Thank you for the clarification, I see what you mean.

Fireworks essentially provides the code for the CAEmitterLayer, but where you use it is up to you.

You can add it to any object that accepts a CALayer, this can be a UIView subclass (or NSView for the Mac), it can be a background, a button, etc.

If you want to learn more about CAEmitterLayer in general, I recommend reading these excellent guides: