Some 9 years ago, I bought Macromedia Dreamweaver 3 Fireworks 3 Studio for about $150 to 155 with an academic discount. I was still a graduate student at that time. I only wanted Dreamweaver and didn’t use Fireworks very much.

Nowadays, our work without Fireworks is unthinkable. Fireworks is not necessarily a great application to use. It’s just that you can edit graphic files fast. It’s not like there are many things that you can do with Fireworks, which you can’t with Photoshop.

How about Dreamweaver? I won’t say life without Dreamweaver is unimaginable. It’s true that Dreamweaver is one of the most widely used HTML editor for both Mac and Windows. Dreamweaver is a mature product just like Microsoft Word and Excel. Some Mac users had a good reason to upgrade their Microsoft Office, though. Microsoft never released a Universal upgrade for Office 2004 products so that they could sell more units of Office 2008, which runs natively on Intel Mac computers. Again, how about Dreamweaver?

Adobe officially started shipping CS4 products including Dreamweaver CS4 and Fireworks CS4 in mid-October. The release cycle is quite short. It’s only 18 months. Adobe started shipping CS3 products in April, 2007. Dreamweaver 9 and other CS3 products were already compatible with Intel Mac computers natively. So some Mac users may not feel they need to upgrade their Adobe CS3 products. And our recommendation is… Don’t waste your money. 

Screenshot 01 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 02 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 03 – Source: MacHouse

Fireworks CS4

Let’s go over a few new features of Adobe Fireworks CS4. Dreamweaver 8 first supported tab documents. Now, Fireworks CS4 also supports tab documents. You don’t necessarily need this feature since you can select a specific document under Window. (See Screenshot 01.) Anyway, if you want the tab feature, simply open Preferences and check the box that says ‘Open new documents as tabs.’ (See Screenshot 02.) Now, selecting a specific document is easier as documents are shown as tabs at the top. (See Screenshot 03.)

Screenshot 04 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 05 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 06 – Source: MacHouse

If you use Photoshop and Illustrator, you may find Smart Guides useful. Fireworks now supports Smart Guides. Look under View, and you can enable/disable this feature. (See Screenshot 04.) With this feature enabled, I created a simple shape. Now, I can easily place it at the center of the document. (See Screenshot 05.) Smart Guides is also useful in finding the location of one shape relative to that of another. As shown in Screenshot 06, I created an arrow shape, which I want to relocate such that the two shapes will be right-aligned.

Screenshot 07 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 08 – Source: MacHouse

This is a minor thing. When you process a document, a process meter will appear at the bottom. (See Screenshot 07.) When Fireworks finishes working, this meter will disappear.

Screenshot 09 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 10 – Source: MacHouse

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Furthermore, if you look under Commands, there are several new comers. There are a couple of commands for AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). (See Screenshot 08.) You will also find a command labeled Export to FXG. What is FXG? It’s a file extension for Flex.

Screenshot 12 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 13 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 14 – Source: MacHouse

Whenever I upgrade Fireworks, what I look forward most to seeing first is Styles. Are there new styles in this upgrade? Yes, there are. You have an additional step when you select a particular style, though. That’s what bothers me a bit. If you choose Styles under Window, you won’t see styles. In Fireworks CS4, you should see a drop-down menu. (See Screenshot 12.) If you click on this menu, you will get a list of style categories. (See Screenshot 13.) You can find new styles under Old Paper Styles, Pastel Styles Wood Styles and more. (See Screenshot 15-7.) I don’t know about you, but I would rather have all styles in one box.

Screenshot 15 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 16 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 17 – Source: MacHouse

Now, let me open an existing PNG file. The document size is only 200 x 165 pixels. (See Screenshot 18.) Seeing this screenshot, do you know what bothers me? The document is very small. But the new version of Fireworks opens it in a full window. It’s terribly difficult to grab the right-bottom corner of the window to rescale the window. Most likely, you will accidentally take the Mouse pointer to the Dock. Grabbing a bottom corner is not always possible, right? If I move the whole document window to the right, as shown in Screenshot 20, I can no longer grab the right-bottom corner to rescale the window. Of course, I can grab the left-bottom corner of the document instead to rescale the window. But the point is that the new version of Fireworks covers all other application windows with its own, regardless of the document size. That denies the multi-tasking feature of Mac OS. And rescaling the document window is more difficult than ever.

Screenshot 18 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 19 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 20 – Source: MacHouse

There’s another minor problem with Fireworks. If you use tab documents, the shortcut keys for closing a document (Command + W), resizing a document (Command + #1, 2, 3, 4) may not work immediately. You may have to deselect a document at first in order to use these shortcut keys.






Dreamweaver CS4

I’m sure Dreamweaver CS4 has some new features. But I won’t discuss any of them. The new version of Dreamweaver is something that I regret having installed. Let’s see what I mean.

As shown in Screenshot 21, I opened an existing PHP document. It’s a PHP document obviously because it contains some PHP codes. Anyway, I highlighted the word ‘CS3.’ (See Screenshot 21.) If I leave the cursor at the same position for just a second or longer, a symbol will pop up. (See Screenshot 22.) This Code Navigator symbol, which blocks my editing, won’t disappear unless I take the Mouse pointer out of the document or to the Properties window. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Dreamweaver allows me to disable this symbol.

Screenshot 21 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 22 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 23 – Source: MacHouse

Next, let me move the cursor downwards a bit. As shown in Screenshot 23, it’s now located over the letter o. You can’t tell if the cursor is shown before or after the letter o, which quite annoys me.

Screenshot 24 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 25 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 26 – Source: MacHouse

Okay. As shown in Screenshot 24, I opened a new document and named hello.html. After typing a word, I just want to change its font color. That’s all I want to do. So let me highlight the word Hello and choose a font color on the Properties window. (See Screenshot 25.) Oh, no… The color swatch is gone. If I insist on changing the font color, one of my choices is to choose Color under Format. (See Screenshot 26.) Okay. Dreamweaver has given me a color picker. (See Screenshot 27.) So I can just choose a color that I want. Then let me click on the Okay button.

Screenshot 27 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 28 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 29 – Source: MacHouse

Well, that’s not over. The next window suggests that I create a CSS rule. (See Screenshot 28.) Let me name the class selector ‘font_color_red.’ Finally, I managed to change the font color. (See Screenshot 29.) Switching to the code view, Dreamweaver has added a class. (See Screenshot 30.) As shown in Screenshot 31, I could just enclose the word with <font color=red> and </font> But what a hassle, huh!?

Screenshot 30 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 31 – Source: MacHouse

Finally, let me open a help menu and find out the right way of changing the font color. If I choose Dreamweaver Help under Help… (See Screenshot 32.) A web browser will launch itself and go to Adobe’s website. (See Screenshot 33.) Is this a joke? It looks like Adobe has killed Dreamweaver’s help menu.

Screenshot 32 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 33 – Source: MacHouse

In summary, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is a disastrous upgrade. It used to be an HTML editor. Now, it looks more like a CSS editor. People use software applications to reduce work and save time. But Dreamweaver CS4 will only increase your work to do simple tasks.

It’s a pity that Adobe Dreamweaver doesn’t even change the font color with one or two clicks of Mouse. The location of the cursor is so obscure that it’s not even easy just to edit what you’ve typed.

Fireworks CS4 is not necessarily a bad upgrade. However, the new version of Fireworks makes it difficult to resize the document window and select style.

Personally, I didn’t look forward to installing Dreamweaver CS4 and Fireworks CS4. As I said before, they are both mature products like Microsoft Excel and Word. Since Dreamweaver CS3 and Fireworks CS3 run on Intel Mac computers natively, I wasn’t really interested in CS4 products. But since I had to re-format the internal HD in conjunction with Windows partition/Boot Camp, I thought it was a good opportunity to try out Adobe CS4 products. Obviously, Dreamweaver CS4 doesn’t work for me. I’m likely to remove it and instead install Dreamweaver CS3. I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep Fireworks CS4.






Dreamweaver and Fireworks are products of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

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