The QuickClips extension makes it easy to quickly insert frequently used elements into your document, such as icons, background graphics, blocks of text, etc. To create a clip, select one or more items, then run the Commands > QuickClips - Save New Clip command. Enter a name for the clip and click OK. Because Fireworks doesn't immediately update the Commands menu, you'll need to switch to a different app and immediately switch back. You should then be able to see the newly created item in the Commands > QuickClips sub-menu.

If there are multiple elements selected when you run the Save New Clip command, they'll all become part of the clip and will be inserted as individual elements. If you want them to be inserted as a group, you should group them before running the Save New Clip command.

Inserting a clip

To insert a clip, simply select it from the Commands > QuickClips menu. It will be inserted at the top of the current layer and will be aligned with the top-left corner of the current selection, or the top-left corner of the document if there's no selection. Note that inserting a clip is equivalent to simply copying and pasting the elements from another document. Unlike symbols, there is no connection to the original clip file.

Editing a clip

To edit a previously saved clip, find its .png file in the QuickClips folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Fireworks CS5.1\Configuration\Commands\ (or the Mac equivalent). Open the file, edit it and then save it back to the same location. Leave the clip's associated .jsf file alone.

To delete a clip, remove both the .png and .jsf files.

Creating new libraries

Since the Commands menu can have only one level of sub-menus, you may want to create multiple libraries to store clips. To do so, run the QuickClips - Create New Library command. Enter a name for the library, like "Icons", and click OK. To add a clip to this library, run its associated Save New Clip command, in this case, Icons - Save New Clip. The clip will then appear under Commands > Icons.

The extension comes with a few Windows cursor icons in the QuickClips library.

Release history

0.2.1

2012-04-30: Fix to make sure the inserted clip is positioned at a whole pixel. Added some additional error handling for missing clip files or overwiting existing clips.

0.2.0

2007-03-25: Initial release.