Fireworks - Learning to use the program

A

aaronjunited

Member
Can anyone recommend any sites or books where I can learn to use Adobe Fireworks CS5?

I plan on using this software for mock-ups, designing layouts ie, headers, footers, navigation, logos and buttons once I've mastered html and css.

Also is it best to learn how to use the program from scratch or just learn from tutorials on the internet?

Thanks.
 
A

aaronjunited

Member
Forgot to add - Would it be more justifiable that i create headers, footers and the whole design with css?

Is this easier or better? Will it look as nice and respectable?
 
MasterTheWeb

MasterTheWeb

New Member
Hi, here I am again..bit bored lately so I thought let's comment on this thread aswell...Why not.

First of all I would just dive into Fireworks. Just (try to) design your website and if you want to know something specific (that you need to know for your design) just look it up with Google.
That's how I've learned working with fireworks. Just go and make stuff! If you ever have used Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, Fireworks will be easier to understand aswell.

Here are some tutorials for beginners:
http://www.entheosweb.com/website_design/fireworks_tutorial.asp
and
http://www.entheosweb.com/website_design/advanced_web_design.asp
There are plenty more just google it.
I personally would not recommend any books or ebooks. Waste of money, just go use google/search forums about fireworks.

Also you are a beginning webdesigner? Try to design in a so called "960 grid".
Here you can learn what that means:
http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/the-960-grid-system-made-easy/
Fireworks has got some nice 960 pluggin. Just download it here:
http://960.gs/

There is so much to learn about webdesign/webdevelopment, you never know everything about it. Go follow some blogs about webdesign and follow twitterwebdesigners etc.

I don't really now what you mean with what you added about CSS..
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and it's just to "style" your webpages, not to "make" any headers or footers or w/e. But I am not sure what you meant with that..

Hope I helped. Good luck!
 
CaldwellYSR

CaldwellYSR

Member
I'm going to have to disagree with MasterTheWeb here... Obviously you don't "make" headers or footers with CSS you simply style them... but I'm thinking you're defining "Make" as in what you want the header and footer to look like on the page in which case... yes you should use CSS. HTML for the content of the header and footer and CSS for the style. To me that covers "making" them.

As for fireworks, I've never really used it. I wanted to but just never got around to giving it a chance... I imagine the best way to learn it though is just like any other software... dive right in and when you hit a wall ask google ;)
 
ronaldroe

ronaldroe

Super Moderator
Staff member
I've been playing with Fw lately. Actually seems a bit easier to use than Ps or Ai. Definitely a good mix of the 2.

As far as 960gs, that may have been good advice 2 years ago, but it's just not relevant any more. It bloats your code, actually restricts your layout and really doesn't make things that much easier. Responsive design is the way to go.
 
A

aaronjunited

Member
Thanks for the info guys, really opened my eyes a bit.

Although most people are saying dive in and use fireworks, i have followed a couple of website design tutorials for fireworks and its all pretty lost in the woods stuff. Your looking around for things, not sure you have done them correctly then doubts start to happen in your head.

Im much of a learner from a book me, love reading books to learn and build the skills through memory like that.

I'm aware of the 960 grid and downloaded the pack last year, not for me really, and too much concept to take in just for making a mock-up and so on.

CSS - lol i'm certainly aware of what it means, and I know im never going to get visually or graphic wise what photoshop or fireworks can do when it comes to using css.

I'm gona stick to learning the rest of my html and css, im onto xhtml at the minute, and i have learned the basics of css, moving on to css3 soon.

Just trying to get my head round what i'm going to do for designing headers, footers, buttons, logos and so on for any websites i build in the future.

Thanks again guys, much appreciated.
 
ronaldroe

ronaldroe

Super Moderator
Staff member
MasterTheWeb said:
I disagree that designing on 960grid is outdated. And I just mean the designing part, not the coding.
Click to expand...

I'm not in total disagreement on that point. When I mock up in Ps, I use a modified version of the 960 .psd with the guides just to help lay things out. I do think using 960gs in your code is outdated, non-semantic and less than optimal.

MasterTheWeb said:
Btw what do you guys think of this : http://semantic.gs/ ?
Click to expand...

Not bad on the surface. I'd like to see the code it kicks out. Still a bit leary about using a gs at all, though. Just seems a bit unnecessary to me. I used 960 and 960 fluid for a long time, and I moved away for those reasons. I guess if you have a hard time with position attributes like I did, it's not completely off the table.
 
J

jumpingspider

New Member
As for fireworks, I've never really used it. I wanted to but just never got around to giving it a chance... I imagine the best way to learn it though is just like any other software... dive right in and when you hit a wall ask google
Click to expand...

Dive in, and when you have something that you don't understand then Google is always right there!!
 
blueskies2fly

blueskies2fly

New Member
Hi there. I LOVE Fireworks. It IS easier to use than Photoshop. Though, PS has some features that FW doesn't and vice-versa. Often I have to use both software to edit one picture.

If you are really new to FW I can recommend a book called "The Web Collection Revealed" isbn: 978-1435441989. It comes with a tutorial disk and it's easy & fun to work! Amazon has it listed for $81.00, but you can get it from abebooks.com used for less than $10. It is also CS4. I have CS5, but buy my books CS4 as they are a lot cheaper and I don't feel that I'm missing too much with only one version difference. But that's just me. (You can take a look inside on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Collectio...0&sr=8-5&keywords=The+web+collection+revealed )

But it you are planning to use it as a website mockup to be exported to Dreamweaver I'm currently finding that to be a nightmare. If I had to do it all over again I'd just create it in DW to begin with.
 
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