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I recently got a new laptop and finally made the decision to free myself from Adobe Fireworks. It was a hell of a tool and the fact that it hadn't been updated

by ssharp 8y ago

I recently got a new laptop and finally made the decision to free myself from Adobe Fireworks. It was a hell of a tool and the fact that it hadn't been updated in nearly a decade and was still doing its job is a testament to its ability to scratch a certain UI design itch. I'm using Sketch now and find it to be very good. There are a lot of great features in Sketch that don't exist in Fireworks and I've been slowly getting better and better with it. I have a difficult switching tools, especially something like Fireworks that I had been using for about 15 years, maybe even longer! What I miss in Sketch is the ability to do non-UI work effectively. Fireworks almost sits in the middle of Photoshop and Sketch. You could even do some light vector work in there, all while eliminating the massive confusion newbs have when opening up Photoshop or Illustrator.

sixdimensional 8y ago
That's exactly it for me... I can use Photoshop and Illustrator, but there were just times I wanted to do a vector and bitmap work combined and the ease of use in Fireworks really made that feel right to me. Maybe it felt like.. a shortcut - if I have to admit it! Unfortunately, the last Mac laptop I had died (it was quite old), so I only have a Windows laptop at the moment. I haven't made the switch to Sketch yet as a result. Sketch seems heavily used for UI/UX designs/mockups, but do you find it as good for just individual image construction/building tasks? Or is it better for the overall layout, flow, mockup and design workflow? I'm finding it hard to explain what it was about Fireworks that felt so right to me - there were times I could get an interesting image built that was both vector and bitmap, very quickly. Sometimes, I think it was the accessibility of the tools offered, it just had the right combination for what I spent most of my time doing (graphics for web/digital, that could move in or out of the print world if needed since it could be vector, sometimes whole layouts/designs, other times just detail work or piecemeal work).

by ssharp 8y ago

sixdimensional 8y ago

That's exactly it for me... I can use Photoshop and Illustrator, but there were just times I wanted to do a vector and bitmap work combined and the ease of use in Fireworks really made that feel right to me. Maybe it felt like.. a shortcut - if I have to admit it! Unfortunately, the last Mac laptop I had died (it was quite old), so I only have a Windows laptop at the moment. I haven't made the switch to Sketch yet as a result. Sketch seems heavily used for UI/UX designs/mockups, but do you find it as good for just individual image construction/building tasks? Or is it better for the overall layout, flow, mockup and design workflow? I'm finding it hard to explain what it was about Fireworks that felt so right to me - there were times I could get an interesting image built that was both vector and bitmap, very quickly. Sometimes, I think it was the accessibility of the tools offered, it just had the right combination for what I spent most of my time doing (graphics for web/digital, that could move in or out of the print world if needed since it could be vector, sometimes whole layouts/designs, other times just detail work or piecemeal work).