[adamhowell]

When Fireworks CS4 was first released it was easily the buggiest piece of major software I'd ever tried to use. This bug was just insane:

http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthak/Text_Issue.png

I immediately downgraded back to CS3 and only reupgraded 9 months later, when they finally released an update. Unfortunately, I use Fireworks for all my front-end work and it seems buggier than ever in Snow Leopard.

I've experimented with every app that looks like it could be a potential replacement -- most recently Opacity (http://likethought.com/opacity/) -- with none quite hitting the web design niche that it was able to fill. Usually because it's only one or two guys working on it. Why a company like Panic hasn't tried to take advantage of the obvious demand is beyond me.

[callmeed]

I'm actually surprised Adobe has even kept Fireworks alive since buying Macromedia (I used it for all my front-end work too).

I just forced myself to learn and use Photoshop (slices in particular) for web artwork.

[johns]

As far as I'm concerned, as of Fireworks CS4, it's dead to me. FW CS4 is so horribly broken that it's unusable. This is one of the great travesties in software as far as I'm concerned. I love Fireworks 8 but it would be nice if it were modernized.

[neovive]

Fireworks has always been my favorite web design tool (since version 1.0), however, I have noticed the changes over the years and up until CS4 it wasn't so bad.

I think Adobe is in a tough situation. They can not continue to grow by relying on a few software packages and have been pouring resources into Flash in an effort to turn more into a platform company vs. a software company. They just seem to be working against their culture as their strength has always been in graphics/design software. Most of their attempts at developer-oriented software have never panned out. Anyone remember GoLive?

[johns]

Even after applying the update on Windows, it was still unusable for me (still had ridiculous amounts of bugs related to text).