6 ms·

Adobe UI Gripes

38 points by mqt 18y ago

pclark 18y ago
dearadobe.com
pclark 18y ago
sickens me how unloved Fireworks is.
- unalone 18y ago
  Maybe it does good things, but the interface is awful.
- thinkzig 18y ago
  Agreed. I have a copy of Fireworks 4 (back when it was Macromedia Fireworks) that I still use to this day to do basic graphics and picture clean-up stuff. I'm not a graphic artist by trade - something we should all be thankful for :) - but it gets the job done for just about everything I need to do.
- bradgessler 18y ago
  Ditto. I remembered the day that Adobe bought Macromedia. My first thought was, "F#CK! They're going to turn Fireworks in to a piece of crap". Sure enough, they turned it into a piece of crap. So much for competition!
  - jasonkester 18y ago
    I'm still nostalgic for Cold Fusion Studio 4. That was even back before Macromedia bought Allaire, but still today it would rank as the second best development environment for HTML and Javascript (after VS.NET, but only because it has a good debugger to offset its lame HTML & JS intellisense). Then they folded it into Dreamweaver and ruined it completely by version 5.
    - gb 18y ago
      I used to use that for all my development too and thought it was great at the time. I even wrestled with it's crazy syntax highlighter to get ActionScript colour coding working. The lack of Unicode support became a bit of a problem for me towards the end though.
- alabut 18y ago
  I love Fireworks, fucking hate CS4. I've been using FW since version 4, from everything from wireframes to full polished design, and I have never seen this much bugginess on any production software. The worst part of it is that the most persistent bugginess is the text selection, which is half of what I do when designing.
- gb 18y ago
  Probably because there is no reason for it to exist if you can use Photoshop... I'm surprised there are that many posts about FW actually, I don't know anyone who uses it and I tend not to install it even.
  - johns 18y ago
    For laying out web sites, Fireworks is far superior to Photoshop. There's a drastic difference in methodologies. Fireworks thinks in shapes, Photoshop in pixels.
    - gb 18y ago
      I'm not sure I see the distinction, especially with smart objects and vectors in Photoshop these days.
- johns 18y ago
  I was thinking of upgrading, but based on this thread I guess I'll be holding on to Fireworks 8 for now. I love Fireworks and I hope they find it in their hearts to fix it.
sachinag 18y ago
I had a Turbo button on my first computer. What was it supposed to do? I think I always pressed it because, hey, faster is better than slower.
- sdfx 18y ago
  Coding Horror has the answer: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001173.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001173.html It's a compatibility feature, allowing older software to run at the speed it was intended to run at (mainly games).
  - lallysingh 18y ago
    But really just to put the word 'turbo' on your machine, to make it seem faster. I had what, 3-5 PCs with that switch on there, and never once used that feature.
acangiano 18y ago
I hate how being harsh has become fashionable. What ever happened to manners?
- Timothee 18y ago
  It's like comedians who replace comedy with a heavy use of "fuck", "fucking", "shit", etc. For some of the screenshots, I wasn't sure what the problem and wished he suggested a solution.
- bonaldi 18y ago
  Not a defence, but hey, Adobe started it. With their crock-tastic installers, their updating of updated updaters, everything to do with Acrobat and Reader, app bloat, market segmentation gone nuts, rip-off pricing for Europe, vulnerability-inducing setups (like bundling a needless, insecure copy of Opera) and launch times measured in aeons, they've treated their users like dirt for years. That doesn't engender politeness.
  - reitzensteinm 18y ago
    They sure did! Flex is the first truely buggy language and runtime I've ever had the displeasure of working with, and I keep a list similar to this (but far less safe for work). I keep mine private since I don't want my name to be associated with it, but I'm cheering this guy on. I'm focusing my energy in a far more positive way - I'm switching to Haxe, which lets me independent of the Flash tools, and also swap away from Flash Player/swf when a better alternative comes along (it wouldn't be hard to make one, it's sad that their only real competition is from the even less competently made Java for the web).
- jgranby 18y ago
  I don't think it would be anywhere near as funny without such over-the-top profanity. There is clearly plenty of tongue in cheek, and I found the whole thing hilarious. Don't evaluate it as a serious critique but rather as an amusing skit of Adobe's frustratingly clueless UI design. My favourite one is "Nice bug you bunch of bellends".
- 18y ago
mattmaroon 18y ago
By far the my #1 gripe is the lack of consistency between Illustrator and Photoshop.

Adobe UI Gripes

38 points by mqt 18y ago

pclark 18y ago

dearadobe.com

pclark 18y ago

sickens me how unloved Fireworks is.

unalone 18y ago
Maybe it does good things, but the interface is awful.
thinkzig 18y ago
Agreed. I have a copy of Fireworks 4 (back when it was Macromedia Fireworks) that I still use to this day to do basic graphics and picture clean-up stuff. I'm not a graphic artist by trade - something we should all be thankful for :) - but it gets the job done for just about everything I need to do.
bradgessler 18y ago
Ditto. I remembered the day that Adobe bought Macromedia. My first thought was, "F#CK! They're going to turn Fireworks in to a piece of crap". Sure enough, they turned it into a piece of crap. So much for competition!
- jasonkester 18y ago
  I'm still nostalgic for Cold Fusion Studio 4. That was even back before Macromedia bought Allaire, but still today it would rank as the second best development environment for HTML and Javascript (after VS.NET, but only because it has a good debugger to offset its lame HTML & JS intellisense). Then they folded it into Dreamweaver and ruined it completely by version 5.
  - gb 18y ago
    I used to use that for all my development too and thought it was great at the time. I even wrestled with it's crazy syntax highlighter to get ActionScript colour coding working. The lack of Unicode support became a bit of a problem for me towards the end though.
alabut 18y ago
I love Fireworks, fucking hate CS4. I've been using FW since version 4, from everything from wireframes to full polished design, and I have never seen this much bugginess on any production software. The worst part of it is that the most persistent bugginess is the text selection, which is half of what I do when designing.
gb 18y ago
Probably because there is no reason for it to exist if you can use Photoshop... I'm surprised there are that many posts about FW actually, I don't know anyone who uses it and I tend not to install it even.
- johns 18y ago
  For laying out web sites, Fireworks is far superior to Photoshop. There's a drastic difference in methodologies. Fireworks thinks in shapes, Photoshop in pixels.
  - gb 18y ago
    I'm not sure I see the distinction, especially with smart objects and vectors in Photoshop these days.
johns 18y ago
I was thinking of upgrading, but based on this thread I guess I'll be holding on to Fireworks 8 for now. I love Fireworks and I hope they find it in their hearts to fix it.

sachinag 18y ago

I had a Turbo button on my first computer. What was it supposed to do? I think I always pressed it because, hey, faster is better than slower.

sdfx 18y ago
Coding Horror has the answer: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001173.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001173.html It's a compatibility feature, allowing older software to run at the speed it was intended to run at (mainly games).
- lallysingh 18y ago
  But really just to put the word 'turbo' on your machine, to make it seem faster. I had what, 3-5 PCs with that switch on there, and never once used that feature.

acangiano 18y ago

I hate how being harsh has become fashionable. What ever happened to manners?

Timothee 18y ago
It's like comedians who replace comedy with a heavy use of "fuck", "fucking", "shit", etc. For some of the screenshots, I wasn't sure what the problem and wished he suggested a solution.
bonaldi 18y ago
Not a defence, but hey, Adobe started it. With their crock-tastic installers, their updating of updated updaters, everything to do with Acrobat and Reader, app bloat, market segmentation gone nuts, rip-off pricing for Europe, vulnerability-inducing setups (like bundling a needless, insecure copy of Opera) and launch times measured in aeons, they've treated their users like dirt for years. That doesn't engender politeness.
- reitzensteinm 18y ago
  They sure did! Flex is the first truely buggy language and runtime I've ever had the displeasure of working with, and I keep a list similar to this (but far less safe for work). I keep mine private since I don't want my name to be associated with it, but I'm cheering this guy on. I'm focusing my energy in a far more positive way - I'm switching to Haxe, which lets me independent of the Flash tools, and also swap away from Flash Player/swf when a better alternative comes along (it wouldn't be hard to make one, it's sad that their only real competition is from the even less competently made Java for the web).
jgranby 18y ago
I don't think it would be anywhere near as funny without such over-the-top profanity. There is clearly plenty of tongue in cheek, and I found the whole thing hilarious. Don't evaluate it as a serious critique but rather as an amusing skit of Adobe's frustratingly clueless UI design. My favourite one is "Nice bug you bunch of bellends".
18y ago

mattmaroon 18y ago

By far the my #1 gripe is the lack of consistency between Illustrator and Photoshop.