So one of my most favoritest designers in the whole wide world, Mr Jon Hicks, wrote a big assed article about Fireworks recently. It was fantastic to see, as my frustrations with Photoshop and Illustrator have come to a boiling point. At my office, we’ve been considering giving Fireworks a try, so this was a great heads up. Additionally, for those of you who read the comments on our Adobe responds to Fireworks post, you’ll know alot of FW faithfuls have been extra pissed at this new release. I think Jon captures not only the Fireworks crowd’s frustration but that of the Photoshop and Illustrator ones as well, here:
The problem is, after submitting the 20th crash report of the day, I’ve lost faith that anyone ever sees them or acts upon them. Overall, it feels like Fireworks is at the point of no return – no hope of it ever being fixed or improved, only that it will get more bloated, buggy, non-native and expensive.
Now I’ve been reassured time and again that Adobe is listening. I don’t think “Listening” is the problem; the problem is focus and politics. See before the Macromedia/Adobe merger, you could legitimately point at Adobe and say, “hey, make a graphics editor specifically for screen graphics”, since neither Photoshop nor Illustrator were “meant” for it. Once Fireworks entered the mix though, they had an answer. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be taking development of it seriously, pissing off those who want to see it flourish, and those who want to see it replaced by something better by not getting rid of it (like, a Photoshop / Illustrator hybrid).
Adobe seems more concerned developing next generation technology like Flash Catalyst which is cool ‘n all, but doesn’t get the job most designers are doing everyday done much faster or more reliably. I want to give Fireworks the ‘ol college try, but if it’s as unstable as everyone says, that’s pretty disheartening. Meanwhile, Photoshop is getting more and more bloated while not adding much to the screen design side of things, and Illustrator still can’t render a single bloody pixel. Adobe needs to reconsider what their workhorse solution is for screen graphics for professional designers, or more people are going to start taking the competition seriously.
Fireworks is much more the next gen interface and interaction design tool than photoshop (which is meant for single image editing) and illustrator (which is meant for fine vector work). Adobe has lost focus a bit when building Catalyst, which in my opinion is way too limited and seems more meant to push Flex as a developing platform, than to really give us a tool for interaction design.
So yes, you should try Fireworks, and maybe like me you’ll never return to Photoshop ever again.
This is very interesting to me.
I have used Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and FreeHand extensively. I’ve looked at the new Flash Catalyst. I’m clear on the differences between all these apps and several others, I can see where they overlap and where one fails in territory another goes with confidence. Notwithstanding stability issues and bugs, all the above applications have their strengths and weaknesses. None of this surprises me, but what does surprise me is that it’s 2010 and this is what the commercial artist has to choose from, not to mention a slew of lesser-known and -used apps out there, and not treading heavily into the world of 3D or motion graphics / film / video–overall a zone that seems to enjoy a much better offering. And it’s disappointing to me that FreeHand, which despite certain criticisms does quite a number of things faster and more enjoyably than the others, has been sidelined when clearly the remaining contenders for print and web creation have so many steep shortcomings. Apple, Corel, all the rest as well as open source, can’t provide where Adobe has the most muscle. And yet Adobe has for me become more of a necessary evil rather than a company I admire in the way I admire Apple (which also has slipping image problems for me). Adobe, snap out of it. Take some advice from professionals whose livelihoods depend upon your corporate power structure. We know you have stock values and quarterly sales to worry about, but I assure you all of that would take care of itself…..if only you took care of us.
Goes without saying that the level of technology we’re talking about is amazing, just think it could use a fresh eye.
absolutely! well said bez!
ADOBE! wake up and smell the coffee…
if you don’t you will soon have an awful lot of unhappy people in the design & creative industry looking for other options… these, the very same people you depend on for your bread & butter!
Well, I’m not sure about the crashes other people experience with adobe software.
At the print shop I work at, we don’t come across any big problems except for colour management in the RIP. Getting software and print hardware to do the same thing, the way we want is our biggest issue.
Other than that, our answer to most crashes is user error.
And our cm issues could be user error too.
That, and the reason why adobe is focusing so much on the whole Flash, Flex, Cataylst and these others is the fact that the print market is dying.
Just most people don’t want to admit to it….like pre-mature balding and a growth in places that cannot be mentioned.
absolutely! well said bez!
ADOBE! wake up and smell the coffee…
if you don’t you will soon have an awful lot of unhappy people in the design & creative industry looking for other options… these, the very same people you depend on for your bread & butter!