Macromedia's Fireworks is one of the first graphics applications created with the specific requirements of Web designers in mind. Fireworks addresses a common Web-design problem where an image is created in one program, optimised in another, and possibly animated in yet another. No longer do you need to use multiple applications; all the tools required to build complete images for the Web including animations are available in Fireworks. With its focus on Web design features such as animation and transparency and its lack of CMYK handling, Fireworks isn't intended for print designers.
Most Web graphics are made up of line art, type and imported bitmaps. Fireworks can handle all of these and has a full set of vector tools for creating and editing lines, shapes, and Bezier paths. The program offers traditional draw and paint tools including brushes, fills, layers, and special effects such as drop shadows and bevels. Other controls let you scale, skew, rotate, or manipulate the transparency of all objects, including imported bitmaps. The native file format is PNG (Portable Network Graphic) which is a new standard file format designed to work well in online media such as the Web. PNG is a patent-free replacement for GIF and is directly viewable in 4th-generation Web browsers. Many file formats can be imported into Fireworks including Photoshop and Free- hand. However, it is not possible to scan directly into the application, which is a pity.
Fireworks offer an excellent export function with numerous configurable options. You can choose to produce a GIF, animated GIF, JPEG, or PNG version of your image. There are complete compression and colour reduction options for each format and a nice function where the colours automatically snap to the closest Web-safe colour. A preview shows how the exported image will look and provides the image's file size. The preview updates as you change the settings, allowing you find an optimal setting for your images before you export.
Macromedia has produced a killer application in Fireworks. Web designers will find it an excellent application, which streamlines the image creation process. Details of the product can be found at www.macromedia.com where a 30-day trial copy of the software is available for download.
Fireworks is available from Multimedia Solutions at 01-475 3560 or paul@multimedia.ie
By John Gannon
Jump Ahead Starting Reading, CUC Software, Mac/Windows, £19.99
Jump Ahead Year 1 Reading, CUC Software, Mac/Windows, £19.99
It's fascinating to watch a preliterate child find his way around a Windows 95 PC. Not being able to read the menus - or the legends under the icons - does not seem to be a major barrier. There are enough visual clues to click down to a favourite program and if the program is attractive enough a three-year-old can memorise a long series of steps to reach the desired end. In fact, not reading words longer than "Yes", "No" and "Exit" seems to make it easier to use Windows intuitively.
This process gets slightly more complicated when the program in question is intended to teach reading or pre-reading skills. As the titles imply, these CD-Roms are intended for children aged four and five who are ready to start reading or in the second case five and six-year-olds in the first year of reading.
Starting Reading provides 10 activities to build up reading skills, including letter recognition, matching sounds with letters, differentiating between vowels and consonants, and building words and sentences. Each one is presented in a cartoon game setting, with plenty of interactivity to hold the child's interest. Success in an individual activity yields clues to an overall puzzle (finding treasure in the carrot patch).
By and large our guinea-pig four-year-old loved the games and learned from them, even if the repetition needed caused some resentment. The program worked best when used as fun with an older cousin, rather than with a fussy parent anxious to stress the learning element.
Reading Year 1 was beyond our four-year-old, but allowed his cousin (just turning seven) to come into her own. Where the activities on the first disk were a pushover for her, those on this one were more of a challenge. Spelling, building vocabulary, reinforcing correct word-order and comprehension are among the activities and they built sufficiently on what she already knew from school to hold her interest.
In both cases the learning activities are attractively packaged, with lots of small bonuses, such as a parents' guide booklet, printable worksheets and sing-and-learn songs. These are British editions of US titles, but this is not immediately obvious since clear voices from several regions of Britain have been used to dub the sounds. Both children were stumped, however, when asked to associate "P" for "purse" with a picture that clearly showed a handbag.
By Fiachra O Marcaigh
Managing Mailing Lists, Alan Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, 282pp, £21.95
Mail list programs are like the pit-ponies of the Internet: working away ceaselessly to run tens of thousands of discussion groups. Basically, a mailing list manager allows people to send a single mail message which is then distributed to all members of the list, turning email into a broadcast medium.
Schwartz's book provides a detailed introduction for someone who wants to set up and manage a mailing list using one of the major mail list programs Major-domo, Listserv, ListProc or SmartList. In each case, there is information on creating, configuring and testing the list, plus further sections on administration tasks. There is surprisingly little detail on preventing misuse of lists by junk mailers, however. List programs, including Listserv, are available for other platforms, but the book concentrates on Unix systems only.