What is the alternative software for fireworks?

[ateer1]

Fireworks was the best software i dealt with for webgraphics, and as of 2013 it won't be updated anymore, what is the alternative software that might replace it and gets updated?

[Herbert2001]

My original Amiga 1000 is tucked away safely under my work desk. I can't let it go. I run Amiga Forever on my Windows machine, and last month I got it installed on my Nexus 7 tablet. If only Commodore management had been a tad more smarter, we would have had four main operating systems, instead of Win, Mac, and Linux. Well, water under the bridge, and all that.

My brother and I started out with a C64: my first experience with a 'graphics tablet" (Koala pad).

[katherine_mary]

Its become imperative for me. I will not hold back my computers upgrades for just one application.

And the issues with my beloved FWs numerous application fails are starting to interfere with work flow and speed.

Ill probably, still ocassionally "rent" an upgraded version of Photoshop. but unless Illustrator becomes more like FW Im done with that road. I did not like Illustrator when I had freehand. I own it and I keep trying to love it..but I simply hate it.

Someone said to keep my eye on comet. But that is strictly UX. and I dunno about you, but I can prototype UI, websites, mobile applications with a lot of other apps. And Im not "just" UX.

I dunno...maybe it creates a savvy button? and comes preloaded with methods for testing layouts on various devices..which I can already do elsewhere...but can it do all that AND create an apple like fireworks can? We'll see. Never say never???

[Nostromov]

katherine.mary​ & how about when Adobe had purchased (Macromedia's) DreamWeaver and decided to can their (also!) wonderful Adobe PageMaker, speaking of lost and discontinued software.

motiondude​ - it may, very well, not even be off-topic; well, not that much anyway

The problem is that ultimately it seems that big corporations (as always) have very-little-to-none consideration(s) for their users and the only thing they're (really) concerned about is meeting their next five-year-plan goal(s). At least all is not lost when it comes to Adobe, I suppose that with the prices in thousands - there's some overhead which can be spent on keeping people's dreams alive; as anissat8​ (@anissa_thompson, that username's changed) also points out on page 2 of this thread, where (the old) Fireworks is still available in (the new) installers.

[..] Fireworks CS6 is still available in the CC Apps Manager.

Anyway, with nothing new to contribute - I was just stopping by! :-f

P.S. Adobe PageMill ❤️

[Jay Nandu]

Muse for the time being.
Maybe Project Comet coming in 2016

[Herbert2001]

Neither are replacements for Fireworks. Muse cannot edit bitmaps, or create vector graphics like Fireworks does. You will still need a bitmap editor and perhaps a vector editor to accomplish that (Photoshop, Illustrator).

Comet will be a user interface design and prototyping app: again, for asset generation you would need other applications.

I suppose currently Xara Designer Pro comes pretty close on WIndows (if you require it all in one application). For Mac, Sketch seems to be a popular alternative. I prefer Photoline with Inkscape and a smattering of plugins and other small external utilities.

[fiddlesticks411]

I've been a Fireworks user since before MX and 8 (Macromedia). For the past half a decade I've used it on a daily basis (literally) for my work. What Adobe has done by killing Fireworks is pathetic, IMO. Couple that with their monthly fees, and I just shake my head and hope for a way out.

So I've been toying with a relatively new app and just this past week I came to the conclusion that it's time to move on from Fireworks. Enter Affinity Designer. I've tried Sketch, Illustrator and more, but none of them felt "comfortable" after Fireworks. Affinity Designer is what I've been looking for, and it keeps getting better and better. If I save my Fireworks files as psds, I can open them fairly well in Affinity Designer. Text is usually out of whack and groups have to be ungrouped first, but it's doable. Coupled with the ever-improving Affinity Photo and the anticipation of Affinity Publisher, the day is nearing where I use the Affinity software—along with Capture One Pro (like Lightroom) and Final Cut Pro X (pro once again)—and say adios to Adobe.

Or Adobe buys up Serif and I'm back to square one.

[Paul-M]

Thats no use for people on Windows ... There is no replacement for Fireworks. Adobe thinks people should use 3 different apps to replace Fireworks. CLUELESS !!!!

[fiddlesticks411]

Yes, Energize, I probably should have mentioned the HUGE caveat, that it's only for Mac. Such a bummer, too, because it's such a great app. I am seriously perplexed about Adobe killing Fireworks. It's not like Apple killing Aperture (which I loved), because Apple is quite obviously making their money on consumer and pro-sumer offerings. All I can think of is that Adobe was married to Illustrator, so Fireworks had to go. There's so many of us that love Fireworks, it definitely seems like Adobe couldn't care less. But I obviously don't see the full picture, so who knows.

[katherine_mary]

I dont find Energize for mac. ipad, iphone but not mac. it appears to be some kind of design service which is not what I want. maybe Im looking for the wrong thing? anyone have a url to it?

[Nostromov]

ateer1‌ Fireworks, by far, the best - of the best (hehe); & it's unfortunate how it won't be developed any longer. Although I have high praise for it, I guess that I wouldn't go as far as to compare it to the MURDER of Logic Audio (Pro), for example. ;-/

Apple acquired Emagic in July 2002.[1] Support for the Windows version was dropped with the release of Logic 6 shortly thereafter.

@The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus

^^ It was been unbelievable, what Apple had done (it's, really, too bad that -like- a class-action lawsuit, or something, hasn't /hadn't come-up, meh. ), not to go offtopic 2 much, hear... I remember what, just, starting-out w/web development & installing and loading Fireworks (w/teh, back-then, Macromedia DreamWeaver), for the first time!.. What wondrous experience, LOL!!

In any case, yeah, thank you for the thread - gonna look around /read some more - good luck, tc. 😃

Edit:
*an ^^ EXCITING -new- experience (revolutionary, even, bc there had been *nothing* like it, b4), the premise of the software - interface, menu(s), options; the sheer potential of what had become available... It was like flying to the moon: sky was the limit!! No telling WHAT this thing could do, hehe (simply loved it)!

[katherine_mary]

did you find anything? the essential for me was that it had superior vectors and having pages in addition to layers and groups. no other software that I know of has pages. I cant stand illustrator and its lame artboard

photoshop comes closest with layers and groups but the "shapes" is a joke.
Im so lost if I cant do everything I did with fireworks. iterations with pages and ability to create assets for web pages in addition to ads for marketing are best in fireworks. I loved and needed to be able to save out some or all those pages at once. you cant do anything like that in any other program that I know of.

[katherine_mary]

Fireworks to Affinity! Maintain Vector editability, keep content from pages.

Here's how to save your valuable Fireworks Assets, preserve editable vectors, keep the content on alternate pages from completely disappearing, or having to be painfully saved out as separate files.

You may desire to save all your FW PAGES out as individual files preserving layers instead of choosing to include them all in one file.

Before proceeding please note I have not tried this with PAGES that have "shared" layers. SO your mileage may vary.

My testing so far only includes FW files with multiple layers, groups and pages. None of which was shared across pages.

Open your fireworks file and for best results make sure EVERYTHING on every layer and every page is UNGROUPED, UNLOCKED and VISIBLE.

Convert text to paths IF you need to preserve the styles and effects applied to text. If you do not the text may remain editable when you open in Illustrator but it will have lost the styles and colors applied and be a weird pale green color.

EXPORT the file as "FXG and Images" Select ALL PAGES from the Menu before clicking on "save".

Open illustrator C5 or newer.

Create a NEW Illustrator document.

PLACE the FXG file you saved out from FW into the new document.

EVERY page from the original FW file is present but now everything is now on one "page". You have lost individual pages--but at least everything is there and you can add artboards or pages to affinity and move items over to additional pages or artboards. Not as neat as your FW pages were but better than nothing. And considering all Affinity has to offer its a small price to pay.

NEXT Go to the layers panel and make sure everything that can be ungrouped is UNGROUPED, UNLOCKED, and NOT Hidden. If you have not already converted text to paths do it now as editable text will not be preserved when you open the file in Affinity Design.

RESAVE AS an Illustrator CS5 or better .ai file. UNcheck "compression" before you save.

OPEN the .ai file in Affinity. DONT FREAK OUT. The thumbnail preview will look scary but its all okay. Just click to open the file.

Viola. Every vector is there and editable. Though you may have to yet again UNGROUP if you neglected to do this in any of the steps above.

Not all of your styles or effects will have been preserved in the vectors. At least you havent lost everything. And wont have to start from scratch. Select individual vector items and you can ADD their styles in Affinitys style panel for use in other projects.

NOTE: you might ask why cant I just save out as .ai from FW. Well the problem there is that FW only saves out as an ancient version of Illustrator 8 and nothing is preserved when the file is opened in Affinity.

You can also save from illustrator as an EPS and open that in Affinity. I don't like using EPS as the colors "shift" noticeably and the quality of the graphics dont seem to be as well preserved as when you go from Fireworks to FXG and then to Illustrator and back out as C25 .ai or better.

[Herbert2001]

There are a couple of issues with that approach (depending on the artwork).

1. strokes with paint effects such as "Fluid Splatter" and a filter applied are converted to pure images. Those strokes are no longer editable.
2. feathered edges are lost.

I do not mind the second (simple to remedy with a gaussian blur), but the first one is a bit of a problem under circumstances.

For those instances SVG export would be a better option, since it is easier to repair the file later in other software. At least, that is my experience. For simpler files I would also prefer SVG for a simple reason: no reliance on Illustrator. Not everyone owns a copy of Illy.

[fiddlesticks411]

I found saving as a psd file (after ungrouping any groups) works pretty well. Opens in Affinity Designer without having to use Illustrator. Especially if you aren't paying for Adobe products at that point in time (Fireworks CS6 users). Text is usually off the canvas, but I just pull it back onto the canvas. Sometimes I'll place the final file (jpg, etc.) as the background in Affinity Designer then use it as a template for re-aligning anything.

[katherine_mary]

Ill give it a look but seriously its been my experience that saving as PSD loses the content from other pages in addition to rendering vectors as botmaps. I wanted to forgo having to save every single page out as a separate file as Ive had to do when taking anything to photoshop, let alone affinity.

I did lose my feathering. however, I assume thats a small price to pay if every thing else remains intact and IF affinity can apply feathering to the edges of Vectors. Im still learning that tool so we will see.

[katherine_mary]

I did not think Affinity could open SVG and I had recently read it was not that good at retaining information. Ill give it another look.

[katherine_mary]

so Ive noticed that every single post I make has to be moderated. Thats never been the case before. So why now? And yes, moderator, Im asking you to respond. 

Adobe does not want to support Fireworks. Thats on Adobe. All we are trying to do is not lose years of editable work by finding a tool that can do what fireworks used to do. My fireworks no longer functions properly. and I am not about to upgrade to CS6 when you have made it clear its a dead tool.

You took away freehand and did not make illustrator the responsive tool that it was. So we went to Fireworks. Now you are abandoning FW and again leaving a vacuum.

I for one feel completely insulted that after 15 years of owning adobe products not only is the tool of my choice being abandoned AGAIN but you are now watching my every post as if I need your permission to speak here.

Completely insulted.

I will not post here again. And my guess is you dont care.

[Chuck Uebele]

The moderation has to do with a spam filter that Jive uses. It's really nothing personal, and Adobe is trying to work with Jive to make the process of posting as easy as possible. But without the filter, the forums get hit my massive amounts of spam. We try and approve the post as fast as possible, but it is limited by how many mods are looking at the forums at any given time.

[Herbert2001]

Chuck, my posts are also constantly being moderated now. It is a real pain.

Unfortunately, Jive has no "reject all by this user" / "approve all by this user" options. Adobe's rep should be able to put some weight behind the suggestion aimed at the Jive developers to add these options.

It will also help you guys behind the scenes with moderation. It really is insane that a community board system such as Jive is missing these very basic moderation features.

[katherine_mary]

Okay that explains a lot. Thank you. And totally appreciate the lack of spam! 🙂

[laurens90]

Hello,

I'm looking for a tool to create hoverspots and rollovers on mapped images. I have basic html and CSS skills, but JS/Java etc. are completely foreign. From what I've read, Fireworks seems like a simple tool to generate images this way, but it's no longer available on Creative Cloud-- can anyone recommend a replacement tool for this kind of work?

[WilbertB]

Aphalina Designer

Aphalina Designer - Vector Draw, Logo Design, Concept Art, Sketch Tool and other Drawings for Illust...

is an easy to use alternative.

[motiondude]

Reading this post with great interest. We're a couple of months ahead. Any new insights on which is the best replacement: Affinity Designer, Sketch or ??? I'm on OSX 10.10.5 by the way.

[Paul-M]

I see there's a windows version of Affinity Designer now:

Affinity - Sign up to the free beta of Affinity for Windows

[anissa_thompson]

In case most people didn't realize, Fireworks CS6 is still available in the CC Apps Manager. Be sure to scroll down to the segment that says "Previous Versions" and it should be listed for installation: