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The Future of Adobe Fireworks

blogs.adobe.com

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Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#71

Post by EnderMB »

kunai wrote: post #7

I'm a bit confused that they kept Dreamweaver but killed off Fireworks. No web designer I know even uses Dreamweaver anymore, but plenty of people still use Fireworks. Odd decision by Adobe here.

You'd be very surprised at how widely it is still used, especially in schools, colleges, and universities. I know for a fact that my old college still teaches "Web Design" with Dreamweaver (even though coding is nothing to do with design).

I moderate a fairly popular Web Design/Development forum, and it's shocking how many people still post about Dreamweaver, especially users from India and Eastern Europe.

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#72

Post by camus »

SiVal wrote: post #62
seanalltogether wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Adobe never really got macromedia tools at all. They knew they wanted to own the content creation market, but they never really understood the developer side of the content creation game. Fireworks is the last Adobe tool I use these days and I'm disappointed they can never understand why someone like me would continue to use it.

Macromedia never really got (some of) Macromedia tools either. I used to work on Fireworks. I don't mean I was using it; I was building it. It was always a red-headed stepchild, though. It went through as many near-death experiences as Apple, though the outside world never heard about it. It was the only product being built in Texas, a result of MM's strategy of growing by acquisition and spinning off products to avo…

very interesting comment , and what do you do now? Cant not you launch that FW2 product that a lot of people want ? What's makes fireworks great is that is it people who actually extend it ( using flash or javascript ). Photoshop is a lot more difficult to extend. Also Fireworks is easier to use for webdev.

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#73

Post by mathnode »

Zikes wrote: post #2

> Over the last couple of years, there has been an increasing amount of overlap in the functionality between Fireworks and both existing and new programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge Reflow. Because we'd all much rather have to work in and pay for all three of those applications than to have the one tool that does it right?

Actually, all the replacements are free: http://html.adobe.com/edge/

And are much less poisonous than what comes out of Fireworks for dev teams.

"Turn this picture/HTML export into code please."

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#75

Post by kmfrk »

ricardobeat wrote: post #42

The alternatives: Sketch - http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch Acorn - http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/ AnteType - http://antetype.com/ PixelMator - www.pixelmator.com Unfortunately, none of them offers the blend of vector + raster tools that made Fireworks such a pleasure for web/UI design. Most importantly, they are mac-only and there is no interoperability - they can't read from Fireworks PNGs, and there is no su…

I keep seeing a billion alternatives suggested, but as a non-professional - and with the poor demonstrations of what they can on the websites - it's really hard to determine which does what, and which is better.

Are there any good side-by-side comparisons anywhere, because there are so many options out there (at least for Mac) that I I feel that the daunting array of options is actually going to deter people like me from getting one of those programs.

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#76

Post by taude »

kunai wrote: post #43
veritas20 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that more cuts are on the way. Having a breadth of products works well for software that's distributed in a non-SaaS model. Now, that they have embraced a subscription model, expect narrowing the product suite.

It's sad that so many software companies think it's a good idea to sell a "service" and not a tangible copy of bits and bytes. It's less hassle to buy CS6 once and be done with it and upgrade when you want to, rather than keep renewing subscriptions and be faced with product changes you may not necessarily like or want.

I had CS5 Production Suite for Windows. I had to change my editing rig to OS X but at the time CS 6 had already come out and Adobe only was doing the OS-switching on the current version of the release of their software. So, they got me, and I had to do the creative cloud for $70/month (I didn't want to commit for the year).

I'm now waiting for the Final Cut Pro X/Motion to go on sale again, and wil be paying a one time fee of $250-$350 for Apple's editing solution. (I'm hoping I can get by on FCP, since the price is definitely appealing).

So, it might be "less hassle" or not...but it's definitely better for predictable revenues selling a monthly/yearly subscription, especially with the lack of tangible competition for some of the products.

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#78

Post by johanWuyckens »

mathnode wrote: post #73
Zikes wrote: post #2

> Over the last couple of years, there has been an increasing amount of overlap in the functionality between Fireworks and both existing and new programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge Reflow. Because we'd all much rather have to work in and pay for all three of those applications than to have the one tool that does it right?

Actually, all the replacements are free: http://html.adobe.com/edge/ And are much less poisonous than what comes out of Fireworks for dev teams. "Turn this picture/HTML export into code please."

Then you have been working with designers who were not using FW properly. I never used it to export HTML unless for a quick demonstration mock-ups.

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#79

Post by daledavies »

DigitalSea wrote: post #53

I knew this day was coming and yet I am still shocked. Fireworks is and always will be the best tool for wire-framing and web design, hands down. They've decided not to continue development of Fireworks and yet keep Dreamweaver? Dreamweaver is what I used for a period in my life when I was learning web development and you soon discover once you learn enough that it's horrible. I knew when Fireworks CS6 came out and F…

You pretty much wrote exactly what I was thinking, although you probably expressed it better.

I am lucky enough to have had a copy of cs6 purchased for me by my employer (to use as a hobbyist at home) and to be honest at the moment I can't envisage needing to upgrade for quite some time.

When I do feel the need to upgrade in like 5 or 6 years time when CC has been updated so much I feel like using CS6 is like living in the dark ages, I hope my employer is good enough to buy me a subscription or it looks like I'm stuck.

Re: The Future of Adobe Fireworks

#80

Post by daledavies »

What I don't understand is that Adobe must believe web designers aren't using Fireworks, it is something I've used since the Macromedia days so maybe I've missed out on something.

If not Fireworks, what are all the web designers and developers using?

Edit: To clarify I do kind of see where things are going. Fireworks has no built in support for exporting SVG or web fonts and I have not exported a background image to use on a website as a rounded corner or drop shadow in quite some time since CSS 3 has become more widely adopted. However for making reasonably accurate mock ups I've so far found no better tool than Fireworks.

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