Tips
& Tricks Using Fireworks
Crisp
Thumbnails
Making the thumbnails by hand in Fireworks involves taking the original
full size image and modfiying it. I like to use Modify> Transform>
NumericTransform. But as you get the photo or image to the small size
you need, it does tend to loose it's sharpness. Simply try the xtras
for Sharpen or Sharpen more (or both). The image may seem a little too
crisp sometimes after this, but remember some o fthat will also decrease
when you optimize it as a JPG or GIF file. See the Gallery and Samples
pages for an idea of how this technique turns out.
Slicing
and Dicing
Setting up your Simple rollovers can be a problem if your frame
two state, includes elements that extend out beyond the frame one state.
Consider building the frame two buttons first and setting your slices
up there. That way, they will cover all glows and shadows you may want
to have appear when the object is rolled over. When you go back to frame
one you can remove the extra Effects,Bullets, or other items and select
the original color for the text.
Animations
with Javascripted pages (Thank you Brian Hayes
and the discussion board)
You can't have a set of animation frames coexist in the same Fireworks
file as 2-frame rollovers. That's the problem I had. What you have go
do is make the two files separately, and create a "slice placeholder"
in the file with the rollover buttons. The placeholder needs to be the
exact size as the animation file you will import later (use the Info
palette to set the exact size of the slice). Then, export the rollover
button file as HTML and slices, and open the resulting HTML file in
Dreamweaver. In Dreamweaver, delete the placeholder image from the table
cell that the (exact sized) slice created. Replace the placeholder image
with the animation file. You're done.
Graphic
Files Aren't Displaying after uploading in Dreamweaver.
Wow this one haunted me all the way through this project. I discovered
the cure while uploading my last five PNG files. When you go to Link
graphics and such Dreamweaver wants to know if you want the link Relative
to either A. the document or B. the site root.
If
you select the second option (not show here) Site Root, all will work
well in F-12 preview . But the file will actually be linked with a /
in front of it (/pngart/abouttext.png in the above example) and
the graphics will not display when viewed on the web. Select Document
to avoid this.
Use
the Books
The QuickStart was awful as reading material but is fairly good as a
reference book. Even the original manual with the software is fairly
clear and direct. Fireworks is not really intuitive. So you can spend
hours clicking on things that make logical sense but don't do a darn
thing right in the software. If it is one thing I learned this semester,
it would have to be not to keep clicking around this software take two
minutes and look it up. Think of it this way, that's what makes us the
professionals, learning all the nuances and shortcuts of the software.
A book
I hope to use now is called Fireworks4
f/x & Design This book includes two CD-ROMs containing Special
Comstock Stock Photography with over 12,000 comping images. It's published
by coriolis
and is cheaper at Amazon.
Use
the Web
not just for the cumbersome Macromedia help files... but for lots of
other web sites with Fireworks tutorials or creative ideas.
Use Verdana
It keeps the instructor happy.
Student Tips
Compendium
Links to some of the cooler tips pages.
(These are subject to revision or -404 File Not Found- as students change
their sites each semester.)
|
