7 ms·

Adobe is going to kill Fireworks

76 points by paulbremer 13y ago

thehodge 13y ago
I really hope this isn't true, I've yet to find a replacement for fireworks either open or paid
- jvzr 13y ago
  If you work on a Mac, Sketch is a worthy replacement: http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/
  - nmcfarl 13y ago
    It is! But it is vector only which may or may not be a concern. And it doesn't import or export PSDs or AIs so if you live embedded in Adobe workflow it probably isn't for you.
3stripe 13y ago
I've managed with Potatochop for the past decade just fine...
kmfrk 13y ago
That's crazy. Why would Adobe want to do this?
Kiro 13y ago
What do people use Fireworks for?
- run4yourlives 13y ago
  Quick image creation and editing. Backgrounds, resizes, taking incoming files from designers and making them 'usuable', in whatever meaning that word takes at the time. Prototyping design (i.e. "good enough until we pay a designer" design), etc.
- oakesm9 13y ago
  Designing interfaces usually. It's a mixture of the vector and rastor editor and has a really simple to use UI. I'm mainly a developer but I could pick it up pretty quickly once the designers showed me the basics. Powerful but simple to use tool.
- speeder 13y ago
  I use to draw interface layout and slices for my games, to create art that mix vectors and bitmaps, to create sprites and pixel art, to rapid prototyping of game art, and nothing beats it when it come to design web stuff. I am game dev, all the mentioned things are in that context.
- davej 13y ago
  User Interface design. I've tried pretty much every tool out there for UI design but I keep coming back to Fireworks.
  - PixelCut 13y ago
    Have you tried PaintCode?
- ssharp 13y ago
  I like Fireworks for rapidly prototyping designs. I don't really use the slice/export feature, but for prototyping before committing to code, Fireworks works perfectly for me. I've been using it for over 10 years now and have become extremely quick and comfortable in it. Photoshop never felt right to me for doing prototypes that eventually iterate into an actual design spec. I need to crack open Photoshop a few times a year. I'm in Fireworks almost everyday. I'm sure a lot of it is my muscle memory, but for many of my graphic and photo editing tasks, Fireworks is so much faster. Unfortunately, Fireworks has become less intuitive as its evolved and I suspect it's lost a lot of its luster to new users. Even though I'm only using Photoshop a few times a year, I still need to keep it around. I suppose this change by Adobe will force me out of an old habit, but I'm looking forward to exploring some non-Adobe options.
pqdbr 13y ago
I can't believe this. Photoshop is not meant for web design, we only have Fireworks for the task. A simple task like selecting a layer in Photoshop makes me want to cry.
- ChrisLTD 13y ago
  If you're using the pointer tool, hold down [cmd] on a Mac or [ctrl] on Windows and click on something in the layer you want to select.
- wmeredith 13y ago
  Right-click to get a list of layers under your pointer. Or you can set a preference that click on an element automatically selects that layer in the layer palette. This makes you cry?
  - kalleboo 13y ago
    Design with 300 layers. Trying to select a text layer. Gotta hit juuuust the right pixel. Or say you have grouped layers, and there's a semitransparent layer in one group, and a background in another group, and 20 groups in between those groups.
- dinosaurs 13y ago
  I fully agree. As a front-end developer, working with Fireworks is a breeze, it's fun. Slicing designs, exporting sprites and measuring elements is all done easily and in a very user-friendly manner. The few sites I have developed from a Photoshop design have always caused trouble, because Photoshop is simply not made for the task.
- quink 13y ago
  Gradients in Fireworks are so very simple. With opacity and all. With barely a click more than you need, and insanely obvious to even beginners. In Photoshop I have no idea where to start.
gexla 13y ago
Somewhat makes sense to me. I haven't used Fireworks in a long time and I'm not a designer, but it seemed like it was a user friendly hybrid of Photoshop (for raster) and Illustrator (for vector.) It seemed that together Photoshop and Illustrator could do everything you needed for the web, but that required a lot bigger payment, a lot of controls you didn't use, another software program and there were some minor things that weren't quite as smooth for web (aside from the UI.) I'm surprised Fireworks has lasted this long.
neovive 13y ago
Sorry to hear this news. First Google Reader and now Fireworks! The writing has been on the wall for many years, but it is still quite upsetting. I've been a heavy user of Fireworks since version 1 since it really gets the job done vs. Photoshop for layouts, slicing and exporting. The workflow for web design just feels faster when compared to Photoshop. The combined vector/bitmap flow is unparalleled and Photoshop layers feel quite slow for simple web workflows. I can go months without opening Photoshop and it feels like a beast when I do. Hopefully, Adobe can make a "Fireworks"-friendly or "Web Design" workspace in PS. Fireworks fits an excellent niche, which is probably why Adobe likely won't sell it. I really liked some the new version 6 features, such as instantly turning designs in CSS3. Sorry to see you go FW.
- gexla 13y ago
  > Hopefully, Adobe can make a "Fireworks"-friendly or "Web Design" workspace in PS. This would make sense, but I doubt they would be able to pull it off with the UI. Maybe they have decided that they have the market and people will just have to migrate.
  - neovive 13y ago
    It's definitely wishful thinking on my part. The UI in Photoshop would make this difficult. I might just have to switch to Illustrator for more of my layout work since I dislike the bitmap-heavy workflow of PS. Everything besides editing photos or building composites in PS feels non-intuitive.
quink 13y ago
The perfect combination of vector and bitmap editing. I love Fireworks. My guess is that Adobe just couldn't figure out how to make it better. It was already pretty much all it needed to be by about Fireworks MX. And it remains, to this day, a very different codebase. User-friendly but quite powerful behind the scenes. I could never get the hang of Photoshop or Illustrator. Sure, Photoshop may have features or Illustrator knows how to do text flow, but if you have creativity and you know what you want, then Fireworks does everything possible to get out of your way yet is even intuitive for beginners with the same UI. Everything is discoverable, all the features are quite orthogonal to each other and it throws open how ridiculous the need to choose between vector and bitmap everywhere else really is. If this turns out to be true, it's a sad day.
- colemorrison 13y ago
  Yes, it will be a very sad day. That program has been my bread and butter for so damn long. Photoshop and Illustrator can't even remotely compare to the power of fireworks when it comes to prototyping.
- untog 13y ago
  Agreed. I can only assume that at least 50% of the people that use Photoshop only do it because they've never tried Fireworks (or have to, because everyone else does). Of course, that means Adobe is sort of competing with it's own product, so it was inevitable that Fireworks would disappear some day. To the best of my knowledge, Fireworks has no competitor or open source equivalent. If anyone is thinking about it, you'd have a customer for life from me.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- BuddhaSource 13y ago
  Wish they make it open source rather than killing it. The codebase is anyways not native adobe's.
- simba-hiiipower 13y ago
jayflux 13y ago
I do hope this isn't true, Fireworks certainly had its place, Photoshop was overkill for designing web pages. I suppose it only fitted a small niche but it still did a great job!
jvzr 13y ago
I've been using Fireworks for years, back to Macromedia Fireworks 4. It's much better/faster than Photoshop for web design (rounded square corners come to mind). If you work on a Mac, consider Sketch by Bohemian Coding : http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ It's a great app, is updated very frequently and has come a very long way and could almost be seen as already superior to Fireworks CS6 in most ways.
- neovive 13y ago
  Sketch looks nice, but seems like more of an Illustrator competitor than a Fireworks or PS replacement. Also, how does it handle PSD import. PSD is pretty much the standard for layered image sharing and FW opens PSD's near-perfectly.
  - pionar 13y ago
    I think the OP was talking about replacing Fireworks' excellent vector editing abilities.
  - jvzr 13y ago
    It's definitely a Fireworks replacement: slices export, CSS export, etc. It functions like Illustrator in the way that it uses a board (group of assets) rather than a limited canvas (a single asset), but it is not a software for doing illustrations or whatever you call what Illustrator does (not native speaker here, obv). Edit: it does @2x automated exports too, for instance. Quite handy for iOS coding or responsive design. I've never had to open PSDs with Sketch, so I can't tell. If you have any question, feel free to tweet their account on twitter: I hear they are reactive and very friendly. And definitely close to developers and designers: a lot of the features added this year have come from user suggestions. Can't tell the same story with Adobe...
  - dubcanada 13y ago
    Sketch doesn't yet support PSD. PSD format is a little bit of a complex format to support. However they have made it clear that it is a very high priority on their list several times. So it will come eventually. It's more of a Fireworks or Illustrator replacement then a PS replacement. It doesn't come with all the lovely filters and stuff PS has. It also doesn't have the complexities of Illustrator. But if you are a web developer, it has some of the best tools for that specific development. Icon design, web design, buttons, etc. are all a snap to create.
tvwonline 13y ago
I've been looking for a good alternative for years, but keep coming back to Fireworks. I am not surprised but still disappointed.
jimwalsh 13y ago
I see more people writing about how they are using Illustrator to design sites now than Fireworks/Photoshop. Claiming that it helps design responsive sites better/more intuitively. I haven't used Fireworks for years. Once you are proficient in Photoshop, I rarely found a reason to open Fireworks even given all of its benefits.
- WiseWeasel 13y ago
  I use Illustrator to make all my icons now, since I've switched to using SVG for high-res display support. Wouldn't try to use it for mocking up an entire site though; FW is much more suited to that. Working with Illustrator for large numbers of shapes and gradients is insanely inefficient. Illustrator is for precision work and advanced vector shapes, while FW is for throwing a bunch of (commonly shaped) shit at a wall and seeing what sticks, and for that there's none better.
- quink 13y ago
  I don't really like this approach. Don't do web design in Illustrator, do it in HTML5 + CSS3. Sure, it might take a little longer at first, but the time saved over a longer time frame makes it worth it in so many different ways. Instead, graphics software should be used for elements in the layout rather than the layout itself. It turns out that positioning is quite orthogonal to colour. Borders are orthogonal to textures. Sizes are orthogonal to form design. Not entirely, but that's, in the first instance, how they should be formalised before further dependencies. It is in combining them that we find beauty. And CSS3 is a far more suitable way of doing just that in a considered fashion than Illustrator could ever be.
  - jimwalsh 13y ago
    I agree, I do a lot of design in browser now as well. I was just stating you tend to see more articles about Illustrator and its benefits to a design workflow over that of Fireworks.
- run4yourlives 13y ago
  > Once you are proficient in Photoshop, I have no desire to ever be proficient in photoshop, which is why I like Fireworks. It's easy for me, a programmer, to open it up, figure out how to do what I need to do, and then get back to working on whatever site I'm working on. I don't have half a day to spend trying to figure out how to change the white background to transparent because I want to introduce a background switcher to a website. I also don't want to have a designer do it either, not when I can open Fireworks and complete that task in 5 minutes. That's the power of Fireworks in my opinion - a graphics tool for non-designers.
neovive 13y ago
Hopefully someone from Adobe is able to comment on this news.
ericcholis 13y ago
Often times I feel like I'm in the minority, but I rarely use Fireworks for anything. Perhaps I'm just more comfortable in Photoshop, but I often found that Fireworks didn't fit my workflow. I've read a ton of articles on how/why I should use Fireworks for web design. Perhaps somebody could inform me on what I'm missing.
- simba-hiiipower 13y ago
  i'm the complete opposite. i latched-onto macromedia fireworks before adobe bought it up (probably because i managed to get it for free¹) and have never been able to comfortably shift to photoshop.. i get the sense that you can achieve very similar outcomes using either one, but just always preferred the way you do so with fireworks over photoshop and similar programs. i’m not too savvy in the design space, but would appreciate any insights into the differences between the two, particularly as it relates to workflow. ¹ should note that while i initially gained exposure to the program via less-than-legal ways, having since grown up i am now a happy paying customer. i imagine this experience is quite common and this type of exposure a net benefit to companies like adobe.
- untog 13y ago
  I am the reverse of you, so I can't talk with any great authority, either. But every time I've used Photoshop I've gotten sick of having to create dozens of layers for everything i do- in Fireworks everything is it's own independent, editable vector object. I just find it far, far easier.
  - neovive 13y ago
    Not having to think about layers (until they are actually needed) is my favorite core feature of FW. Why couldn't Adobe just add this as an option to PS.
Aardwolf 13y ago
This doesn't mean the software cannot be used anymore, right?
- ghshephard 13y ago
  Not immediately, but once a software product is killed, you won't get updates for future Operating Systems, no security updates, no support for new file formats ... eventually it just dies a death of time decay.
  - tomrod 13y ago
    This would be a good time for Adobe to open source it, right? So it can be ported to Linux and live forever?
    - WiseWeasel 13y ago
      As a competitor to PS and Illustrator, that will never happen.
      - tomrod 13y ago
        I thought PS and Illustrator were terrible tools in the competency domain of Fireworks?
        WiseWeasel 13y ago
        They're less efficient and more difficult to learn, but they are serviceable for everything FW is used for.
jurriaanr 13y ago
Fireworks is/was also important in the workflow for flash professional. What does this tell us about the future of that program? Personally I think it's a stupid move of Adobe. They have been cashing on it for years, with very small updates for big prices. Why stop cashing now ?
PixelCut 13y ago
Our new vector drawing app, WebCode, is a nice replacement for Fireworks: http://www.webcodeapp.com/ http://www.webcodeapp.com/ It generates CSS, JavaScript+Canvas and SVG code from your drawings in real time and can also import PSD documents. The generated code works great on both Retina and non-Retina displays. You can even preview how your drawings would look on Retina displays directly in WebCode. It inherited a lot of things from PaintCode (our app for Mac and iOS developers), which makes it very nice for user interface design.
- BaconJuice 13y ago
  where is the windows version?
- tarcon 13y ago
  How do you provide a preview for Retina displays on non-Retina displays?
  - kibibu 13y ago
    Zoom to 200%, and move the monitor twice as far away.
- drivingmenuts 13y ago
  Lost me at the color picker. Is there any way to switch to using the standard OS X color picker? Also, preferences aren't in the usual spot (under the Apple menu)?
- jarek-foksa 13y ago
  Is it using WebKit for rendering?
brandan 13y ago
http://www.inkscape.org/ http://www.inkscape.org/
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Shorel 13y ago
  Nice for it being OSS and all that, but I had to edit XML just to reorder some layers. Definitely not the same features and polish.
  - brandan 13y ago
    http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog inkscape shares many features with fireworks. it's a great alternative for a big chunk of similar applications.
    - Shorel 13y ago
      That dialog only worked AFTER I edited the XML.
nhangen 13y ago
Fireworks is the only Adobe product I use religiously. I never understood why it didn't take off with the web design world. I believe it to be the most intuitive of the bunch. Simple things like copy/paste work like they should, and whereas PS might be more robust, it takes 2-3x more clicks to achieve what FW can do in just a few.
- colemorrison 13y ago
  yes yes yes. I can't believe this at all...
jwarren 13y ago
I've never really been able to solidly get into Fireworks, despite trying several times. The fans love it, but I've personally found it very clunky. However, a colleague swears by it for designing and developing HTML email newsletters. The general state of support for HTML and CSS in email clients is extremely poor, so you have to use inline styles and table-based layouts. Fireworks is perfect for this.
mmariani 13y ago
This made me realize how much I miss Freehand which was way better and easier then AI. Now Adobe kills another superior piece of software made by Macromedia. On the other hand, Flash still lives strong. Go figure.
- rsl7 13y ago
  I used Freehand when it was made by Aldus. Back then, Deneba Canvas was pretty good too.
  - porker 13y ago
    I remember Canvas - really enjoyed it!
- coldtea 13y ago
  Flash still lives strong? They have killed Mobile Flash (it never got anywhere) and are preparing to kill Desktop Flash too.
colemorrison 13y ago
WHAT THE HELL. It does CSS Sprites CSS Properties LIVE MOCKUPS God damn adobe. I've gone so long without having to touch photoshop or illustrator for web dev because FIREWORKS IS PERFECT.
webwielder 13y ago
Fireworks is an atrociously buggy, poorly designed piece of shit, but it's stil been the best app for web and UI design. However, in the past 6 months I've started using an app called Antetype instead, and can't recommend it enough for screen design. http://antetype.com/ http://antetype.com/
- bluepill 13y ago
  scuse my french but before saying that you should fucking learn how to use it
  - colemorrison 13y ago
    yes. bluepill said it perfectly.
  - webwielder 13y ago
    What kind of rejoinder is that? I used it heavily for three years. It's a joke. Here's a tiny fraction of the shit I encountered every day: http://fwsucks.tumblr.com/ http://fwsucks.tumblr.com/
- kibibu 13y ago
  OT: I hate sliding hero-unit carousels that don't pause on hover. I am trying to look at your damn image, hold it still! Also, get off my lawn.
bede 13y ago
I don't think this comes as a huge surprise to many. There were big hopes for Fireworks after the buyout that never materialised, and while it has seen steady — albeit minor —iteration since, it never ended up inheriting the Photoshop features that I for one hoped it would. In stark contrast to PS, FW is one of a select few pieces of Adobe creative software that always 'just worked' as I expected. It is a remarkably intuitive tool for many tasks, and it'll be a shame to see it go.
toddwahnish 13y ago
Adobe is migrating everyone to the new cloud services, so it makes sense. Fireworks > Edge Reflow / Dreamweaver, Flash > Edge Animate. Only problem is that they're experimenting so much with new apps that I don't know what to invest my time in learning (I'm looking at you Proto).
thinker 13y ago
Been a Fireworks user for years for UI mockups and graphic design. Would be tragic if this news is true. One alternative not mentioned here is Omnigraffle. It is actually very well suited for UI design though not as much for visual design but you can get pretty close.
intellection 13y ago
Will it help Inkscape? Could Inkscape advocate Adobe to let Fireworks live to help SVG grow?
- drivingmenuts 13y ago
  Inkscape's QT-based(?) UI looks like a hot mess and feels just as bad on OS X. It's probably fine for Windows, though.
  - intellection 13y ago
    Inkscape interface does most everything I need, except I miss Photoshop's 'Layer Effects' workflow, which makes designing and organizing filters less messy. I use Linux.
- jarek-foksa 13y ago
  I fail to see how keeping Fireworks around would help SVG. Does Fireworks even support SVG? Isn't it using layered PNG as native format? Both Expression Design and Fireworks are now out of the way, so Inkscape could get a lot more traction.
tarcon 13y ago
My UI/UX design company developed our own tool to replace Photoshop for our rapid prototyping and UI design work. It is publicly available by now. http://www.antetype.com http://www.antetype.com We switched from Photoshop to Antetype company-wide now and we don't miss it (It's still here for Icon Design though). We also felt Antetype superior to Fireworks as it has ways do deal with dynamic layouts and prototypic interactivity.
drivingmenuts 13y ago
This is sad. Back when I was heaving in print-based design, I used Photoshop religiously, but when I switched to web, Fireworks was my tool of choice. I need FW way more than I need PS these days. How's Acorn as a replacement?
josefresco 13y ago
Sad and a little bit worried about this. While I will still use Fireworks for years after it's death (assuming I can), I'm not so sure what the path is for designers like me who use Fireworks for complete web design. Unlike most here in this thread, I don't use FW for wireframing, prototyping or simple UI design. It's been our primary design for complete web/ui design tool for over a decade. Let's hope Adobe comes to their senses.
- shawnc 13y ago
  Yeah, I se/used Fireworks for almost everything. Designing in it is the easiest i've ever experienced, and I've been using it for over a decade as well.
ineedtosleep 13y ago
Is there a real confirmation on this or is this all based on that tweet and the 7 responses below it? "People were telling me about it," isn't a good enough source for me.
- rmason 13y ago
  She is a senior community leader in the Adobe user group community and runs a designers conference. She is also a big Fireworks fan. If she's tweeting it, believe me it's true.
TorbjornLunde 13y ago
I think Adobe have slowly killed Fireworks for years by slowly letting it languish (as opposed to the swift axe that cut Freehand).
levifig 13y ago
The sad part of all of this is that there is still no true alternative to Fireworks... anywhere! :\
- souldoubt 13y ago
  It's true, nothing that combines its simplicity, focus, and ease of use. Though fortunately there have been a number of great indie devs who've stepped in to make terrific graphics editing software: Acorn & Pixelmator are among the two best. My personal favorite (and closest true alternative) is Sketch: http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/
shawnc 13y ago
I switched to Sketch because of Adobe's abysmal support and direction with Fireworks. I'm not surprised this is happening, but I'm sad. I still use Fireworks, but figured I had to start getting used to something else in preparation. They're stupid, Fireworks is awesome. Most people using Photoshop don't know about Fireworks or think they 'should' use Photoshop, so they do. Even tho it's a pain in the ass.
lstamour 13y ago
I knew the gig was up when the CC announcement today mentioned Photoshop had adjustable rounded corner radius (the fact that this makes a press release should make some people pause before using Photoshop for their web comps, not that it will really stop anybody) and Illustrator now supports CSS exporting for gradients and such (CSS exporting being a feature of Fireworks CS6). I would feel less abandoned by Adobe if they could simply make a better dedicated wireframing tool that shares the best of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop rather than making me choose if today I want PDFs, Vector or Bitmap.
eric_carlisle 13y ago
Hello Everyone, I've been a fireworks user since the product's initial release. I consider it to be an essential tool for rapid prototyping, designer-developer workflow, and Web graphic asset creation. Please consider signing the following petition to either encourage Adobe to continue Fireworks development or convert Fireworks to an open source project. thanks in advance for your support! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dont-kill-adobe-fireworks/ http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dont-kill-adobe-fireworks...

76 points by paulbremer 13y ago

thehodge 13y ago

I really hope this isn't true, I've yet to find a replacement for fireworks either open or paid

jvzr 13y ago
If you work on a Mac, Sketch is a worthy replacement: http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/
- nmcfarl 13y ago
  It is! But it is vector only which may or may not be a concern. And it doesn't import or export PSDs or AIs so if you live embedded in Adobe workflow it probably isn't for you.

3stripe 13y ago

I've managed with Potatochop for the past decade just fine...

kmfrk 13y ago

That's crazy. Why would Adobe want to do this?

Kiro 13y ago

What do people use Fireworks for?

run4yourlives 13y ago
Quick image creation and editing. Backgrounds, resizes, taking incoming files from designers and making them 'usuable', in whatever meaning that word takes at the time. Prototyping design (i.e. "good enough until we pay a designer" design), etc.
oakesm9 13y ago
Designing interfaces usually. It's a mixture of the vector and rastor editor and has a really simple to use UI. I'm mainly a developer but I could pick it up pretty quickly once the designers showed me the basics. Powerful but simple to use tool.
speeder 13y ago
I use to draw interface layout and slices for my games, to create art that mix vectors and bitmaps, to create sprites and pixel art, to rapid prototyping of game art, and nothing beats it when it come to design web stuff. I am game dev, all the mentioned things are in that context.
davej 13y ago
User Interface design. I've tried pretty much every tool out there for UI design but I keep coming back to Fireworks.
- PixelCut 13y ago
  Have you tried PaintCode?
ssharp 13y ago
I like Fireworks for rapidly prototyping designs. I don't really use the slice/export feature, but for prototyping before committing to code, Fireworks works perfectly for me. I've been using it for over 10 years now and have become extremely quick and comfortable in it. Photoshop never felt right to me for doing prototypes that eventually iterate into an actual design spec. I need to crack open Photoshop a few times a year. I'm in Fireworks almost everyday. I'm sure a lot of it is my muscle memory, but for many of my graphic and photo editing tasks, Fireworks is so much faster. Unfortunately, Fireworks has become less intuitive as its evolved and I suspect it's lost a lot of its luster to new users. Even though I'm only using Photoshop a few times a year, I still need to keep it around. I suppose this change by Adobe will force me out of an old habit, but I'm looking forward to exploring some non-Adobe options.

pqdbr 13y ago

I can't believe this. Photoshop is not meant for web design, we only have Fireworks for the task. A simple task like selecting a layer in Photoshop makes me want to cry.

ChrisLTD 13y ago
If you're using the pointer tool, hold down [cmd] on a Mac or [ctrl] on Windows and click on something in the layer you want to select.
wmeredith 13y ago
Right-click to get a list of layers under your pointer. Or you can set a preference that click on an element automatically selects that layer in the layer palette. This makes you cry?
- kalleboo 13y ago
  Design with 300 layers. Trying to select a text layer. Gotta hit juuuust the right pixel. Or say you have grouped layers, and there's a semitransparent layer in one group, and a background in another group, and 20 groups in between those groups.
dinosaurs 13y ago
I fully agree. As a front-end developer, working with Fireworks is a breeze, it's fun. Slicing designs, exporting sprites and measuring elements is all done easily and in a very user-friendly manner. The few sites I have developed from a Photoshop design have always caused trouble, because Photoshop is simply not made for the task.
quink 13y ago
Gradients in Fireworks are so very simple. With opacity and all. With barely a click more than you need, and insanely obvious to even beginners. In Photoshop I have no idea where to start.

gexla 13y ago

Somewhat makes sense to me. I haven't used Fireworks in a long time and I'm not a designer, but it seemed like it was a user friendly hybrid of Photoshop (for raster) and Illustrator (for vector.) It seemed that together Photoshop and Illustrator could do everything you needed for the web, but that required a lot bigger payment, a lot of controls you didn't use, another software program and there were some minor things that weren't quite as smooth for web (aside from the UI.) I'm surprised Fireworks has lasted this long.

neovive 13y ago

Sorry to hear this news. First Google Reader and now Fireworks! The writing has been on the wall for many years, but it is still quite upsetting. I've been a heavy user of Fireworks since version 1 since it really gets the job done vs. Photoshop for layouts, slicing and exporting. The workflow for web design just feels faster when compared to Photoshop. The combined vector/bitmap flow is unparalleled and Photoshop layers feel quite slow for simple web workflows. I can go months without opening Photoshop and it feels like a beast when I do. Hopefully, Adobe can make a "Fireworks"-friendly or "Web Design" workspace in PS. Fireworks fits an excellent niche, which is probably why Adobe likely won't sell it. I really liked some the new version 6 features, such as instantly turning designs in CSS3. Sorry to see you go FW.

gexla 13y ago
> Hopefully, Adobe can make a "Fireworks"-friendly or "Web Design" workspace in PS. This would make sense, but I doubt they would be able to pull it off with the UI. Maybe they have decided that they have the market and people will just have to migrate.
- neovive 13y ago
  It's definitely wishful thinking on my part. The UI in Photoshop would make this difficult. I might just have to switch to Illustrator for more of my layout work since I dislike the bitmap-heavy workflow of PS. Everything besides editing photos or building composites in PS feels non-intuitive.

quink 13y ago

The perfect combination of vector and bitmap editing. I love Fireworks. My guess is that Adobe just couldn't figure out how to make it better. It was already pretty much all it needed to be by about Fireworks MX. And it remains, to this day, a very different codebase. User-friendly but quite powerful behind the scenes. I could never get the hang of Photoshop or Illustrator. Sure, Photoshop may have features or Illustrator knows how to do text flow, but if you have creativity and you know what you want, then Fireworks does everything possible to get out of your way yet is even intuitive for beginners with the same UI. Everything is discoverable, all the features are quite orthogonal to each other and it throws open how ridiculous the need to choose between vector and bitmap everywhere else really is. If this turns out to be true, it's a sad day.

colemorrison 13y ago
Yes, it will be a very sad day. That program has been my bread and butter for so damn long. Photoshop and Illustrator can't even remotely compare to the power of fireworks when it comes to prototyping.
untog 13y ago
Agreed. I can only assume that at least 50% of the people that use Photoshop only do it because they've never tried Fireworks (or have to, because everyone else does). Of course, that means Adobe is sort of competing with it's own product, so it was inevitable that Fireworks would disappear some day. To the best of my knowledge, Fireworks has no competitor or open source equivalent. If anyone is thinking about it, you'd have a customer for life from me.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
BuddhaSource 13y ago
Wish they make it open source rather than killing it. The codebase is anyways not native adobe's.
simba-hiiipower 13y ago

jayflux 13y ago

I do hope this isn't true, Fireworks certainly had its place, Photoshop was overkill for designing web pages. I suppose it only fitted a small niche but it still did a great job!

jvzr 13y ago

I've been using Fireworks for years, back to Macromedia Fireworks 4. It's much better/faster than Photoshop for web design (rounded square corners come to mind). If you work on a Mac, consider Sketch by Bohemian Coding : http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ It's a great app, is updated very frequently and has come a very long way and could almost be seen as already superior to Fireworks CS6 in most ways.

neovive 13y ago
Sketch looks nice, but seems like more of an Illustrator competitor than a Fireworks or PS replacement. Also, how does it handle PSD import. PSD is pretty much the standard for layered image sharing and FW opens PSD's near-perfectly.
- pionar 13y ago
  I think the OP was talking about replacing Fireworks' excellent vector editing abilities.
- jvzr 13y ago
  It's definitely a Fireworks replacement: slices export, CSS export, etc. It functions like Illustrator in the way that it uses a board (group of assets) rather than a limited canvas (a single asset), but it is not a software for doing illustrations or whatever you call what Illustrator does (not native speaker here, obv). Edit: it does @2x automated exports too, for instance. Quite handy for iOS coding or responsive design. I've never had to open PSDs with Sketch, so I can't tell. If you have any question, feel free to tweet their account on twitter: I hear they are reactive and very friendly. And definitely close to developers and designers: a lot of the features added this year have come from user suggestions. Can't tell the same story with Adobe...
- dubcanada 13y ago
  Sketch doesn't yet support PSD. PSD format is a little bit of a complex format to support. However they have made it clear that it is a very high priority on their list several times. So it will come eventually. It's more of a Fireworks or Illustrator replacement then a PS replacement. It doesn't come with all the lovely filters and stuff PS has. It also doesn't have the complexities of Illustrator. But if you are a web developer, it has some of the best tools for that specific development. Icon design, web design, buttons, etc. are all a snap to create.

tvwonline 13y ago

I've been looking for a good alternative for years, but keep coming back to Fireworks. I am not surprised but still disappointed.

jimwalsh 13y ago

I see more people writing about how they are using Illustrator to design sites now than Fireworks/Photoshop. Claiming that it helps design responsive sites better/more intuitively. I haven't used Fireworks for years. Once you are proficient in Photoshop, I rarely found a reason to open Fireworks even given all of its benefits.

WiseWeasel 13y ago
I use Illustrator to make all my icons now, since I've switched to using SVG for high-res display support. Wouldn't try to use it for mocking up an entire site though; FW is much more suited to that. Working with Illustrator for large numbers of shapes and gradients is insanely inefficient. Illustrator is for precision work and advanced vector shapes, while FW is for throwing a bunch of (commonly shaped) shit at a wall and seeing what sticks, and for that there's none better.
quink 13y ago
I don't really like this approach. Don't do web design in Illustrator, do it in HTML5 + CSS3. Sure, it might take a little longer at first, but the time saved over a longer time frame makes it worth it in so many different ways. Instead, graphics software should be used for elements in the layout rather than the layout itself. It turns out that positioning is quite orthogonal to colour. Borders are orthogonal to textures. Sizes are orthogonal to form design. Not entirely, but that's, in the first instance, how they should be formalised before further dependencies. It is in combining them that we find beauty. And CSS3 is a far more suitable way of doing just that in a considered fashion than Illustrator could ever be.
- jimwalsh 13y ago
  I agree, I do a lot of design in browser now as well. I was just stating you tend to see more articles about Illustrator and its benefits to a design workflow over that of Fireworks.
run4yourlives 13y ago
> Once you are proficient in Photoshop, I have no desire to ever be proficient in photoshop, which is why I like Fireworks. It's easy for me, a programmer, to open it up, figure out how to do what I need to do, and then get back to working on whatever site I'm working on. I don't have half a day to spend trying to figure out how to change the white background to transparent because I want to introduce a background switcher to a website. I also don't want to have a designer do it either, not when I can open Fireworks and complete that task in 5 minutes. That's the power of Fireworks in my opinion - a graphics tool for non-designers.

neovive 13y ago

Hopefully someone from Adobe is able to comment on this news.

ericcholis 13y ago

Often times I feel like I'm in the minority, but I rarely use Fireworks for anything. Perhaps I'm just more comfortable in Photoshop, but I often found that Fireworks didn't fit my workflow. I've read a ton of articles on how/why I should use Fireworks for web design. Perhaps somebody could inform me on what I'm missing.

simba-hiiipower 13y ago
i'm the complete opposite. i latched-onto macromedia fireworks before adobe bought it up (probably because i managed to get it for free¹) and have never been able to comfortably shift to photoshop.. i get the sense that you can achieve very similar outcomes using either one, but just always preferred the way you do so with fireworks over photoshop and similar programs. i’m not too savvy in the design space, but would appreciate any insights into the differences between the two, particularly as it relates to workflow. ¹ should note that while i initially gained exposure to the program via less-than-legal ways, having since grown up i am now a happy paying customer. i imagine this experience is quite common and this type of exposure a net benefit to companies like adobe.
untog 13y ago
I am the reverse of you, so I can't talk with any great authority, either. But every time I've used Photoshop I've gotten sick of having to create dozens of layers for everything i do- in Fireworks everything is it's own independent, editable vector object. I just find it far, far easier.
- neovive 13y ago
  Not having to think about layers (until they are actually needed) is my favorite core feature of FW. Why couldn't Adobe just add this as an option to PS.

Aardwolf 13y ago

This doesn't mean the software cannot be used anymore, right?

ghshephard 13y ago
Not immediately, but once a software product is killed, you won't get updates for future Operating Systems, no security updates, no support for new file formats ... eventually it just dies a death of time decay.
- tomrod 13y ago
  This would be a good time for Adobe to open source it, right? So it can be ported to Linux and live forever?
  - WiseWeasel 13y ago
    As a competitor to PS and Illustrator, that will never happen.
    - tomrod 13y ago
      I thought PS and Illustrator were terrible tools in the competency domain of Fireworks?
      - WiseWeasel 13y ago
        They're less efficient and more difficult to learn, but they are serviceable for everything FW is used for.

jurriaanr 13y ago

Fireworks is/was also important in the workflow for flash professional. What does this tell us about the future of that program? Personally I think it's a stupid move of Adobe. They have been cashing on it for years, with very small updates for big prices. Why stop cashing now ?

PixelCut 13y ago

Our new vector drawing app, WebCode, is a nice replacement for Fireworks: http://www.webcodeapp.com/ http://www.webcodeapp.com/ It generates CSS, JavaScript+Canvas and SVG code from your drawings in real time and can also import PSD documents. The generated code works great on both Retina and non-Retina displays. You can even preview how your drawings would look on Retina displays directly in WebCode. It inherited a lot of things from PaintCode (our app for Mac and iOS developers), which makes it very nice for user interface design.

BaconJuice 13y ago
where is the windows version?
tarcon 13y ago
How do you provide a preview for Retina displays on non-Retina displays?
- kibibu 13y ago
  Zoom to 200%, and move the monitor twice as far away.
drivingmenuts 13y ago
Lost me at the color picker. Is there any way to switch to using the standard OS X color picker? Also, preferences aren't in the usual spot (under the Apple menu)?
jarek-foksa 13y ago
Is it using WebKit for rendering?

brandan 13y ago

http://www.inkscape.org/ http://www.inkscape.org/

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Shorel 13y ago
Nice for it being OSS and all that, but I had to edit XML just to reorder some layers. Definitely not the same features and polish.
- brandan 13y ago
  http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog inkscape shares many features with fireworks. it's a great alternative for a big chunk of similar applications.
  - Shorel 13y ago
    That dialog only worked AFTER I edited the XML.

nhangen 13y ago

Fireworks is the only Adobe product I use religiously. I never understood why it didn't take off with the web design world. I believe it to be the most intuitive of the bunch. Simple things like copy/paste work like they should, and whereas PS might be more robust, it takes 2-3x more clicks to achieve what FW can do in just a few.

colemorrison 13y ago
yes yes yes. I can't believe this at all...

jwarren 13y ago

I've never really been able to solidly get into Fireworks, despite trying several times. The fans love it, but I've personally found it very clunky. However, a colleague swears by it for designing and developing HTML email newsletters. The general state of support for HTML and CSS in email clients is extremely poor, so you have to use inline styles and table-based layouts. Fireworks is perfect for this.

mmariani 13y ago

This made me realize how much I miss Freehand which was way better and easier then AI. Now Adobe kills another superior piece of software made by Macromedia. On the other hand, Flash still lives strong. Go figure.

rsl7 13y ago
I used Freehand when it was made by Aldus. Back then, Deneba Canvas was pretty good too.
- porker 13y ago
  I remember Canvas - really enjoyed it!
coldtea 13y ago
Flash still lives strong? They have killed Mobile Flash (it never got anywhere) and are preparing to kill Desktop Flash too.

colemorrison 13y ago

WHAT THE HELL. It does CSS Sprites CSS Properties LIVE MOCKUPS God damn adobe. I've gone so long without having to touch photoshop or illustrator for web dev because FIREWORKS IS PERFECT.

webwielder 13y ago

Fireworks is an atrociously buggy, poorly designed piece of shit, but it's stil been the best app for web and UI design. However, in the past 6 months I've started using an app called Antetype instead, and can't recommend it enough for screen design. http://antetype.com/ http://antetype.com/

bluepill 13y ago
scuse my french but before saying that you should fucking learn how to use it
- colemorrison 13y ago
  yes. bluepill said it perfectly.
- webwielder 13y ago
  What kind of rejoinder is that? I used it heavily for three years. It's a joke. Here's a tiny fraction of the shit I encountered every day: http://fwsucks.tumblr.com/ http://fwsucks.tumblr.com/
kibibu 13y ago
OT: I hate sliding hero-unit carousels that don't pause on hover. I am trying to look at your damn image, hold it still! Also, get off my lawn.

bede 13y ago

I don't think this comes as a huge surprise to many. There were big hopes for Fireworks after the buyout that never materialised, and while it has seen steady — albeit minor —iteration since, it never ended up inheriting the Photoshop features that I for one hoped it would. In stark contrast to PS, FW is one of a select few pieces of Adobe creative software that always 'just worked' as I expected. It is a remarkably intuitive tool for many tasks, and it'll be a shame to see it go.

toddwahnish 13y ago

Adobe is migrating everyone to the new cloud services, so it makes sense. Fireworks > Edge Reflow / Dreamweaver, Flash > Edge Animate. Only problem is that they're experimenting so much with new apps that I don't know what to invest my time in learning (I'm looking at you Proto).

thinker 13y ago

Been a Fireworks user for years for UI mockups and graphic design. Would be tragic if this news is true. One alternative not mentioned here is Omnigraffle. It is actually very well suited for UI design though not as much for visual design but you can get pretty close.

intellection 13y ago

Will it help Inkscape? Could Inkscape advocate Adobe to let Fireworks live to help SVG grow?

drivingmenuts 13y ago
Inkscape's QT-based(?) UI looks like a hot mess and feels just as bad on OS X. It's probably fine for Windows, though.
- intellection 13y ago
  Inkscape interface does most everything I need, except I miss Photoshop's 'Layer Effects' workflow, which makes designing and organizing filters less messy. I use Linux.
jarek-foksa 13y ago
I fail to see how keeping Fireworks around would help SVG. Does Fireworks even support SVG? Isn't it using layered PNG as native format? Both Expression Design and Fireworks are now out of the way, so Inkscape could get a lot more traction.

tarcon 13y ago

My UI/UX design company developed our own tool to replace Photoshop for our rapid prototyping and UI design work. It is publicly available by now. http://www.antetype.com http://www.antetype.com We switched from Photoshop to Antetype company-wide now and we don't miss it (It's still here for Icon Design though). We also felt Antetype superior to Fireworks as it has ways do deal with dynamic layouts and prototypic interactivity.

drivingmenuts 13y ago

This is sad. Back when I was heaving in print-based design, I used Photoshop religiously, but when I switched to web, Fireworks was my tool of choice. I need FW way more than I need PS these days. How's Acorn as a replacement?

josefresco 13y ago

Sad and a little bit worried about this. While I will still use Fireworks for years after it's death (assuming I can), I'm not so sure what the path is for designers like me who use Fireworks for complete web design. Unlike most here in this thread, I don't use FW for wireframing, prototyping or simple UI design. It's been our primary design for complete web/ui design tool for over a decade. Let's hope Adobe comes to their senses.

shawnc 13y ago
Yeah, I se/used Fireworks for almost everything. Designing in it is the easiest i've ever experienced, and I've been using it for over a decade as well.

ineedtosleep 13y ago

Is there a real confirmation on this or is this all based on that tweet and the 7 responses below it? "People were telling me about it," isn't a good enough source for me.

rmason 13y ago
She is a senior community leader in the Adobe user group community and runs a designers conference. She is also a big Fireworks fan. If she's tweeting it, believe me it's true.

TorbjornLunde 13y ago

I think Adobe have slowly killed Fireworks for years by slowly letting it languish (as opposed to the swift axe that cut Freehand).

levifig 13y ago

The sad part of all of this is that there is still no true alternative to Fireworks... anywhere! :\

souldoubt 13y ago
It's true, nothing that combines its simplicity, focus, and ease of use. Though fortunately there have been a number of great indie devs who've stepped in to make terrific graphics editing software: Acorn & Pixelmator are among the two best. My personal favorite (and closest true alternative) is Sketch: http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/

shawnc 13y ago

I switched to Sketch because of Adobe's abysmal support and direction with Fireworks. I'm not surprised this is happening, but I'm sad. I still use Fireworks, but figured I had to start getting used to something else in preparation. They're stupid, Fireworks is awesome. Most people using Photoshop don't know about Fireworks or think they 'should' use Photoshop, so they do. Even tho it's a pain in the ass.

lstamour 13y ago

I knew the gig was up when the CC announcement today mentioned Photoshop had adjustable rounded corner radius (the fact that this makes a press release should make some people pause before using Photoshop for their web comps, not that it will really stop anybody) and Illustrator now supports CSS exporting for gradients and such (CSS exporting being a feature of Fireworks CS6). I would feel less abandoned by Adobe if they could simply make a better dedicated wireframing tool that shares the best of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop rather than making me choose if today I want PDFs, Vector or Bitmap.

eric_carlisle 13y ago

Hello Everyone, I've been a fireworks user since the product's initial release. I consider it to be an essential tool for rapid prototyping, designer-developer workflow, and Web graphic asset creation. Please consider signing the following petition to either encourage Adobe to continue Fireworks development or convert Fireworks to an open source project. thanks in advance for your support! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dont-kill-adobe-fireworks/ http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dont-kill-adobe-fireworks...