Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Design Premium All-in-One for Dummies®

Chapter 1. Introducing Fireworks CS4

In This Chapter

• Understanding when you should use Fireworks

• Discovering the workspace

• Finding out about the tools

• Looking into the views

• Using the basic selection tools

Adobe Fireworks is an incredible application with specific solutions to meet online designers' needs. With Fireworks, you have the freedom to create test Web sites, experiment with advanced scripting features, and come up with compelling graphics that look good and work well on Web pages.

In this chapter, you encounter the software and its workspace. You also discover how to use selection tools so that you can start to manipulate graphics in Fireworks right away.

Why Use Fireworks?

With all the applications included in the Creative Suite, why do you need one more? The reason is mostly because after CS2 (and the removal of ImageReady), the Creative Suite provided no easy way to create interesting Web graphics. Sure, you can save images for online use in Photoshop and Illustrator using the Save for Web & Devices feature, but what about rollovers, easy image maps, and interactive wireframes? (A wireframe is a low-fidelity mock-up, page-schematic rough draft. In Web design, wireframes are basic visual guides used to suggest the layout and placement of fundamental design elements.)

With Fireworks, you can work intuitively by taking advantage of the logical interface. This interface provides panels and features that relate to the Web and that offer you the easiest way to optimize (make Web-ready) ...