Using Fireworks.1

Using FireworksMX 2004

Designing interfaces in Fireworks, using a scenario methodology

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What does Fireworks do?

It's a graphics editor

Designed for producing graphics for the web

It supports both vector and bitmap editingVectors are objects like rectangles and lines, which can be edited after they've been added to a drawingBitmaps are pixel based, if you draw a line on a bitmap you can't move than line later

Very good at producing screen mock-ups for software, in the design phase, and for production

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Exercise - Movie Database

Scenario1. Someone visits “MRes Online Video

Information Experience” (MOVIE)2. They want to find out who starred in “Get

Carter”3. They type the movie name into the search field

and press return4. The then see that there are two versions of the

film, the 196x version and the 2002 version5. They select one and get the details for the film

(including the cast list)

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Napkin Sketch

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Time to start Drawing…

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Creating a new file

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Fireworks Document (Mac)

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Adding Objects

Everything you add to a drawing is an object (aka vector object)

Unlike with bitmap editors you can change objects after you’ve added them.

Resize, Reshape, Change line and fill colours, texture, shadows, and so on

Fireworks has a number of basic objects, like rectangles, ellipses, text, lines, etc.

(actually, you can also add bitmaps, they too can be resized, distorted etc).

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Drawing the basic layout

Just a few rectangles, some text, a text field and a button.

Objects are stacked up on the document in the order they are drawn.

If you want to place an object behind another one, you can change the order

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Grouping Objects

Several objects can be “grouped” to make a more complex object

Two objects make up the search button

Once grouped they can be treated as a single object so they can be moved, resized etc together

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Layers

Now we’ve got the main layout drawn, we need to draw the content over the top

To separate the stuff on top put it on another Layer

Layers stack on top of each other. The top layers obscure those underneath. They can be named to make it easier to tell what is in which layer

To avoid accidentally changing other layers they can be locked or you can use Single Layer Editing mode

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Layers

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Frames

For a design scenario frames are extremely useful

Each frame can show the interface in a specific state, as needed in the scenario, just like the napkin sketch did

Layers can be shared across frames so they appear in all frames

But which layers are switched on and off can be different in each frame

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Frames

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Frames

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Frames

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Frames

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Frames

Frame Controls

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Using Layers and Frames

Build the document up in layers

Layers should group objects which logically belong with each other

In large documents naming the layers is vital

By default layers are not shared, which means that a layer can have different content on each frame. Bad Idea!!

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Anatomy of Fireworks…

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Quick Tour

The pics show the Mac OS X version, but the windows version is almost identical

The main difference is the Windows version puts the tool panels inside the main window, Mac OS doesn’t

Transferring files from one platform to the other is seamless – I routinely use both versions

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Main Window (Mac)

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Main Tool Palette

SelectScale, Skew, Distort tools

Marquee SelectionMagic Wand Select

Pencil – single pixel freehand linesBlur

Simple LinesShapes (Rect, Ellipse, etc)

Freeform tool (adjust shapes)

Rectangle Hotspot toolHide slices and hotspots

Line Colour

Fill Colour

MDI, SDI, Fullscreen

Sub-selectCrop & Export Area tools

Lasso SelectBrush (Freehand line) tool

EraseRubber Stamp (Duplicate) tool

Fill

Pen tool (Bezier Curves)TextCutting tool

Slice toolShow slices and hotspots

Eye Dropper tool (Sample Colour)

Zoom toolHand tool

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Properties Viewer

Properties for whole document

Properties for vector object

Properties for text object

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PNG - portable network graphics

Fireworks uses PNG as it's native format

However, it hides all the vector data etc, inside the PNG file, where no other applications can see it

If you use a Fireworks document in some other program export the frames you want first, otherwise the file will be excessively large!

You can export as GIF, JPG or PNG (and others). Typically PNG is the best format

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Keystrokes

Ctrl 1 = 100% zoomCtrl 2 = 200% zoomCtrl 3 = 300% zoomCtrl 4 = 400% zoomCtrl 5 = 50% zoom

v = select/select behind mode

q = scale/skew/distort mode

cursors = move selected object by one pixel

Shift+cursors = move selected object 10 pixels

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Questions?