Why do you Despise Fireworks?

Ever since Adobe announced the acquisition of Macromedia, everybody is trying to figure out what will be the fate of the products we use regularly. I think I've read it all, and although it would make sense to slash out Freehand (the product has been stagnant for so long, in effect favoring Illustrator), I don't understand why some neglect Fireworks importance.

Fireworks, with all its quirks, is better than ImageReady, period. Comparing Fireworks to Photoshop makes no sense, they have different missions. Although it's been very long since I used Fireworks for creating layouts and slicing graphics for web pages, it is is still my weapon of choice for editing and optimizing (not retouching) photographs, and creating other visuals (bitmaps) for my Flash applications. I even use it to create emoticons for my chats over MSN Messenger... that's another story.

Anyway, as a user of Fireworks since version 2, I don't think it deserves to be dropped, or have its guts spilled around. If anything, it should be used to make a better ImageReady or replace it completely, if at all possible.

Late for the Reboot

So, I wanted to have a new design ready, on time for the May 1st Reboot. Needless to say, I couldn't quite make, but I wanted to share what I have so far anyway. So, head head here if you want a sneak peek. Your feedback is welcome as always.

I'm making extensive use of URL translations with mod_rewrite, both to build a simpler template system, and to prevent 404 errors that may arise from external links. That, paired with an updated, object-oriented version of my "hades" PHP engine has resulted into a more manageable and powerful blogging tool. Still, there are details that I haven't finished yet, so you might run into issues, especially with the archives which I'm yet to localize properly.

Regarding the visual design, using sIFR allows my templates to use better-looking headers, yet keeping the page search-engine friendly. I am also using a dynamic flash bar to separate content, and keep the user in context with the content.

So, hopefully and depending on how this week goes, I should be able to roll out the new design sometime this weekend or next week.