Powerful + Flexible 
Very powerful and flexible web design tool -- you can use this program alone to create sleek and modern websites. Unbeatable in terms of ease of use -- built-in tutorial lessons give newbies a sense of confidence, while a plethora of good guide books such as those published by Peachpit Press and Friends of Ed are available for more in-depth exploration of the possiblities that this program brings to the design table.Fireworks MX allows for an entire graphical website to be built from scratch if one so wishes -- one can design a background, create or enhance graphics, customize text (drop shadow, anyone?) and arrange for nifty javascript rollovers without ever handling any code. Tight integration with other Macromedia MX products such as Dreamwaver also increases ease of website creation and upload -- exporting to Dreamweaver, for example, is extremely simple and allows for entire websites to be ready for upload in very little time.
The almost-inevitable downside to such a powerful program, however, is the computing power needed to operate it. If your computer is not quite on the cutting edge of technology anymore (much like mine), be prepared for slower program start-up times and delays while the program applies customizations (e.g. filters) to graphics or to text. System requirements for Windows include a 300MHz Intel Pentium II Processor, 64 MB of free available system RAM (128 MB recommended), 80 MB of available disk space and Adobe Type Manager Version 4 or later for use with Type 1 fonts. Requirements for Macs include a Power Macintosh G3 Processor, Mac OS 9.1 or higher, 64 MB of free available system RAM (128 MB recommended), 80 MB of available disk space and Adobe Type Manager Version 4 or later for use with Type 1 fonts (OS 9.x).
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Beware of Customer Support 
Fireworks is powerful. However, I encountered some bugs in the extensibility API--something most users won't ever encounter. The customer support department has ignored this bug since version 3, and they wont respond to my requests for assistance. I purchased version 4 just before MX came out, and the upgrade seems too costly--especially since I recently purchased version 4. They won't tell me if the bug is fixed in MX, so I assume it isn't. Again, while this won't affect most users, their lack of responsiveness is troubling.
They just keep getting better...
One would think that Macromedia would run out of ideas. Their past software is so good (Fireworks 4, Flash 5, etc.) that I thought there was little room for improvement. I was wrong. The new, consistent UI across applications is simply the best I have ever seen, better even than Microsoft in some of its new products such as Visio 2002.The interface alone is worth the upgrade price because of the efficiencies it brings, but there is much more here. Being more of a vector guy, I don't use most of the raster tools, but there are some great new ones such as smudge, dodge and burn, etc. The polygon slice tool makes short work of sophisticated rollover diagrams.
I would strongly recommend getting on the Macromedia bandwagon. With cross-browser problems still raging (although NS 7.0 goes a long way to help), I believe Flash is simply going to take over the Internet, period. Fireworks MX is the best way to build your Flash graphics.
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...Fireworks is the ONLY CHOICE for the web design professional. ...if you want FLEXABLE, EASY TO EDIT, web graphics ...then there truly is no other choice. ... Fireworks is the best web graphics tool I have ever used!"...
Need clarification
The Fireworks MX listing doesn't list the Macintosh operating system. Is that an oversight?
I'm using Dreamweaver 4 and not sure that this program is compatable with DW 4.
