VERDICT: Improved workflow integration, new symbol handling and multiple page support give Fireworks a new lease of life and new purpose.

When Adobe took over Macromedia there was considerable doubt over whether it would carry on developing the dedicated web graphics application Fireworks...

Without the new shared CS3 interface, and with some of its promised functionality still missing in the press beta under review, it certainly seems semi-detached and something of an afterthought, but the good news is that Fireworks is still here – and firing on all cylinders.
Fireworks offers a good mix of vector and bitmap editing capabilities, but naturally it can’t compete on all points with Adobe’s graphical flagships. Instead all three are now designed to work hand-in-hand thanks to Fireworks CS3’s new ability to open Photoshop PSD and Illustrator AI files. To enable this and to make the integration as smooth as possible Fireworks’ handling of layers has been reworked to support hierarchical groups and sub-groups – which also makes working with complex layouts more manageable.
In addition, Fireworks CS3 now supports Photoshop’s bitmap-based blend modes and layer effects such as bevels, glows and drop shadows and allows these to be applied as live effects. This isn’t the explosion of new creative power that it may seem as Fireworks already offered its own equivalents, and indeed still does for backwards compatibility. However being able to apply all effects from a single central dialog is more efficient and encourages experimentation and it also means that rich layered designs can be opened from, and now also saved to, PSD format.
The main advantage of Fireworks’ primarily vector approach is the speed and control with which designs can be built up. This efficiency is boosted in this latest release thanks to the new range of pre-provided building blocks. There are a number of new Auto Shapes with in-built editing intelligence that you can simply drag onto your layouts such as calendars, flowcharts and a new Inspire option which randomly generates a new shape each time you click on it. More significant are the new building blocks in the new Common Library palette: more flow chart symbols, graphical bullets and especially the new category of objects called “Flex Widgets” that are also shared with the latest Flash. These are pre-built user interface components, such as button, panel, buttonbar and combo box, that you can drag onto your layout to rapidly create an interface for a RIA (Rich Internet Application).

New rich symbols offer greater editability for rapid design

What makes the components in the Common Library different is that they represent a new form of “rich symbol” – rich not in terms of appearance as their styling is extremely simple, but in terms of editability. Previously, for example, adding a styled instance of a button was a laborious manual process; now you can simply change the button’s label text and its Up, Over and Down state’s colours in the new Symbol Properties palette. Both rich and traditional symbols also offer new support for intelligent “9-slice scaling”. This lets you control just how each section of a symbol will scale both horizontally and vertically – so that, for example, you can ensure that a button keeps the same rounded corners without distortion whatever size it is displayed at.
All symbols created in Fireworks CS3, including their scaling settings, are fully supported in the latest Flash CS3 Professional and you can also now export RIA interfaces created with the Common Library widgets as MXML for use in Flex. The onward integration with Fireworks’ longstanding partner, Dreamweaver, remains even more important. Here the exported CSS/HTML code has been tightened up for more efficient CSS-based positioning and menu handling with styles saved in the document head rather than inline. Most impressive is the ability to directly paste any copied object directly into Dreamweaver CS3 – if you need to edit it later the link and the optimisation settings are automatically maintained.

New highlights include Photoshop-style layer and effects handling and new multiple page support

All this would be enough to make Fireworks CS3 the most significant upgrade for years, but there’s one standout feature remaining: using the new Pages palette you can quickly add multiple pages to your design. This is extremely handy - in fact almost essential - when trying out design ideas, especially as you can quickly copy existing pages and share a single web layer’s slicing and link information. Even better, you can add shared elements to a master page and add links between pages and then output your multiple pages to HTML as a fully-working site prototype ready for fully-interactive browser preview.
While at first sight it might look semi-detached, on closer inspection, it’s clear that Fireworks CS3 plays a key and central role in Adobe’s web platforms integrating with both graphics and web authoring components. In addition Fireworks CS3 now has a new focus and function moving beyond simple graphic creation to enable rich and rapid site design and prototyping.

EASE OF USE 5/6
FEATURES 5/6
VALUE FOR MONEY 5/6
OVERALL 5/6