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Firefox 4.0 Goes Chrome, New UI In Q4 2010
sv_libertarian writes "Mozilla recently updated its product roadmap through 2010. According to the first draft, the current browser will see a minor update in Q4 2009 and another in Q2 2010. Version 4.0 is headed for an October or November 2010 release and will bring a new user interface and browser sync integration. 'There is not much information on [what] this new user interface will look like, but the first mockups that have been posted on Mozilla's website suggest that the Mozilla team favors a Google Chrome-like design that integrates Windows 7 graphics features. Overall, window elements seem to be floating over the background.' The mockup page emphatically notes that the design is not final."
DO IT, I use chrome for the UI, and love FF for the plugins, if they go with the tabs on top and no titlebar, if only as an option, I am back on board with them...
Make it not crash, and I don't care what it looks like.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
If there's one thing I hate about Chrome it's the way the tabs replace the normal title bar functionality. It makes the window harder to drag, harder to maximize, and basically throws 25 years of Windows usability standards out the window. I expect something like this from Apple but not from Firefox (or Google for that matter).
A nonstandard UI is the epitome of developer arrogance. The tabs-on-bottom mockup is excellent, but the tabs-on-top concept needs to die on the drawing board.
On the flip side, if Firefox 4.0 supports some of the new Windows 7 standards like Aero Peek controls I will be very pleased!
These screen-shots have been available for months. This is old news.
Frankly, I think worrying about minor details like whether the tabs are above or below the taskbar sort of shows how far browsers have come. On the list of things I was worried about 5 or 10 years ago, it's near the bottom.
It's been a long time.
I hope they make integrating the search box in the URL box optional. One of the things I really like about FF is the ability to use keyboard shortcuts to select specific search engines or sites. Of course with Ubiquity http://labs.mozilla.com/ubiquity/ progressing nicely I may be in the minority.
Am I the only person who thinks transparency sucks? If it's too transparent, the content can be hard to pick out from the background. And if it's only a little transparent (OS X), the menu can look like it got smudged with dirt. Are we expected to use only low-contrast, muted backgrounds?
If I wanted to see a partially obscured, blurry version of what's behind my browser, I can just smear my glasses with Vaseline and minimize Firefox.
Please make it look like Firefox 2. I want it to look like an ordinary Windows XP application. Nothing flashy.
And if you do add something flashy, please make sure to ADD IN THE OPTION TO DISABLE IT. Options are GOOD. KEEP ADDING OPTIONS. Make the options VISIBLE.
Why keep it the same across platforms? No, seriously, do you use Firefox on multiple platforms AND are you bothered by the differences in UI between the various Firefox'en? You'll live.
The interface should be native to the platform, adhering to the platform's UI standards. The binaries location and configuration location should adhere to the platform's application development standards. Adhere to standards, they are good for you. (Note; Experts only: deviate from standards when necessary)
Programs that use non-native, non-standard UI (Quicktime on Windows) are quickly (haha) reviled. And for good reason.
I really hate the combo button. Safari introduced this and I started running into the following problems:
1. A page is loading slowly (slow site, busy computer, DNS lookup failure, ...) and I go to click "stop", but the load finishes just before I click, the stop icon changed to a reload, and now I have to wait through it loading again.
2. A page is refreshing on a schedule. I decide I want to reload it sooner, so I go to click the reload button... just as it starts reloading, so now the automatic reload gets stopped.
Moving it to the end of the address box in the latest Safari is just an extra layer of manure on the sandwich.
That is exactly why we must meta moderate like crazy these days. Troll has a very strict explanation and believe or not, it means exactly same on slashdot.
These idiots really confuse Slashdot moderation with digg down&up while Slashdot does make a favor to them, overrated and underrated are exactly for that purpose.
There are unhappy people with every kind of browser&application out there and yes, in this age, a browser should be really fast, simple to use and stable having very good standards support. It is valid for every browser out there. It is not just Firefox who doesn't get people's concerns, I have heard first time that system's default browser can't download files. It is Safari for Snow Leopard. Way to go Apple... All of this for run a freaking in 64bit mode, hurry of release to show finger to MS. See Firefox loving moderator? Every browser these days are a bit disconnected from users actual needs and demands.
Why'd all the browser developers decide that this same model we have for browsing web pages is adequate? Considering how much time we, as a human race, are currently using the web browser, I would hope that we could make one that is a little better than this Netscape 26.0 shit we're stuck with. Apple, are you there? Can you please do for the browser what you've done for the phone? Google, we know you have like $n! dollars, can't you throw some more money at this problem? Chrome (which I am browsing from ATM) is pretty half-baked.
Shouldn't this thing read to me by now, standard? Shouldn't I have a better way to look at multiple pages than separate tabs and windows? Why does it all crash so much? Why must it be such an unelegant, awful thing to display information to from programming languages?
Long live the BSD license
One reason the triple button might not be such a good idea is that when you want to stop a page load, you might accidentally cause a refresh instead
Happened for me within minutes of installing Safari. There's no "might" about it.
If Google or Apple but their tabs in a rotating circular drum surrounding the window, you can be certain that Open Source developers would follow swiftly behind. It's disappointing to see it confirmed that Open source will never, ever have the confidence to put forth its own designs, paradigms or new innovations directly in front of users unless a glitz and glamour company has broken the mould first. The worst part is how eagerly FOSS developers ape the latest trend. A little dignity would be a lot more digestible.
By contrast, Microsoft would simply wait to see what Apple did in their next revision before implementing what was kept.
To the topic at hand, Tabs on top are an atrocious development, unfit for human consumption. They are the product of people who spend too much of their time using flashy, UI paradigm-less monstrosities like Winamp skins, Flash site and those awful OSX floating widget things, not to mention that ridiculous top bar. Inclusing that was the worst decision GNOME has ever made. Most normal people on the other hand expect applications and button that stay within their window box, that don't warp or distort when your mouse draws near, and that don't look like they just had a full body wax job done. There was very little wrong with the 1997-era user interface.
I curse the Cult of Mac and what it has wrought on my UI's over the last 10 years. I'm hoping the Order of Google will not cast its baleful eye towards what little sanity remains in modern day GUIs.
May the Maths Be with you!
What is the deal today with trying to get rid of the simple menu bar??
It is so easy and straightforward for finding things you use all the time....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm confused by the whole thing, since Mozilla were using "Chrome" to mean browser UI when google were in their infancy.
There is work under way to do the page per process thing work in Mozilla. I too would like to see that, while having a stupid UI like IE7+ or Chrome doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I currently have the menu, and URL bar with small icons and that's all I need from a browser UI.
Perhaps the only interface improvement would be an 'auto-hide' feature so that the menu's are painted over the page content only when I mouse up to the top of the window. That's how I have XFCE (top tasklist, bottom panel) and OSX (dock) configured.
They seem to want to save vertical screen space, which is a valid argument with current machines (like netbooks) coming out with only 600 pixels of vertical space.
Then again, why not just use full screen mode on those?
I am not so sure that users actually care that much about standards and fitting into each desktop at the end of the day. If you have a feature they want users will use your application no matter what it looks like. A nice Example is Google Chrome. By default they paint their own window handles/boarders on X11 pretty much guaranteeing that it wont fit into any desktop. This is a case where they are going directly against having a native standard control, actually putting in effort to break it in the name of consistent branding* and users put up with it because they want to use Chrome. * From Ben Goodger: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse_thread/thread/b89ab99a0c848b89?pli=1
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
so i hate it. where the fuck is the file menu ppl. this isnt a fucking mac.
Ever since ff 3, i have HATED firefox cause of its "invalid site certificate" rubbish. Do mozilla even get how absolutely annoying this is? Why oh god why would they do that. The way it was done previously (and the way EVERY OTHER BROWSER DOES IT was perfectly sufficient). Now, whenever I build a server (or a new network devide with a ssl-enabled web server for config) I have to go through that same pain. Given I work for an SI, this is frequent - and the reason I so desperately want to get rid of it in favour of chrome.
Tabs should be down the side. [...] I don't understand how this basic mistake can have stayed with us for what, 10 years+ of tabbed browsing...
OmniWeb has been doing preview tabs on the side since 2004. Unfortunately, it's a Mac-only browser and has never really caught on.
the JoshMeister on Security
I disagree. Firefox on Ubuntu should look like it belongs on Linux. These mockups would be horribly out of place on any Linux desktop that isn't set up to look exactly like Vista/Win7.
Jacob Nielsen , who is a guru in usability, created a set of UI design heuristics.
I think the ones that are highly appropriate are:
Consistency and standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
Recognition rather than recall: Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
From the above, getting rid of menus is going to generally screw with consistency and ability to recognize operations (I really hated how Office use to hide menu items that weren't used recently)
Granted he also recommended minimalistic design when too many options are not warranted--such as a dialog with too many options available to achieve simple things.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
I dont like the missing File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools menu items...It just means I have to hunt through for those again under some other master menu button.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
We're working on multi-process too, and also hoping to have it in Firefox 4.
The shareholder is always right.
But a pain in the ass for tech support people over the phone who need to check browser settings... "File ?.. I don't have anything that says file..".. And then there are the off flavors of Xp, which has different locations for network settings.. bastards.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Um, not to beat a dead horse into the ground, but Windows XP Explorer and Firefox 3 did this well. I don't know why Microsoft removed that ability. You could drag your buttons into the file menu and have the file menu + all the navigation buttons in Windows Explorer. Why is this so hard for MS/Mozilla to do again?
image
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I like having my Back, Forward, Reload, and Stop buttons left of the address bar. I can't believe they're considering adopting an IE-esque interface.
Their Chrome-like tab examples really fail, since they don't touch the top of the screen. That means not only are they not where you expected them to be, but you also can't click them by ramming your cursor to the top of the screen.
(This is a big one for me - I hate those X buttons that are in the top right, but are several pixels out, so that you actually have to look and see where your cursor is)
In short, I agree that non-native = bad. Windows has always had easy to click buttons, scrollbars, etc. on the edges - I hope they don't screw that up. ;)
Ask any UI expert and they'll tell you the Office Ribbon is the most important UI thing to happens since the GUI. If for any other reason is because the ribbon focused on task based UI instead of technical organization that didn't apply to your average user."
Not a feature I've used very often I'll grant you, but I have needed it, and while that placement is strange, I can find it in a second or two by clicking each menu open.
The ribbon?? Honestly, I can't find SHIT in that thing, and most people I know that have been using computers for > 5 years have a bitch of a time finding what should be simple things to find. I'm trying to get used to it, but, when I need something other than a simple thing, it takes me FOREVER to find it. In word, just to find where to turn off auto-caps....which used to be a click on the menu, right to some preferences window.
I had to get help for this one.
You have to click the big button on new ribbon flavored word. From there, a little button at the botton of that screen (more of a link than a button) for "word options". -> Proofing menu option on that screen, then from there click the button for AutoCorrect options.
If that is at all intuitive for you to find...more so than with a simple menu bar to preferences....I have to tip my hat to you.
Honestly, the first time I opened MS word, it took forever for me to find the fucking "Save As" option...I mean, there was nothing intuitive there telling me the big button on the top rt was anything more than a windows logo...until someone told me, I'd have never thought to click it for such options.
I gotta disagree with you. I like tree views, I like to see the file structures in windows explorer, I like simple menu bars. I like things to look like a computer or at least have that option.
I'm still with XP when I have to used windows....at least with it, I can still set my views to be classic mode on most things still...wish I still could with office, I'd be SO much more productive.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........