First look to Firefox theme refresh for Mac OS X
Stephen Horlander has released a few mockup images of what would become the update Firefox theme in future releases.
Like the planned Windows theme refresh, updates will happen in two phases:
In Firefox 3.7, expected around mid-next year:
Main changes (in case you don’t notice them):
- combined stop/reload buttons
- tabs hanging from the toolbar
- home button moved to the tab bar
- more rounded tabs
- less rounded buttons
In Firefox 4.0, the most dramatic change is moving the tab bar above the navigation bar, the combination of the location and search bars, and the addition of an identity button to the upper right corner.
You can see more screenshots including some other variations still under consideration, as well as the rationale behind the changes.
Comments
Mr Lizard
“In Firefox 4.0, the most dramatic change is moving the tab bar above the navigation bar,”
No. Way.
Apple abandoned this after slipping it into a beta of Safari.
You should be aiming for OS integration. Please, don’t just ‘do a chrome’.
“Main changes (in case you don’t notice them):
* tabs hanging from the toolbar”
That’s been the case since Firefox 3.0?
KXOctober 6th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
The tabs on top for Firefox 4.0 has already been discussed for Windows, this post is merely adding equivalent mockups for version 4.0 under Macintosh. The possibility of tabs on top has already been mentioned on Mozilla Links here, and a discussion of the proposed theme and UI changes for Firefox 3.7 and 4.0 can be found here.
Mr LizardOctober 6th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I certainly hope the aim for Fx 4.0 isn’t to make it look like the Windows version, especially after the hard work that went into making Fx 3.0 fit in with the respective operating systems.
I appreciate the link to the UI discussion and I will contribute there :-)
KXOctober 7th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I thought I’d mention that when I said “discussion,” I meant little more than an explanation of the direction for UI design of Firefox 3.7 and 4.0, posted on the Mozilla Wiki. In other words, please do not edit in your opinions of the proposed direction on the wiki page itself. A better solution may be to add your comments to the talk page for the Mozilla Wiki article, found here. I am only mentioning this because I don’t want anyone getting mad at me if you took my comment to mean that you could edit the Mozilla Wiki page I had linked to, which you definitely shouldn’t do.
Also, I’d like to say that it is intended for tabs on top to be an option in Firefox 4.0. I don’t know whether Firefox will have this option turned on my default, but it should be possible to revert the change if you dislike having your tabs above the toolbars.
BenjaminNovember 9th, 2009 at 9:49 am
What exactly is your problem with the tabs on top feature Mr. Lizard? Some people actually “like” the feature. It will probably be an available option to have tabs on top or on the bottom, like it should have been but wasn’t in Safari, all because some users were very vocal about wanting the tabs on the bottom. As for OS integration, I don’t exactly see how that would change too much or at all.
Tree
Noooo, don’t combine the stop and reload buttons! Combine the reload button with the load button. It makes so much more sense.
KXOctober 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
If, by “load button” you mean the “go” button at the end of the location bar, they do intend combine the reload, stop, and go buttons, but not until Firefox 4.0. See this for more information.
AndrewOctober 16th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I see no reason why the stop and reload buttons should not be combined.
Anyway, this looks really nice. Especially with the small buttons.
Mohan
I like the changes, and kinda so far like the tab above the URL bar…I have to see it in action though.
David Naylor
I believe the tabs are haning from the toolbar already.
http://alexseifert.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/firefox-3-beta-1.png
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