Adobe has made available Fireworks CS4 beta. This new version of Fireworks has some key new features that Fireworks users of old and new will appreciate.
The New Interface
I wasn't quite prepared for the new interface when I first opened Fireworks CS4 and I wasn't quite sure what to think of it. At first I thought it was very gray, and I was a little taken back by all the bold panel headings, but now that I've had some time to work with it, it's beginning to grow on me. A big improvement is the ability to choose between different display modes. One of the things, that always bothered me about Adobe products, was the floating panels that seemed to always get in the way when designing. I really preferred the old Macromedia way of doing things and now we kinda have the best of both worlds! We now have the option to have panels in Expanded Mode, which I most prefer; Iconic Mode, to give the most real estate when needed; and Iconic Mode With Panel Names, so we don't have to guess what the little icons mean.
Another cool thing about the new interface is the ability to have multiple documents open on the same screen. Those screens can be moved around similar to panels.
Styles
Besides the Property Inspector, the Styles Panel is often where I find myself when designing in Fireworks; here I can save my own custom styles, import new styles and choose from a variety of styles that ships with Fireworks. In Fireworks CS4, you'll notice a major change in the styles panel. Styles can now be organized by style category - called libraries. For instance, plastic, chrome, wood, text styles and others are all in their own libraries. Users can also create their own style libraries to be used in a single document or accessible to any open document in Fireworks.
We can also now break links to styles and redefine them in the Property Inspector. For instance, if you add a drop shadow or change a font style, you can click on the Redefine Style icon in the Properties Inspector and the style will update not only in the Style Library but also across all other objects that use that same style in a document!
Guides
By far the most welcome change, I've found with FW CS4 as a designer, are the Live Guides. These are guides that provide visual aids to help me know where to position objects in relation to other objects (shapes, text, etc.) on the canvas - this helps space and align objects evenly without having to use the align panel.
Below: Using the Live Guides to align text on the center of a button.
Auto Vector Masks (AKA Fade Image Command)
The old Fade Image Command has been renamed to Auto Vector Masks in the Command menu. The panel works much the same way but has been updated to a more modern look and feel.
Align Panel
The Align Panel has been around for a long time in Fireworks but it too has had some tweaking. If you've worked in Fireworks before, you probably noticed that when you aligned objects together with the wrong button in the align panel and then wanted to undo your action, you had to deselect everything and do it all over. Well no more!
You'll also notice that you can now specify how you want objects spaced, in relation to one another, by either selecting "Evenly" or entering a specific number of pixels.
Paths Panel
The Paths Panel has undergone some major overhauling and provides some rather sophisticated vector capabilities. I will be creating several tutorials for all the cool new stuff you can do with the paths panel in upcoming articles!
Adobe Text Engine
Fireworks CS4 now uses the Adobe Text Engine. This will help maintain file consistency throughout different Adobe applications you may be working with. You probably won't notice too much of a difference in appearance but there may be slight changes when you open a file created in an earlier version of Fireworks and begin to edit the text.
Create PDF's
Since Adobe acquired Macromedia a few years ago, many Fireworks users have been requesting the ability to create PDF's from their Fireworks files - CS4 now has that option! Fireworks files that contain pages will have their own pages inside of PDF files too. If you have Adobe Acrobat Professional, you can then take PDF's created in Fireworks and add linking ability, annotations and review them with others. PDF's are also a great way to show your clients proofs of designs and web pages with password protection.
Below: PDF Export Options
Below: PDF file created in Fireworks, open in Acrobat.
Take Screenshot Command
The Take Screenshot Command, available only in Windows, is a nifty new tool that I find helpful. When I create tutorials, I'm always taking screenshots and I use SnagIt™ most of the time, it has far superior capabilities, but for those users without SnagIt or another screen capture program, this new command will come in handy. You'll find it in the Commands Menu and it's pretty easy to use.
Opening Photoshop Files
Fireworks CS4 users now have a much more sophisticated way of opening native Photoshop files inside of Fireworks. This new panel gives designers the option of maintaining Photoshop layers or importing files as flattened bitmaps to preserve appearance. This panel also helps you change the resolution of an image before importing, which is often necessary if your bringing in files that were originally intended for print to a web project.
There's other changes to Fireworks CS4 that I'll be writing about in upcoming articles. I know this was a whirlwind introduction but I wanted to share some of the new features in Fireworks CS4. Stay tuned!
