Fireworks MX Upgrade

Rating:
Summary: Web design must have!
Review: Fireworks has always been my primary web design development tool and I looked forward to seeing what was new for the MX up-grade. I was not prepared to be "blown away" which I honestly am. The product overview mentioned improved roundtrip editing, which is great if your also a Dreamweaver user, but I still prefer Microsoft FrontPage - well guess what? Fireworks MX works seamlessly in FrontPage! I have been using the beta version of Fireworks MX since last week and I already feel that I can't work without it. I can hardly wait until the final version ships.

Rating:
Summary: Admit you have a problem!
Review: Fireworks is the ONLY CHOICE for the web design professional. Sure you can waste time messing around with the Image Ready/ Photoshop duo, but if you want FLEXABLE, EAST TO EDIT, web graphics in half the time it would take in Photoshop & Image Ready then there truly is no other choice. I know it will upset you to learn how truly EASY this program makes creating awesome graphics , pop up menus, rollovers and buttons, when you have been doing things the hard way for soo long. My friends be courageous enough to say "Hey! I wanna create awesome graphics and I don't need Photoshop/Image Ready to do it!" I was scared at first too, but once you make the change you can say," I'm good enough, smart enough, now fast enough, and dog gone it, Fireworks is the best web graphics tool I have ever used!" The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Make that first step today.

Rating:
Summary: MX stands for MaXimum in my book!
Review: I have to say it... I love Macromedia Fireworks. I'd been using PhotoShop and ImageReady, but no more. Fireworks makes building not just web graphics easy, but entire nav bars and even full websites. If you're in need of graphics, this is the way to go. You can build simple rollovers and disjointed rollovers as easily as just basic graphics. Plus, when working in Dreamweaver MX, roundtrip editing is a snap. Just select the graphic, press edit, make your changes, save and Dreamweaver updates automatically. The two programs have even more seamless integration than the previous versions. It can work with any font on your computer. And, it'll impress your clients like nothing you've used before.

You can even import graphics from Illustrator, FreeHand and PhotoShop with very little trouble.

A great program... made even bettter. (This is based on Macromedia's downloadable pre-release trial version of the program.)

Rating:
Summary: They just keep getting better...
Review: One would think that Macromedia would run out of ideas. Their past software is so good (Fireworks 4, Flash 5, etc.) that I thought there was little room for improvement. I was wrong. The new, consistent UI across applications is simply the best I have ever seen, better even than Microsoft in some of its new products such as Visio 2002.

The interface alone is worth the upgrade price because of the efficiencies it brings, but there is much more here. Being more of a vector guy, I don't use most of the raster tools, but there are some great new ones such as smudge, dodge and burn, etc. The polygon slice tool makes short work of sophisticated rollover diagrams.

I would strongly recommend getting on the Macromedia bandwagon. With cross-browser problems still raging (although NS 7.0 goes a long way to help), I believe Flash is simply going to take over the Internet, period. Fireworks MX is the best way to build your Flash graphics.

Get it!