It can do much more than Fireworks, but for pure web work it is still missing some things. The things missing are: slicing (which I never used anymore anyway - all layer based workflow now) symbols (though virtual layers work as a workaround) a general pixel alignment setting no html/css output (which I never need anyway). I use Qolor Quantizer and RIOT for web graphics optimization.
#ANTETYPE VS SKETCH FULL#
The good things are full svg support (import and export), export of (selected) layers, pages, good (real) vector tools, pixel alignment for vector layers, virtual copies of layers, excellent bitmap tools (comparable to PS), good guides, good alignment tools, patterns, a built-in procedural texture maker, document colours (newest beta), pixel view, anti-aliasing control per layer, great down-scaling algorithms, and so on. I found a good replacement in Photoline, although it is still missing a couple of things crucial to web dev. But that is not quite the best option right now. Adobe is, I think, hoping to have Photoshop replace it. Fireworks, no matter how you looked at it, did get quite old in the teeth - workflows have changed quite a bit nowadays, and FW was not keeping up. Under the hood, it’s all powered by flexbox (thanks for the tip Matej) and lot of long nights.A difficult question to answer - I guess it depends on your preferred workflow and how you used Fireworks. Share your experience, frustration, or delight with me in the comments or on Twitter. Let me know if you have a problem by creating a new issue. You can try Bloks if you have Illustrator. As our industry’s tools evolve, I hope they add options for stack-based layout, maybe in conjunction with constraints so that everyone can explore this space. I’m convinced that layout is a growing pillar of design, alongside giants like typography, color, and motion. It would be even better with support for dynamic symbols (similar to symbol overrides in Sketch) as entire components could be turned into symbols. You can change 20 margins in a few clicks. Using symbols within stack-based layout is a huge time saver. However, certain scenarios (like pinning an object 12px from the artboard’s right edge) are not intuitive (constraints make more sense in that case). Stack-based layout is also extremely powerful. It turns out that stack-based layout is extremely easy to learn, easier than the constraints Figma uses or the box model used by Antetype. I’ve been able to try Bloks out with several designers for a few months. Strings expand to fit their new containers. The same design can quickly be fit to different sized artboards. These features come together to enable powerfully complex layouts, all within Illustrator. Experiment with values of 1 and 2 to get a feel for how it works. The flexibility property applies to children of a BlokGroup. You can also give objects flexibility, which allows them to fluidly resize. Tools like Adobe XD’s Repeat Grid require each item to be the same height. You can easily stack variable-height items. The result is that the height of a single symbol controls the list’s density.Īccess to such a primitive layout mechanism has the benefit of allowing designs that other tools do not.
#ANTETYPE VS SKETCH UPDATE#
An update to the root symbol cascades to every BlokGroup its used in. Resize a symbol once and all the BlokGroups it’s used in move to make room for it.Ġ% opacity symbols form the spacing between each list item.
Perhaps the most powerful feature is the ability to place symbols in BlokGroups. When art is placed in a BlokGroup with an orientation (vertical or horizontal), the BlokGroup keeps them stacked in that direction, edge to edge, no matter what you do.īasic, but combined with a few extra features you can create just about any layout. I ended up creating an Illustrator extension called Bloks which takes a new approach to layout.īloks uses stack-based layout. Not wanting to be left out, I started researching potential solutions. My teammates at Microsoft largely prefer to work in Adobe Illustrator because it’s cross-platform. Unfortunately, these tools are mostly unavailable on Windows. Today, tools like Antetype, Figma, Adobe XD, and Affinity Designer are leading the way with innovative layout features that can save us from tedious tasks like updating the same margin 20 times or the pain of scaling one design to different device sizes. As designers, we need tools that expose us to layout, that let us test and explore layout variations, and most importantly make the best decisions.
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