Fireworks MX Magic

Rating:
Summary: Using all the Tools in Fireworks
Review: FIREWORKS MX MAGIC
AUTHOR: Lisa Lopuck
PUBLISHER: New Riders
REVIEWED BY: Barbara Rhoades

Vector images. Do you know how to change them, add or subtract something from them? The first chapter in Fireworks MX Magic will teach you how. How about bitmaps? Can you take one bitmap and change it into something else? Chapter two will help you do it.

Ever have a small picture that you would LOVE to use for a background but when you try all you see are many small pictures. There is a chapter on creating seamless tiles. Then there are ways to make buttons so they are interactive and animated by importing URLs and hot spots. You can also learn to animate by using a timeline.

Create great navigation bars with hot spots and have them be connected. Why connected? That way when you make a change to one of the navigation bars, all will change to match. And don't forget, you can learn how to export to Dreamweaver, do batch processing, use project logs with the find and replace to update web sites. And finally, Fireworks extensions as Java script snippets are accessed in the Command menu of Fireworks. Don't know how? Check out this book.

Do you use Fireworks for your graphic needs? Do you REALLY use it or just the main tools? Get Fireworks MX Magic and learn how to use all of the tools in Fireworks.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected !!
Review: I am dissapointed with this book. A book with emphasis on web graphics should be colored. What do I get: A book full of black and white graphics. Come on, are you kidding me!!!I can't even see the difference,after applying a gradient!!I tried to read the book, but I don't have fun at all.Check out "Playing With Fire" by Linda S. Rathgeber, really enjoyed that book!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent How To & Fun!
Review: I had a lot of fun going through this book learning how to use most of the tools Fireworks MX has to offer. The only improvement I'd make is color! I was surprised to find such a rich book in black and white. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone doing graphics for the web. This book is a great intro and Fireworks is a great tool.

Rating:
Summary: Fireworks MX Magic is awesome!
Review: If you're looking to really jazz up a web site, incoporate Fireworks with Dreamweaver or Flash, or simply to use Fireworks as a standalone software product, this book is for you. Granted, beginners will have a harder time understanding all the concepts, but you can get Fireworks 4 Expert Edge (by the same authors) if you need some help with the basics. The included CD provides all the tutorials listed in the book, and you can modify and/or copy any needed elements. The 15 lessons will provide you hours of instruction from some of the most brilliant minds in web design. What are you waiting for?

Rating:
Summary: Straight to the guts
Review: If your looking for the basics on getting started there are many others that will do the job. This book step right into the heart of Fireworks and bends and stretches the tool we know as Fireworks.

Excellent projects and if you don't have a need for the project, there are so many great tips and tricks buried in these books, that alone is worth the price.

Excellent desk book to keep around.

Rating:
Summary: Not completely useless but certainly not very good.
Review: These "Magic" books are very hit and miss and this one does more missing than hitting. While there are a few good sections, this book is more of a portfolio for a few selected graphic designers than a useful instructional guide.

Fireworks Magic is divided into sections which deal with certain tasks, or techniques. In many of the "Magic" books this works because the techniques are useful, timesaving, or at least provide motivation and inspiration to create. That is not the case here. The problem with this particualr book is two fold:

The techniques illustrated are, in many cases, elementary in comparison to the book's focus. If you do not know how to blend a background together (a web technique used sparingly in modern design anyway) or proper exporting formats (jpg vs. gif), why would you spend hundreds of dollars on Fireworks which is almost exclusively a web design tool? This book has almost no instructional value so even if you were a designer and your firm was switching over to fireworks (something we did several years ago) this in no way reflects the type of book your boss would put on your desk to bring you up to speed. In other words, if you were reading this book, you probably already have fireworks experience but they want to show you how to blend a background or export a .gif? Not very well thought out.

Secondly, the work presented in this book is, with a couple of exceptions, poor. If one of my designers presented something similar to the work shown in most sections of this book, we would be having a serious talk about their need for retraining. In fact, there are many techniques used in this book which I truly question.

In the very least, this book could have been a source of design inspiration. It the best case it could have been both a inspirational design book and have some good instructional content. In reality it has neither. With the exception of two sections, this book is a proverbial show and tell for mediocre designers.

Rating:
Summary: Not completely useless but certainly not very good.
Review: These "Magic" books are very hit and miss and this one does more missing than hitting. While there are a few good sections, this book is more of a portfolio for a few selected graphic designers than a useful instructional guide.

Fireworks Magic is divided into sections which deal with certain tasks, or techniques. In many of the "Magic" books this works because the techniques are useful, timesaving, or at least provide motivation and inspiration to create. That is not the case here. The problem with this particualr book is two fold:

The techniques illustrated are, in many cases, elementary in comparison to the book's focus. If you do not know how to blend a background together (a web technique used sparingly in modern design anyway) or proper exporting formats (jpg vs. gif), why would you spend hundreds of dollars on Fireworks which is almost exclusively a web design tool? This book has almost no instructional value so even if you were a designer and your firm was switching over to fireworks (something we did several years ago) this in no way reflects the type of book your boss would put on your desk to bring you up to speed. In other words, if you were reading this book, you probably already have fireworks experience but they want to show you how to blend a background or export a .gif? Not very well thought out.

Secondly, the work presented in this book is, with a couple of exceptions, poor. If one of my designers presented something similar to the work shown in most sections of this book, we would be having a serious talk about their need for retraining. In fact, there are many techniques used in this book which I truly question.

In the very least, this book could have been a source of design inspiration. It the best case it could have been both a inspirational design book and have some good instructional content. In reality it has neither. With the exception of two sections, this book is a proverbial show and tell for mediocre designers.

Rating:
Summary: 15 Projects - Excellent for becoming an Intermediate User.
Review: This expensive book on Fireworks MX has a little over 200 pages covering 15 projects. It is assumed that you are a beginner wanting to move to the next level. The projects address important problems you will encounter on a daily basis and explain solutions in a simple step by step fashion.

To give a preview of what to expect when you work through this book - you will learn how to create flashy buttons, understand the concepts behind large-scale link management, building the ultimate navigational bar, creating perfect pop-up menus, etc. There are a few advanced topics like using Fireworks extensions and collaborative workflow. All in all, this is an excellent book deriving its value from the project based approach (one project per chapter) written and reviewed by experts in the industry.

The entire book is in black and white so the only color you will see is the little yellowish orange on the cover. The book doesn't sit like a normal book on a bookshelf because of its unique dimensions (8x10 instead of 10x8). I personally didn't care too much for this format but it isn't bothersome either. The project files are on the accompanying CD-ROM. The book uses a two column format throughout whereby the text is aligned with the associated images. This provides faster understanding of the topic being discussed.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the chapters on how to build a very cool navigational bar and how to design a dynamic interface using rollovers etc. The chapter on flashy buttons was fun also. Beginners will not be confused by the writing style which is very direct and simple. I didn't find anything magical about this book as hinted in the title but it is a very practical book and useful to almost any Fireworks designer.

Considering the tremendous background that the authors possess, they could have provided more tips and covered another 10-15 projects for the price of the book. But other than that, this is an excellent book on the path to becoming an Intermediate user if you don't mind the price. Enjoy!