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PNG extension

548

Fireworks Zone

1630

16-11-2009

Description

PNG extension can be used for source files and exported files: you can keep for file for further editing as PNG and export in PNG which can cause confusion.

Requirement

All Fireworks versions

Article

The PNG extension

Native format for Illustrator is .AI and for Photoshop .PSD and PNG for Fireworks. In Illustrator the .ai files can be exported in different formats ( DWG, DXF, SWF, JPG, BMP, SWF, PCT, EMF, PSD, PNG, TGA, TXT, TIF and WMF) but not as .AI The same is true for Photoshop.

In PSD or AI files, there is no confusion, there is a clear distinction between the source files and the exported files. On the other hand, in Fireworks you can export in different formats ( GIF, Animated GIF, JPEG, WBMP, TIFF 8,24,32, BMP 8,24 ; Illustrator 8 ; SWF ; PSD) but also in PNG (PNG 8, 24, 32).

PNG extension .PNG can be used for both source files and compressed (exported or flattened) files. It can become hard for anyone to look at a file to determine whether or not it is a source file or a flattened file. As a result, Fireworks users can easily mistaken the source file PNG from the exported PNG.

Because the formats are the same, one can easily export an exported file and overwrite a source file, losing the data that file originally contained. Messes up program associations, which is done by the file extension in Windows & OSX. People do not want to load up Fireworks every time they want to view a .png file, and usually they want to open up their authoring files in Fireworks not Imageviewer or Preview because they want to start editing a design.

Modifying the extension name

To avoid confusion the best way is to adopt this .fw.png extension (for example: myfile.fw.png) which clearly indicates that the PNG file is a Fireworks source file and png or graphic.png for the exported PNGs (myfile.graphic.png).

Changing PNG extension?

Why not change the extension to something unique such as .fng or .fwpng?

As simple as it may seem to change the file extension for Fireworks source files, it does more harm than it does good. While it is true that developers would be able to easily distinguish source files from destination files, and no longer would they need to worry about accidentally overwriting source files during export, the application support (from other applications) for the Fireworks format would be lost. And often, all it takes is a change in the extension since that is how most applications determine file types.

One of the advantages of using a known file type as a source file is that you instantly have support from all other applications that support that same type. Even if those applications don't support the source format, they will at least get the image data or be able to show a preview of the file. The popularity of the PNG format has made it compatible with hundreds of applications meaning every one of those applications have, since the first release of Fireworks, instantly been able to at least display Fireworks source files. Others, like Flash Professional, can even read Fireworks-specific source data. Changing that extension jeopardizes that support and would even break backwards compatibility since Fireworks itself cannot even recognize PNG files without a proper .png extension. .