Comments on: Adobe Fireworks CS3, my new favorite prototyping tool

By: Anders

Anders — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:25:42 +0000

Very interesting. While I’m somewhat partial to hand-coding my xhtml/css for production work, this could definitely have potential for migrating a FW prototype into a xhtml prototype.

By: Alan Musselman

Alan Musselman — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:45:43 +0000

I also forgot to mention there are developers in the community working on HTML/CSS export scripts/components so when designing with them in terms of prototyping, you will easily be able to output a clean CSS document with the components exporting as known HTML form elements. We didnt have time to integrate this into Fw CS3 since the technology is new, but you can get an example of how it works using the Flex Components in the Common Library that export as expected and clean MXML.

By: Anders

Anders — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:55:32 +0000

Yes, I have tried a few different versions of Axure – while I think the tool has a lot of strengths, I think one of it’s biggest weaknesses (at least based on my knowledge of Axure – I actually haven’t looked at the very most recent version) is one of the main features that attracted me to Fireworks – Smart Symbols – the evolution of user interfaces, particularly in the web sphere, is too rapid to allow for having a prototyping tool with a set of pre-packaged widgets. I think what might happen when using a tool like Axure, is that you (consciously or not) constrain your design solutions to the set of widgets provided by the tool. At the same time, that is not to say that FW CS3 is the be all and end all of prototyping tools – far from it – one key drawback is that you can’t apply links directly to text; instead you have to apply it as a separate hotspot, which can become somewhat clunky.

By: Narisa Spaulding

Narisa Spaulding — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:27:03 +0000

Anders, have you used Axure before? I’m interested in what you think of Axure compared to FW CS3 in rapid prototyping of interactive web apps. I agree that quickly applying changes across many pages (templating) and symbol libraries are a must for workflow.