I am glad to announce my first tutorial on Fireworks Design Center.

This is a nice article about “Creating crystals with Fireworks” where you will learn how to make realistic 3D crystals using basic techniques.

Links:

• Creating crystals with Fireworks
• Fireworks Design Center

Check my other articles for Adobe and Community MX:

Today the Spanish translation of the Fireworks command DistriFusion FW8 is now shipping.

You can download DistriFusion in 4 languages: English, French, Japanese and Spanish. Take a look and download DistriFusion.

I am thrilled to announce that today is the official launch of DistriFusion FW8.

Because it is the result of a couple months’ work, because it is a partnership with a brilliant and friendly developer: Hiroshi Miyazawa (former Adobe). Because it is a free Fireworks command to share through the community. Because it is an international project mixing people from France, the US and Peru. Because it is a showcase of what Fireworks Zone team is capable of. Continue reading »

Here’s a Texture collection by z7server.com (wood, water, wallpaper, bricks, etc.). It is worth mentioning that textures have been packaged into Fireworks MXPs. A huge time saver!

Actually, when you click on z7server.com’s MXPs the pictures will be directed to your Textures folder and as you probably know color images will be converted to grayscale. If you like dark and grey it is fine but if you prefer colors then drop them in your Patterns folder instead. Why?

Essentially, it is a language problem. What is usually called Textures in other apps, equal to Patterns in Fireworks jargon.

Links to follow:

• Texture library
• All you should know about textures

In our activity of creation of custom Fireworks commands we are looking for a Spanish translator with good knowledge in Fireworks to translate user interface and manual.

Please contact: fireworkszone@free.fr

John Dunning’s Smart Punch command simplifies the task of punching one or more vector shapes into another. Normally, selecting several shapes and then clicking Modify > Combine Paths > Punch results in just the topmost path being punched into the bottommost one. The other selected paths are ignored. And punching with text doesn’t work at all. You first need to convert it to a path, ungroup the paths, union them into a single path, and then punch. Continue reading »

Fireworks Developer Center released recently an article Creating user interface mockups with Fireworks which shows you how to create user interface mockups with Fireworks CS3 in 15 minutes or less! Continue reading »

Fireworks Zone with its partners offer professional services in Design and Development. Continue reading »

While this isn’t the golden section thing, Aaron recently put together a simple AutoShape that contains several well known geometric design guides (half, thirds, quarts, root5, golden and two golden derivates) with some ratio aids:Geometry Guides

Just drop it in your Configuration/Auto Shapes folder.

Thank you Aaron

To round the corners of a selected rectangle, in the Property inspector, enter a value from 0 to 100 in the Roundness box and press Enter, or drag the pop-up slider. But if you want to change the “roundness” parameter to a pixel radius rather than a “percent.” for greater accuracy get Matt Stow’s latest handy command Set Corner Radius which allows you to specify the corner radius for the current primitive rectangle in pixels.

Just drop it in your Configuration/Commands folder.

Great work Matt

Kuler is all about color: color for exploration, inspiration, experimentation and sharing. It is the first web-hosted application from Adobe Labs designed both to stand alone and to complement Adobe Creative Suite software. If you want to know everything about the Adobe Kuler project see link 2.

Ben Pritchard created first a kuler command for Flash (see link 3) and then ported the kuler panel for Flash CS3 to Fireworks CS3 at Alan’s request (see link 1). Fireworks users can now use Kuler inside of Adobe Fireworks CS3 with this new panel. Although still considered as a beta it works perfectly on Windows.

Links to follow:

1. Kuler for Fireworks
2. Labs
3. Kuler for Flash

My latest tutorial: Create a Postage Stamp and a Rubber Stamp Effect has been released on Community MX.

If you want to start producing some unique stamps, read this tutorial. It will demonstrate how to create a Postage Stamp with a Postmark. This tutorial is valid for Fireworks CS3 and lower versions.

This 6-page tutorial is not a free content and should you acquire it you will get familiar with different techniques: different punching methods, creating custom strokes, bezier curves, saving strokes and attaching text on a path.

Created with Fireworks command Create Symbol Script, Color Picker rich symbol has 2 properties: you can modify its background color and you can make it less visible.

Download Color Picker (38 kb) rich symbol and complete your WinXP collection.

Instructions to install

Unzip and drop the 2 files: ColorPicker.graphic.png and ColorPicker.jsf into Common Library folder in Program Files > Adobe > Fireworks CS3 > Common Library > WinXP

Happy symbol!

Check a collection of 28 free CS3 Wallpapers for CS3 Suite: Design Premium, Master Collection, Production Premium, Web Premium, Creative Freedom and Creative License in 5 formats: 800×600 ; 1024×768 ; 1280×960 ; 1600×1200 ; 1920×1440. Don’t worry, a javascript application will help you determine your screen size to choose from the 5 formats.

Download CS3 wallpapers

5 easy-to-use and unique panel commands are now available on Fireworks Zone allowing you to insert cursors or objects into your active documents. Check the 5 panel commands:

• Insert Fireworks Cursors
• Insert Flash Cursors
• Insert Illustrator Cursors
• Insert Photoshop cursors
• Insert Sample Symbols

To get familiar with Fireworks Zone’s new icon panel commands, download free samples:

Download: Insert Photoshop Cursors Light

Download: Insert Sample Symbols

This flash panel based extension allows you to insert a set of over 40 Photoshop cursors for Windows in bitmap format into the active documents. This light version is free for download. The full version has over 50 cursors.

Check and download Insert Photoshop Cursors Light

Other links:

• Insert Fireworks Cursors
• Insert Flash Cursors

This Adobe’s extension enables you to convert old (common) libraries to Fireworks CS3 new Common library format.

In Fireworks CS3, library of symbols management has been deeply modified. With the addition of the Common Library feature, the Library function (for common libraries) from the edit menu has been removed (Edit > Libraries). One of the big differences between the old libraries (FW8 and lower) and the new Common Library is how the symbols are stored: In the Common Library, there is a folder with individual PNGs (following all the same pattern: symbol.graphic.png), but in the old symbol library, there is a single PNG file with each symbol on a separate layer. Read More.

Viktor Goltvyanitsa’s (Dreamworld) standalone Color Palette is now a built-in command in Fireworks CS3. To access the Color Palette : Window > Others > Color Palette.

Links:

1. Viktor Goltvyanitsa’s Dreamworld
2. To learn how to use Color Palette,check the tutorial

Traditionally, after the release of a new version of Fireworks comes an updated version of the Extension Manager. Its role is to help install new extensions and manage the ones you already have.

Manager 1.8.169 only new feature is that it is now common to Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Fireworks, and Adobe Flash.

To download Extension Manager 1.8