Seriously "Must Have" For the Fireworks User
Just about every time I need a technical manual, especially software based, I head for the 'Bible' series. I've yet to be disappointed. I'm sure every web developer knows that Macromedia is "the" software to use. I know enough about Fireworks to get by without this book, but it helped me to learn a few new things about this version (MX) and it also acts as a wonderful reference tool that I've marked with those little post-it flags in the places I need to regularly reference.
Where's the editor?
This book has a personality crisis because it doesn't know who its audience is. It is far too long and in-depth to be a book for beginners, yet it is too wordy and "cute" to be a particularly useful reference book. I am about halfway through it and I am now skipping over every bit of prose and just reading the tips and figures because I am tired of reading things like, "Until Fireworks, you could never do X!" when "X" is something that we've been able to do in Photoshop (or Corel Draw or Illustrator or whatnot) for years. Fireworks seems to do a nice job of pulling together the main features and functions of a lot of different established programs, but it didn't actually invent these things. All in all, the book does seem to be complete if you are willing to slog through it, but the examples could have been a lot better. The color insert was pretty useless, and a few of the images actually made me cringe - the publisher really should have shelled out a few extra bucks for a professional graphic designer.
Definitely not for the beginner
If you're new to web design, but are eager to get started with hands-on learning, find another text. This book is intended for the Fireworks scientist who enjoys extremely wordy and granular discussions of specific topics. The author obviously loves writing, because to learn anything with this book, you'll need to do a lot of reading. There are no tutorials,very little practical advice, and the author expects you to already be proficient with computer-graphics terms. He'll extemporate ad-nauseum on a particular subject, and hidden at the end of the last paragraph will be directions on how to access the setting he's discussing. He explains everything, and ties nothing together into a cohesive lesson. At the end of this book you'll ask yourself "okay, how do I use all of these tools to create something?". The author might respond, "hey pal, that's up to you".
(3 reviews)
