fired up (Macromedia Fireworks 3)

Member Name: a1m1m25

Product:	Macromedia Fireworks 3
Date:	26/07/00 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, neat HTML and script

Disadvantages: Format quibbles, links can be hard to set up

Since my first delve into web design a good five years ago, I have been on the search for a product that will make things appear so very simple. When I was told by a friend about Macromedia Fireworks, I imagined it to be a purely graphical program. Although it does help in this front immensely, it manages to write some pretty complicated script for you to use, but the product is still not without it's flaws.
The first time you load it, you may be overwhelmed by the amount of toolboxes at your disposal, but don't let this put you off. Load up the tutorial, including image rollovers and picture swaps and all will appear a whole lot clearer leaving you to think seriously about what you want your particular page to look like. Remember though, that it will just be that, a page, and nothing more. For an entire site, text is used in abundance, written straight into the source code in HTML, but Fireworks cannot support this kind of text, merely web-compatible images that portray the lettering. In order to create a full page, it is necessary to create menus and titles in Fireworks, and then arrange them on screen in a program such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks' sister program.
As far as creating imaging goes, Fireworks is a nifty bit of kit. Many shapes can be created and integrated into tables, with effects such as drop shadows and textures being easily accessible. The end result is all written in tabular form, fully compatible with modern browsers.
There are a few quibbles that i think could be avoided. Firstly, and quite importantly, Fireworks exports everything in the same picture format. This may seem a strange thing to point out, but softened edges appear better in jpeg format, whereas strong text is always clearer, and sometimes a smaller file size, when in gif format. Another picture problem involves animated gifs. The help menu tells you to import them to the point where you want them, and it pulls them apart into their constituent frames
, turning the entire screen into an animated gif which really isnt practical. To avoid this, I recommend importing still images and then altering the HTML later. Similarly, if you want different file formats, save two versions, one in gif, the other jpeg, and swap the files over, altering the code as you go.
So, these format points aside, Fireworks suits a range of developers, from the young to old, novice to professional. All can benefit from neatly laid out graphics, and smart javascript effects.

Summary: