Hooray! Been waiting for this for a long time. I'll be especially happy if Mozilla can manage to improve the default look of Firefox on Linux, where it's just absolutely dreadful (and where I'm usually forced to resort to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/ to preserve my sanity).
I only hope they're also getting rid of GTK icons on the main chrome. They make (unthemed) Firefox on a high-DPI screen completely unusable.
(Why? Scaling up page content (via layout.css.devPixelsPerPx) also scales up chrome, including the (already properly sized) icons— so every icon in Fx ends up being four times larger than it should.)
Huge agreement from a regular Chrome user on Linux here. I watched the video and the design is great. I'm really looking forward to this landing in a stable release.
So nitpickers might point out differences but you cannot deny that the basic tab looks just like Chrome's. When Chrome came out with this it was new and innovative. Now it looks like a copy.
When this blatant copying happens (and it happens in many places; it's no wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone) I always wonder if the designers really did convince themselves that their design is different or they tried but just couldn't come up with anything better than their inspiration.
I'm happy with the tabs provided with my OS theme and do not want each app to have tabs with a custom shape and wasted space. Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does.
What is it with these people and their obsession with skinz! and constant rearranging of buttons?
Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does.
You do realise that's an add-on skin, right? The entire point of that system is that people can do whatever the hell they like and you aren't affected by it.
The design people in Firefox lost me as a user when they decided to re-arrange an interface that had looked the same for the better part of a decade. Re-arrange, not improve. Apparently years of users' visual + muscle memory means nothing to these UX guys.
I persevered with it for a while but eventually I just gave up and switched browsers. Shame, since I'd been using Firefox since its first release (called Phoenix back then, later Firebird, finally Firefox).
Design terms like these, when juxtaposed with the "curvy tab" language, get way under my skin.
What is a "comfortable" design, exactly? I suppose a better question would be, what made the other design "uncomfortable"?
What is a clean design? Do you really mean "modern" instead of "clean"? Wouldn't it be better to say the interface elements are more defined, or there are less textures, or whatever?
Perhaps this is Janet Murray speaking through me (GaTech), but using vague terms to describe minuscule changes is somewhat bombastic. Instead, use appropriately narrow and descriptive terms.
I guess the rant is here because the changes aren't really that big of a deal. It's pretty much a nod to Chrome, run through a few iterations, am I right? Or maybe I'm being short sighted.
A Mozilla coder gave an explanation for this several months ago:
"In case you wonder, the reason for which Firefox doesn't merge url and search bar is to protect user's privacy. If you prefer a Chrome-style UI, there are a couple of add-ons that provide just that."
I prefer it this way...The address box works as a search bar but the search is persistent (ie. I can search for something, close the tab and come back later in two key presses)
I think they have some data showing that when they're separate, people search more. Since Mozilla gets almost all of their money from searches, it seems like a good idea to keep it that way.
Looks like Australis "borrows" a lot from Chrome UI.
It has pinned tabs with an icon, chrome like tab shape, chrome like options (3 horizontal bar) icon, chrome like simple settings and even chrome like icons (incognito, bookmarks).
shrug. Firefox already had pinned tabs with an icon, and the icons for incognito/private and bookmarks aren't much different from the current ones either.
I really, really dislike that the bookmark button has been taken out of the address bar, that's my biggest pet peeve, along with the slightly less customisable look.
Why is Mozilla trying so hard to make Firefox exactly like Chrome? I have been using Firefox since like 1.5, if I wanted it to be like Chrome I would use Chrome.
Firefox has looked awful on Linux for a long time. I'm excited to see a consistent design on every OS, and I've been primarily using the UX build for months.
A lot of people say this looks a lot like Chromium, but I don't find that to be the case at all. The background tabs aren't rounded at all, while tabs are shown to be rounded on mouse-over. It's a significant improvement over Chromium's approach. I'm not a tremendous fan of the rounded design, but it's certainly an improvement over the previous design.
Maybe I'm blind, but it looks basically the same on Linux as it does now except the tabs are curved (and possibly take up more space!)
I notice the tabs aren't sitting up in to the window manager in their Linux screenshot (understandable). I've already hidden the menu bar, then killed the window decorations for FF in KWin, so my tabs touch the top of the screen. In fact, Chrome actually uses a few more pixels than FF for me.
I much prefer how it looks for me currently (Firefox 26.0b5 on XFCE, Greybird/Numix styles): http://i.imgur.com/XXzCFQZ.png
It seems like change for the sake of making things "glossier". That inactive tabs have no top border bothers me. As does the fact it seems to completely ignore my native window toolkit tab/widget styles.
I have simplified and totally removed the search bar.
Some tweaks to get just an icon for the menu in the top left and also remove the close buttons in each tab. Probably something else I don't remember.
I thought this australis revision would make firefox look better integrated in the environment, not less, it seems they want to make it look the same in all plataforms...
I'm not a huge fan of that, but I'll wait to see if it can be integrated better of not.
I love Firefox and I tried the Australis build for a few weeks, I found myself not very keen ultimately, it is OK but not mind blowing. The rounded corner thing is inefficient, I think they have only done this so it doesn't look too much like Chrome. The most annoying thing though is that Linux has the full menu bar stuck on top, wish they could integrate it better like on Windows/Mac.
One interesting feature is the ability to customize the layout of the UI. Opera had some really great features for customization of UI and it's nice to see another browser doing it.
One thing I still haven't seen except in Opera: Tabs on the left or right. With widescreen monitors, I prefer my tabs on the left. Even better, tabs with thumbnails.
I don't care if they've taken heavy inspiration from Chrome. I love the UI of Chrome and I am glad Firefox aren't embarrassed or afraid to take such obvious inspiration from a great looking browser and build upon it. This is exactly what Firefox has needed, a properly designed UI.
[+] [-] ahoge|12 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/PvlTZ3k.png
My tabs can get as small as the pinned ones on the left (which is the default behavior of every other browser).
There used to be a about:config setting for minimum tab width, but one(!) Firefox developer decided to remove it, because:
"Users can override this using userChrome.css if they absolutely want it. I don't think the prefs are worth it."[1]
Now I have to use a custom user chrome CSS file and disable the tab animations to get the same effect.
I really hope this pointless update won't make me jump through a dozen hoops again. I'm tired of it.
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654
[+] [-] kibwen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SwellJoe|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbrosnan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeorgun|12 years ago|reply
(Why? Scaling up page content (via layout.css.devPixelsPerPx) also scales up chrome, including the (already properly sized) icons— so every icon in Fx ends up being four times larger than it should.)
[+] [-] hardwaresofton|12 years ago|reply
Australis looks like it's going to solve all of my problems
[+] [-] latortuga|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silon3|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krelian|12 years ago|reply
When this blatant copying happens (and it happens in many places; it's no wonder all phones look like a variation of the original iphone) I always wonder if the designers really did convince themselves that their design is different or they tried but just couldn't come up with anything better than their inspiration.
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|12 years ago|reply
I'm happy with the tabs provided with my OS theme and do not want each app to have tabs with a custom shape and wasted space. Do not want a rainbow in my title bar and have not met anyone > 12 that does.
What is it with these people and their obsession with skinz! and constant rearranging of buttons?
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
You do realise that's an add-on skin, right? The entire point of that system is that people can do whatever the hell they like and you aren't affected by it.
[+] [-] WizzleKake|12 years ago|reply
The design people in Firefox lost me as a user when they decided to re-arrange an interface that had looked the same for the better part of a decade. Re-arrange, not improve. Apparently years of users' visual + muscle memory means nothing to these UX guys.
I persevered with it for a while but eventually I just gave up and switched browsers. Shame, since I'd been using Firefox since its first release (called Phoenix back then, later Firebird, finally Firefox).
FWIW, here's the "original" user interface: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mozilla_F...
[+] [-] Watabou|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dubcanada|12 years ago|reply
Design is extremely subjective.
[+] [-] yukkurishite|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcutrell|12 years ago|reply
Design terms like these, when juxtaposed with the "curvy tab" language, get way under my skin.
What is a "comfortable" design, exactly? I suppose a better question would be, what made the other design "uncomfortable"?
What is a clean design? Do you really mean "modern" instead of "clean"? Wouldn't it be better to say the interface elements are more defined, or there are less textures, or whatever?
Perhaps this is Janet Murray speaking through me (GaTech), but using vague terms to describe minuscule changes is somewhat bombastic. Instead, use appropriately narrow and descriptive terms.
I guess the rant is here because the changes aren't really that big of a deal. It's pretty much a nod to Chrome, run through a few iterations, am I right? Or maybe I'm being short sighted.
[+] [-] lux|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsck--off|12 years ago|reply
"In case you wonder, the reason for which Firefox doesn't merge url and search bar is to protect user's privacy. If you prefer a Chrome-style UI, there are a couple of add-ons that provide just that."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5590988
[+] [-] aroch|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notatoad|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcx66|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MLR|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dec0dedab0de|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandallBrown|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conradfr|12 years ago|reply
So I'm quite sad to see it landing in Firefox.
[+] [-] kbrosnan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanyi|12 years ago|reply
DISCLAIMER: I don't like chrome.
[+] [-] truhd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icegreentea|12 years ago|reply
I'll grant you the tab shape and the option icon.
[+] [-] pcx66|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MLR|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Taylorious|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] proex|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skroth|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zobzu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikevm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oinksoft|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsmartt|12 years ago|reply
A lot of people say this looks a lot like Chromium, but I don't find that to be the case at all. The background tabs aren't rounded at all, while tabs are shown to be rounded on mouse-over. It's a significant improvement over Chromium's approach. I'm not a tremendous fan of the rounded design, but it's certainly an improvement over the previous design.
[+] [-] nly|12 years ago|reply
I notice the tabs aren't sitting up in to the window manager in their Linux screenshot (understandable). I've already hidden the menu bar, then killed the window decorations for FF in KWin, so my tabs touch the top of the screen. In fact, Chrome actually uses a few more pixels than FF for me.
[+] [-] davb|12 years ago|reply
It seems like change for the sake of making things "glossier". That inactive tabs have no top border bothers me. As does the fact it seems to completely ignore my native window toolkit tab/widget styles.
[+] [-] diaz|12 years ago|reply
I have simplified and totally removed the search bar.
Some tweaks to get just an icon for the menu in the top left and also remove the close buttons in each tab. Probably something else I don't remember.
I thought this australis revision would make firefox look better integrated in the environment, not less, it seems they want to make it look the same in all plataforms...
I'm not a huge fan of that, but I'll wait to see if it can be integrated better of not.
[+] [-] da_n|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dubcanada|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Osiris|12 years ago|reply
One thing I still haven't seen except in Opera: Tabs on the left or right. With widescreen monitors, I prefer my tabs on the left. Even better, tabs with thumbnails.
[+] [-] DigitalSea|12 years ago|reply