Thursday 2/21 at 14:00 to 15:00 PST (UTC-8) I will be on Air Mozilla Live answering questions about the ongoing work on the new themes for Firefox 3. You can view the show live at air.mozilla.com and participate on IRC, IM, or email. If you happen to miss the show you can of course listen to the podcast or watch the video podcast later by subscribing to the show with a client like Miro. Or, if you aren’t on board with the whole RSS thing you can just download the video directly from our server.
Full details about tomorrow’s show are on Air Mozilla Backstage.
When is that GMT?
UTC and GMT are the same (although I think UTC includes leap seconds).
More than once I’ve wondered why Google’s search-as-unit-convertor can’t handle timezone conversions… “14:00 PST in GMT” or even “2pm San Francisco, CA in London, UK”
“1 mph in parsecs per nanosecond” works, though. :-)
@Alex
You are correct Alex, but could you tell us what it is in UTC+00?
I just found out! 2:00pm PST = 10:00pm UTC/GMT
the firefox theme
In Xp
why the not put the places of bookmark toolbar same like safari?
can you change the color icons?
can you change the color of background? more gray?
the search bar or the address bar must be different, more like safari?
Alex,
I was able to catch part of your Air Mozilla chat last night. Very informative and interesting.
On a completely unrelated note, I’m still very curious about the new Firefox 3 app icon…do you know when we will be finding out more info?
Thanks,
Vibhu
I must admit, this will be the best release ever. But I was wondering what about Linux users? It seems they are left outside a bit? I was testing firefox on gnome and KDE. On Gnome looks pretty well, but in KDE is still a lot of work to do. Alex, I was wondering will KDE users see some nice theme integration on future releases of ff3?
Thanks,
deco
I missed it, and it’s not on the server, the podcast, the videocast, or the youtube channel. How can I watch it?
Yes, i want to watch it too. But the episode is nowhere to be found.
It hasn’t been posted yet, hopefully it will go up soon.
Umm, was the Vista theme backed out or something? I do prefer the green arrows, but the bookmarks icon was snazzier in the Vista version. Other than that, I’m kind of happier honestly, a blue stop icon makes little sense (even IE7 on Vista doesn’t do that). Although I still think the stop and reload icons are too skinny to fit in – skinny icons seem to fit in better in the URL bar, like IE has them next to the URL bar, the toolbar really seems better with more fleshed out icons. Also, just because IE uses an X doesn’t mean it makes sense, but maybe it’ll grow on me like previous Firefox themes have.
Please change the Stop icon to red in vista. The color red signifies stop. As red is stop in traffic signals etc.
I cant wait for the ff3 and its new features. Very building ideas. Good work Alex.
@vinitneo
As my comment above states, the Vista theme has been entirely backed out right now. Personally I’m fine with that since it’s pretty much just a blue coloring of the regular Windows icons. It would be nice if you guys could get the glass effect working in Vista, but it seems (from the comments on the bug) that the glass API isn’t well documented, so I can understand if it’s not in 3.0 final. However, as someone said in that bug, it would be nice to have because even if it’s added in 3.1 or something, reviewers and users generally look for big exciting features in major releases, and as more and more computers use Vista they might wonder why it doesn’t use the Glass effect. That’s not completely likely though since to my knowledge the only things that use the Glass API are built-in Windows programs, most notably Windows Media Player 11 and IE7, and even many Microsoft programs don’t use Glass.
I know I typed this in the other post, but I don’t think anyone’s looking at that any more so:
”
Hey, I just downloaded the latest nightly build. I like the new arrows, but I have a few qualms:
1.) i think back arrow needs to be thicker and more centered, to match with the forward arrow.
2.) Why is there still no red stop button. Everything just looks too blue, and pretty much everyone agrees the stop arrow should be red.
3.) I prefer the old RSS symbol.
4.) The go button looks a bit wonky, if you know what I mean.
5.) I don’t think this is anything to do with you, but just in case; when are we going to get an update on personas? I really like it, but i hate how it makes the buttons revert to classic look.
Other than that, I love it so far! Keep up the good work.”
The RSS one is a bit outdated, because they’ve changed it again, so thanks!
I also just downloaded the latest nightly on XP, and all I can say is “Wow!” The revised back and forward arrows really look nice. I agree with the above poster that the “Go” button is a bit… blurry somehow.
At any rate, I’m looking forward to b4 and the final release!
In the latest RC of FF3b4 on WinXP, when using “Windows XP native” theme (not the classic one, you know what I mean), the Back button almost touches the lower part of the navigation toolbar, without having even a single pixel as a distance between the lowest part of the “back” button and the toolbar’s lower border. At the same time, there’s a plenty of space on the upper side of the button. I consider this a bug since it looks rather awkward.
This issue does not show on WinXP Classic theme (a-la win2000), where the lower distance is about 3 pixels or more; however, even there the upper distance is greater than the lower one.
The following are all extracts from comments on either this post or the post “A second look at Firefox 3′s icons”:
“a blue stop icon makes little sense ”
“Please change the Stop icon to red in vista. The color red signifies stop. As red is stop in traffic signals etc.”
“all the glyphs are the same color, usability may not be intuitive enough in terms of color? It seems flat. I like my Stop buttons red and my Go buttons green”
“I’m concerned that nearly all the Vista icons are in blue. Blue back, forward, stop, reload, home, even blue RSS glyph!… At the very least, stop should be red”
“Stop = Red because, well, Stop = Red.”
“the Vista icon still needs to be red, red means STOP”
“Also everything blue is not a good idea for Vista, even IE7 doesn’t do that.”
“Why can’t you have any vista icon which isn’t blue? I believe that the stop icon should be red,”
“And yeah, it should be read. Go should be green, too.”
“A blue X would be kind of awkward though, so I think the stop icon in vista should be red”
“Stop button should be red”
“My only complaint is that the Vista stop button should really be red instead of blue.”
“As already said, they are all blue. How about red for stop”
“I would, however, concur with others saying that the vista stop button should be red.”
I think I have made my point. I’m just trying to draw attention to this. Thanks!
Alex,
could you look at Bug 422419? I’ve added a proposal for prettier back/forward buttons when small icons are used. The current ones in Windows (FF3b4) are not very good to put it gently ;)
I agree with post 16.
Yes, and put the old RSS icon back, so it’ll match the gloss of the other icons. The star could use a little gloss as well. And the go button does look, well, wonky.
Alex – this come from an UI designer,
Regarding new FF3 GUI..
Please do a simple dialog on Prefferences (and one at the first install gui) and LET USER CHOOSE between the OS like UI or Firefox 3 new UI.
In 2 lines You can solve a potantial time / space consumer like the flame-war between native or non-native UI(now it’s an acceptable fire but after Ff3 launch will grow on entire Linux planet).
Also – from functional design point – this must be a natural option.
Let user choose.
And You just saved the Linux part of this planet.
Regards,
Sorin
The tab bar is all shiny.
Yay.
Liked the new icons so much. I made an Vista OS integration theme, I hope you can consider this
my thought :
somehow firefox 3 beta 4 design doesnt feel integrated with Vista Yet… the blue keyhole back n forward buttons doesnt feel integrated with the whole firefox 3 design.
so what im trying to achieve here is a nice Vista integration theme by combining the simplicity of IE7 and user friendliness of Firefox 3
please look http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7596/firefox3vistaintegratedvw5.jpg
sorry bout the rough work
I really like that mockup HR. I’d change just a thing or two though. Have the address and search bar use the same effects as explorer. Also it would possibly be nice to use the the same magnifying glass icon in the search bar that explorer uses.
thanks Gabe B, it is really nice to have IE search bar and icon there but aint that too much copying? I want to keep the original FF3 elements as much as i can, just want to play around with colors and layout.
here some more mock up
http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=firefox3vistaintegrateddx9.jpg
my idea is to hide the tool bar (file/edit/view/history etc2) because in my experience I really used them, but as alwasy…. it is also customizable so whether you want to show them or not… its up to the user
the drop down menu is rather fancy like the one on the macs system… but I tried to make it as civilized as possible, clean and pleasant to the eyes
i put green gradient and outlined the address bar so it looks rather 3D, vista = 3D
I can’t get Mozilla live to play on my iPod touch. Spent two hours trying to setup both the audio and video podcast. Not sure whats wrong, cause I have tons of other audio/video podcasts on it.
Wow, HR, that is the BEST vista integration theme I’ve ever seen!!! Now if only they would make that be the FF3 theme on Vista, I would switch from IE7 for sure. At the moment I use IE7 on Vista mostly because of the nicer UI, but that would beat it! Of course, if it doesn’t get put in FF3, then could it be made into a standard theme or if not then an add-on?
It wouldn’t support personas
thanks for the interest on my mock up.
I did the mock up because I was wishing it could be like that, and thats all I can do….
it might not possible but I just wish…
Maybe someone that can code this into reality will read this ;) I hope so!
I wouldnt worry about persona, I just want a nice Vista integration theme,
or maybe this could be done through persona…. like putting alpha transparent glass as the header
but at the moment, persona doesnt support transparent images
What is persona?
@Matthew
persona is firefox addon that allows you to put custom picture on your toolbar, mainly as jpg
check it out http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/12/personas-for-firefox/
Do you have a thing so I can launch my site with you??
I always use firefox!!!