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Mozilla Reveals Firefox 4 Plans
Barence writes "Mozilla has given a breakdown of its plans for Firefox 4. Perhaps the most striking change to Firefox 4 is the user interface, which takes a great deal of inspiration from Google Chrome. 'Something UI designers have known for a long time is that the simpler an interface looks, the faster it will seem,' said director of Firefox Mike Beltzner during the presentation. Also mooted was the ability to give applications such as Gmail and Twitter their own permanent tabs for easy access, and the introduction of a 'switch to tab' button, allowing power users running hundreds of tabs to quickly find the one they want. Beltzner said Mozilla was also looking at replicating Chrome's tactic of silently updating the browser in the background, removing the annoying wait when Firefox first loads up."
"the simpler an interface looks, the faster it will seem". What a joke.
Anyone remember that episode of the Simpsons? "These are speed holes. They make the car go faster."
Personally, I'd rather have the browser go faster than look faster.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
First of all, am I the only one who hates Chrome's interface? But that's just window dressing, the real question is will it support H264/HTML5?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It won't be "silent" if it keeps that obnoxious behaviour it does now, where it interrupts you with a new version splash page. It's no less rude than a popup ad.
Seems faster? In my experience it has been more than "seems", Chrome actually is faster. The thing keeping me on Firefox is the various add-ons which I cannot get in Chrome. If Chrome were to get vertical tabs, that would go a long way towards making a switch.
It would be nice if Firefox did improve performance though. Would be a lot more significant than a trimmed down interface while the program runs just as slow.
Fear is the mind killer.
Thank you! That is the most annoying part of Firefox. I hate when I open Firefox and it makes me wait while it updates, and then when it finally does open, it does so on a pointless tab that offers me absolutely no useful information and once again delays what I'm trying to do.
I don't like the secret/stealth update either. Here's a very simple idea:
First, install the update when I shut down the browser. You're not wasting my time then because I'm done using it. Second, don't give me a tab telling me what I already know. I know it was updated, I just fricken saw it updated. I'm not an idiot.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Just because an interface looks simple doesn't mean it looks faster. Who thinks like that? The "Speed holes" reference" above is quite right. Those UI designers either have been misquoted or are just complete fools.
What a simple interface means is that common tasks should be more obvious to do.
Don't give the users 100 options at once, especially things that only power-users use only once in a while. I'm not a fan of putting options in tabs and sub-menus, but sometimes it's the right thing to do.
Put the basic features at the beginning, the most obscure ones at the bottom. Put them in named groups such as "Basic", "Advanced" and "Expert" if necessary, so that non-technical users aren't afraid to mess with the basic ones, and advanced users don't waste time looking for what they need in the basic and advanced options.
More screen real estate. With the small screened netbooks being all the rage, that menu bar does make a difference.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Great. That means I will be staying with the current version of Firefox for a long time. I just tried Chrome a few days ago and the user interface totally sucks. What is is with these people who have to fuck up a good design just so they can make it different and justify a new version number.
its hard enough to convince users that the internet isnt the blue E on their desktop and use Firefox instead.
keep changing the UI and sure as dammit they will be back using the blue E,
it may take us geeks a couple of minutes/hours to get used to a new UI but the average user it takes forever and they want familiarity they dont want to hunt for that buried option or find the new print button, hell some people dont even know what a home button is! and they absolutely hate having to throw away the knowledge gained on learning an applications UI just for it to change again
Tweak the default UI slowly, very slowly.
and for the record Chrome's UI sucks like Fisher Price (an example in gone too far in dumbing down)
eg. removing https:/// from the location bar after we (the security/it industry) have spent 25 years teaching people to look for it when signing into their bank/mail etc.
lets trash all that training and start again ? after all that business training is free right ?
and and people wonder why IE is standard in corporations ?
perhaps Mozilla should start working on aiding administrators (group policy options (have you seen IEs massive list?) /locking down functions/ automatic updates that are truly automatic and dont need user interaction etc)
instead of playing with fluff.
A.Dmin
Is the menu bar really that useful? Apart from using it as a way to get to Preferences, I can't think of a single option that I use the Firefox menu bar for. Also, it takes up some screen area; on small screen devices it may be more optimal to drop the bar make the functions accessible from elsewhere.
Aint broke, don't fix it.
Maybe. On the other hand, Chrome has grabbed 20% market share in one year which is no small feat. There are reasons that people are switching to Chrome - allegedly quicker browsing and the user interface. It's worth experimenting with a similar approach in Firefox. Maybe it will work out, and maybe it won't, but if they don't try we will never know.
Most progress bars on the world are there to make the wait more fun. Drawing the progress bar takes CPU, and probably some activities sould be done in a incremental way, to be progressbar friendly, where a bach apropach would be faster.
Most progress bars are not really needed, but make programs feel faster by making programs a bit slower but more fun.
Anything that make a program 0.1% slower but feel 20% more faster is better for everyone. Yea, any human.
-Woof woof woof!
Aren't we discussing semantics here?
It's pretty obvious what the man means. An application with a simple user interface works much nicer than an application with a UI that's littered with ambiguously labeled buttons and hidden menus. If you have to click 4 times to get something done, an application will feel (seem/look/whatever) slow compared to when you can do that in one single click as well.
One thing I hope is that "silently updating in the background" doesn't mean there will be some sort of "Firefox updater.exe" service loaded in the background when I start up my PC. I hate it when applications do that.
I'd love to switch our companies users to FF but having no way to centrally manage/monitor and update is a complete killer. There's no way we can have users with 10 different versions and different issues, etc. It's a nightmare. Give me a cool central control panel and have each browser be able to be hooked into it and it would be amazing.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Yes, because increasing user satisfaction shouldn't be an objective for a browser which is constantly trying to increase its market share...
Much like the story of people complaining about elevators taking too long to arrive, and the installation of mirrors stopped the complaints, this is much the same. If users perceive the browser to be faster, then that is just as important as it being faster from a user satisfaction point of view.
If you don't understand the difference between perceived performance and actual raw performance, and how the former can frequently be more important than the latter, then I'm guessing you haven't had to deliver a complex user interface based product before.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
FINALLY.
Never again will I be alert-bombed.
(I looked for an add-on to change script alerts, confirms, and prompts into something non-modal. I couldn’t find anything.)
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
No, dammit. Someone shoot this guy.
Options that are very specific to an object can be attached to that object’s right-click menu. The right-click menu for the page in Firefox is fine as it is. Mine already has a Reload Every option (added by my Tab Mix Plus addon, I think), View Page in Coral IE Tab, a DownloadHelper submenu, RefControl options for the site, and a ScreenGrab entry. Those are all options specific to the page that I’m viewing.
File, edit, and view are better served by keyboard shortcuts and/or mouse shortcuts (e.g. ctrl-scroll zoom).
History, bookmarks, preferences not specific to the page that I’m viewing, and help should not be cluttering up the right-click menu. Give me my menu bar and leave me alone.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Or you use open tabs as your todo list.
I use Bookmarks menu to access and organise my bookmarks. I use the history menu to open tabs I've recently closed or go back to websites I've recently visited. I use the tools menu to access options, addons and clear history. I use the file menu for print, work offline and occasionally import.
In answer to your question then, yes the menu bar is very useful. It provides rapid and structured access to a lot of functionality. When I use an application with a menu bar I can always find the functionality I'm looking for easily but in applications without a menu bar (Office 2007, Chrome etc) I can never find what I'm looking for.
Menu bars provide a consistent interface across all applications so even if you haven't used an application before you know where to find options and featurs. Removing it gives every application a custom interface, making it very hard to use unfamiliar applications. Put a Office 2003 user in front of Office 2007 or an IE6 user in front of IE7/8 and and they'll struggle to use the application. However if you get an Office 2003 user to use Open Office or an IE6 user to use Firefox they'll be able to adapt very quickly thanks to the consistent interface menu bars offer.
When Microsoft started the trend of removing menu bars with Vista and Office 2007 I believe their aim was not to improve the user experience but to lock users into their applications. An Office 2003 user can adapt rapidly to any other Office suite thanks to the similar interfaces, however if someone is only familiar with Office 2007 it will be very hard for them to adapt to other suits because Office 2007 has a completely custom interface that is inconsistent with all other applications. This way they're locked into MS Office and Microsoft wins again.
The removal of the menu bar is a travesty of interface design but it's a massive win for Microsoft and, bizarrely, organisations such as Mozilla seem happy to help them along.
Firefox's best part trick is the UI's ability to be customized. All they need to do is keep it that way. I don't have a netbook but I too am very conscious of vertical real estate. I also love my menu bar. I use it all the time. Bookmarks are there, the print option is there, etc.
You can fit the menu bar, navigation buttons, address bar and search bar or even Google toolbar (don't ask) on one horizontal section saving tons of vertical space. See image:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/benfenner/Firefoxmenubar.png?t=1273593698
As long as I can still control how things look I should be happy. Give me a ribbon I can't turn off or re-configure (MS) or tabs I can't move down (Chrome?) and I'm not a happy camper. Make it configurable.