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The only reason I pay for my creative cloud license is for Adobe Fireworks. Like me, other UX professionals use Fireworks to design Wireframes, Mockups, Prototypes using Fireworks. It seems like, Adobe is totally disconnected with the customer, and they dont really get whats the purpose of Fireworks!!! This is terrible adobe, Fireworks is the best tool for Web and Interface design, and it does it fast and quick!!!
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As of May 2013, Adobe is no longer actively developing Fireworks. However, you can still install a previous version from within the Creative Cloud desktop app by checking "Show Older Apps" under Preferences > Apps.
For a detailed guide, please see this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/why-has-adobe-stopped-developing-my-app-.html
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I completely agree. I'm an Lead UI/UX guru and with Fireworks I get my Web and Mobile work done fast and beautifully for large scale orgnization. Business teams understand interactions quickly because of Fireworks' Pages with hotspot capabilities. Fireworks is a simple tool packed with great, really great useful and only the most needed features. And there are plugins for various other feature specific capabilities.
Adobe, it would be wonderful if you continue to support Fireworks. And most importantly its users. Fireworks makes my job a breeze while having fun.
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Adobe Fireworks is essential to my business I am shocked that Adobe abandoned the easiest, very powerful tool for web graphics development... just insane.
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Fireworks is dead in the water, and has been like that since Adobe aquired Macromedia. I believe Macromedia meant to drop it anyway at that time, and Adobe sort-of saved it from its demise.
Adobe is not going to continue to develop it - the way web pages are built nowadays do not fit in the slice paradigm Fireworks still uses, and that is probably why they are stumbling in the dark trying to come up with fumbled alternatives like Muse and Edge. Photoshop is still quite limited for this type of work.
Luckily enough, there are some good (better?) alternatives. Although not exactly the same toolset, I have been very happy with a combination of Photoline and Xara Designer Pro for wireframing, prototyping and mockup design.
For those who are seeking full design tools in one application that completely replaces Fireworks: Xara Designer Pro pretty much offers everything Fireworks can do, and much more:
http://www.xara.com/us/designer-pro/
Fireworks looks a bit old in the tooth compared, and Designer Pro includes all Xara Web Designer Premium tools as well.
There's also a web designer edition.
Best thing: you can do a cross-upgrade - meaning you can use your current Adobe license to upgrade to the latest version for a 33% reduced price. I would suggest anyone in web dev/design to download the trial and give it a whirl!
And no subscription model in sight 😉 nudge, nudge, wink,wink
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From my point of view Adobe missed the point. Being able to have a vector and raster tool is what Fireworks provides. I think Adobe should at least integrate it to Photoshop. I will try Xara just in case.
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Not true. Fireworks was included in CS6 LONG after the Adobe Macromedia purchase.....
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XARA can only be run on microsoft. we need software that works on real computers like imacs.
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Maybe you should tell Apple they still make quality computers for professionals. From what I can see the only advantage now of an Apple machine is they look nice. Otherwise they are more expensive, the OS is more buggy and the hardware being all based on Intel chips is no faster than on Windows. They were good once when Steve Jobs was around as he cared about the professional market, but today the emphasis is on selling gimmicks to kids and to pander to professionals who like to boast about how much they spend and have them pay ridiculously high prices because they are too opinionated to switch to Windows. Just my opinion of course but we no longer have a single Mac in our company.
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Xara does not support the PNG layering that Fireworks uses very clean and easy. Layering, cutting out images and making transparencies, color pallette ease of use, the list goes on. As for me I have 1000s of images that use its layered PNG. So I will continue to use Fireworks and whip out graphics fast and easy for web work. It's a workhorse and nothing compares and the statement Macromedia was going to drop it, that guy was dropped on his head. I'll keep using it. For an alternative Affinity Designer is really nice.
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I must agree with the sentiments here. I have used Fireworks for years because of it's simple design and ability to get things done quickly with both vector and bitmap images. In addition being able to quickly output to html and slice images for let's say an email campaign (or a website) was very valuable and simple without all the overhead (or price) of a photoshop/illustrator. It does have a niche and now that I have changed jobs I no longer have a license and want to purchase one. Guess what it's not available any longer even though I used the trial version for the last few weeks to get my feet wet again. Is there a way I can purchase the last Mac version for my home use?
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why it is discontinued?
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As it was already said, it was developed by Macromedia before Adobe bought it. Macromedia had in mind to provide a web-oriented tool without the overhead Photoshop provided. In those days Photoshop was (and maybe still is) the best image processor for printing. It could convert CMYK to RGB and so on. Fireworks was THE tool for screen.designers who work with lights instead of colors. Adobe tried to integrate web-components into Photoshop which makes it a massive dinosaur, totally unusable for screen-developers like me. I still use Fireworks MX from Macromedia. You would not believe it: It still works like a charm, although I miss some more sophisticated developments (css3, html5 etc...)
Adobe made the same mistake with Dreamweaver (also developed by Macromedia) by killing its server-connect behaviors. So, this always happens when a company becomes too big: They lose contact with their client's needs. In the end those clients will leave Adobe and use Gimp or Xara and Wordpress for web-development. Most of these tools are open-source and even free to use.
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Really a shame... yes I lost my box with the serial number. Fireworks is awesome. Mostly I use Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo... but still jump back to Fireworks for the many things. I will not buy Adobe products... they will just shut it down or make it so complicated it's worthless. Those Indian developers are good and have a lot of free time, one of them could make a lot of money by reproducing it "FireReborn" hahahha
That lady Nancy OShea is an Adobe employee and shut down the theard, which I thought was a community area. (Abuse removed by moderator)... just like Adobe.
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Okay I take that B word back but sorry Nancy couldn't edit it...
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We are all volunteers on this forum, who take their time to try to answer and solve problems encountered by some users (including myself).
I understand your feeling of frustration and I share it myself being an aficionado of the first hour of FW, but that does not justify any verbal skid.
This being said, may be that this link could help you… https://www.photopea.com/ it's not detailed in the home interface, but the app opens FW PNG files and respects most of the settings (layers, properties, effects...), but its native save format will be then PSD.
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Here are some links that might be of use:
- Photopea - can open layered Fireworks PNGs
- Firework commands for batch converting FW PNGs to other formas like PSD (obviously you need Fireworks)
- Fireworks offline installer can be downloaded here *IMPORTANT* - make sure you read the instruction for downloading at the top of page - these are links to genuine Adobe installers
I also use Affinity Designer and Photo sometimes - I bought Publisher too, so I could use the StudioLink feature, which is really useful.
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This post is not really to answer this old question (sorry for reviving an old post). But for posterity sake, as of January 2017 you can download Fireworks CS6 from Creative Cloud here:
https://creative.adobe.com/products/download/fireworks
I'm only mentioning it here because I opened the Creative Cloud desktop app on the Mac and could not find where to download Fireworks, probably a part of Adobe abandoning Fireworks.
But, it is there if you dig a little.
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Thanks linusc, I really appreciate your endevour to point into the right direction -
Alas, I only get a blank page, even tried it with different browsers. So it seems I will be stuck with my Fireworks MX (still licensed and working under Macromedia).
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Hmmm, not sure why you are getting a blank screen.
When I open the page, I see this:
I don't think it should matter but I am able to open the page on Safari 10.0.2 and Chrome 55.0.2883.95.
Have you tried opening the site using Incognito mode (Safari: Private Browsing)?
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I get this going to that link: https://creative.adobe.com/products/download/fireworks
Page Not Found
We can't find the page you're looking for.
View your files or browse your apps and services.
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As of May 2013, Adobe is no longer actively developing Fireworks. However, you can still install a previous version from within the Creative Cloud desktop app by checking "Show Older Apps" under Preferences > Apps.
For a detailed guide, please see this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/why-has-adobe-stopped-developing-my-app-.html
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THANK YOU!!!!!!!
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Thanks for the link linusc​. It was hidden pretty good by Adobe because they don't want us to use Fireworks anymore.
The problem for many poeple is that they have a way of working with the tools they are used to. I can do my work in a fast and efficient way with tools i have worked with for years. Fireworks is one of these tools for me. I think Adobe needs to pt it back in de suite or create a replacement. Now there is no real replacement for Fireworks.
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thank you! the best tool ever!
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Oh my god, thank you for this link! Adobe has really tried to bury Fireworks, even hiding it from the CC list of options now. It's their Cinderella of products. Something beautiful that's supposed to disappear just because it might detract from their expensive and bloated product suite. Sigh.