1. A new feature on the Fireworks CS4 is the new Adobe-like interface. This new addition enables users to keep pages in an orderly manner. Fireworks CS4 has mode you can choose: the expanded mode, the iconic mode and the iconic with panel names mode. The iconic mode only shows icons of different styles you can choose. But if you are not that familiar with this, the iconic mode the panel names can be a great help.These tabs found on the upper part of the window can be dragged, collapsed and auto hides with ease also. Comment: the Auto Hide Panels can be very annoying sometimes. You can turn it off by right clicking the panels then uncheck Auto-Hide Panels and Auto-Collapse Panels.

2. The new Adobe Fireworks CS4 offers great editing tools on bitmap files. Fireworks both have the Bitmap tools and Vector tools too. Fireworks CS4 allows users to work faster and easier with overall performance enhancements.

3. The Styles panels on the new Fireworks CS4 have been enhanced for an easier designing task.

4. Fireworks CS4 now offers a new feature called the smart guides. These smart guides relate elements from other elements; this is already a feature in Flash. Also along with Smartguides is the Tooltips. These tool tips allow Fireworks CS4 users to help and guide them. Smart guides allow users for a fast but accurate positioning on elements. Please note that Smartguides and Tooltips are not enabled by default.

Tooltips

View->tooltips (CTR+J)

Smartguides

View->Smartguides->Show Smartguides (Ctr+\)

5. Exports – Adobe Fireworks CS4 has another two new features offered. The PDF export and the CSS export. Now, your PDF documents from Fireworks CS4 can be made for your clients. Your PDF files are now guaranteed overall security with the help of the password protection. All PDF exported by Fireworks can maintain links other pages of Fireworks PNG file.

Also, the CSS export from your Fireworks can be done really quick. No longer uses the absolute positioning of elements that the previous version does. But for me, still has a lot of room for improvements. CSS exports should not be done “automatically” (slice and dice) , it should be done by hand coding to ensure a great quality of work!

6. Align Panel now has a lot of choices, generally I only use the old ones but I think the new features will can in handy in the future.

7. Pages Panel are now visible located on the upper right, other than having it on a separate panel. But you can only do one thing on the upper right Pages Panel which is to select which page. Renaming, adding and deleting pages will have to be done the old way.

8. Attach IN path – a great feature once being mimicked by adding two separate text to wrap an image with text. All you have to do is to create wrap the image with the path and select the text. Then choose Text->Attach in Path. But still a lot of steps just to create this effect. My idea is to have the image (blue box) behave like align=”left” in HTML.

9. Custom Mode – you can also rearrange panels that fits your needs. I only need the optimize, align and files most of the time and always choose not to Auto-Hide and Auto-collapse panels.

10. Texts are now compatible with Adobe Photoshop with the Adobe Text Engine, so if you open your Fireworks CS3 file with the new version you will be presented with a replace dialog. I still have my Fireworks CS3 running side by side with my Adobe Fireworks CS4 since updating the text would make a mess with the layout. So, be careful!

11. Live styles – when applying gradient for example, you can now see it live because of this new feature. I was thinking if they would apply it to other tools like Texts.

12. New Properties Panel with Styles integrated:

I was just wondering why there are two font weights available? One as a dropdown and the other one below.

13. Share my Screen – now you can share your Workspace with your clients using Adobe Connect Now.

14.Adobe Air – when building prototypes of Adobe AIR application, Fireworks has already has a bundle of features with it. Adobe AIR mouse events like closing , dragging , minimizing and maximizing application are just a few clicks away.

CONCLUSION:

It’s nice to know that there a lot of new features but honestly most of them are not that helpful. The only features that I like are the Workspace Redesign, Tooltips , Pages Panel on the upper right and live styles preview. I was actually hoping to have a custom vector brush for Fireworks , HTML tables like tool and better pen tool.

If you are asking is it worth an upgrade? Yes, it is.. I have only a copy of this for about a week but I am not having a hard time adjusting to the new version and definitely much more stable. Not to mention the workspace is very cool!