Another round of Firefox 3 themes updates
More polishing for the Firefox 3 themes. On Windows, this time we get a wider keyhole, the new combined back and forward buttons that also features new simpler and lighter icons more coherent with the reload and stop buttons.
The keyhole is also now available on Mac OS X, but for some reason it will not be used on Linux.
As announced before, the Windows Vista theme has landed and it’s all blue. The new location bar star icon has been redone and looks sharper.
The location bar gets a new left rounded edge but it won’t be available yet for Beta 4 (due in the next few days) as it was added just after the code freeze.
The Options (Preferences on Linux) icons have been retouched a little: the Privacy icon doesn’t look like a helmet any more on Windows.
The Add-ons Manager also got new icons. Most notable is a lovable Lego brick for the Plugins page whcih I believe is destined to become a classic.
And there’s still more to come. Mainly, the location bar autocomplete menu is being reviewed to address a common complaint about the length, color and page title and address font different sizes.
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Wow. A little polishing goes a long way. I’m starting to get won over by the keyhole.
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
the location bar is pretty nice!
i would like to be able to make right click or add them to favorites
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
plus, the right click on pages is still far behind from opera, it would be cool if interact a bit more with search engines
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Aubrey, I totally agree. The backbutton still needs more air to breathe though, at least below it.
Anyone around who could send Percy the equivalent Mac screenshots?
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Looking forward to testing Beta 4!
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March 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Nice work with the location bar rounded edges, but I think the privacy icon still looks like a helmet on windows.
I think there is a issue with the rss icon on location bar on Linux, I think it’s great but why is it different from the one from live bookmarks?
Also great lego brick icon, sure will be a classic.
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March 5th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
“for some reason it will not be used on Linux”
A little bit succint
Is there a reflexion about changing the small black arrow pointing the bottom of the screen : since it becomes an independant button it should not be smaller than
It used to be smaller when it was the complement of > or < but now that this function become independant, the button must be redesign and get full size
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March 5th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
“Nice work with the location bar rounded edges, but I think the privacy icon still looks like a helmet on windows.”
Yes, that was my thought too. It’s better, but still is hard to figure out. They need to loose the (part of the) door behind the sign and the handle.
I’m beginning to like the icons overall, but the download icon sticks out like a sore thumb if you ask me. It has a totally different feel than the other toolbar icons.
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March 5th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Well… Some parts of it I like, but I still would like the Vista toolbar icons to incorporate some color, the back/forward icons to go back to arrows, and the location and search bars in Vista to have a more definite outline (right now it sort of grossly blends into the window)…
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March 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I’m using the nightly builds and am on pre5 at the moment - the Vista theme looks different, the back and forward buttons and more like . Personally I prefer the pre4 look (as per your screenshots).
Also - the new favicon rounded placeholder in the location bar is good, but on Vista the bottom of it gets cut off (and it’s the same on your screenshot) whereas on XP it has a border on the bottom so looks like a proper button.
I also really like the new RSS icons!
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March 5th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
-the Magnifying glasses should be the same between the: ’search button’ and ’search for more addons’
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March 5th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Far too much blue on the Vista theme. No other browse has done this so why would Firefox? It’s mind boggling.
Icons are often more quickly, seamlessly recognised with an action for their colour than shape. Red is synonomous with Stop, Green with Go. Please don’t jeapordise colour coordination and thus usability by making the mistake of not following this, especially as even IE7 is, it’s just not consistent with anything as is.
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March 5th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
The mac osx one needs some work still. It looks like its trying but only got half way there (like almost all of the downloadable osx themes).
We won’t mind if you take direct notes from safari. They got it right.
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March 6th, 2008 at 1:02 am
“but for some reason it will not be used on Linux.”
It won’t be because:
- we found overwhelming feedback from Linux users expressing that they want Firefox to fit in with their global theme. Unlike Windows and Mac OS X, Linux themes provide icons for common actions as well.
- it felt more aligned with the goals of making Firefox 3 look more native. There are other things beside the keyhole that contribute to Firefox’s identity.
- it would be impossible to design a single keyhole that would fit in every distribution, since everybody’s themes and focuses are completely different. Not to mention that themes are a far more easily accessed feature on Linux, and people do change them. So it would be much easier for us to just adapt to the system rather than making our own attempt to adapt to the system and failing.
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March 6th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I don’t understand what the Privacy icon represents :( Could you explain me ?
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March 6th, 2008 at 8:31 am
@Thomas, can’t blame you: it’s a door handle with a do not disturb sign hanging from it. I think they should replace it with a knob as it distracts too much from the hanger which is the actual icon.
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March 6th, 2008 at 8:33 am
By the way - I just tried the Acid2 test on the latest pre5 and noticed that it doesn’t render 100% correctly anymore! Anyone else found this?
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March 6th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Isaac, no, here it seems to work fine. What is that looks wrong?
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March 6th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Here’s a screenshot of Acid2 taken with my browser. I’ve tried it on two PCs actually - one running Vista and one running XP, same thing. I disabled all extensions before taking the screenshot.
http://cid-2fbcf8017242e87b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Minefield Pics
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March 6th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Mike : thank you for your precisions
Can wee have access to discussions about Linux UI ? I guess it is on Google discussion platform ?
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March 6th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I’ve fixed that problem with Acid2 - it’s because I had set the minimum font size to 13 rather than None. It works fine now.
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March 7th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I agree with antistress: please improve the small black down arrow for the location bar and search bar (possibly back/foward history too).
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March 7th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Firefox 3 is shaping up well, I really like they way Mozilla has taken with the themes, although I don’t like the keyhole for OS X, I do like it for XP and Vista, and I also like the fact they kept the forward and back buttons separate for Linux (makes it a bit different).
Will be looking forward to Beta 4.
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March 8th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
The Vista keyhole looks horrible, but the XP one looks nice.
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Everything is just _awesome_ except for the new look, which I really didn’t like.
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March 14th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Another thing that annoys me is the way someone added a fade effect to the tabs bar on firefox settings window. XP and Vista don’t have this fade effect. Why does Linux gets it. Besides it is not recomended on Tango guidelines
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March 14th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Sadly it still looks quite bad. The keyhole is better now, but the other buttons looks weird. And neither the XP or Vista icons integrate well with the OS.
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March 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
The keyhole stinks for me. It’s big, eating up valuable space for viewing web sites. It looks like Office 2007. It doesn’t really add any functionality. And with the old system, it was possible to hide back and forwards if there was nowhere to go back and forwards to. Now it is all or nothing.
I don’t know what it adds. It’s not good usability IMHO.
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John HowellMay 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Why not have an option for keyhole or not? Maybe just make sure the keyhole-less theme is available as a plugin for those that don’t want it.
The whole point of firefox is choice.
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