Macromedia has released the final version of the Fireworks web graphics tool it promised in March (CI No 3,366). The company points out that though it grew out of market research conducted for FreeHand 8, Fireworks is not a revision of existing software but an entirely new product. It is designed as a single application that can handle all stages of creating GIF and JPEG graphics for the web, from authoring through optimization and animation to integration with other tools such as DreamWeaver and Flash. The tool certainly departs from mainstream graphic environments in a couple of useful ways. Most importantly, Macromedia says it has finally realized that the distinction between bitmapped and vector graphics programs had its origins in the days when processors were slow and RAM expensive. Now that that is no longer the case, Fireworks can support both vector and bitmapped images and rasterize on the fly. This means no more having to create a vector and text file in Freehand for export to Photoshop, where it flattens and ceases to be editable. The different components of a Fireworks image can be edited at any stage of the game, meaning last-minute client changes can be implemented with far greater ease. Refinements since the release of the public beta include improved support for image slicing. The company says it included this apparently esoteric feature not only because the engineers thought it was cool, but also that people loved it and it turned out to fulfill an unmet need. Fireworks also runs an optimization engine to compress images for fast download, various effects including JavaScript rollovers and support for image maps, and a visual export preview letting designers check results in JPG and GIF formats. Though Fireworks brings all these functions together and outperforms the shareware equivalents on WebReference.com benchmarks, free software retains one advantage. Estimated street price for Fireworks is around $239.
