Adobe Dreamweaver & Fireworks CS4
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Fireworks CS4 is your fully featured vector editing web design program that creates objects and images for web pages that integrates the program with the objects. You can create individual items like images, clickable buttons and menus or even whole web pages that can be used easily in Dreamweaver.
This is quite different than a simple vector editor or even the fully featured Illustrator as it integrates CSS and web design code into the items you create. This integration means you can create web items with all the code of buttons or whatever type of item you create and integrate it easily into your web design.
Fireworks has plenty of user friendly features and several new ones that came out with Creative Suite 4 like text engine and style improvements, live gradients and patterns plus exporting to both CSS and PDF formats. Fireworks has the same look as other Adobe programs with this new upgrade as well as some new features like live patterns and gradients so when you click on a new selection they appear live for you to see the change on your object.
You can easily change it back but the main thing with this feature is doing things quickly so you can make the necessary adjustments and move on to the next part. A lot of the features of not only Adobe Fireworks CS4 but of the rest of Adobes CS4 upgrade are making tasks easier and quicker so your work flow is better.
Fireworks is a fun program but does take a bit more time to work with and learn than Photoshop or Dreamweaver, you can’t simply start it up and finish a web site design in a few minutes. Taking Fireworks images to the complete stage of adding code to create a button and then exporting it to Dreamweaver will not take long but you will also need to work on getting things just right.
I found it did take more learning and small adjustments to get things the way I wanted them when I did make up my menu navigations and a few other items for my web site. I have not worked on a complete page to use as my style sheet but you can create entire web pages and use them as templates in Fireworks.
This makes a lot more sense and looks better when you have things all integrated and working together as an image and then slice things apart to create your menu and other buttons. The slice tool to cut apart images and create individual items works well and is one of the main resources of Fireworks.
To create a web page out of one full image or a bunch of images you place together on a page you cut them apart where you want and create individual boxes or slices. These slices will be exported individually but as part of the whole if you export an entire page of slices.
Once you export the slices all the code of the individual item is exported to either Dreamweaver or as a PDF document so you can share the final web page as a project. This export into PDF has all the functionality of a website but is not integrated with the internet.
You can add multiple pages into your design and export the package so that links from one page to another work inside the document but links to other things not included will of course not work. The PDF package is a great tool for a business or web designer to show a client the final and complete project so they can decide if they want that design.
Fireworks is a good program to work on web pages and entire sites so you integrate the various aspects like menus into your design. A main use for Fireworks is more for designers looking to show a finished product but not start on the actual code before approval for the design is given.
I found working with Fireworks a bit more difficult than other Adobe programs mainly because it takes a bit more time to get to a final piece. It does work well to start and get a final looking design but does take some work to get to that final design that you can show a potential client or boss.
I have not used Fireworks other than to check it out and see how well it works and how easy it is to use and I am impressed with how easy it is to use but it does take a bit more time. I can understand having to take more time as it does give you a final example of a web design so it will take some effort as well as time to get that final product ready.
Fireworks is more of a design example tool and not a final product but it is included with the Web Design package of CS4 so that companies or individuals can purchase the set just for web design. Fireworks may not be used by all but for people wanting to show a final design to a potential customer or client it is a great tool to easily give a complete looking design of a site without doing all the final code.
Going from the Fireworks design to a working website will take more time but you have the basics with the images and code that you already created. Fireworks can be used to create a website design or a prototype so you can show others but it works well for both.
Dreamweaver and Fireworks CS4 has some great new features that make working on websites and creating working functional design examples easy. The new features of Creative Suite 4 are worth the price of an upgrade but that really is up to you, check them out at Adobe and see for yourself.