Adobe Fireworks CS4 Mac OS X beta—UI hell

User interface consistency is an important thing. When conventions are broken, users find it harder to achieve their goals. Apple has been guilty of messing around with its UI to a ridiculous level since Leopard’s introduction (and perhaps before, if you think back to the introduction of ‘brushed metal’ during the pre-OS X days), but nothing quite prepared me for Adobe’s latest offering, which not only smacks consistency around the head, but also kicks it squarely in the nuts for good measure. To be fair to Adobe, some of its applications are of a high standard. Although I mostly hand-code websites, I rate Dreamweaver quite highly, and Photoshop and Illustrator remain excellent, if bloated, tools. CS3’s interface approach irked a little—not least with the Windows-oriented palette controls—but I dealt with it. However, if what I’ve just seen in the Fireworks CS4 beta ends up rolled out across the entire CS suite, I’m going...