Like you mentioned there is more than one location to name your slices. You can select the slice and then name it in the Property inspector, and/or you can open up the layers panel and in the web layer you can select your slice and name it there. This method is a bit faster when you have many slices. One thing I like to do since I am no longer as picky about setting my compression settings is in the layer panel I select all the slices that will be jpg by control or shift selecting to select multiple and then I will set all the compression settings at once rather than doing each individually.

Then of course you have the short cut key option. Select a single item or multiple items and press the “alt” + “shift” + “U”. The cool thing is that Fireworks identifies that more than one item is selected and ask you if you would like a single slice or multiple.

Another time saver with FW slices is the ability to set compression attributes on one slice then copy that slice. Copying the slice retains the same compression. BTW – I found that in most cases where I would use a JPG that a quality setting of 84 works the best in regards to the best look and the smallest file size.

FW slices can be turned into html slices. and selecting the html slice in the property inspector allows you to paste text or html. The html actually works in preview mode. Try going to maps.google copy the code from a map, then create a slice in your page, in the PI convert the slice to html then select the edit button below and paste the code. Now select f12 to preview in a browser. pretty cool huh.

Another thing worth noting. There have been side by side compression test and FW in many cases cut the file to half the file size as Photoshop. FW compression is the best in the industry.

Then of course is the ability to set a sliced image as a background image or a foreground image.

Not to mention that you can have master page level slices, versus independent page slices.

Then of course the ability to create roll overs and disjointed roll overs, set flyout menus, etc.

Going back to the html/css options, Matt Stow did an article on standard based css exporting, he also wrote some code to improve on the functionality of the html slices. Quick example, using his improved code you can now select some text, slice it then apply the start tag (say something like and on export that text will be converted into a heading complete with the correct standard based syntax.
http://tinyurl.com/5kp45g

~ Christian