Adobe Fireworks CS4 [OLD VERSION]
Adobe Fireworks CS4 [OLD VERSION]
- Creatively design interactive layouts for websites and rich Internet applications (RIAs)
- Create and edit vector and bitmap images, or import and modify native Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator files
- Optimize graphics for virtually any scenario with preview, selective JPEG compression, and a wide range of export controls
- Import Photoshop PSD files while retaining layers, effects, and blend modes and save Fireworks PNG files in native Photoshop format; copy and paste objects from Fireworks CS4 into Dreamweaver CS4 or Adobe Flash CS4 Professional software
- Prototype layouts for RIAs in Fireworks and then export them directly to Flex, while retaining absolute positioning, styling, and professional-quality coding
CS4 FIREWORKS 10 WIN 1U CROMRapidly prototype websites and application interfaces with Adobe Fireworks CS4 software. Create and optimize images for the web more quickly and accurately than ever before with an enhanced toolset. Present your comps to clients whether they are across the hall or across the country with Adobe PDF file support and integration with the Adobe ConnectNow service. Smart Guides display both position coordinates and relative guides to help you prec
Rating: 
(out of 4 reviews)
List Price: $ 299.00
Price: $ 299.00
Review by Adam M. Friedman for Adobe Fireworks CS4 [OLD VERSION]
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Adobe Fireworks CS4 is one of most unstable pieces of junk I’ve ever had the torture of using. I used Fireworks 8 without a hitch for three years, and my company upgraded to CS4, and now the app crashes or freezes up constantly on a brand new HP Pentium 4 with 4GB RAM. Other programs work fine on this machine.
Fireworks CS4 is riddled with bugs. I might have a 500KB file open, and I’ll try to add a filter, or move some text around, and boom — Fireworks crashes. This occurs literally every 5-10 minutes, whether I have a few other programs open or not. I’ve gotten into the habit of saving the file over and over, after each and every change. A few times the program even crashed DURING the save process. When I re-opened the file, this last bit of work had vanished.
It is so shocking that a company can charge enterprise-level prices but not provide enterprise-level stability for its software.
FW CS4 is also a memory hog. When Fireworks sits idle with no files loaded, it takes up about 220MB of memory. In contrast, Photoshop CS4 only uses about 75MB. Why should FW need triple the memory? Either because it is three times more powerful than Photoshop, or, more likely, it is bloated beyond repair.
At this moment I have a single file open that contains five states with a canvas of 1200×2000, and perhaps 30MB of uncompressed image data, no serious filtering effects applied, and 20 text layers in total. Guess how much RAM that Windows Task Manager reports FW is using? Normally,
~400MB. Nearly half a GIG.
C’mon Adobe. Fix your software.
Review by Kendall L. Vaughan for Adobe Fireworks CS4 [OLD VERSION]
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This software isn’t working for me at all. At first it was very temperamental and would only work some of the time. Recently I had to move everything to a new hard drive and Fireworks stopped working entirely. The fact that this software has been out for over a year and still won’t even launch is unbelievable.
Review by L. Mylks for Adobe Fireworks CS4 [OLD VERSION]
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wow! what a piece of garbage this software is and how amazingly bad, unhelpful, and time consuming Adobe’s tech support staff respond to this product’s problems – if they respond…
Wanna play with software that let’s you truly know misery and frustration – buy this product…
Wanna make a working website or “rapidly design” something… try something else – I’m sorry I don’t know what to use instead. Any suggestions?
Business people, be forewarned, do not buy Fireworks CS4 if you work with deadlines.
Review by Gregory Milligan for Adobe Fireworks CS4 [OLD VERSION]
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I have been using Fireworks CS4 (Win) for several weeks, mostly in prototyping and website design. I have experienced none of the buggines and instability others here describe. Usually, I am running 10 or 20 other apps in the background, including Photoshp CS4, Lightroom, Visio, Outlook, IE, Firefox, Remote Desktops, etc. I use it accross 4 monitors. I have had no problems – at all.
I am also testing a trial version Expression and SketchFlow. So far, at least for the wireframes and prototyping, I prefer Fireworks. It is powerful and allows me to leverage the tools and features I am used to working with across the Adobe product family. I still need more time with Expression Suite to make any final decisions, but my immediate knee jerk reaction is Fireworks is more intuative and powerful. I will probably end up using different applications for specific tasks. Fireworks is a great design tool.