I love Fireworks, but this has bugged me since I’ve been using it. Say I draw a line. It’s a 1-pixel (I’m zoomed way in), hard, black line. Notice the blue vector line and end points, and the position of the line in relation to the underlying vector:
But since I was drawing it by hand, maybe it’s not quite as long as I wanted it. It’s 10-pixels long, but I wanted it to be 11. No problem. I go into the properties inspector and change that 10 to an 11. Now I get this:
It’s no longer centered on the vector line, and the line itself has shifted down and to the right. And there’s no way to get it back to that state.
But it gets worse. Say I drew a red rectangle and then drew a line on the bottom of it. Like so:
Now, you see the line says that it is 10 pixels wide. And it is the same width as the rectangle. But let’s select the rectangle.
Wait, the rectangle is 11 pixels and the line is 10 pixels? But they are the same size. Well what happens if we go into the properties inspector and change the width of the line to 11. It should match the rectangle, right?
OK, now it’s not even on the bottom of the rectangle anymore. It did that weird shift thing. Well, we’ll just nudge it back into place…
GAH! That’s All wrong! Now it says it’s the same size as the rectangle, but it’s longer!
Usually about this time I throw away the lines and start drawing one pixel thick rectangles. This is fine as long as they are perfectly horizontal or vertical. But not so much if they are at all diagonal.
I’ve been using Fireworks for at least 4 or 5 versions now, and this has always made me crazy. I have to believe that I’m just missing something. Surely line drawing couldn’t be that messed up in such a major tool and not be fixed for this long…?
SOLVED!
Link given in comments:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/217/d6f2172a.html
Probably more info than I can take in all at once, but at least I know I’m not just going crazy.
This is one of the reasons why, after years of using Fireworks, I moved over to Illustrator. I started using Fireworks at version 1 and it was almost perfect with it’s mix of vector at bitmap editing tools, but it was alway buggy, but I put up with it. Until Illustrator introduced the “Pixel Preview” feature. Maybe you should give Illustrator a try?
I have Illustrator, and used it recently to extract some graphics out of some customer-provided .ai files. But overall it scares the crap out of me. 🙂 Big learning curve. But stuff like this in Fireworks has made me consider it.
Similar effects (annoyances) when using the erase tool as a pixel level. With the erase tool set to 100% hardness and 1 in size, it’s sometimes impossible to erase a single pixel – and instead it will erase 2 or 3 around the target of your erase! Very annoying…
I dont think the path tool is meant to be used in pixel desing space. The strength of the line tool comes in combination with different strokes in higher resolution images. When working in pixel design space youre probably better off with the pencil tool and the square tool. But I’d also prefer Illustrator.
This knowledgebase article should help explain it
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/217/d6f2172a.html
h
heathrowe, yeah, that pretty much covers it. thanks!
CorelDraw — Why punish Abobe for something buggy buy spending more at Adobe. Corel Draw/Paint are imo better for RGB stuff, PS/IL for print. And who cares about print.
Your welcome 🙂
h
In my opinion, it is and will remain a bug although the article tries to »explain« it. You can find more of that kind here: http://adobegripes.tumblr.com
It’s not the first bug and will not the last in Adobe softwares:
http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ 😉