Joey is king. He told me what I needed to know. Fireworks has a little bug.
I reported that to Adobe.

The building is on fire, and I want you all to leave the building. And
St??phane Bergeronto, before you go, I want you to understand that I am not
delusional. I learned HTML syntax from the ground up using just Notepad and a
browser and guidance from one of the trickest code-monkeys around, Jim Link.
It's because I know my sh*t, that if I wanted to, I can build a very
effective Website - 100% visually - using a graphics app - that generates code
like it is supposed to - Notepad, and a browser.

Y'all have a really good week!

SKB wrote:
> Now in monte's case. He wasn't trying to create a template to control
> multiple web pages. He was trying to control one page. Generating over
> 300 lines of css and 40 divs to get a table-less layout for one page. Oh
> wait, I forgot about the 100 lines of code for the hot spot if added in
> like he wants. Kind of defeats the purpose, wouldn't you think?

Definitely... and exactly why I don't use code exported by Fireworks or
any other graphics editor. It's not their strenght and not their job. As
I said before, creating the HTML structure of a page requires a
different mindset than creating visually although, for me, both are
tied. When I create the visuals of a Web page I do think in terms of
sections and I always work on the site's information architecture before
I even work on the visuals. How a site is organized and what kind of
navigation is needed is directly linked to how content or information is
organized in a site so, that comes first.

> Exporting as html and images only generates about 300 lines. Sounds like
> the way to go.

Not really. Fireworks' regular tables based export is too fragile to be
usable as well. Add a bit too much text and the layout breaks badly. A
better strategy IMO is to slice and export the minimal amount of
graphics required to recreate the visual FW layout (at least anything
that cannot be recreated with CSS) and build the page structure in
Dreamweaver or a code editor or any app more suitable for this task than
a graphics editor. You'll end up with a much leaner code base that is
much more semantic thus better suited to good search engines ranking and
more accessible. It may take a little more time up front... but it
yields far more flexible results that are much easier to maintain and
change.

> I don't use Fireworks generated code either. But, if I asked it to
> export css, I wouldn't expect to see interactive html markup.

Why not? I don't understand your reasoning here. CSS doesn't do anything
on its own, it is tied to HTML markup. So if FW exports complete pages
in two distinct ways (table based layouts and CSS based layouts) why
would links work in one and not the other? The fact that it doesn't is
clearly a bug or an oversight. Regardless of the quality or suitability
of the generated code. I see no reason why links shouldn't work for both
kinds of exports.

> I need to go shovel some snow.

Yeah... had to do that too... ;-)

--
Stéphane Bergeron
reach : connect : communicate
http://www.webfocusdesign.com
blog : tutorials : articles : gallery
http://www.pixelyzed.com

Montemedia wrote:
> Joey is king. He told me what I needed to know. Fireworks has a
> little bug. I reported that to Adobe.

Good.

> The building is on fire, and I want you all to leave the building.

Huh?

> I want you to understand that I am not delusional. I learned HTML
> syntax from the ground up using just Notepad and a browser and
> guidance from one of the trickest code-monkeys around, Jim Link.

Good for you and I stand corrected then. So why do you expect A graphics
app to do your work for you then? And especially to do it well? ;-)

> It's because I know my sh*t, that if I wanted to, I can build
> a very effective Website - 100% visually - using a graphics app -
> that generates code like it is supposed to

That's the delusional part right here ;-) I know of no graphics app that
can do this. None. Fireworks can't (yet). ImageReady certainly couldn't
and I know of no other graphic app that exports Web pages that even
approaches these two even if neither is anything to write home about in
terms of exported code quality. Fireworks can create good clickable
prototypes (given you don't use CSS layer apparently) and even better
now with multiple pages but that's all I would use its code for
personally...

--
Stéphane Bergeron
reach : connect : communicate
http://www.webfocusdesign.com
blog : tutorials : articles : gallery
http://www.pixelyzed.com

Stéphane Bergeron wrote:

>> I don't use Fireworks generated code either. But, if I asked it to
>> export css, I wouldn't expect to see interactive html markup.
>
> Why not? I don't understand your reasoning here. CSS doesn't do anything
> on its own, it is tied to HTML markup. So if FW exports complete pages
> in two distinct ways (table based layouts and CSS based layouts) why
> would links work in one and not the other? The fact that it doesn't is
> clearly a bug or an oversight. Regardless of the quality or suitability
> of the generated code. I see no reason why links shouldn't work for both
> kinds of exports.

It just makes sense to me that if I ask for css layers I would only get
the the start of a css style sheet with the divs positions and size
already done. And since this was all Fireworks was giving up, it didn't
seem like a bug to me.

After some experimenting and reasonable conversations, it appears that
it can be accomplished. There is an upgrade to the Smart Css extension
that comes default with Fireworks. It can be found here..

http://tinyurl.com/ywbqd4

After installing this update/upgrade, Fireworks does in fact export link
references in the html when exporting as css layers. I don't know if it
will handle hot spots but, a link attached to a slice works.

Even though I will probably never use this feature, I'm always willing
to learn something new. I hope everyone is too.

SKB

Teasingly, St??phane Bergeron wrote: Good for you and I stand
corrected then. So why do you expect A graphics
app to do your work for you then? And especially to do it well? ;-)

Monte responds: You can disagree with me - it's okay - but, I'll bet
the same the same engine that generates code for Dreamweaver powers Fireworks.
As I'm sure there was a similar relationship between GoLive and ImageReady
(sigh).

Like I've mentioned previously, no matter how the code gets to one of my
pages, I always check the syntax for errors by using the code-checker-thingy in
either Dreamweaver or GoLive. When all issues have been resolved - if there
were any - the page goes live.

"Live" that's the exciting part. And that's how I roll. ~ Monte

Hi Everyone,

FYI, the default CSS export is a simplified export whose only purpose is to
provide absolutely positioned images in an HTML page based on CSS. It does not
support slices or hotspots, nor does it support any of the behaviors that go
with them. For that, you would want to use the more matured table-based export.

If you are looking to get more out of a CSS export, please take a look at John
Wylie's SmartCSS export which is used as a default CSS export replacement:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/firework...smart_css.html

Bear in mind that we are aware of the limitations of the current default CSS
export and are constantly considering options for improving it in the future.

---

Additionally, keep in mind that all export scripts are externalized and can be
edited - or new scripts can be created from scratch with a little JavaScript.
This means you also have the opportunity to change the current CSS export to be
more adequate to your liking (not unlike what John Wylie accomplished). For
more information on these kinds of scripts and how they can be edited or
created, see:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/firework...ml_styles.html

In pursuing that further, you will want to be sure to have available a
reference to the APIs used by Fireworks JavaScript can be found in the
Extending Fireworks documentation here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/documen.../en/fireworks/

Fireworks is half-assed. Adobe had the right idea with Image Ready. they should have continued with it.

I can't say that enough.

Monte, why don't you just continue to use Imageready then? I don't see how
you're proving much of a point by repeatedly critiquing software you've
admitted (and proven) that you don't understand how to use?

JoeyD1978 wrote:
> Monte, why don't you just continue to use Imageready then? I don't see how
> you're proving much of a point by repeatedly critiquing software you've
> admitted (and proven) that you don't understand how to use?
>

Agreed.

--
Jim Babbage - .:Community MX:. & .:Adobe Community Expert:.
http://www.communityMX.com/
CommunityMX - Free Resources:
http://www.communitymx.com/free.cfm
---
.:Adobe Community Expert for Fireworks:.
Adobe Community Expert
http://tinyurl.com/2a7dyp
---
See my work on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jim_babbage/

Photoshop CS3 does not include ImageReady. You people can insult me all you
want about not knowing how to use the software.

What it proves is why I never used Fireworks in the first place. And except
for Flash, why I stayed away from Macromedia software all together.

You can protect Adobe all you want.