Looking for a Replacement for Fireworks 8

Posted in Blog
Nov 30, 2015

I have been using the program Macromedia Fireworks 8 since 2005 because I love this program so much.   It came with Macromedia Studio 8.  A decade later, it is now at the end of year 2015 and I’m still using it after transferring it over two replacement computers.  I need to upgrade to my third computer and I don’t think I can transfer and carry on with Fireworks 8 (after Adobe killed it).   Good bye Fireworks 8.  I hate to see you go. 🙁

Based on the comments in response to Adobe’s announcement that they will not continue Fireworks, it seems like there are many fans of Fireworks.

I’ve been using Fireworks 8 since before Macromedia was bought by Adobe, and before Adobe release CS6, and before Creative Cloud.  It is a great graphical editor for a web developer who don’t want the steep learning curve of Photoshop.

Now I need to look for a replacement for Fireworks 8.  I’ve tried Photoshop and Gimp — but they are not replacement for my beloved Fireworks.

Found this thread.

They mentioned Sketch but I need something that works on Windows.

Gravit is a web-based free graphical editor.

Searching “open source graphical editor”, I found InkScape.  But when I used it for the first time, I couldn’t figure out how to do a simple crop.  So I uninstalled it.

And falling back to using Gimp.  Not quite the same as Fireworks, but perhaps it will do for now.  Until I find something better.  After using Gimp for a while, it simply won’t do.  Takes so long to load.  And can’t figure stuff out.

By now I have tried several programs (including Photoshop which I am familiar using).  And to date, I have not found a program where I can do things as fast as Fireworks.  For example, if you want to get the color off a header image in a screenshot, or resize a jpg, or draw a box on a screen capture, Fireworks can do it with the least number of mouse moves.  Other programs requires a whole bunch of menu steps (perhaps I don’t know them as well).

Then I saw article about how to download Photoshop CS2 for free legally.  But you have to have purchased the software prior.  Even still, seem like you have to write the file to a CD to install it.  Because if you run it off the disk, it installs disk one and then say “insert CD 2”.  Who has a laptop with CD drives now?

So I decided to purchase an old version of Macromedia Studio 8 from Amazon, which includes Fireworks 8.  Hopefully they still work on Windows 10.

---