The No.1 Reason I Love Fireworks

By Leigh Howells on 18th May 2012

The feature that convinced me to jump from Photoshop to Fireworks wasn’t it’s multiple page documents, its cascading symbols, intelligent styling options or any of the other more sophisticated features. It was the lowly curved rectangle. Behold it’s beauty below. (And yes, I know Photoshop has vector tools… but they make me want to hit things.)

10 Comments

Ciprian 19th May 2012 at 20:04 Permalink

Truly accurate point you make there. But, I need to fully convince myself to make a jump from something I know very well to something I know almost nothing about.
My #1 question is:
How many high quality tutorials are there for fireworks for web designers compared to photoshop?

Reply
- Brian 31st May 2012 at 19:19 Permalink
  
  “How many high quality tutorials are there for fireworks for web designers compared to photoshop?”
  
  Thing is, Fireworks is just that much more intuitive to use that you don’t need to the myriad of tutorials available for Photoshop.
  
  I love Fireworks for mockups…straightforward, yet powerful enough to do most things I need with only the occasional need to fire up Photoshop / GIMP.
  
  Reply
Eystein 21st May 2012 at 20:35 Permalink

I’ve been doing web design for 9 years. I had never touched Fireworks, until 1 hour ago. Thank you!

Reply
Chuck 4th June 2012 at 19:52 Permalink

I’ve been a web designer since ’94 and I had previous experiences with FW (when it was a competitor to ImageReady, and frankly sucked). I have to admit, I have a bias towards it in favor of Photoshop. But this one thing is pretty compelling. I think I might just give it a go. Thanks for tip!

Reply
Pete 6th October 2012 at 11:09 Permalink

Fireworks is a great tool for make websites. FW is simply useful, I value it for compressing the output images (better than Photohop). Otherwise PS has too much functionality, most of them are intended for photographies.
Five!

Reply
Isabel 7th October 2012 at 20:18 Permalink

1. Fireworks IS NOT TO MAKE WEBSITES.

2. Fireworks is much more than that. Fireworks is the best and rightest tool to build software, user interfaces and if you want, yes, a website…

3. Fireworks is, in my case, the tool I use for screen design and vector illustrations.

4. Fireworks learning curve is SHORT. And it is so, cause is not a bloated monster, unlike Phothoshop.

5. If you think it is to build websites, is because you don’t know this tool.
http://tinyurl.com/FIREWORKS-VECTOR-ILLUSTRATION

6. Thanks for paying att.

Reply
Eyal 8th October 2012 at 16:35 Permalink

@Chuck “when it was a competitor to ImageReady, and frankly sucked”, That really funny because Image Ready was Adobe failed attempt of competing one of the many features both Photoshop and Illustrator missed The most noticeable is the Slices and PNG Export… so at this time you used 3 piece of software to t achieve what we did using only one. BTW you can still meet this fail software when you ‘Save for web’ and the patchy pop up window opens.
Think about this dream software where you have all web design pipeline functionality in one place, from initial concepts, prototyping, visual design, producing the mark up and styles, exporting raster and vector graphics… mmm… Well it’s exist and called Fireworks…

Reply
christian portuguez cuzque 10th October 2012 at 19:02 Permalink

Fireworks LIKE for Web

Reply
Pablo Massa 10th October 2012 at 19:47 Permalink

Yep, I love Fireworks too, the rounded rectangle tool is great, but the resize control point is not pixel perfect, I mean, you must be so accurate to resize the rectangle without create a half pixels borders. I hate this :(
At the end I always convert the auto shape to a single path and resize selecting the nodes and using the arrow keys.
Check http://fireworkslove.com ;)

Reply
elporfirio 10th October 2012 at 21:34 Permalink

what i can say? I’m using since FW 4. Many times in jobs the question repeat over and over again . did you know how to use photoshop? – yeah but i use fireworks most of time … – fireworks, amm thank you… NEXT!!

Im not a designer, but Ilove do illustrations, UIs and a lot of things.

mix FW with your favourite flavor Ai, PS, AE, Fl, 3D editor and get the awesomeness

Reply