I’ve made it a personal goal to become familiar enough with these programs in order to function with some efficiency. I began the trial in December and have already invested in buying these programs after my introduction has convinced me of their use to me.
Initially, I was most impressed with Fireworks. It seemed like a really nice program for look and feel web design, which is an aspect of web development with which I struggle. It made elements of Photoshop and Illustrator and Dreamweaver easier in my mind because, I think it contains more of the whole picture of web development. The workflow is simplified, which is something I can appreciate.
I can report that after less than a month, I have not been very capable of translating the theory to the practice yet. Lynda.com has been very helpful as I work with these programs.
But as I have said, I have split my freetime between Fireworks and Flash. And, I can also report that I did not know the true depths of Flash as a platform. That truth has been revealed to me! I testify! Truly, the depth of Flash is very impressive.
Yes, you can create animations and whole websites. But the Flash world is more extensive. While it’s not on iPhones, many smart phones are Flash enabled. So, there is that platform for which to develop. Adobe AIR also widens Flash’s offering to UI’s. Games. Interactive quizzes. Digital portfolios. I have to say, it was stunning to have the breadth slowly revealed to me as I explored this software more.
Through this exploration, I have depended heavily on lynda.com tutorials. Thanks to buying Adobe products, I have several 30 day benefits built up. But I’ve also found that for me to master some of these skills for these programs, I need a little more one-on-one. I broke down and bought some textual help. Usually for Adobe, I like to buy the Classroom in a Book series, but for Flash I elected to go with O’Reilly’s Learning Flash CS4 Professional: Getting Up to Speed with Flash and Learning ActionScript 3.0: A Beginner’s Guide. It’s early on, but I do like the project approach the Learning Flash CS4 Professional takes.
This is an in progress post. I hope to report any actual progress as I make.
