworks has only ever been a toy to me.
Perhaps I am missing something or perhaps all of the advocates of Fireworks for layout have yet to move to Accessible CSS based design and are still knocking out sites based on an over-abundance of tables and images.
As for the bleeding heart liberals that say they can't live without Fireworks: If you have it already it won't magically vanish if Adobe decide to drop it from future releases - you'll simply be stuck with the version you have and appear to be very happy with.
I am an older school designer, started professionaly in 1985, however I have different workflows for print and web projects.
For Web design, I find FW invaluable in my workflow and would prefer that it is kept separate from Photoshop, with one caveat, I would like FW to create gradient JPGs as smooth as Photoshop.
Better Illustrator -> Fireworks Integration
My web workflow uses AI to do the layout and then do some modification, photo integration and slicing in FW. I would love to have direct copy and past of vector materials between the two as well as be able to open AI CS2 directly in FW. This would save me an incredible amount of time.
As far as DreamWeaver integration, I do not do a lot of roundtrip editing from DreamWeaver. As I do most the basic design in Illustrator, I mostly use DW for actually building html and CSS.
What I would love to see in DW, Illustrator, or even InDesign, would be the ability to make site maps that can integrate with Page Description Diagrams. At this point I have to use Visio to do this, and it takes me way outside my workflow and does not integrate with any of my preferred products or directly create PDFs. I think this is a real opportunity for adobe, as many of the designers I know use Visio for this and hate it.
Personally, I use FW + Homesite + TopStyle.
Good to hear FW will live on. Hear! hear!
The single most important issue for for me is that PhotoShop can deliver a sliced Web fileset with DIVs + CSS rather the TABLES that Fireworks generates.
So, my suggestion, for what it's worth...
Either enable PS to import a fully sliced image to use PS to generate the output... OR, give FW that same output engine that PS uses to generate CSS + DIVs
BTW, pleeease allow Homesite to live on?
Producing Web graphics is a different activity than making other types of images - it has always disappointed me that ImageReady wasn't a standalone app. A standalone Web imaging tool is totally justified because it offers an improved experience for developers and designers, as Photoshop is just too dang heavy with unlrelated features.
That said, Fireworks' object oriented, vector-to-bitmap approach, offers far more flexibitlity than ImageReady's more raster roots. I think you have the superior tool in Fireworks - it's lacking some masking and tiling background features - but if you add those in you will have a much better program than ImageReady can be. This is mostly due to it's object model as opposed to a layer model.
As a teacher, I can tell you it is far easier to teach Fireworks than ImageReady, because it's easier to select items, rescale and recolor them, and do all the other activiites related to Web design (slicing, linking, animating). The only thing Fireworks is truly missing is an ability to make repeatable background images.
Fireworks really did make me a changed man.
I used to live and breathe photoshop and illustrator until a friend convinced me of the time saving qualities of Fireworks. It's amazing to be able to reall affect both raster and vector arts in the same piece without switching wildly between two apps.
I'd love to see greater compatibility between the file types and copy/paste features. beyond that drawing a straight line with shift would be nice in Fireworks. I love the style menus and the extensibility of auto shapes etc. in Fireworks -- keep workin on a wonderful app!
I think a very important thing that Adobe needs to abandon from the Macromedia product line is the horrible JavaScript code that all Macromedia applicaitons write (eg: behaviors). If you create a simple rollover in ImageReady and in Dreamweaver/Fireworks and compare the code that each spits out .... it is obvious that Adobe products write much cleaner JavaScript. I am not too familiar with Fireworks ... I recall using it to easily create transparent GIFs without a haloes, but I suspect it writes horrible Javascript just as Dreamweaver does.
I also fear for the future of SVG. I was very happy with the SVG features built into the CS2 line in GoLive and Illustrator ... but now that Adobe ownes Flash I fear they will abandon their commitment to SVG .... I originally thought cell phones would be the place where Adobe incarnation of SVG would land, but now I see lots of "Flash for the phone" advertising on the Adobe site and am very confused. I hope I am wrong becasue SVG is a fablous technology which deserves its time in the spotlight by having an SVG application that artists can use to create outstanding work.
David Marcinkowksi
Associate Professor
Pratt Institute
New York City
I have been using Adobe PS and Fireworks equally, but there is NO doubt that FW is better at web graphics and simplicity. Let me put it this way, if you give PS and FW to someone who has never used these types of tool, I put my money on FW as the tool to be preferred tool. There is alot to be said on simplicity and is elegance of use - FW live on.
If I was in charge: I would drop ImageReady completely and replace it with Fireworks.
ImageReady is totally deficient as a web graphics program, its only good point is the ability to make animated GIFs, but does anyone make those anymore?
Fireworks is fast, easy works great -- keep supporting it. Don't send it to an uncertain future in India!
The only things I would add to Fireworks:
- Color management
- the ability to remember Photoshop's layered folders
- Improved text rendering (kerning in particular and especially with OpenType fonts)
Thanks for asking--
Daniel Sofer
Hermosawave Internet
I really don't know if it's possible, but it would be really amazing if we could have a way to determine related elements in the layout in order to output a DIV-based tableless document to Dreamweaver.
I know this may seem weird... but what i would love to have is..
one application that can do flash, edit photos and also do illustration work and of course manage my sites... it should be built as different modules inside the same software.. in that way you can share a lot of tools, the interface is a lot simpler and same shortcuts to top them all.. i am not a software coder, there could be a lot of practical issues before u see this.. but at the end of the day this is how it should be.
And for the question in hand.. my suggestion drop FW and Imageready totally and integrate everything into photoshop... lesser the software, lesser the megabytes, lesser the clutter, the better the work right.
i am an extensive fireworks user since mx, i use it every damn day along with flash and dw, if u want feedback from the target THIS IS IT
i will be back with stuff for which i still go in photoshop as i am not satisfied with fw. fo now here it is
general design
the menus are killing me, i'm losing 5-10% of the work time struggling with them,
gradient meniu, only go knows how many times i,ve scrolled it to get to the linear gradient, also the controls for the gradient on the shape are clumsy, ever tried to make it straight after u drew it diagonaly
that meniu is simply stupid, it didn't work right from mX till now, try to find another way to display it, make t arrow scrollable for god's sake
combine paths pallete, i know there is one made by that guy kleantu ekonomu or something, integrate it ito the program along with severall other good pallets he designed, i think u shoul hire that guy, he understands our needs
guides, the guides are stupid and intrusive, must have selectable, deletable, and vector shape generated guides, the snaping also must be improved and features added, here's an ideea, snap to the center of a shape, no matter where the position of that shapes on the canvas changes
blending modes
-the blending modes pop up meniu isn't arrow selectable or scrolable
(much better in photoshop) but on the other hand there are more
draw a circle fill it with red and another one on top of it fillled with another color, move the top one a little bit to he right , set the blending mode to something like multiply to see some changes. Now group the 2! Surprize! The blending dissapears. Serious problem !
fonts
when choosing a font, and change your mind afterwards, you have to start scrolling the fonts from the begining each time because
the pop out meniu doesn not retain the position of the last font u have accesed. instead the font u just picked is lifted in a list on top of all the fonts.That
exasparates me.
-better implementation of the text menius and text engine is imperios. open type suport, caligraphic and typografic features
(see illustrator, indesign),
some font management functions would be great (integrated directly into the interface), everybody is using a small app of somekind for font management that doesn't do a lot of tasks. Attention this is new! Nor photoshop or indesign have it. Imagine how great it will be to be able somehow to create groups of fonts for every document, to browse, to organize and install the fontsa directly from u'r drwaing app.
optimize optimize optimize
fireworks seems to not understand what a picture of more then 8-9 megapixels is. it just crashes.
optimize big image handling
optmize the text engine, with a couple of paragraf fields it simply start to move like a 90 year old paraplegic
optimize the brushes engine, try to spend some time painting over a mask and u konw what i mean
optmize the brushes themselves and the strokes, much to learen from photoshop
optimize and perfect the levels hue and saturation , add more color corection features, i don;t think the developers realize that the vast majority of the user don;t use the image editing features to remove red eyes, but for more complex editing
think web, and optimize acordingly, for specific tasks
slicing and exporting
multi layer slicing imperios
great job on html slices
great job on FW-DW back and forth
strong focus on CSS, CSS behaviors would be great
text types------- html and raster (the html text would be exported directly into dreamweaver, or at least the formating exported into CSS classes)
copming consideration---- ability to generate image previews of flash components imported as symbols for use in comping
frames and INSTANCES !!! wouldn'it be great if u could demonstrate how an website would look and feel browsing between PNG's. Hell Yeah ! Let us link through slices to other png's or other instances of the same document (imagine u're brosing through frames, and u put a single type of web page in a frame , contact about home.., but frames are for roll overs and other stuff, we need instances)
kill all slices button
kill all hidden layers (and when i mean layers i mean sub layers :) )
there are more but my boss will kill me if i lose more time there is the raster engine and much more that need to be analized
Make Adobe software as cross-seamless as possible. For example, dragging a selected vector path from Illustrator into Photoshop and Fireworks to copy it would be a boon. Macromedia had this functionality between Freehand and the late Extreme 3D.
[That already works. Dragging selected vectors from Illustrator to Photoshop creates a Smart Object. --J.]
I'd like to see one honest-to-gosh app designed for Web content creation instead of piecemealing around. I'd like to see ImageReady merged with Fireworks, and then add XML scripting capability.
A jump button between PS and Fireworks on the toolbox would be great. Dreamweaver appears to handle PS bitmaps just fine, IMO. I'd worry more about Microsoft Expressions and XAML.
Photoshop is the paradigm by which all Macromedia-inherited apps should follow.
As a web developer, I have found Fireworks to be an extremely efficient tool for rapid prototyping and web UI design. Clearly positioning it as such is an excellent strategy and I am very glad this is being considered.
I have been using Fireworks since version 1 and have yet to find a comparable application in terms of workflow for web UI design that is as easy to use.
Beyond the ability to edit bitmap and vector images in one program, here are some of my favorite features:
* The ability to quickly draw, select, and edit objects without worrying about layers.
* Powerful and easy gif/jpg/png compression functionality.
* The use of the PNG file format (quickly preview web UI designs in any browser and windows explorer).
* Color selector uses hexadecimal by default (great for coding color values into CSS).
The one major annoyance I find with the Fireworks is the significant slowdown that occurs after the application is open for a while. This has been very noticeable since version 3, but slightly improved in version 8.
Overall, Fireworks is an excellent web design application that should be improved and leveraged by Adobe.
This is just my own preference: I'm too busy perfecting my Photoshop technique to learn another huge program like Flash. Sometimes I generate a small animation in ImageReady (which would probably be easier in Fireworks) and I want to add some sound or music to it. Just for this one thing I need to use Flash. This is all I want to use Flash for. I have no interest in developing Flash interfaces or learning Action Script. So...maybe the next iteration of Fireworks could both replace ImageReady, and allow laying down a sound track with the gif animation to export as a SWF -- a kind of Flash Lite/web image optimization app. Anyone else like this??
For me fireworks is the bees knees. For years i was trasping between PS, AI and DW, it has made a huge change to the way I work today.
Personally I wish all the adobe programmes mentioned worked in such a nice simple user friendly way - I can pick up an item easily by clicking on it and work from there regardless of its format. This is by far the most simple thing and the biggest thing. Now when i have to use PS or Illustrator for very detailed retouching or print work I wich they had this simple thing and not all those layers to negotiate.
Two things I wish worked better in FW
- copying and pasting text from word and FW results in my pasted copy becoming rasterised, I have to use mac stickies or a text editor as a go between
- support for other colour formats(im just wishing i could have some of the simple FW interface for my print jobs here)
As an accomplished designer, I have to say that the use of Fireworks has built my business to what it is today. Although its main format is for creating web graphics and vectors, I have literally forced Fireworks to create every design from business cards to Vehicle Wraps (large format graphics) and beyond.
With the union of Adobe and Macromedia, I only hope that Fireworks can continue to evolve. Specifically having similiar abilities to handle large design canvases and file export options like EPS and layered PDF. This way I can send the guys that only use Adobe my files created in Fireworks that they can import and edit.
Other than that, I love Fireworks, hate Photoshop.
the slowdwon after some period of time spent in the program is as real as it gets. i recomend restarting the application every hour or every hour and a half.
you may also want to restart your computer every 3-4 hours when working like there is no tomorow
i think the first thing before all that the software enginners shoul do (if the program is not murdered) is this.
i said it before it needs lots of optimization
Well . . . its very simple.
If Fireworks is merged with Photoshop, I simply won't upgrade. If FW becomes bloated or the UI is radically altered (read: made to work like Photoshop's), I probably won't upgrade either.
Fireworks is a *GREAT* program, as-is. Just keep making it a 'better FW', on its own terms. It shines in creating artwork for _on-screen_ (vs. hard-copy) viewing. It doesn't need the complexity of fancy CMYK support or Photoshop's raster tools, just keep evolving Fireworks' vector tools.
I think it it pretty close to optimal already, but the one thing I would like to see would be usability improvements for some of the more complex tools (i.e., gradients) and a better color picker.
Export to SVG and, especially, XAML would be awesome, but I won't hold my breath for those.
I personally love Fireworks and would be very sad to see it go. I teach a web design course at the High School level and Fireworks is one of the most accessible programs for my students to master in a short period of time. I have a considerable amount of curriculum to cover and the time frame is not conducive to Photoshop at all.
Second, I agree with Dave Bricker and Stéphane Bergeron. What they have said earlier is my sentiment exactly. Please, oh please, do not get rid of Fireworks and please, oh please, do not get rid of the academic pricing for the studio products. The Adobe mainstream products are too expensive for schools to purchase and use, plus the licensing is very complicated for Adobe products.
One thing I would like to see in Fireworks is the ability to define a project, like you can in Dreamweaver. Or even better would be to be able to use Dreamweavers projects settings.
Second, even though I've never been able to get used to GoLive, I love the 'smart object' feature. Having the same functionality in Dreamweaver and Fireworks would be great.
Sir: I've been using and teaching Illustrator and Photoshop for about 16 years now, and have dabbled in Fireworks and Freehand with the deepest of irritation.
Flash is great, but please, please, please, whatever you do, don't replace the tools and keyboard shortcuts of Photoshop and Illustrator with the Macromedia ones; if anything, absorb the Macromedia features but retain all the same great, standard Adobe interfaces, tools and keyboard shortcuts.
You guys are still doing an amazing job after all these years!
-Eric
http://www.cafepress.com/aliberaldose
I am nearing the completion of my Web Design Diploma course, and have been studying Adobe Photoshop, and Illustrator, along with Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash.
Now that I am starting to create "real" websites, I use Dreamweaver and Fireworks far more than any of the Adobe software. As a novice, I find Photoshop and Illustrator somewhat overwhelming, and that the learning curve with both is stupendous. That's not to say I don't like them, but I find that Macromedia software is easier to work with and to understand, and far less daunting than Adobe. As I gain more experience, I may use Adobe products more than I am currently, but I just don't have time right now. For students like myself and people just starting out, I will always recommend Dreamweaver and Fireworks, more than anything else.
I have been playing around with Photoshop for a few years and would describe myself as an intermediate user capable of comfortably manipualting things with its vast array of tools.
I have been doing web design for about two years and within that time have found Fireworks to be far more intuitve, much faster to learn, and in general far easier to use. Sure the advanced capabilities are not quite there when compared to Photoshop, but for sheer ease of use and speedy workflow I think Fireworks wins hands down.
My only wish is that Fireworks had some way of understanding the masks used in Photoshop and converting them to its own methods of implementation. Sometimes you want an effect that only Photoshop can produce (easily), but then for workflow reasons you might want to do the remainder in Fireworks. I also feel that Fireworks' handling of slicing and exporting is streets ahead of ImageReady as far as simplicity goes. Given that, the "jump to" integration would make a lot of sense, perhaps even replacing ImageReady with Fireworks (or at least giving the user the option of which one they would like to use).
Hello John, just found your blog by chance on Google. I am a long time user of Fireworks -since version 1 actually- and for years it has practically been the only tool of choice when it comes to rapid prototyping and even designing entire websites with it alone. Even the Firefox logo was completely made on it.
The raster-as-vector editing in FW is something I cannot live without now, as object selection rather than layer selection. Those two features are the main reason I use FW day by day. I respect Photoshop for what it does and does well (professional photo editing) but I don't do photo retouching for a living, and PS tools fall short for my actual needs on that respect. Plus, typography management in FW is something PS should rather adopt if you ask me.
I don't mind FW and PS be rolled into a single application, as long as the editing and object selection qualities of FW are kept intact. Otherwise, no deal. I'm just so NOT used to comping designs on PS now that last time I was forced to do it it was rather an exercise in searing pain. Please keep FW alive..
Features I'd like to see on FW:
- PSD export with layer sets (please!)
- Improved layer effects importing from PS (map PS layer effects to FW dynamic effects).
I've used Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Flash and Fireworks extensively for years.
My journey has taken me from designing web comps in Photoshop (since 3.0), while integrating icons/art from Illustrator.
Later I learned Flash, and really learned to love to design tools in Flash -- amazing and unique vector tools, allowing selection of vector art similar to pixels tools in photoshop.
I've now adopted Fireworks (with it's similar toolset to Flash) as my primary web design comping app. I still use Photoshop for photo prep, and Illustrator for complex artwork, but all layout and design is now done in Fireworks.
I'm not sure if that's the path many others have travelled, but maybe it helps in positioning these tools. Thanks.
I've been a devoted Photoshop user since version 3. I've had a copy of Fireworks available from the beginning and the main reason I haven't switched is the lack of standard Adobe interfaces, tools and keyboard shortcuts.
From reading the comments posted here, I think it's safe to assume Fireworks is not going away. I'm fine with that, but it will be a slap in the face to all devoted long-time "Adobe loyal" Photoshop users if Adobe decides to make us pay the price of a new learning curve! Keep Fireworks? Absolutely. However, make it c