An open letter to software developers RE Adobe Fireworks Feb 15

Dear software developer.

This is an open letter which I am writing as a one time advocate of Adobe Fireworks. Fireworks is still, some 10 years after it’s conception, the only package out there which provides web designers with the tools they need to design for the web. At it’s core, a balanced blend of vector and bitmap tools, live effects and slicing with optimized export.

However over the years Adobe have lost their way with this product and it’s become bloated by marketing driven features.

Designers carry on using Fireworks only because there is no decent alternative. The latest release – Fireworks CS4 includes a poorly implemented version of the Adobe Type Engine which has brought with it a bug that quite literally effects all users. The bug is as of today (some 5 months after initial release) still not fixed yet it manifests itself in just about every layout a designer works on.

Personally I have lost faith in Adobe to deliver on the promise that Fireworks has as a product. They have been distracted by ‘rapid prototyping’ and integration with development tools like ‘Flex’ – nice to have features that have drawn focus away from the now neglected core function of the software.

We don’t want another new UI, XHTML and CSS export, a JavaScript pop-up menu generator or a new type engine. We just want a product that is 100% focused on allowing us to put down on the canvas what we are imagining in our heads and then slice up and export that for use in a hand coded layout. That’s it.

Right now there seems to be a huge void in the marketplace which developers are not filling. It’s my belief that if someone takes up the gauntlet and comes out with a product that fulfills the basic requirements of a web designer, they will steal a huge slice of business from Adobe.

If not then I’m resigned to hoping that Adobe wakes up and takes notice, puts the effort where it’s needed and waits until the software is really finished before unleashing it on it’s customers.

Kind regards

Nathan Pitman

Dear Adobe Fireworks, it's not you, it's me. Feb 3

When we first met it was love at first sight, your combination of vector and bitmap tools, your web layer and slices… I just couldn’t resist.

For years we’ve worked hand in hand, side by side… you even changed your name and to begin with everything seemed ok, but then I started to feel like you weren’t really there for me anymore.

You started spending a lot of time changing your look, diluting your true self with ‘marketing features’ and half hearted improvements, hiding your real character and charm behind ‘rapid prototyping’ and ‘improved css export’.

That’s not who I fell in love with and I just can’t live with it anymore, I need to get out there and find someone who really understands my needs. I’m sorry but it’s over.

Update: An open letter to software developers RE Adobe Fireworks

ExpressionEngine Plug-in: US States Select Jan 15

This is just a variation of my UK Counties Select plug-in for ExpressionEngine which as you might expect, returns a list of US states in the drop down rather than UK counties. Usage of the plug-in is as follows:

There are also some additional parameters you can pass that are detailed in the plug-in info page.

Download: pi.np_us_states_select.php.zip

Obviously let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on how this can be improved. Enjoy!