If Firefox 3 drops Vista look

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Regarding the icons, they're being done by the Iconfactory, you might know of some of the other work they've done.

[Smitjel]

Er, no, that 'logic' is not misguided at all! People just have different opinions. I'm doing a software engineering degree at university and I agree that the features are the most important part of software; however, the user interface also has to be friendly and intuitive, as well as nice to look at. Whilst Firefox 3's UI is somewhat user friendly, it certainly isn't nice to look at and many people use that as the deciding factor on whether they will use the web browser or not.

It isn't logic, it's personal opinion and it certainly isn't "misguided".

Good luck in getting your degree. I actually got my computer engineering degree 5 years ago.

It's understood that UI is important but that's not what the OP was talking about. Because FF3 supposedly doesn't have the "Vista look", then FF3 isn't worth using.

That's crap. But to each his own, even if one's own opinion is a tad misguided. ;)

[Randolph]

I don't know if this was posted but I have some good news:

Could everyone quickly provide very specific and complete information on how

they are achieving Aero glass functionality. The code freeze for beta 4 is on

Tuesday, and that is our last chance to make major changes to the appearance of

Firefox so we can still generate some feedback before RC1.

If anyone has a solution that we overlooked that doesn't suffer from the

problems of color key areas in the content area turning to glass, and isn't as

involved as specifying areas of glass at the widget layer (bug 418454), please

tell us exactly what you figured out as soon as you possibly can. I really

want us to support glass, but we need to understand your approach.

Quick update from a call with beltzner and mconnor: there is really no way we

could take this change for beta 4. However, if we get a working implementation

very soon some of us are interested in potentially considering a beta 5

proposing that we possibly delay the schedule so that we can include support

for glass in this release.

Additional thing we need to consider:

-what happens if the user has a larger font in the location bar, do we

calculate the height of the navigation toolbar or would that value need to be

hard coded?

:woot:

[EnzoFX]

I'm sure FF will deliver, just as it always have. Shame on you for all having such stupid doubts.

And I still stand by my last post. You all forget that here on neowin, you are not the average user. Enough said.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I don't know if this was posted but I have some good news:

...

:woot:

This means just calling DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea and continuing to use our drawing code as if the window was a regular opaque window would be *extremely* dodgy.

The right way to do this would be to use DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea to make the whole window glass, and then enable our transparent window support and make the parts of the window you want to be glassy transparent. Only problem is, there's a major performance hit for this and because we don't support content IFRAMEs in translucent chrome windows, you wouldn't be able to view Web content. Oh well. Post-1.9, the Compositor work will fix that bug and make this a lot more feasible.

Glass support isn't the most important feature, so it's better to wait until they have a good implementation of it, rather than hacking it in.

[1Frothy]

Wow. That statement really just seems to fit the entire Microsoft/Windows culture. It's like you guys let insignificant things cloud your judgment on what really matters in software (web browsers, operating systems, etc.). Nevermind the underlying security of the browser or how well it conforms to web standards...nah, let's base our decision on how well it fits the Vista theme.

Good grief...how misguided is that logic?

Before spouting perhaps add "IMHO". ;)

Truth is that while Mozilla are trying to make their browser fit Windows Vista, it's really a bit of a poor effort since Vista has been out for over a year and there are significant numbers of Windows Vista users now.

I still use Fx, sometimes. But only very rarely. The other feature of Fx that is really lacking is RSS Feed handling. For me it's a big deal and IE handles RSS far better than Fx. And I haven't found a Fx plugin that enhances RSS handling in Fx to the extent I want.

For those who haven't seen, someone posted this to the glass discussion on Bugzilla:

It was done with existing code, using a few extra css tweaks. Looks pretty good to me, if somebody does a theme with that, I'll be totally happy with it.

Link to Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=367993

I really like that look. Here's hoping that this will make it into the final release of Fx 3.0. (Y)

[Ayepecks]

That looks amazing... hope it works out.

[1Frothy]

These new toolbar icons in the latest trunk / nightly build are actually nice. Now all there is left to do is make the toolbar and menu area transparent and I'm happy. :p

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Isn't going to happen (read the quote I posted)

[stockwiz]

Wow. That statement really just seems to fit the entire Microsoft/Windows culture. It's like you guys let insignificant things cloud your judgment on what really matters in software (web browsers, operating systems, etc.). Nevermind the underlying security of the browser or how well it conforms to web standards...nah, let's base our decision on how well it fits the Vista theme.

Good grief...how misguided is that logic?

you're describing american culture as a whole there, buddy.. all style over substance, with no depth... everything is superficial. Still, a certain amount of aesthetics should be expected, though personally the way v2 looks is fine to me.. I prefer simple functionality.. the noia theme does the trick for me.

Edited February 22, 2008 by stockwiz

[Ayepecks]

:rolleyes:

Anyone who doesn't think looks matter is ignorant, plain and simple. Do you base who you're attracted to only on their personality, or are you interested in looks? Do you buy a car based only on what's inside, or are you also concerned about its looks? Some people want things to look good. Maybe you don't, but go take your social tirades somewhere else, because this isn't the topic for it.

[MadCap]

Well with the latest nightly it looks like the actual Vista Blue icons have landed with firefox. I have to agree with others that a transparent/translucent theme would help much more than just changing icons

[what]

:rolleyes:

Anyone who doesn't think looks matter is ignorant, plain and simple. Do you base who you're attracted to only on their personality, or are you interested in looks? Do you buy a car based only on what's inside, or are you also concerned about its looks? Some people want things to look good. Maybe you don't, but go take your social tirades somewhere else, because this isn't the topic for it.

You're comparing love and cars to a web browser. Nice one. People want the transparency because it fits in with the Vista interface. FF2 looks out of place with its XP-style menus. If it can be done with "a few CSS tweaks", then what's the problem if it's going to make Firefox more appealing?

[Ayepecks]

I think you don't understand the concept of my post, because you're agreeing with me.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

The 'keyhole' has now landed in the OS X theme as well:

I'm not overly impressed with it. What are your thoughts?

[shakey_snake]

I'm not overly impressed with it. What are your thoughts?

I think the combined back and forward button is a definite improvement over the separate buttons with separate dropdowns.

I could probably care less what the button looks like, as long as it clearly represents it's function.

:rolleyes:

Anyone who doesn't think looks matter is ignorant, plain and simple. Do you base who you're attracted to only on their personality, or are you interested in looks?

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

Did you seriously, just compare browsers to girls?

This is why web browsers have their own section. :rolleyes:

Edited February 27, 2008 by shakey_snake

[Digitalx]

looks nuce in osx :)

[zhangm Supervisor]

I actually tried making a unique look similar to the keyhole design.

Turned out to be a pain in the ass.

[DreadBoat89]

Well with the latest nightly it looks like the actual Vista Blue icons have landed with firefox. I have to agree with others that a transparent/translucent theme would help much more than just changing icons

wondering if this is happening to everybody... did the vista icons suddenly disappear from the nightly

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

The Vista icon theme was pulled from the Firefox 3 nightlies until this bug is resolved.

[(Spork)]

i could careless what it looks like its the best browser out there so ill use it

[what]

The 'keyhole' has now landed in the OS X theme as well:

http://localhostr.com/files/cbe2f7/Picture%201.png

I'm not overly impressed with it. What are your thoughts?

It seems to work better but it just doesn't suit OS X.

[Ayepecks]

I actually tried making a unique look similar to the keyhole design.

Turned out to be a pain in the ass.

That looks interesting :)

[shihchiun]

There'll be 10 different Vista themes anyway... what's the big deal?

[buckaroo]

There'll be 10 different Vista themes anyway... what's the big deal?

Exactly.

Didn't use any other browser since Firebird 0.2.