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Any reason NOT to learn Fireworks?

almost 9 years ago from , Freelance Designer

Hey Everyone,

I'm curious to hear what the community has to say about learning Fireworks, since it's no longer being updated by Adobe. I've heard great things about it, and I'd like to add clickable prototyping to my design skills...but I'm now wondering if I'd be better off sinking my teeth into Framer or Adobe Edge Animate. Thoughts?

6 comments

  • Keaton TaylorKeaton Taylor, almost 9 years ago

    Fireworks is abandonware. I'd focus on Sketch and Framer or Sketch and UXPin if you're feeling like dropping some cash.

    1 point
  • Pablo DominguezPablo Dominguez, almost 9 years ago

    I have been a die hard Fireworks fan since I started using it around 13 years ago. It has always been my tool of choice and even after finding out that Adobe doesn´t update it anymore I still continue to use it.

    However I gave Sketch 3 a try and instantly fell in love with it. So much that I don´t use Fireworks any more.

    But once you learn Fireworks it allows you to quickly be able to learn Sketch or Illustrator so definitely would give either Sketch or Fireworks a try.

    Framer and Edge Animate are completely different tools that don´t really have much to do with Fireworks.

    1 point
    • Jennie BowersJennie Bowers, almost 9 years ago

      Thanks for the info, Pablo. I think I'm interested in learning the ins and outs of Fireworks because I've heard such great things, but my driving reason for learning something new is to be able to make clickable prototypes, which I know Framer and Edge Animate focus on.

      I'll definitely take a look at Sketch - heard awesome things about that, too!

      0 points
  • Kemie GuaidaKemie Guaida, almost 9 years ago

    Agree with most of what has been said here. I love FW, but working on a retina screen is painful. I have switched to sketch+illustrator and though I still miss fw functionality (9-slice symbols! rich symbols! symbols symbols and more symbols!), I have not looked back.

    0 points
  • Bevan StephensBevan Stephens, almost 9 years ago (edited almost 9 years ago )

    I used Fireworks for a large part of my design career and loved it. But I don't think I'd recommend anyone start learning it now.

    I've used Sketch for about 2 years now and it's far more suited to Visual / UI design.

    Aside from being no longer supported, there are a few major reasons why I wouldn't recommend it in this day and age.

    1. The fireworks interafce isn't retina. One of the main reasons I switched, it looks terrible on a modern mac screen.

    2. Scaling images down in fireworks meant that you can't scale them back up again. This used to be a real pain.

    3. It crashes a lot, and it doesn't autosave.

    If you want to create clickable prototypes I'd recommend things like Framer, Flinto, Invision or even Keynote.

    0 points
    • Jennie BowersJennie Bowers, almost 9 years ago

      Thanks, Bevan! I was actually researching Keynote a bit (I've done some work in it) and thinking that might be a good place to start, but apparently it doesn't support clickable prototypes - just animations.

      I think Sketch is going to be my ticket. Thanks again for the feedback.

      0 points