dreamweaver rollover hotspot
Graphic designers have very specific needs. Some design for print, while others design for the Web. Some need to edit photo-realistic images, and some need to create illustrations from scratch. And some do it all. But if you are a web graphic designer, you can’t go wrong with Fireworks.
There are many reasons why you should run (not walk!!) to the nearest store and get Fireworks. To showcase all the reasons would require many pages, but rather than risking the wrath of my editor I decided to highlight a few features that are close to my heart.
Interface
Fireworks, one of the better products that came out of the Macromedia factory, has the same interface as Dreamweaver, Flash and Freehand. So if you are a regular user of those products, you will be glad to know that with the common menu structure, panel management and Tools Panel layout, using Fireworks will be intuitive and highly accessible.
Slices
What are slices? Unless you are on a broadband connection like a DSL line, it could take a while for a large image (no matter how much it is optimized) to load. Fireworks introduces slicing: by slicing an image, you are breaking the image into parts which is likely to appear faster to the user. Slicing also comes in handy when you need to use more than one export format for an image. For instance, areas with less than 256 colors or text should be exported as GIF files, but photographs need to be saved in the JPEG format to maintain the subtleties of the image. In that case, you need to create a mixed-graphic sliced image – with the help of Fireworks of course.
Layers
Fireworks has excellent layer handling. For those uninitiated, layers allows you to do composite and prototype work with speed and ease. Your graphics may be made up text, images, objects (e.g. animation graphics) all of which is a layer of its own. Just compare layers to the technique used in cell animation and you will understand what I mean. In Fireworks, every layer has a thumbnail view along with thumbnails of hotspots and slices for easy identification. Layers can be nested. This nesting allows a designer to edit the layers properties concurrently, lock it as a precaution against accidental erasure or for just pure organization purposes.
Optimization
Fireworks not only allows you to optimize and preview final output in every popular format, you can do so in either one, two or four separate panels. This is extremely useful if you want to examine GIFs and JPEGs side-by-side with varying compression settings in the same window, comparing file size and appearance, without ever leaving Fireworks. They even have a selective JPEG compression that allows you to selectively compress portions of an image more or less than other areas resulting in superior image clarity at lowered file size.
History Panel
Raise your hands if this sounds familiar. You spent hours working on a graphic but then you realize the final product isn’t what you envision. Should you press Ctrl-Z (i.e. undo) 20 times to get back to the last stage you were happy with or should you spare your fingers and start with a new canvas. Whimper no more, Fireworks has come to the rescue. Undoing your mistakes is just a matter of moving a sliding bar next to the History Panel. You will even see the changes right on the canvas. By default, the maximum number of undo steps is 20 but that can be changed easily. Though one has to keep in mind that the more undo steps there are, the more memory that is used and that may have a negative impact on the application’s performance. Fireworks can also save the sequence for later use. By selecting a group of steps and saving them as a command, you can replay those step on a graphic with ease.
Web Events
Many graphic editors can create simple image rollover capabilities, swapping of images, but how many can claim capability to create pop-up windows. Granted the code generated is on the heavy side, but using them might be worthwhile considering the control, ease of use or if you just know next to nothing about writing code. The greatest plus is that all the nifty web events work in most popular versions of IE and Netscape, including Netscape 6.
Animation
One of the few disappointing feature of Fireworks. The process to create animation is easy through defining a few simple parameters, but its capability is somewhat limited. You can move, scale, rotate, and change the opacity of an object but anything more than that is a sheer impossibility.
Effects
Like most graphic editor, you can add shadow, bevel, emboss and glow to any text, image or group of images. Each effect comes with a number of parameters that can be easily tweaked at any time. But if you hanker for more, you could purchase products like EyeCandy 4000 or Kia’s Power Tools and installs those as plugins.
All said and done, no product comes without flaws. There a few inconveniences I could do without and couple of add-ons I wish they had but issues like that shouldn’t distract a typical user from the potential of Fireworks. Well, maybe except one issue…
Like all great products, quality seldom comes cheap. Fireworks is “greater” than most. At the time of the printing, Fireworks retails at whopping price of $299 at http://www.adobe.com but the street price is found to be slightly under $250.
Woei Yu Choo
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dreamweaver rollover hotspot Questions
how to insert a rollover image within a photoshop doc in dreamweaver?
Hi was wondering if anyone knew how to make a roll over image within a Photoshop image in Dreamweaver.
Ive tried creating a hotspot and linking it that way, but the image appears below the Photoshop image in the browser.
I just want the rollover to be a small to medium size image that may hover over the main Photoshop image!!!
Can anyone help????
i am trying to build a website but have used a photoshop image in dreamweaver. as i can not select the image i want to know how i will be able to create a roll over image?
For an example please vist site below.
you might understand what im trying to do. I just want to be able to navigate on the document and have a rollover with info.
Something similar to the website.
http://startrakmusic.com/
Thanks
confuse with you statement. better if you give an example website
i always use image map or you may check, Tag Inspector ->Behavior
dreamweaver rollover hotspot Videos
Creating Image Maps in Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
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