Updating imported images automatically?

Question

I am working on an all-Fireworks 8 mockup, and I want to be
able to build each piece of the mockup separately, then bring them
all together into one complete Fireworks document. My question is,
can I get it so that when the pieces are edited and saved outside
the "complete" document, the "complete" version updates with the
new pieces?
Example: Images 1 and 2 go into larger image 3. I save and
close image 3. Now I open and change image 1, then save and close
it. I'd like to be able to open image 3 and either have the new
image 1 updated automatically within image 3, or take a command
from me to update it.
Obviously Dreamweaver is a potential solution, but for
various reasons I'd like to keep it in Fireworks. Is this possible?
Thanks for your thoughts!

Answer 1

There's no way to link to an image file like JPG or GIF. That
would be a wonderful enhancement in my opinion so feel free to log
it:
http://adobe.com/go/wish
However, you can do some interesting stuff with Symbols and
Fireworks PNGS. There's no way to automatically update a "complete"
document with assets from other PNG documents, but you can manually
update assets connected together by using Imported Symbols. The
workflow is a little wonky at this point, but I think it still
works. Here's what you do:
1) Create a document with your asset or all your assets.
Convert an asset (such as an image, or a whole selection of
multiple objects) into a Symbol via Modify > Symbol > Convert
to Symbol. Give it an appropriate name.
2) Go to your "complete" document.
3) Open Window > Library
4) Click the panel menu in the upper right of panel, and
choose "Import Symbols". Navigate to your asset document.
5) You'll get a dialog which shows the name and preview of
the Symbol you made in step 1. Select it and any others and import.
6) Now you'll see those symbols in your Library. Drag them on
to the canvas and position/size them.
Now you have a linked, Imported Symbol. Now let's say you
update the symbol in the asset file. You can update the linked
symbol in your "complete" document like this:
1) Go to the Library (Window > Library)
2) Select the symbol you want to update
3) Click the panel menu in the top right of the panel, and
choose update (note, the document that contains the original symbol
needs to be saved)
Note that unfortunately this doesn't seem to work with the
Common Library which was introduced new in CS3.
All that said, I honestly don't really use this workflow much
anymore. Now that we get multiple pages in a single document I just
put all my assets on a spare page called "assets" and put them in
symbols there, so that if I update the symbol it does automatically
update it on the other pages since it's all in the same document.
Hope that helps.