Firefox 2 - New GUI?

[em_te]

http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=16527

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev...cc?dmode=source

Ben's been thinking about this for a while, and he and Joe and I got together today to take a good hard look at the browser window with the following goals:

- remove UI elements that aren't useful to majority of users

- increase usability of elements that are useful

- increase focus on web content

This is our first pass at the redesign, as an ASCII mockup. Some design

points have been called out and I'll go into detail about those below:

		   (1) -.		  .- (2)							   (5) -.
				|		  |		  .- (3)			 (4) -.	  |
				v		  v		  v					   v	  v
.----------------------------------------------------------------------.
| File   Edit   View   History   Bookmarks   Help			 [_][=][x]|
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|.--. .--.  ,.--.-------------------.--,,--,.   ,----------.---,,  .i. |
||<-| |->| ( |^v| {} www.foo.com  v |.)||=>| ) (  google G |.O |)  -O- |
|'--' '--'  `'--'-------------------'--''--''   '----------'--v''  'i' |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|(.O) (&) (BBC News v) (Mozilla)									   |
|.-----------,.-----------,.-----------,-------------------------------|
||{} Bar	 || {} Foo (x)|| {} Baz	|							   |
|-------------'		   '--------------------------------------------|
|																	|^|
|																	|H|
:							 (page content)						 : :
.																	. .
:																	: :
|																	|V|
|																	//|
'----------------------------------------------------------------------'
   ^	 ^			   ^	   ^									^ 

   '	 |			   |	   |									|
  (6)	'- (7)	 (8) -'	   '- (9)						 (10) -'

Visit links for more info.

[NightmarE D]

Not to get an argument started, but is it just me or does it resemble IE 7?

[lil_psc]

is it me or does that look exactly like 1.5 with only back & forward buttons =S

[Rudy]

is it me or does that look exactly like 1.5 with only back & forward buttons =S

same here

[Veedems Veteran]

is it me or does that look exactly like 1.5 with only back & forward buttons =S

read the article. there are changes that aren't 100% clear in the ascii mockup

[JK1150]

I have no idea why ASCII was used to make this mock up, but whatever. If they want to remove unnecessary components, they should get rid of the go button.

[cchasem]

ascii mockup? wtf? would it not have been a hundred times easier to make a simple mockup in mspaint? (if it explains the choice of ascii to do the mockup in the article, sorry. i havent read it yet)

[Jase]

looks the same :s

Edited March 3, 2006 by Jase

[Japlabot]

Only minor changes, but they look good. I guess it does seem simular to IE7, but as long as they don't adopt a bloated/unintuitive interface, it's fine by me (And these changes - like having a Stateful Refresh button have needed to happen for a while).

[AcdShdw]

this thread reminds me of logging onto a BBS @ 9600bps lookin at the new Mosaic desgins...

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

1) Moving the reload/refresh button inside the address bar...

I have Firefox layed out to where all my buttons are on one row, and the address bar is on another row. I do this because I have too many buttons on the toolbar, and the address bar wouldn't be big enough. Otherwise, I like having my refresh button on the toolbar with the rest of the buttons.

2) "Go" menu is renamed to "History".

Good idea, all I have to say.

3) RSS and Go buttons go inside the URL bar.

Fine with me.

4) The Go button becomes a stateful button that is either "Go" or "Stop"

Worst idea ever. Opera does this, and it's extremely annoying. When the browser locks up, you try to press 'Stop'. The browser doesn't catch your click and doesn't respond. So this time, you click stop a few times. What happens then is the browser responds, clicks stop, changes back to refresh, user clicks, the page ends up reloading. When you have separate stop / reload buttons, you don't make this mistake.

5) The Home button (&) moves to the personal bookmark toolbar

As long as I have my separate home toolbar button, I don't care.

6) Closebuttons appear on the active tab only...

Bad idea IMO. It's useless to have a close button on only the active tab. In this case, you mind as well keep the X all the way to the right. If you add close buttons to tabs, add them to all the tabs. Or you can display the X on whatever tab the mouse rolls over.

Just my opinions anyways...

[shockz]

Looks like safari

[zhangm Supervisor]

I tried doing a quick mockup using the ASCII as a base to go off of.

I think some bigger changes in the UI are needed to make these changes viable and effective. Putting icons into the location bar creates a far smaller target to click on, and in addition, the RSS button is problematic, as its appearance and disappearance will cause either a shift in the location of the UI buttons, a white gap (but no shifting of elements), or a dimmed out icon which simply takes up space (but does not go away, thus preventing a shifting of UI elements).

I think the switch to search engine title text rather than an icon is a good decision, as well as moving the search icon and dropdown to the right of the bar. Some work should be done on the menu layout, as it seems that menus are less efficient than they can be. Perhaps Mozilla should borrow some innovation from the new Office 12 interface, i.e. ribbons, to take the place of the menu bar. I think it would be a nice inventive step to turn the bookmark bar into more of a dynamic toolbar, which displays different information depending on user interaction and user behavior. It could function to display URLs of hovered links, or be a flyout system for menu functions...

I think there needs to be a change in the shape of the URL bar so that the additional buttons may be accomodated at size of around 24x24px, since that will help mitigate their small target area.

[em_te]

http://relativity17.mad-skinning.be/zephyr/mockup.png

Where's the Back/Forward buttons?

[zhangm Supervisor]

Forgot about them in the mockup.

I use mouse gestures anyway, so there are no buttons except for Stop and Compact Menu in my toolbar.

[gringo]

I love the idea of having the FavIcon, Reload and Stop ALL-IN-ONE button. (I'm using Stop-Or-Reload Button extension)

There's also going to be (ugghhh my english...) and (X) on every tab... It's pretty useful if you don't have a 3-button mouse (or scrolling btn)

[chopyaedoff]

This absolutly useless for me as I have tweaked the menus (removed Go).

And have on the toolbar Back, Foward, Stop+reload (one button), home, address bar & UA widget.

[Angel Blue01]

They need to have the History, Bookmarks, and Print buttons on the toolbar

[beanboy89]

IMHO, I don't like the new UI. I have no problems with Firefox's current default UI. I think the Firefox developers are seeing how other web browsers are changing their GUIs, and to keep up, they feel they have to change the way Firefox looks.

Here are a few things I'm not too sure about:

(1) The reload button [^v] moves to be inside the URL bar so that it is

directly related with page which will be affected by it

Personally, I don't like this. The URL bar is for the URL, and shouldn't be full of other GUI elements. And by that explanation, shouldn't the back and forward buttons be in the URL bar as well?

(3) The RSS [.)] and Go [=>] buttons move inside the URL bar, again to

emphasize their direct relationship with the page. The Go button

becomes a stateful button that is either "Go" or "Stop"; if a page

is not loading, or if a user is typing in a URL, the button is "Go".

If a page is loading and a user is not typing in a URL, the button

is "Stop". The lock icon (not shown) and URL drop-down control (v)

would continue to be rendered as they currently exist.

Isn't the RSS button already in the URL bar? I don't like the idea of a combined stop/go or stop/reload button. How do you reload a page while it's loading? For new users, this would only lead to confusion.

(10) The status bar is hidden by default, and the page resizer is in the

bottom right corner underneath the scrollbar.

Terrible idea. I like to see the URL of a link before I click it. If the status bar is removed, that's a huge security risk; you would have no idea where you're about to go. Is it a malicious site? Is it a phishing site?

From the mock up: Where's the "Tools" menu? And why are the window buttons (close, minimize, maximize) on the menu bar?

Now I realize this is only a mock up for a possible new design, so I have no idea how these things will shape up once they're built, but I belive many of these new designs due to Places.

[family guy]

6) Closebuttons appear on the active tab only...

Bad idea IMO. It's useless to have a close button on only the active tab. In this case, you mind as well keep the X all the way to the right. If you add close buttons to tabs, add them to all the tabs. Or you can display the X on whatever tab the mouse rolls over.

Just my opinions anyways...

I like that idea. Having the X appear on mouse over tabs. Then you can close them with the X without having to look at them/click the tab first.

[sdb815]

Gawd I hate all that mouse over crap. Firefox is fine the way it is, I really hope they don't do this.

[JustGeorge]

Instead of removing things, they should concentrate on making the UI more customizable so the USER can make the changes themselves! Its fine the way it is now, however.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

Intresting. :D

[Lare2]

I tried doing a quick mockup using the ASCII as a base to go off of..........

http://relativity17.mad-skinning.be/zephyr/mockup.png

[off topic]

What visual style is that, it looks like Luna Element 5, but with thinner borders.

Care to share the name ?

TIA

[/off topic]

[Xerxes]

Looks interesting, I'll be interested to see what other concepts they come up with :) and is it me or are the File, Edit, View etc menus moved into the title bar itself (rather then under it)?