If Firefox 3 drops Vista look

[Quillz]

Because running it in vista it should look like the rest of vista. Applications should be integrated with the look of the OS they are running on. I hate applications that look way different than everything else (And often ugly and just stand out for no reason.)

Such as Safari.

And a major feature of Firefox 3 is the OS integration on each individual platform, they are too far along to drop this, and they aren't.

[1Frothy]

Gosh, it's not like skins haven't been a feature of Firefox since it was still called Phoenix.

@Sazz181: To me usability is the primary factor. Looks are secondary. Firefox 3 finds a good balance between both in my opinion - on all supported platforms, not just Windows.

You're understanding of Windows Vista NATIVE is very shallow. A skin can never replicate a native Windows Visa application.

FF B3 is completely ugly right now. If it remains that way till final, I'll just use IE.

+1

Include me too. IE 7 opens all the pages correctly the way I want and it matches my OS. Why should I continue to use an ugly Window 95 looking application in Vista?

Also, the new icons border on the ridiculous and are totally ugly Mr Mozilla.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

You're understanding of Windows Vista NATIVE is very shallow. A skin can never replicate a native Windows Visa application.

Vista native != Vista glass. If you had any clue of how the Windows GUI is designed you would see that Firefox 3 does use native controls (menus, toolbars). Once again: The Mozilla developers never mentioned that Firefox 3 would use Aero Glass in the same manner as IE 7; the mockup was only for the places organiser, NOT THE BROWSER ITSELF.

Am I writing in Chinese or what?

[1Frothy]

Neobond is right..

but.. screw vista & how stuff looks, anyway.. it works good the way it is.. if you want vista look, use IE7 then or theme it

You and Neobond may agree. (Y) For you. But for me and about 1/3 Firefox users, Firefox 3 will disappoint.

[Buzz99]

WHOA !!!! 50% will not use it anymore....I just can't believe it. Firefox is still, integated look or not, the grade A browser to use if you do not want to use IE...Still can't believe it, just because of looks. Would drop a girl because of looks, not a browser.

[Pretend]

I really couldn't care less how the theme/skin looks, just the performance :)

[tsupersonic]

Bleh, besides the places bar, FF 3 is pretty disappointing. The address bar is horrible, the default back/forward buttons need work.

When the address bar drops down, you can notice a pause, I don't like the big fonts. :\ Will continue to use a themed firefox and Opera

[Harlem39s Finest]

well i don't give a s... about what firefox is going to look like because i discovered a fantastic feature called themes ...

[Calum Veteran]

Because running it in vista it should look like the rest of vista. Applications should be integrated with the look of the OS they are running on. I hate applications that look way different than everything else (And often ugly and just stand out for no reason.)

I agree. E.g. iTunes and Safari look HORRIBLE on Windows Vista and those two applications aren't even consistent with each other! :o (i.e. the scrollbars are different and the grey colour of the applications - it's lighter in iTunes 7 than it is in Safari! :o)

Include me too. IE 7 opens all the pages correctly the way I want and it matches my OS. Why should I continue to use an ugly Window 95 looking application in Vista?

Also, the new icons border on the ridiculous and are totally ugly Mr Mozilla.

I don't understand why you would rather use IE 7 when you can have the 'Vista-aero' skin - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4988 (this was probably the skin Neobond was referring to). IE 7 does not display all pages correctly as it does not pass the Acid2 test! In fact, I even have an example of how badly it displays some pages: look at my MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/calumr69).

View this in both IE 7 and FF 2 and you will see that in IE 7 the main ridge border around the modules is a weird colour compared to FF and right at the bottom the last modules are not aligned perfectly, as they are in FF. The text is also harder to read, witht he font badly rendered - it is not displayed as clear as it is in FF. Finally, the text in each of the modules (Music interests, Film interests, etc) is all too much to the left in IE, wheres it is in the centre in FF and doesn't look as squashed.

So, again, the question is, why would you want to use IE 7 when FF displays webpages correctly and you can have an excellent IE 7 theme for it?

Vista native != Vista glass. If you had any clue of how the Windows GUI is designed you would see that Firefox 3 does use native controls (menus, toolbars). Once again: The Mozilla developers never mentioned that Firefox 3 would use Aero Glass in the same manner as IE 7; the mockup was only for the places organiser, NOT THE BROWSER ITSELF.

Am I writing in Chinese or what?

I completely agree with you Mephistopheles! The developers of Firefox said that FF 3 would be native to Windows Vista, however, they never said anything about Aero. They stated that it would be more native - i.e. icons similar to the look and feel of said OS.

I, personally, would love to see FF 3 on Vista have Aero transparency and take advantage of the Aero feature in Vista, but I don't think the developers would be able to do that, would they? Or am I wrong?

Edited February 16, 2008 by cJr.

[Malisk]

@ 'Mephistopheles' What they're showing in the mockup is a Vista native look, and it sounds like that idea has now been dropped. So that's my issue. I don't want a browser that looks out of place in Vista.

I'm sure that regardless their decision, there'll be a skin though. One can grab that along with other obligatory stuff, like Adblock.

[ralph_tran]

I'm confused as to why people care so much about how their browser looks. When you're using the internet, wouldn't you pay more attention to the actual page displayed rather than the browser?

[+Warwagon MVC]

for the record most Firefox themes look like ass. But to stop using Firefox if the drop the vista theme is just retarded.

[APH-Alex]

Vista and IE7 look so kiddish anyways, I always though Fx looked more mature and was more for functionality and simplicity and overall awesomeness. Honestly, there are so many features in Fx that I couldn't live without. IMO It's far better than IE7.

And also, as many others have said, if you really don't like the skin, just download a different one.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

As long as it doesn't obstruct my view of a web page, I could care less about the skin a browser uses.

[Calum Veteran]

I'm confused as to why people care so much about how their browser looks. When you're using the internet, wouldn't you pay more attention to the actual page displayed rather than the browser?

No, sorry, but when I use an application, I HAVE to have something which looks good and is a joy to use, rather than something which is boring and horrible to look at. It's just like if I had a girlfriend, I'd rather her look beautiful, as well as having a good personality; rather than be ugly to look at, but function well (good personality).

I know this comment makes me sound shallow, lol, but at the end of the day, it's just a fine example of how things have to look good for me to use them :)

[Digitalx]

i'm not fussed i'd still use it the UI plays about 5-10% of why you should use the browser and firefox 3 in its current state is fine, just like using ff 2 atm i dont care about blue menu bars etc and grey tabs doesn't bother me.

[ObiWanToby]

http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2008/02/10...refox-3s-icons/

" The Vista icons are currently checked in, but haven?t been enabled in the nightly builds yet. This is because we are going to ship one theme on Windows, and determine the correct icons to display at runtime. Since the chrome overrides aren?t set up, we automatically default to the XP icons on Vista, and (as some people have pointed out) this looks rather funky. We should get that issue corrected soon."

We get Vista Icons, but the theme still looks fugly.

Edited February 17, 2008 by Intelman

[1Frothy]

I'm confused as to why people care so much about how their browser looks. When you're using the internet, wouldn't you pay more attention to the actual page displayed rather than the browser?

Maybe about a 1/3 of Mozilla users are superficial and care about a product that not only works great but looks great.

for the record most Firefox themes look like ass. But to stop using Firefox if the drop the vista theme is just retarded.

It's not only for the looks, sure the looks are one of a couple of reasons why I had a gutful of Firefox.

1. The new autofill / drop down address bar search thing is disgusing,

2. Speed / Compatibility etc, whatever. Nothing new there for me. Internet Explorer does it all.

3. Design / 'the look'. (N) It's aweful, lacks innovation or good taste.

Anyway. Firefox is now gone from my PC and I don't miss it. IE7Pro makes up for all the plugins I used to use in Firefox.

[ShaneSparky_YYZ]

I could careless if they drop the "vista" look, I will still use both IE and FF. I don't use the generic Vista theme anyways when on my Vista partition.

[Borbus]

Oh god, so people would rather use IE7 than Firefox because Firefox doesn't have the right "look".

People need to reconsider their priorities when choosing software.

"I could careless if they drop the "vista" look"

I assume you mean you couldn't care less...

I was going to say that I don't care if they drop the Vista, XP and OS X looks, but on reading this thread I have changed my mind. People obviously care about something as trivial as how their browser looks, and if 41 people really will use IE instead of FF because of this then I hope they do keep the "look". Why? Because I'm a web developer and I dream about the death of IE.

[ObiWanToby]

Oh god, so people would rather use IE7 than Firefox because Firefox doesn't have the right "look".

People need to reconsider their priorities when choosing software.

"I could careless if they drop the "vista" look"

I assume you mean you couldn't care less...

I was going to say that I don't care if they drop the Vista, XP and OS X looks, but on reading this thread I have changed my mind. People obviously care about something as trivial as how their browser looks, and if 41 people really will use IE instead of FF because of this then I hope they do keep the "look". Why? Because I'm a web developer and I dream about the death of IE.

Well I'm glad you care now! Mac users are typically more visually oriented, because that OS is pretty, but now that Vista is looking prettier, I really want my applications to look and feel good. Using something ugly just isn't right. IE7 is the best looking browser on Vista right now. I was holding off using Firefox 2 again because it doesn't quite look right in Vista. But now that they seem to not be making an effort to make Firefox look good in Windows, my future browsing still includes IE.

[shakey_snake]

A few points:

• Paul Thurrot has no idea what he's talking about, but is trolling for exposure. It seems this is SOP for this guy.
  
• Firefox3 will have a native vista Theme
  
• By "native vista theme" I mean only Vista-like buttons.
  
• Glass in the Toolbars would be impossible.
  
• Firefox's UI is not "native". "A Native UI" means that the UI elements are drawn by Window's (or quartz or qt) API. Firefox's UI is drawn by the Gecko itself, menus, buttons, toolbars, everything. In comparison, the Gecko based K-melon web browser's UI is drawn by the Windows API. This is why it cannot be cross-platform, and has no GUI extensions, but Firefox is and does.
  
• Gecko Rendering of the UI is one reason there are so many Firefox extensions. Creating GUI for an extension isn't "much different" than creating a web page using DOM.
  
• Using glass for Firefox's toolbars would involve abandoning Gecko UI and using Windows API. This would break extensions and virtually change pretty much the whole program. A glass effect might be able to be emulated by Gecko, but I imagine this also would break too many things to be useful.
  

Edited February 17, 2008 by shakey_snake

[Julius Caro]

A few points:

• Paul Thurrot has no idea what he's talking about, but is trolling for exposure. It seems this is SOP for this guy.
  
• Firefox3 will have a native vista Theme
  
• By "native vista theme" I mean only Vista-like buttons.
  
• Glass in the Toolbars would be impossible.
  
• Firefox's UI is not "native". "A Native UI" means that the UI elements are drawn by Window API. Firefox's UI is drawn by the Gecko itself, menus, buttons, toolbars, everything. In comparison, the Gecko based K-melon web browser's UI is drawn by the Windows API. This is why it cannot be cross-platform, and has no GUI extensions, but Firefox is and does.
  
• Gecko Rendering of the UI is one reason there are so many Firefox extensions. Creating GUI for an extension isn't "much different" than creating a web page using DOM.
  
• Using glass for Firefox's toolbars would involve abandoning Gecko UI and using Windows API. This would break extensions and virtually change pretty much the whole program. A glass effect might be able to be emulated by Gecko, but I imagine this also would break too many things to be useful.
  

Not using the windows API to draw the UI doesn't mean that firefox is universally portable just like that, of course there's platform-dependent code! I was under the impression that for firefox3 they were actually going to make the effort of using the OSs libraries to draw the UI, meaning that they would have to get the work done for each platform. If by native u mean vista-like buttons, that's hardly native. I'm sure that why they meant by native was actually using those APIs, which ultimately means a more memory-efficient experience.

[shakey_snake]

Not using the windows API to draw the UI doesn't mean that firefox is universally portable just like that, of course there's platform-dependent code!

Of course. But Gecko generally acts as a middleman. This is how, for example, the drop down menus and context menus are colored with the same colors as whatever theme you might be using, even though they're still drawn by Gecko.

I was under the impression that for firefox3 they were actually going to make the effort of using the OSs libraries to draw the UI, meaning that they would have to get the work done for each platform.

No, that would break too many things, and cause too much platform-specific overhead. Not to mention, extensions would then have to take extra work to be cross-platform.

If by native u mean vista-like buttons, that's hardly native. I'm sure that why they meant by native was actually using those APIs, which ultimately means a more memory-efficient experience.

I think if you look at what has been written, the promise is a "more native appearance" or "native look", not actual native rendering. (example)

Any memory efficiency-gain is going to come via memory improvements to Gecko itself, of which there are many with fx3.

Edited February 17, 2008 by shakey_snake

[DigitalE]

Doesn't matter to me one bit. Of course I will continue using Firefox. I couldn't really care less what it looks like, as long as it's not horridly ugly.