socialplasm

Part 1 in some of the new features in the latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 applications.

The new beta of Fireworks CS4 is giving us some insight into the upcoming features that will release with the retail version; not all features are present and you only get a 2-day trial to mess with it!
If you’re like me, Fireworks may not be one of your most common tools in your workflow. However, there are some new features that are making Fireworks a potential favorite for designers who are looking into breaking into Flex designing and speeding up their design process.

Fireworks CS4 - 9 Slice

Fireworks CS3 introduced the 9 Slice (9slice, Scale9) functionality. In CS3 this feature was only applicable to vector objects. But in CS4 this feature will be extended to raster images as well.

Below, I’ll cover a couple of the attributes of this updated feature and how to get some predictable results from it.

9 Slice preserves your corners

One of the main reasons that 9 slice was developed was to preserve rounded corners in a more dynamic way than pushing around vector points.

9 Slice does this by preserving the scale and dimension of your designated corner areas. All other areas of your graphic are scaled according to the ’slice’ that they end up residing within. The graphic below shows how each slice is scaled when an image has 9 slice applied to it and then is manipulated:

9 Slice Limitations

Because 9 slice preserves only the corner slices and scales the other five slices it tends to work the best when used on an image or vector where there is a clean horizontal and vertical area that can be stretched/scaled and not look too warped.

In our example above, the fill area is a clean, horizontal gradient. If we were to rotate that gradient out of a horizontal or vertical alignment, apply 9 slice, and then change the horizontal scale of the object, we start to see how 9 slice affects the 5 un-preserved slices:

9 Slice for Images

However, if you are working with an image that can handle the scaling distortion, or you are looking to make subtle adjustments in scale to your raster image, then 9 slice is a great solution for an otherwise time consuming problem. In the example below you can see that Fireworks CS4’s 9 slice function can really come in handy when adjusting the scale or dimensions of certain raster images, while preserving the subtle corner shapes:

More to come soon on the new features of the Adobe CS4 suite!

Enjoy!

written by socialplasm \\ tags: Adobe cs4, cs4, fireworks, graphics, Tutorials

Recently I wrote about how many programmers would kill for the ability to work uninterrupted by clients.

Well, the flip-side of that is that not all business-type people think that working with developers is a walk down happy time lane either.

The truth is that there are distinct types of personalities that fit the role of programmer/developer and there are certain character traits that make up the general population of business-type people; both sides have exceptions to the rule, of course. But the generalizations do hold some water.

Fact of the matter? Most business people don’t have the time to learn the ins-and-outs of Microsoft Word let alone what it takes to put together a website. Most don’t have the capacity to learn to speak in one’s and zero’s; we’re talking about specialized skills on both sides of the line.

‘Tech’ was out of reach for many … until now

There has been a drastic change in the accessibility of web development since the introduction of blogging technology.

Blogs enabled anyone to have a presence on the web. Shortly after the concept took off, companies like WordPress made it even easier for those less technically inclined to get in the game.

WordPress and other content management systems (CMS’s) made it very easy to bridge the gap between having to know how to program and wanting to have a web presence.

In addition to the technology being easy for public consumption, many in the development world realized that there was a whole new niche of development to be had; develop programs open-source and give them away. The return for the programmer? High levels of visibility, access to new and unique projects and jobs based on the business community’s interaction with your free and accessible plugins and applications and a new working environment; a client-free development model.

What Does this Mean for the Non-Programmer?

The majority of the people in the blogging community are just regular people; not uber-geeks who can create things out of one’s and zero’s.

How did they get started? How do they make it look like they know how to build a website?

Here’s a recipe for building a FREE website:

1. Go and sign up for a WordPress account. A WordPress account will set you up with your own, free, easy to manage website.
2. Make it pretty by choosing a new theme for it. A theme is a fast and free way of ’skinning’ your site with a new look and feel. Log into your free wordpress account and you can search and install any one of thousands of free themes.
3. Log in start and writing blog posts.
4. There you go! You have a FREE Internet presence!

Thanks, but I am a little more motivated. I want my site to Rock!

Ok, read on…

written by socialplasm \\ tags: beginner, blogging, wordpress

I know many programmers who confess that the best business opportunity they could imagine would be one where they weren’t constantly bothered by their clients.

I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
-Ayn Rand

Enter, a new business relationship: coding for open source platforms. That’s right, programmers that have caught on to the vision that if they write code, plugins, themes or other elements for platforms such as WordPress … for free … that they actually make as much money, if not more, as they would working on a more transactional client-based list of projects.

The old school model of development projects for clients (client approaches developer, developer does work, client pays for work) is still strong, and probably won’t go away any time soon. This new client-free model can supplement, and in some cases, completely replace the project-to-project routine that many programmers and developers find themselves in.

The Programmer’s Pay-off

written by socialplasm \\ tags: beginner, blogging, wordpress