fireworks

If you live in a small town like mine on the Connecticut coast, you will spend Sunday evening watching fireworks, along with everyone else in town. Why is it that people love fireworks?

Very few designers will disagree that designing in Flash, especially concerning layout, is very fluid and user friendly. Your early ventures into designing in Flash often leave you wondering, “ Just why do I have to click so much to simply select an object and the stroke around it?” and “Why does dragging to select something make cuts into one object or another?” There are quite a few things in Flash that will catch a seasoned designer off guard. Understandably, ease of use does come with time and practice, but there’s a shortcut.

As many of you are probably aware, the possibilities of Macromedia Fireworks are virtually limitless. You can create banner graphics, logos, and even HTML code from within Fireworks. But I recently picked up one of the cooler features that Macromedia has blessed us with...the hierarchy mouseover button menu.

I mentioned quite a few different methods of creating WBMP image files back in March, and now I'd like to elaborate on that topic a little more, focusing on Macromedia Fireworks.

Macromedia Fireworks is the best tool I own for creating web graphics and other such design projects. The fact that it is so extendable, in that you can create your own custom fills, textures, and commands, makes it even more appealing.

The process of updating your website may seem like a fun task at first. You may feel as though you're really accomplishing a lot by working with your code and images everyday...getting things just right. But believe me, it's gets old quick.