As a long time user and fan of Macromedia Fireworks, it was heart shattering when Adobe took over Macromedia. And Fireworks was not given much importance in the CS3 Suite. Not so much stuff new in that except the installer was like 500mb and except from some minor changes not worth it. So I wondered if its future was doomed and overshadowed by the likes of Photoshop and Illustrator. Recently I got hold of the Fireworks CS4 demo and simply fell in love after using it. I will just note down the important features I like and those that enhance usability of this marvelous software.
The reason I loved FW so much is its inherent simplicity in using and the great features and flexibility it provides for a “Web Designer” and small time “Graphics Designer” like me. Photoshop is the best software for Photo editing and major graphics works, but almost awful when it comes to neat web designing from my point of view.
Fireworks CS4 has had a great deal of overhauling done to sharpen up the usability. A major point of notice is the welcome change in the Interface. More workspace can be coughed out and we can customize and save the layout. The right side panels are very flexible in that they have a minimum mode showing only the icons or an expanded with the description of the panel as well. They have taken out the title bar altogether. The menu bar is at the very top with a lot of useful items shown as small icons below it, including the new, save, open, undo, redo, cut, copy, paste, group, ungroup, join , arrange items, align items and rotate. These can be easily accessed now. Earlier either we had to use the menu system or learn complex shortcuts.
Another welcome improvement is the smart guides, which were already available in Flash 8 for aligning items on the stage.
A Take Screenshot command enables to take a screen shot which is a pretty useful feature. The attributes like custom styles applied to an object can be copied and applied on another object by using the “Paste attributes” option. Really neat stuff.
Projects can be prototyped easily by either using the “Demo Current Document”, in which a simple slideshow of the completed document can be shared and gathered feedback on. The other option is the capability to directly export in PDF from within fireworks. This can also be used for sharing the design with clients or colleagues and get back feedbacks. The export PDF option has a number of options. You can even export with password protection.
A host of vector drawing functionalities have been added in Fireworks CS4. Type rendering engine has undergone considerable improvements. Along with the 9 slice scaling tool, there are a lot of useful commands added in the command menu. Support for Adobe AIR and the ability to create flash based slide shows from within Fireworks are handy.
Overall I have to say I am impressed. There are a lot of options for a Web Designer and the development phase can be speeded up. The use of rapid prototyping in case of a web site or an AIR application can cut development times by a large amount. So we clearly have Fireworks in the right path. It should definitely be in the arsenal of a serious web developer.
I am unable to say whether like eMplayer that this project will also come ot of Beta or if ever it would be complete. So this project would mostly be a non-release-to-public project. Lot of features are planned but i still have no idea about the completion of this one. 
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