Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Planning Firefox Metro For Windows 8 On December 10
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is finally getting close to releasing a Metro version of its Firefox browser that will run on Windows RT as well as the tablet-side of Windows 8. The touch flavor of the app will arrive on December 10 along with Firefox 26. That's assuming, of course, that there won't be more delays. Given what we've seen so far, we wouldn't be surprised to see a final Metro version arrive in 2014."
Summary is incorrect.
I can't wait to see if they can finish it before RT is canceled.
Wouldn't be the first time they denied and denied and then summarily canceled a project with no explaination.
Usually it starts with a section leadership change , or a Spring re-org.. then suddenly.. "We've decided to go in another direction.."
As for Metro.. what if like "SIlverlight" they decide to support that as an alternative user interface to the year 2133.. but no further updates will be forth coming.
I would probably give IE a chance, but I'll pass until they provide the source code under a free and open source license.
So what? Window 8.1 will have a start button that... still does not open start menu, but brings you back to shitty start screen. And will have option to run desktop by default, but NOTHING other will change about usability and start screen enforcement. And 8.1 will be even slower, but they will hide it behind hibernation (which sucks too). Really, what's the point in supporting such crap by making apps for it?
If only it took less than a minute to install Start8 or ClassicShell or something.
Yes, with Win8 they've crippled the shell to make it almost as featureless as stock OS X (this is the bit where people who like Macs jump for the (-1, Disagree) mod option), but - just like OS X and unlike iOS/RT/assorted crippleware - you can install a third party launcher.
This is getting old, but why exactly do you need the Start menu? Ever since Windows 7 came out, I've pinned my daily-use applications to the taskbar and that works 99% of the time. The remaining 1% of the time (when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing, and you can still do that in Windows 8. I agree they should have had boot-to-desktop right when Win8 was released, but anyway that's coming in 8.1 now.
Either you haven't used Windows 8 or you're trolling. Win8 has been noticeably faster than Win7 from the very first preview release, both on cold boot and resume from sleep (and no, sleep is not the same as hibernate).
Sure, Microsoft may have failed with their grand vision to unify tablets and desktops, but with boot-to-desktop, Win8 is flexible enough to make most people happy. Tablets can just use the Metro UI, desktop fanatics can just boot to desktop, and some others like me are perfectly happy staying in desktop mode most of the time yet switching to Metro occasionally.
You lost us as soon as you said XP is better than 7.
It isn't.
The trouble with Windows 8 is it's Vista - enough small things are annoying that it adds up to a great big annoyance. If they'd just finish it off (clue: listen to customers), it could be great.
No sig today...
Ever since Windows 7 came out, I've pinned my daily-use applications to the taskbar and that works 99% of the time.
If you only use three or four apps, sure...
No sig today...
Nah but a fucking shell with an obvious files system and configuration would be great. Its also insecure as fuck... on my moms tablet you have to log the fuck out to power down with NO user credentials... thats like disabled by default in Xf86 since like 1990. No it doesn't replace physical security. But IMO its a big no no. Also wtf it takes 10 mins to find the shut down prompt cause its on the last menu you'd look for it?
Nah windows 8 is a dictatorial piece of crap. And not even designed well with many solid features. I wouldn't mind if it was layed out like a real OS. But it suffers the same issues vista did. Disorganized and obscured to kingdom come.
My mom thinks its a piece of shit too. And she rarely steps foot in my basement.
Microsoft has changed UI name, seemingly due to trademark clash. It was even on /.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/03/1221242/microsoft-drops-metro-name-for-windows-8-ui
Windows 8 has a command line.
For many, if not most people it is. While seven fixed most of vista's epic failures to tolerable levels, it still contains quite a few.
Now you can in fact nullify most of the failures that are retained, largely using same software that helps nullify much of win8's fails, namely classicshell. But it's still worse, and personally I'd still be happily running XP if not for lack of proper 64-bit support (specifically lack of hardware drivers for 64-bit version of XP) and lack of DX11 ('m a gamer).
Other than those two features, XP is clearly better in my experience. I don't even mind EOL. I had a workstation in personal use that ran vanilla unpatched XP until well past XP SP2 age because windows update borked itself so hard on the system, it couldn't be updated. I just kept the infection vectors secure and it was fine. I.e. solid firewall, solid anti-virus software, up to date 3rd party software that could be used as infection vectors, no suspicious flash drives and so on.
Not a single virus. Hilariously, when I got myself an XP2 slipstreamed disk I forgot to unplug internet connection before installing. That machine got owned before I could install firewall software. I had to format and reinstall. But vanilla version with up to date firewall etc? No problems whatsoever.
"Face it, Windows 7 was looking stale in a world of osx, Android and iOS."
There are several valid reasons to change an interface. "It was looking stale" is not one of them.
Users reject this logic violently. I see it every day. Someone needs to make a GNU OS with a solid Windows 7 theme and market it towards people that hate their new Win8 computers, you would grab a decent chunk of market share with almost no effort at all.
No one will do that though. They are all busy trying to mimic the system that customers hate instead.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The metro screen is the start menu so many people seem to think disappeared.
Don't miss the forest hidden behind all those trees - The start button simply serves as a convenient proxy for a hard-to-articulate sense of generalized annoyance.
Yes, Win8's interface has some serious shortcomings, particularly for power users. Yes, it still works more-or-less okay as a GUI, and if forced to use it for a few weeks, most of us would just get used to it. But the entire Metro interface slaps us with Microsoft's sheer arrogance in randomly deciding to make change for its own sake rather than because people asked for it.
As another example that makes the point in a less "wow so much I don't know where to start" way, the "ribbons" in MS office. I liked menus and toolbars, and aesthetically dislike ribbons. But I will admit that they don't take any longer (or shorter!) to use once you get used to them - Once you get used to them. But why the hell should anyone need to get used to them? Okay, they do offer a few enhancements (in-place font and chart previews as obvious examples) over toolbars...Not out of any inherent quality of ribbons themselves, however, but simple because MS added new features that they didn't backport to toolbars. Change for change's sake.
The remaining 1% of the time (when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing
The problem here is that while you're typing, the context of the currently open applications' windows disappears. It's like the effect of amnesia while going through a doorway. It'd be fine if the Start Screen were semi-transparent, but because it's opaque and full-screen, it forces a subconscious context switch. And that's why I still install Classic Shell, so that the search-by-name box doesn't distract me by covering everything.
But the point is, why is it so very, very important for Microsoft and Mozilla and the like to remove functionality? Why can't we have both a start menu *and* search?
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
The metro screen is the start menu so many people seem to think disappeared.
The problem is that it covers the whole screen, including the task you were working on when you wanted to start an additional application for the task. Rapid switching in and out of a full screen application lead to forgetting what you were doing, as I pointed out before.
"Windows 7 was looking stale in a world of osx, Android and iOS. Sure it has a very productive interface"
I'll take productive thank you, changing something to avoid 'being stale' at the cost of productivity is outright lame.
The real reason for metro is Microsoft's cut% of the metro marketplace.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
So everyone that uses alt-tab forgets what they are doing?
Use of application switching shortcuts, such as Alt+Tab, does not imply full-screen operation. On PCs that I use, I often overlap windows somewhat and use Alt+Tab to raise and focus a particular window.
Here
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
This makes me an edge case
And makes your needs entirely unimportant and irrelevant.
I'm sort of disappointed at the pro-tyranny-of-the-majority vibe that I've seen lately on Slashdot. When IE had 90% market share, was the need for other web browsers in the first place "entirely unimportant and irrelevant"?
Perfect for Windows 8 then?
I have a convertible Windows 8 laptop, and Firefox needs some work, like the rest of the OS. See, for instance, this bug.
Also, the frigging laptop keeps locking the screen upside down and I have to keep unconverting it and reconverting carefully. Totally awesome.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts