Amazon.com Review
This book, published by Macromedia, walks readers through how to create artwork within Fireworks 4, export it for the Web, and import it into Dreamweaver 4. It doesn't cover Dreamweaver in depth, but it does show how to integrate Fireworks into the Dreamweaver workflow, which can be extremely useful for working on graphics-heavy Web pages and for maintaining good site organization.
The book contains a series of step-by-step tutorials that build upon each other, using the common theme of a multipage, travel e-business Web site. (All the necessary files are on the CD-ROM.) The lessons are drawn from the curriculum used by Macromedia-authorized trainers. Readers are assumed to be new to Fireworks, but experienced users may also acquire a deeper understanding of Fireworks's features, increasing their arsenal of skills and improving their efficiency.
The book begins with bitmap editing, working with layers, creating vector art, and adding text and effects. Masks, text along curves, optimizing, and exporting are also covered. Readers learn how to make animated GIFs, buttons, image maps, and slices; how to apply "find and replace" to multiple files; batch processing; and integrating it all with Dreamweaver. Also shown: how to create pages within Fireworks, complete with buttons and navigational bars, plus how to open the pages within Dreamweaver to complete the design. Along the way, the author frequently points out timesaving steps. For example, she shows an easy way to use one Fireworks file with six frames to create six title GIFs, all exactly the same size, for export into the six respective Dreamweaver pages.
Every product from Macromedia shows care and attention to those using it day after day, and this book offers that same level of consideration. From the layout and typography of the book to the pacing of the exercises (which cover just enough steps at a time and aren't deathly slow either) to the quality of the sample project (which has the feel of a real-world job), this is one tutorial book that won't leave you cross-eyed. Instead, you'll feel powerful and quick with your new skills in hand. --Angelynn Grant
Topics covered:
- Bitmap editing
- Working with groups and layers
- Using vector tools
- Text, fills, and live effects
- Advanced techniques, like working with gradients and text along a path
- Optimizing and exporting
- Creating GIF animations
- Creating buttons and rollover buttons
- Image maps and slices
- Timesaving production techniques
- Integrating with Dreamweaver
From the Back Cover
Adding Fireworks to your site has never been so easy. If you'd like to use Macromedia Fireworks to streamline your Web-graphics chores, pick up a copy of Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 Fireworks 4 Studio: Training from the Source, a short course in this powerful package, based on Macromedia's own training programs. For a fraction of the cost of the classes, you get the same manageable, step-by-step lessons. Better yet, you can work at your own pace, and you don't have to wade through technical jargon or esoteric theory, Instead, the book focuses on how to use Fireworks in a real-world environment, giving you professional techniques you can easily adapt to your own work. A special chapter on integrating Fireworks with Dreamweaver shows you the best and most efficient way to use Macromedia's Web-development programs together. The CD-ROM contains all the files you need to work through the lessons, plus final versions of the projects with which you can compare your own results.
