Firefox 3.7 and 4.0 theme and UI revamp - Mac specific visual refresh

[Denis W. Veteran]

Last post was a bit of a bump, but anyways:

The whole argument on larger borders simply comes down to the lack of resizing windows freely on any edge in OS X (to me, only resizing on the bottom right corner is silly). Larger "wasteful" borders = easier to resize windows as previously mentioned.

No matter how ugly you think Firefox is, just remember...

Somebody could always do worse.

Talk about a terrible concept...

[Rudy]

Last post was a bit of a bump, but anyways:

The whole argument on larger borders simply comes down to the lack of resizing windows freely on any edge in OS X (to me, only resizing on the bottom right corner is silly). Larger "wasteful" borders = easier to resize windows as previously mentioned.

Do you really resize that much?

[Quillz]

Do you really resize that much?

I find that I do, yes. Most people probably don't, but some do. Oftentimes content is either predominately in a portrait or landscape orientation, so you tend to resize the window to accommodate and not waste so much screen space.

[Furrybeagle]

Speaking of resizing windows… I find utilities like MondoMouse or Zooom are far more useful than dragging windows from the edges/corners. Both of those apps allow you to drag and resize windows by holding down certain modifier keys while your cursor is over a window. I don’t know why all operating systems don’t do it this way… the hit target is larger, no ugly window borders…

I guess it wouldn’t be discoverable enough for novice users.

[PyX]

That's the biggest problem I have with Firefox. It just doesn't have the fluidity and behavior of a normal Mac application.

What he said.

Seriously, it has its little something that differentiates it from other Mac apps, and that little something is not good.

[.Neo]

The whole argument on larger borders simply comes down to the lack of resizing windows freely on any edge in OS X (to me, only resizing on the bottom right corner is silly). Larger "wasteful" borders = easier to resize windows as previously mentioned.

Windows XP managed to let the user easily resize windows from any side without adding 8 pixel thick borders...

Next to that, Mac OS X has a "Zoom" button for a reason...

[Joshie]

Regarding the 4.0 mockup, I'm noticing this in a handful of programs across platforms lately: why don't they just trim off the extra pixels above the tabs and have the window controls aligned to the same row? I can't help but feel like it would be more attractive, and make the tabs look more like they're replacing the old titlebar concept.

Instead, that empty space up top stands as a reminder of the titlebar that isn't.

Regarding resizing, I don't know much about Macs, but I use it heavily in Windows and Linux. Though since Windows 7, I must admit, I'm either vertically maximizing (double-clicking the top/bottom border) or dragging from the lower right corner, so I can definitely see validity to the anti-border argument.

[evo0o]

@joshie: i agree with your point on the empty space