Things you should know about Fireworks MX/MX2004 - Part 1 Support

This article is the first in a series for Macromedia Fireworks MX/MX2004 that covers features of both versions of Fireworks (FW), ranging from beginner to intermediate. This article assumes you have either little or no knowledge of Fireworks but are familiar with general web graphics. This article in particular covers both bitmap and vector tools, features available in MX like custom Styles, and new features in MX2004 (Auto Shapes).

Fireworks: Birthed for the web

Ask any print designer what their print-graphics tool of choice is and you'd hear Adobe Photoshop be the winner. Ask any web designer what their web-graphics tool of choice is and Adobe doesn't entirely win that round. Being the favourite “kid in town,” Macromedia Fireworks was birthed entirely for web production, not just web graphics.

Fireworks has industry leading tools for graphics editing and design. If you ask around, you'll find that many designers/developers use Fireworks for entire web designs... even if they need to work with a designer who (currently) uses only Adobe software. How, or why, could we Fireworks fans survive in an Adobe world?! Read on because this is not anti-Adobe, but the start of a series showing how the other half of your Studio MX/MX2004 works!