By: GraveDeen

GraveDeen — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:58:12 +0000

As a veteran page designer who started at IBM in the early ’80s using SGML and PostScript, I’ve used more professional page design products than most people have heard of, including: Xerox Star (first GUI environment) and Ventura Publisher, IBM Mainframe-based DrawMaster and BookMaster, MS Word (1.0 on), TRON/TROFF, Arts&Letters (first bezier-curve-based vector drawing program for the PC), Aldus PageMaker and Freehand, CorelDraw, Adobe FrameMaker, Illustrator, PhotoShop, InDesign, DreamWeaver and Fireworks.

Many of you seem to be bent on PhotoShop, which was developed for print projects. It has undergone some changes to include web-specific functionality, but more as an afterthought. Its vector drawing tools are still clunky after all these years. PostScript is at the heart of PhotoShop’s export function, which still leads in the print arena. But HTML is at the heart of web content, and web pages bring a new element to the designer’s table: interactivity.

Enter Fireworks! Macromedia had a great idea: develop a web-specific design/drawing program that combines the best of PhotoShop’s raster processing tools with the best of the industry’s vector drawing tools (bezier curves and text, with fill and line properties) and use the familiar Adobe interface with layers, frames (or states) and object properties, but with DHTML and web-optimization at the heart of the export function. How perfect is that?

I jumped from PhotoShop to Fireworks as soon as the bulk of my projects became web based (version 1.2). That was before CSS became prevalent and developers were still using the tag to do page layout. The HTML/Javascript generated by Fireworks was righteous in those days.

When Adobe took Macromedia, my biggest fear was that they would kill Fireworks as potential competition to PhotoShop. I knew they would kill FlashPaper as competition to Adobe Reader–which they did. But Adobe has shown great wisdom in keeping Fireworks as the web-specific design and development tool in their creative suite. Fireworks CS5 offers righteous XHTML/CSS code generation (although somewhat CSS-class-verbose).

All projects are not the same. But Firework’s versatility makes it great for complete single-page projects (such as HTML email), or for specific snippets of interactive code and graphics that add to a more complex site architecture.

Good mechanics reach for the right tool for the job. If I were designing for print media, I reach for PhotoShop. It does wonderful color separations and pre-press. But when designing/developing a web page, I reach for Fireworks.

By: Student

Student — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:19:16 +0000

what ever you desire, a good designer application is that which helps in rapid designing.

By: Rafles

Rafles — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:52:07 +0000

I love Fireworks, best tool for web design and user friendly

By: savita

savita — Thu, 27 May 2010 09:29:31 +0000

Dream waver and photo shop are the best …

By: laxman

laxman — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:40:27 +0000

dream waver is better

By: Cijo Cyril

Cijo Cyril — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:49:17 +0000

Fireworks & Dreamweaver s d best

By: Vinfotech

Vinfotech — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:23:51 +0000

Photoshop and Dremweaver are reeally very good. I have not heard about the rest. I have learned about the other web design tools after going through this article.

Many thanks for sharing.

By: dheeraj

dheeraj — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:51:09 +0000

Hello all the web designers. I’m also interested in web developing and designing it. I’m just the beginner. May I know the combination of these tools and the databases for this?

By: Mani

Mani — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:24:21 +0000

Great list ! I prefer Fireworks ’cause PS isn’t all about
web designing.

By: Bambang S

Bambang S — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:38:59 +0000

I LOVE YOUR POST VERYMUCH
KEEP POSTING, THANKS A LOT

Comments on: Top Five Web Design Tools