Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) [Paperback]

Grant Hinkson (Author), Craig Erskine (Author), Matt Heerema (Author), Chuck Mallott (Author), Matthew Keefe (Author), Hugh Griffith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1430216182 | ISBN-13: 978-1430216186 | Edition: 1

Are you a web designer who is looking for a new and quicker way to prototype and create for the web? Perhaps you are a programmer who finds most design tools to be overkill for what you need to get done. Or, maybe you're an old Fireworks pro, who wants to get up-to-date on the changes in Creative Suite 4. Either way, this book has something for you.

• Coverage of all that's new and powerful for the Web designer and developer in Fireworks CS4
• Targets developers who want design tools that don't get in their way and designers who want development tools that don't constrain their creativity
• Do all your website and page prototypes and comps in one tool and learn how to take them straight to Dreamweaver to implement your designs

What you’ll learn

• Why Fireworks vs. any other graphics Web design tool
• How to use Fireworks as a compliment to web development
• How to integrate Fireworks into an enterprise environment
• How to master a tool that boasts extreme versatility

Who this book is for

Code savvy designers, or web developers who want to refine their design sensibilities. Either way, the individual(s) will be those who want to enhance their work-flow with a graphics tool that allows them to quickly get things done, rather than getting in their way.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A bio is not available for this author.

Nathan Smith is a goofy guy who enjoys practicing and preaching web standards. By day, he works as an information architect and interface designer at Geniant.com. By night, he is finishing a master of divinity degree via online classes from Asbury Theological Seminary. In 2005, he started Godbit.com as a resource to help the church better understand how to utilize web standards, and blogs about design semi-regularly at his site SonSpring.com. He has been described by family and friends as mildly amusing, but is really quite dull.

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: friendsofED; 1 edition (March 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430216182
• ISBN-13: 978-1430216186
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Computers & Technology > Graphic Design > Web Design > Fireworks

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit variable but contains some gems, April 29, 2009

By 

M. Potter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) (Paperback)

This is not a beginner's guide to Fireworks, nor is it an advanced reference. Instead, it is a selection of various topics about Fireworks. Early sections that present an overview of the various Fireworks bitmap and vector tools are rather straightforward, but with creative examples. Later sections, such as creating Flex skins and AIR applications are for more advanced users. The fact that the book has several authors is rather evident as you read the somewhat disjoint topics in each chapter.

However, even with this variability between the different chapters, there are plenty of "gems" hidden in this book. I've used Fireworks for many months, and I still didn't completely understand how some of the different tools worked until I saw some of the excellent examples in this book. One problem with Fireworks is that some very important features are often hidden within extensions in the Commands menu, or hidden in some far-off panel that needs to be enabled. This book helped me discover some of those hidden gems within Fireworks.

This is not intended to be a Fireworks reference book. But as a stroll through various features of Fireworks (especially those features that make it unique compared to Photoshop or Illustrator), it was a pleasant journey. Reading this book while Fireworks is open so you can try some of the interesting examples will help you better appreciate the features that the authors are trying to highlight. If you just read the book without trying the examples, you will be missing much of the fun.

One downside with this book is that the various images were obviously intended to be published in color, but they are only in black-and-white in this book. If you look at the sample images at the top of the back cover, you can see how some of the images were intended to be shown. By printing these images in black-and-white, many of the examples loose a lot of their value. Another reason to be trying the examples within Fireworks yourself to see how they really look. If the images had been printed in color, I probably would have rated this a 4 instead of a 3.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for someone moving from photoshop to fireworks for web design, May 3, 2009

By 

Brian Artka "brianartka" (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) (Paperback)

I'd like to add a good review for this book after seeing the low stars by others.

I have primarily been using Photoshop for all my web design comps, but many of my friends and peers use fireworks for their own work. I heard Fireworks CS4 had some newer features that caught my attention so I looked into them. I was sold and wanted to start using Fireworks.

This book answered many questions I had about certain situations, and also had some great examples that helped my workflow. It may be too basic for a Fireworks veteran, but for a transplant like myself, It was worth the read.

You might find all the info you need about Fireworks on the web, but that holds true for almost anything these days. When I can, I prefer to read a book and learn rather than the screen. Foundation Fireworks CS4 brought me up to speed, taught me some new tricks, and gave me some great ideas for future comp/protyping of websites. I'm happy with this purchase, and Friends of Ed (the publisher) has satisfied my learning needs again.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book for any Firework user, June 29, 2009

By 

Marlon Ceballos "Adobe Community Professional" (Bogotá, Colombia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foundation Fireworks CS4 (Foundations) (Paperback)

Like all the books in the Foundation series, this book is an good resource for those who want to start using Fireworks and even for those who have already used who will find valuable information within its pages.

This book is divided into three parts:

Learning Fireworks: This part shows the most basic concepts of this application as the implementation and integration with other applications CS4, the work with bitmaps and vectors and the optimization process and export for web.

Using Fireworks: This part explains the creation of common tasks such as using filters and creating animations. A big surprise of this chapter are the most advanced topics as creating and editing skins for Flex, the development of prototypes using AIR, the use of extensions and the use of JavaScript and Flash to automate tasks and extend Fireworks.

Fireworks in Action: This part shows step by step 3 of interesting case studies: a blog, a navigation system that uses CSS and a website prototype for e-commerce.

In general I like about this book:

- The explanation of all the concepts are very clear.
- Use large images which is very important for the screenshots since it facilitates the reading of menus and commands.

I do not like failure to include sample files which is of great importance since it facilitates and encourages them to practice the concepts read.

Marlon Ceballos
Colombia Adobe User Group Manager