Replacement for Adobe Fireworks as graphics app?

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charlesatlascharlesatlas
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in Mac Software
Can anybody suggest an alternative for Adobe Fireworks for graphics editing? I've been using it for well over a decade, but I'm finally making the jump from Mojave to Catalina, so I have to give up 32-bit apps. I just like the way it's fairly easy to use, unlike the very complicated Photoshop. Also, I like how I can work with both raster and vector graphics in a single project, which I'm fairly sure neither Photoshop nor Illustrator can do. Sometimes I make signs for friends, and it's great to be able to manipulate font widths and spacing.

Worst case, I can run a Mojave virtual machine for Fireworks, but that's a little RAM-intensive. Or I suppose I can just buy an older MacBook Air just to run Mojave and 32-bit apps.

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    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,554moderator
    Can anybody suggest an alternative for Adobe Fireworks for graphics editing? I've been using it for well over a decade, but I'm finally making the jump from Mojave to Catalina, so I have to give up 32-bit apps. I just like the way it's fairly easy to use, unlike the very complicated Photoshop. Also, I like how I can work with both raster and vector graphics in a single project, which I'm fairly sure neither Photoshop nor Illustrator can do. Sometimes I make signs for friends, and it's great to be able to manipulate font widths and spacing.

    Worst case, I can run a Mojave virtual machine for Fireworks, but that's a little RAM-intensive. Or I suppose I can just buy an older MacBook Air just to run Mojave and 32-bit apps.
    Fireworks is an app that's hard to replace but it's probably best trying to migrate to a modern workflow. The most popular tools include Figma and XD, both from Adobe:

    https://www.creativebloq.com/how-to/20-best-ui-design-tools
    https://ralev.com/the-next-generation-ui-software-and-how-we-migrated-from-sketch-to-figma/

    Sketch for Mac is another option:

    https://www.sketch.com/design/

    But you will likely need a way to access old design files. Layered PNG format used by Fireworks is proprietary to Adobe and they don't use it elsewhere so those would need exported into a compatible format or maintain an old version.

    Eventually the VM route won't work so well with Mac systems because the old x86 systems won't work on Apple Silicon. However, the Windows version of Fireworks might. The Apple Silicon machines run VMs very well:



    UTM can run older x86 systems but it's best to get a system that doesn't need emulation so it runs faster.
    Meteor
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