Sarthak

Apple has released an update for Snow Leopard. The update version is 10.6.2 and is a recommended update for all users of Adobe Fireworks CS4.

The random crashes seen while working in the application is expected to get fixed with this update release of Snow Leopard.

Once the update has been successfully installed, and there are some issues faced while working in the application, this forum is open for all of you to send in their feedback for the team to better investigate the root causes.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There has been a official statement release from the product manager of Fireworks, Bruce Bowman. The statement has been made live at Fireworks team blog at blogs.adobe.com/fireworks.

He talks about the various issue Fireworks designers are facing while using the app on Snow Leopard. The much talked about crash on exit, hang and error on launch all get a mention in the official statement.

The complete post can be read at http://blogs.adobe.com/fireworks/2009/10/follow-up_on_snow_leopard_comp.html

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:01 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Developer Network has hosted some nice assets for wireframing and other designs. These assets are Adobe Fireworks png files which are in the symbols format allowing them to be reused across multiple pages in a document.

You can copy them in the Common Library location and refresh the panel. They will be available for your design layouts or wireframes.

A screenshot of the assets is shown below:

The complete article and the files are placed at http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/about/stencils/fireworks.html

Quite an impressive set!

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Adobe Developer Connection is excited to announce that the brand new Adobe Cookbooks application is now live!  This uber Adobe Cookbook application replaces the individual, product-specific cookbook applications that were previously in place for Flex, AIR and Mobile.  The new application will still support those technologies, in addition to a dozen or so additional technologies, all within a single application.  For those new to the cookbook applications, they are a searchable repository for community-generated code samples. 

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

James Cameroon shows his new movie 'Avatar' later this year. If you would like to see a sneak preview, be there at MAX 2009.

Things are getting hot at MAX. Now you have one more reason to attend the MAX event in LA Oct 4-7.

More details about this can be found at http://www.loopinsight.com/2009/09/22/adobe-to-show-3d-version-of-james-camerons-avatar-at-adobe-max/ . Even the employees have little idea of what the movie holds for us. So be there and let us all have fun at MAX.

Be there!

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What appeals to you in Adobe Fireworks? Any version? Old Macromedia days or Adobe days?

It could be specific to a feature which has been introduced in CS4, CS3, or the old days. It could be a workflow which makes you come back to the application, like Batch processing, slicing technique or something else.

I am gathering this data for knowing which feature/workflow of Fireworks is being used by designers. This is to gauge and help if something has been worked upon and could increase the efficiency of designers.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

A new look, feature rich version of tv.adobe.com got launched recently.

The site has a brand-new look & feel, and many new features including:

• User-customizable homepage
• Vastly improved navigation & search
• Save your favorite episodes to “My Library”
• Share videos on social networking sites such as Facebook, Digg, and StumbleUpon
• Subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite shows
• Pop-out video player to view videos at any size
• Commenting & Rating
• Tags

This new version should make the learning a smoother flow now.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is a new extension by Eugene which gives you a set of pre-built cursors for web. The use cases might be huge for web designers and eases them from building it from scratch for them.

The extension is available at Adobe Fireworks Exchange http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1879523

Once the extension is installed the assets will become visible in the Common Library folder where all other pre-built assets for Adobe Fireworks are shipped.

Download the extension, install it and save some time by not creating these icons.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you using any version of Adobe Fireworks on the latest OS from Apple aka Snow Leopard?

If yes, then do send us your feedback, observations, bugs, weird behaviors. You could be using any prior version of Firework like CS3 or the latest release of CS4.

Let us know your experiences and we will try to resolve in case there are issues found.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (54)

Kick-start your career. Students get over 80% Off Adobe MAX Registration

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Register with code STU691 http://max.adobe.com/registration/

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Blogs will be locked down beginning Friday 7/17 at 11pm Pacific time and will be unavailable for posting or commenting for up to 72 hours.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The issue related to all comments landing in the junk section has been finally resolved. From now on commenters will have to type the word 'Fireworks' to ensure that the comment is a valid one and not from an automated source which will automatically trigger it as a junk.

It is a mandatory field when a comment is posted. I have dug out all the issues and replied to them. Incase you do not find them replied to, please enter a new comment and I will look at them and try to see what is the next course of action for me and the team

.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi All,

I noticed that all the comments from you are now going to Junk comments section. I have raised an alarm internally.

Also I have managed to find all the legitimate comments from the junk section. If you still do not find your comment answered to in the next couple of days, please write a new one.

This will help me in answering your queries in speed.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now available on Adobe Labs are the public beta releases of Adobe Flash Builder 4 (formerly Flex Builder), Adobe Flash Catalyst and the Flex 4 Framework. Flash Builder 4 is the next evolution of Flex Builder, and includes a long list of feature improvements, new data-centric development features, and a new design-develop workflow with Flash Catalyst. Flash Catalyst, also now available in public beta, is a new interaction design tool for rapidly building application user interfaces without coding. Both Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst are based on the updated Flex 4 framework, also available for beta download.
 
Visit Adobe Labs to find out more and to download the installers.

Flash Builder,Flash Catalyst,Flex 4,beta download

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the first Fireworks user featuring on my blog. I asked him to share some details about his life in designing and using Fireworks as the tool. Be sure to check out his website at www.fireworkszone.com. The article is completely unedited and has been shared in its natural form.

Incase you would like to share some information about your usage of Fireworks write a comment and I will contact you and work with you to get the details posted here a new entry.

Without any further delays, ladies and gentlemen I present to you Thierry Lorey

"Fireworks Zone is a one man website and it started early 2000 when Fireworks 3 was released and about the same time as Kleanthis Economou’s http://www.projectfireworks.com/ was launched but it became PHP-driven only in 2003.

It was from the start dedicated to Fireworks. I started with Fireworks 3 and found it right away so easy to use and a magical application where you could create your designs and generate images and the code for your website. Of course, later I realized it was a bit more difficult than that and I had to learn HTML and CSS. Since then I am hooked up to Fireworks

Fireworks Zone keeps me busy:

Testing Fireworks features, extensions,

Writing articles, book reviews, tutorials, posts, etc,

Developing Fireworks Zone with HTML & CSS and I leave the PHP to a developer,

Adding new sites in the linkbase,

Promoting and monetizing Fireworks Zone

Beta testing the new features for the next Fireworks version and add posts to the forum

Creating Fireworks products for sale in my store with commands, textures, libraries, etc.

Replying to questions

You see it is a full time job"

Hope you enjoyed reading about Thierry who lives in France. I feel very comfortable in interacting with him on various features, issues and worklfows.

Fireworks users,Thierry Lorey,Fireworks User Interview

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The whole process for posting a blog to this place was a lengthy process for me. One of the colleague showed me how to use Adobe Contribute and I am posting this blog entry from within Contribute CS4.

I am feeling comfortable right away after using this application. I now regret of not having used this application before even when it is available inhouse.

That being said, I will be exploring the different options of Contribute CS4 and see how I can provide you with some video walkthroughs as well of some of the features of Fireworks.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The issues related to various aspects of the blog like permanent links, commenting, searching have been rectified. Now you can safely navigate around the space without any 404 errors. I know I have not been very regular in the past due to hectic schedules internally.

In the meantime you can suggest anything you would like to read about. Also you can search the earlier posts for some tips and tricks about Fireworks.

In case you encounter any issues, please raise a red flag.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You might encounter some issues while posting comments or viewing the different posts in the blog. I am working with guys at the back-end to restore the systems back to normal and error free.

I need you to be a little more patient, co-operate and till then enjoy the updater fixes for Fireworks CS4. Just hold on to those comments for some more time and we will be good to run once again

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometime back I had mentioned of Apress Publications delivering a book for Fireworks CS4. The books available for Fireworks CS4 has increased to 5 which I know of. There might be more and I would appeal to all to add the books to this list as a one stop place for books for Fireworks CS4. Below mentioned are a total of 5 books which I have seen available till now.

Add to this list if you know of any other title for Fireworks CS4.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Fireworks CS4 application has finally released the much awaited patch to fix some of the big issues related to text and other stability related issues. The update can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html . The automatic update for the application from Adobe Update Manager (AUM) is coming shortly.

After applying the update, please ensure that the version screen now shows as shown below.

We await your response to this update release.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (27)

Here is the latest new I have to share with you folks about the updater planned for Fireworks CS4 10.0.3. Below you can find the post content from Bruce Bowman, new Fireworks product manager. Watch out for the white little Adobe updater pop up in you system tray or the dock icons bouncing up and down. Once live we would love to get your feedback on it.

"There have been some recent changes in the product management team for Fireworks. Rick Jones has moved into the Fireworks Product Marketing Manager role, and I am now the Fireworks Product Manager.

It is my pleasure, as my first of what I hope will be many Fireworks blog posts, to share some really good news – we have the Fireworks CS4 10.0.3 Updater ready and we’re targeting May 6 as our go live date. Once live, it will be available via the Adobe Update Manager and on http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html where you will also find release notes with details on the bugs that this updater fixes.

This updater fixes the most common bugs that we know about in Fireworks CS4, including numerous text shifting problems, stability issues on Mac and Windows, and bugs related to pasting text from Microsoft Office applications. The team would like to thank you for your patience as we developed this updater.

I’m very excited to get started in my new role, and look forward to interacting with you in the Fireworks community.

Bruce Bowman
Fireworks Product Manager"

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

There is a brand new season of CS4-focused Adobe TV shows, presented by our very own Creative Tools Evangelists. Each series showcases CS4 timesavers & “wow” features, and new episodes will be appearing on a bi-weekly basis.  Below are links to the first new episode in each show:


Taming the Web - Presented by Greg Rewis
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1481v1003
Focuses on web design workflows in CS4 Web Premium

Short & Suite - Presented by Jason Levine & Karl Soulé
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1519v1004
Focuses on Video & Audio workflows in CS4 Production Premium

The Complete Picture - Presented by Julieanne Kost
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1483v1004
Focuses on digital imaging workflows in Photoshop CS4, Adobe Bridge, and Lightroom 2

CSInsider|Design - Presented by Rufus Deuchler
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f15880v1000
Focuses on graphic design workflows in CS4 Design Premium

The Russell Brown Show
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1511v1002
Focuses on tips & techniques in Photoshop CS4 & Photoshop CS4 Extended

Flash Downunder - Presented by Paul Burnett
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1552v1004
Focuses on Flash Authoring in Flash Professional CS4, including authoring AIR applications

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new extension has been posted on the Fireworks exchange. It targets the buzz of mobile space i.e iPhone.

Designers can now create application designs and prototypes for the iPhone. The extensions allows you to preview your designed app in a iPhone simulator which is AIR based. The transition effects which are the trademark of the mobile device are also built in the extension and can be applied to the designs.

Be sure to read the pdf document which comes along with the extension to understand the usage and functionality. The extension can be downloaded from here.

Kudos to Mayur Mundada for creating one more cool extension for Fireworks. The extension will work for CS4 with AIR 1.5 update.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A brand new looking Adobe Community forums. Powered by Jive Software's Clearspace, the forums have been completely changed as I see them.

forums.adobe.com

Some of the highlight changes are mentioned below:

• New look: Experience a fresh new look for Adobe Forums that is consistent with the rest of Adobe.com and easier to navigate.
• Adobe ID login: Use the same login ID and password that you use to access other areas of Adobe.com.
• Improved search: Search the entire collection of forums using wildcards, fuzzy search, proximity search, weighted search, and Boolean search via the powerful new search functionality. You can also limit your search to the title, body, or attachment.
• E-mail connection: Receive messages directly in your e-mail inbox by subscribing to forums or threads of interest. You can even post messages by replying from your e-mail program.
• RSS support: Subscribe to RSS feeds on your favorite forums.
• Enhanced private user-to-user messaging
• Rich text editor: Use the rich text editor to create posts, add attachments, and embed images.
• Ability to get noticed: Earn points through participation that demonstrate your expertise in the community.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

YouTube in association with Adobe has launched a new channel "tutorialsfromadobe". This channel currently hosts some of the videos for getting users started on Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. The playlist for Dreamweaver CS4 can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D46F0582FED3D64E

The complete URL of the channel on YouTube is http://www.youtube.com/user/tutorialsfromadobe

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Adobe and Facebook® announced the availability of the new ActionScript 3 Client Library for Facebook Platform, a free and open source programming language library for developers creating applications using Facebook. Officially supported by Facebook and Adobe, the ActionScript 3 Client Library for Facebook Platform is expected to be a complete resource that supports all Facebook application programming interfaces (APIs) including Facebook Connect.

Right now the license on the code is an MIT license, as found on the Google Code page.

Adobe has also launched a new developer center for Facebook at www.adobe.com/devnet/facebook.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

MAX 2009 dates and venue have been finalized. This year the event comes to Los Angeles, California from October 4-7.

Check out max.adobe.com for more details.

See you at MAX!

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Fireworks CS4 has a new book on the shelves. Friends of Ed from Apress publications have released a new book for beginners which sets a good understanding for designers and users exploring the capabilities of Fireworks. There are some really good case studies in the book to get you related to real world scenarios.

Below mentioned is table of contents of the book. For more details about the book, please visit site http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=9781430216186

Summary of Contents

• Part One: Learning Fireworks
  • Chapter 1: Welcome to Fireworks
  • Chapter 2: Fireworks and CS4 Integration
  • Chapter 3: Working with Bitmaps
  • Chapter 4: Working with Vectors
  • Chapter 5: Exporting from Fireworks to the Web
• Part Two: Using Fireworks
  • Chapter 6: Creating Visual Effects
  • Chapter 7: The Ins and Outs of Animation
  • Chapter 8: Skinning Flex Components with Fireworks
  • Chapter 9: Creating Adobe Air Prototypes
  • Chapter 10: Fireworks Extensions
  • Chapter 11: Extending Fireworks: Developing an Effective Workflow Using Javascript and Flash
• Part Three: Fireworks in Action
  • Chapter 12: Web Site Case Study #1: Blog
  • Chapter 13: Web Site Case Study #2: CSS Sprites
  • Chapter 14: Web Site Case Study #3: E-Commerce

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's official now! Fireworks will be releasing a patch for the CS4 release version.

"The Fireworks team is actively working on a fix for the text-shifting bug and other bugs we know are causing real pain for Fireworks CS4 users. An update will be made available when we are confident that we have corrected the problems."

Some pain points getting addressed finally. Joy times ahead!

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)

Facing problems while copy pasting layers and the layer structure not being respected.

Now worries now! Just use the extension created by Mayur

Download Link

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Apart from the regular Exchange, Dev net articles, forums and community help available at Adobe's official website, following are some of the links which are dedicated to Fireworks. It includes forums, blogs, extension posts, design posts, workflow descriptions and many other cool stuff dedicated entirely to Fireworks.

Alan Musselman

Aaron Beall

Thierry Lorrey

Matt Stow

Fireworks Guru Forums

There is also a Linked In group. Catch up on some of the interesting discussions going in there. There is also a google group named Macromedia Fireworks.

In case you guys find some other resources about Fireworks anywhere on the web, let me know so that I can highlight it as well. Let us spread the Fire which Works!

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi everybody,

I am planning to start a series of blog entries on Panels in Fireworks. The entries will dive deep into exploring the panel functionality. It will help users in understanding the complete functionality of panels which are present in Fireworks.

If you would like to get some panel explained early in the series, send in the comments.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Past:
In the days of Macromedia, Fireworks was a tiny niche, but popular application preferred by people for its flexibility while dealing with bitmap and vector objects. That is still a very big advantage for the application but the journey for it is being defined freshly to find a more strategic spot in the creative suite of products.

CS3 was the first version under the flagship of Adobe brand for Fireworks. The tag of “Rapidly prototype and Design for the web” was well received by the designers and other consumers of the application. The application started gaining importance for Interaction Designers, Information Architects for various activities from Wireframes to Website prototypes.

Present:
The journey does not end here and gives Fireworks unique opportunities at different stages. CS4 release projected a stronger Suite Integration story for the application apart from making website prototypes easier to create and maintain. Fireworks seems to be the tool for any design which has to be put on the web.

Future:
Exciting times lay ahead with Adobe focusing on this application. It fits well in the portfolio for Web Designers where Adobe is gaining strength. Making itself as the first choice tool for Web Designers, free lance designers, Interaction designers, Experience engineers will not be an easy task but Adobe is fully committed to this vision.Being a design application, the focus stays on refining the existing design-centric workflows, creating new ones to keep the application abreast with the technology advances around it.

An interesting opportunity lies in the area of Interaction design where a click through mockup of an application or website or even a workflow is needed. Fireworks has the feature set which makes it a natural choice for designers of that portfolio. Adobe will continue to invest in that area by promoting Fireworks as the right tool for these designers.

Fireworks has been a tool preferred by freelancers and designers but there are some bottlenecks when using the application in their design process. The commitment is there to streamline that process and go the extra mile of reaching the stage where the design can be handed over to developers in case of website or web applications. For freelancers, they can just spit out standards-compliant CSS from Fireworks itself and tweak it.

Vastly improved support for CSS was a major effort in CS4 release and the feedback has been very positive on that front as well. Let us all get excited and anticipate for the exciting times that lay ahead for Fireworks with Adobe brand fully committed to it.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Request to all the commenter on my blog.

I have seen many commenter giving incorrect mail ID when a comment is being entered in response to a blog entry. This has been a problem as I tried to communicate with some of them. The communication was entirely official for details about issues being referred in the comment. When the mails were sent, they bounced back.

If you are worried about the exposure of your contact details to other visitors, then you don't need to worry. The mails IDs which you enter are visible only to me and not visible to any other visitor/commenter on the blog post. They will be able to your name. Another public information of yours will be the value you have entered in URL field. I am sure you would love people coming to the mentioned web address so I don't think that should be a hesitation to fill in. I urge all visitors on my blog to post their correct mail ID so that in case I need to contact you for some issues, I have the mail IDs to mail you back.

There are times when we have not seen an issue but a user reports them. It becomes extremely difficult for us to fix it when we don't know the correct steps even with the code in right front of us. Appreciate you co-operation in future.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Doug Winnie has posted a blog understanding how Fireworks fits into a designers workflow. He is looking for answers to 2 questions.

1. What role does Fireworks play in your workflow?
2. Where do you find the value of Fireworks and it’s integration with Creative Suite and other Adobe design and development tools?

There have been many interesting use cases Fireworks users have posted. Read them and also post the ones you are performing in your stint with Fireworks application.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Adobe Fireworks has an AIR 1.5 update.

"This update for Fireworks CS4 supports the release of Adobe AIR 1.5, the Adobe cross-operating system runtime that allows you to deliver personal, interactive experiences to the desktop. The update is available in both English and Japanese. Fireworks CS4 adds the capability for users to create and share the design and functionality of an AIR application before effort is spent on coding."

There are some User Interface changes to the AIR panel making it consistent with other Adobe applications. There has also been some logical grouping of fields in the user interface allowing for a cleaner and easy to follow workflow. The updates can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html

The updates are for English, Japanese languages only and will have to be manually installed. The update will not be detected automatically by Fireworks CS4 when running and automatic installation also. Any other areas will not get affected with this update.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The product development team of Adobe Reader is doing a survey to gather some inputs about the application. The survey and other details related to it can be found at location here .

Please give your valuable feedback in making this application better.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Designers and fellow Fireworks users,

The URL of my blog has changed. Rather it has been shortened for better remembrance. The new URL is http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthak

The new URL reflect my first name only. Earlier one was reflecting my complete name including the last name. Any references to the old links will automatically be redirected to the new link so you will not face any problems. In case there is any, please let me know at the earliest and I will try to get it sorted out.

This might be of importance if you link to my blog. Also it will save the redirection time if you navigate to the new URL straightaway.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hope you all had a good relaxing time with family at respective homes. I welcome you all back as we will gear ahead towards understanding the details of Fireworks CS4 release. In the past posts I have tried to sum up some of the details but will try explaining things on a feature viz feature basis.

I want to thank all the visitors of my blog for their support and the excellent comments which have kept me on my toes. I have been posting for some time and would like to know now if you all are expecting something different. With the information bank I have related to Fireworks I tend to assume that knowledge restricting me from posting them.

I am still on an extended vacation and will try to moderate this blog to the best of my capacities till I reach back office. With the economic slowdown and turmoil at multiple places in the world, let us all pray for a prosperous and safe year 2009. Good luck for the year ahead.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

On the eve of Christmas, on behalf of the entire engineering team of Fireworks I wish all of you a merry Christmas. Have a very happy and joyous upcoming New Year 2009. When we come back in the new year we will discuss more ways of digging deeper into Fireworks and its capacities. Till then have a great time relaxing.

Below I have posted some of the designs created by one of the users of Fireworks CS4. Hope you enjoy them.

Visit www.i2fly.com for more information about the designer

With your Fireworks engineer signing off this year, we will meet again in the new year 2009.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Users facing the text bounding box issue can breathe a sign of relief as there is a workaround for that problem. As a temporary solution is through an extension which will correct all text objects whose blue colored bounding box has been shifted in the document.

Important Note:

1. Running this script will correct the bounding boxes for all text objects in the document affected by this bug. This correction is limited for that png file edit session only. The bug may be encountered again during future file edits where the extension script will need to be executed again.

2. Any CS3 text element if present inside a Group ONLY will get re-rendered on running this script. After installing this extension, you can access this script from Commands menu-->Re-sync Text

This extension will not touch any text elements containing missing fonts. The missing fonts dialog pops up when opening a png file which contains fonts not found on the system.

Thus there is no need to worry about CS3 text and missing text getting re-rendered unnecessarily on using this Extension.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1706527

Re-sync Text Bounding Box is a simple Extension which will go through each and every text element present in a png document (be it inside a page or a layer or a state) and re-align its bounding box.

EXAMPLE:

The following is the screen shot of a file which got affected by this problem.

After running the extension script mentioned in the above link, the following is the state of text objects.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Adobe Fireworks CS4 extending document is live with the new document containing all the changes in the API for the product. The same document is also available as a pdf file which can be saved on you local disk for referring to it while you are disconnected.

Web Help Link

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Fireworks/10.0_Extending/index.html

Downloading PDF Link

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Fireworks/10.0_Extending/fireworks_cs4_extending.pdf

Utilize the power of JavaScript interpreter built into Fireworks to enhance your productivity. To give you some examples, many panels have been built entirely using this technique. Some of them are Path, Align, Export to AIR panels.

Explore the power within the application.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have seen that users of Fireworks are running into issues where the design job is lost while saving the file. I admit to this begin a huge frustration for the users and we will work on to better it. Till that time a useful utility is present at the following web address which can save the png file automatically for you.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.offering&offeringID=10210

This is an AIR application which will save your work automatically. It will not update the original png file but will create a folder FWAIRBackup where the auto saved png file will be placed. The extension will successfully work in versions CS3 and CS4 of Fireworks. The only requirement is that AIR run time needs to be installed which can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

Further details of the extension can be obtained from the first link. Any other doubts or queries post them right away.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

You might have noticed it already—when you launch Help from any of your CS4 products, you now have a much wider pool of knowledge to get information from. Earlier, all the information that you could get when you launched Help was from the content created by Adobe. Now, we know it is impossible to have all features, all scenarios, and all conditions documented at the time of release.

Welcome to Community Help.

Starting with CS4, Help launches the Community Help landing page—where you get a one-page view of what’s new, what’s hot, and some selected pickings from the wide variety of content sourced from the user community—that includes you. Take a look at the select video tutorials, blog entries, or see if any of the issues that you faced have a technical resolution posted on Adobe Support site. Needless to say, you can search for any of the content too.

One of the best features that I liked about is that you can effectively enhance the existing Help content on the web page with the commenting feature. You might have noticed that I added a few links to some very useful extensions on Adobe Exchange. So, I added a link to the Fireworks Exchange page for the  Inherit Guides extension (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1333018) on the Help page for adding, editing, and deleting pages: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Fireworks/10.0_Using/WS4c25cfbb1410b0021e63e3d1152b00db4b-7f82.html

Now, everyone is a Help author!

So, if you have a great web site that contains some valuable tips for Fireworks users, go ahead, and post them as comments at the relevant Help pages. Or, if you have a tip to share, add them as comments. You even get some community points for suggestions and inputs that benefit the community.

And now, there is a cool short web page that lists all the options of Community Help: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/CommunityHelp/

And don’t forget that Fireworks Community Help home page is here: http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Two new articles have been posted at Fireworks Developer Center on www.adobe.com. The actual links for the articles are mentioned below. For people new to this location, it houses articles, extensions which range from traditional usage of Fireworks to extending the functionality to its limits. Explore the following new articles apart from the old ones which are a good read.

Lorem Ipsum placeholder text generator for Fireworks
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/fireworks/articles/loremipsum_panel.html

Workspace Manager panel in Fireworks CS4
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/fireworks/articles/workspace_manager_panel.html

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Easter egg is a hidden feature of Fireworks which is no way related to the functionality of the product. It is a flash demo which contains photos of a lot of people who are involved with the building on Fireworks over different versions. To access the feature go to menu item

• MAC: Fireworks -> About Fireworks CS4...
• WIN: Help -> About Fireworks...

The about dialog will pop up. Now press Control on Mac or Win and a single mouse click on the FW icon. Be patient! This will pop up the faces of people who work quite hard to bring the various versions of Firework to you. I am also in one of the images. You just need to hunt me down!. This trick can be found in earlier versions of Fireworks also.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Lately I have seen a lot of comments getting posted at my blog and I am quite happy with it. My goal is to narrow the barrier an Engineer or a Designer faces while communicating with each other. A developer writes code without sometimes getting to know how that code is being used in real life designing. A designer on the other hand would like to applaud the engineers or criticize them for the work that has been done. These two personalities do not know the right people or the medium to convey this message.

Trust me there is no other satisfying feeling for a developer when a customer tells them directly what a beautiful job they has accomplished. And if there are bugs, issues, enhancements to be done and they come directly from people like you, it keeps the blood pumping in their veins of engineers. This is just what I am trying to achieve through this forum.

We keep hearing internally about how Fireworks is getting used by designers outside. I would like to hear directly from the customers how they actually use Fireworks. Please do not restrict about writing using the CS4 version only. The work flows involved around Fireworks could span across multiple versions. The integration amongst different CS4 applications where Fireworks play a role. What is the end result from the work flow? Is it a prototype generated, wire frame, mobile application mock up, interaction design. These topics we have heard but would like to know a little more in depth of how these are achieved using Fireworks.

Be assured that I will have the feedback circulated around so that the engineering team can have a direct look at how their features and functionality are being used in real world. It will drive them crazily happy when they read the feedback from all of you Fireworks users.

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

The Creative Suite 4 is being officially being launched in India. The launch events will be at the following cities. Send in your confirmations to the mail ID mentioned below to confirm your seats. It is a first come first served reservation.

Hope to see you at the launch events for 'The Grand Unveil'

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Adobe just announced its suite of prodcuts for creative professional through the CS4 planned release.

Fireworks CS4 will be available in the following suites

1. Master Collection
2. Web Premium
3. Design Premium

Design Premium is the new suite in which Fireworks features. Just pre-order and enjoy!

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Adobe Fireworks Team is presenting a half day session related to designing and Fireworks CS4 public beta release. This is the first showcase of public beta of Fireworks to the designer community in India.

I received the following invite from Adobe and it seems like the registrations are on first come first served basis. So hurry up before the seats get filled up.

Greetings Creative Professionals...

We at Adobe, welcome you to the showcase of Adobe Fireworks CS4 public Beta.

Kindly, forward this invite to your designer friends who might be interested in this event.

Thanking you,
Adobe Fireworks Team
Bangalore

Posted by Sarthak Singhal at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)