As you may know, Mozilla is making an effort to enhance the usability of Firefox in Firefox 2, and part of this plan is a new default theme. Well, recently Aronnax, maker of the lovely GrApple Firefox theme, and myself were talking about the changes in the Mac version of the theme. Both of us are not liking the direction the Mozilla team is taking on the Mac side of things. They’re making visual tweaks which are not common on the Mac platform. Everything from the icon size, to hover effects are all non-standard features of Mac UI design.
I’ve personally been running the Firefox 2 nightlies since shortly after beta 1, and things just aren’t right on Mac. I could go into a long spiel, but instead I’m just going to present you the visuals and let the images speak for themselves (click images for larger versions).
This first image is the current state of the default Firefox theme on Mac:
Here’s the same theme on Windows:
Now, here’s what the Firefox team is currently aiming the theme to look like on Mac:
Finally, this is the proposed final theme on Windows:
I don’t know about you, but I think the Mac theme is coming off looking very XPish, and I can see why. Right now Mozilla is in a heated battle with Internet Explorer. IE7 went through a complete graphic overhaul, and Mozilla is just trying to keep up with IE. That’s fine for Windows, but Mac Firefox users should not be feeling the effects of this battle. Instead, Mozilla should be focusing in competing with Safari on Mac, not Internet Explorer.
If this bugs you, help change this. The Firefox team is supposedly listening to user feedback during this beta testing phase; so if you don’t like something, let them know! There are tons of bugs related to the Mac theme currently stalled in Bugzilla. Put you support behind them and Firefox 2′s theme might not come out looking so crappy.
23 Comments
Wow, that is ugly! I prefer the 1.x Winstripe theme for 2.0. I think the new theme is way overboard on the glossiness.
I got my answer from Flock. I use it’s del.icio.us a lot, and it looks nicer than default FF
It’s just the default theme. Who really gives a shit? That’s the beauty of having customizable themes in Firefox. If you don’t like the way it looks, you can change it. I don’t see what the big deal is. If you want something that’s more in line with the UI of the MAC, use Safari.
This isn’t new. The entire history of Firefox on OS X has been ugly. That’s why Camino [http://caminobrowser.org] exists. If you want a good looking interface, check it out. It’s a great browser, with a great interface, and a great render engine.
I agree with Coaster. I am rather pleased with Camino.
Very true, but I’m pointing out that Mozilla is going back on their initial claims to make Firefox more Mac-like. They’ve completely alienated OS X users and are coming up with excuses for every design problem.
You might be interested in this article:
Firefox 2.0 To Get Pro Facelift
Actually, I think it looks better by the screenies…
I dont like whole theme. You have to keep the old one. it is better
Are you stupid? I guess you’re a Links user LOL
Duh, the previous default theme was much better.
It’s not as hugely different as it might seem from some comments. Sure theres improvements to be made, bugs to be fixed, but give them a break its nowhere near as bad as made out.
The new theme derives from the original theme, its not massively different to warrant this. And it is totally valid that if your really that upset, you can have it changed in the time it takes you to write “i dont like it”. As with many things, and especially something like a UI people get accustomed to, the happy are silent, the displeased noisey. Its more the change thats got this reaction, minor changes and improvements yes, big deal or overhaul, no way, exaggeration.
It is not that different from the prevous one at all.
The problem is that it is just worse. The small changes are mostly for the worse.
Refresh, the Highlited back and Forward, The Home (brr) are almost like the prevous one but duller. And the home one is outrageous.
And we have lost the elegance of the Search box as well. Masn, I hope the improve it drastically until final 2.0
Wow…
I don’t know what to say. Making Firefox more Mac like…
It must be nice not having anything useful to bitch about, that you have to gripe about the design technicalities of the default skin of a freeware internet browser…
I must be a Links user too. Or my sensations have been completely deadened by years of using Windows…
Thank you for being a voice of reason, Kris Silver!
Sorry, I’ll go back to my small, dark, senseless and barbarous Windows world…
Interesting observation. What did you make of the options pane becoming more OS X-like with the navigation at the top of the window?
Could be worse, could be better…
I’d rather they drew some inspiration from the upcoming shiira 2 than anything else.
http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/Common/res/ss_shiira2beta1.jpg
I have to say that I don’t find the new theme all that bad. I am a Windows and Mac user and find it pleasing that both themes are similar. I am a Firefox fan. Not a Safari, Camino, or IE fan. It shouldn’t matter if it looks more Windows or more Mac-like… the user interface, IMHO, should be similar so that it’s not a shock to use Firefox on both platforms. Just my opinion.
Check out this MacOS X theme from the fella who did the original Firefox theme. It seems to get as Mac-like as possible short of using a native app like Camino.
Now if it only worked properly under Windows…
The 2.0.0.1 Firefox theme is terrible.
Mac users don’t give a crap, indeed probably don’t want, their Firefox theme to look anything like XP or anything else PC.
Of course, with it’s slowness and the rest of Firefox’s shortcomings, Camino is the obvious way to go anyway.
The whole idea of Fx themes is that you can change them. How stupid can you get?. THe idea is that the default teme is to be the same, except for colours, on all versions, and then if you want soemthing different you can change it. the macs in some of the CS labs at my Uni have a Fx theme which is very mac-like, and even the menus are organised differently. (It looks lie an application on OS X, not liek iTunes, Safari and finder do)
What I would liek to see for better cross-platform consistency would be a choice between two sets of menu bars, one which has everything organised as per teh Windows/linux versions and one with everything organised like int he Mac versions. That way, despite the menu being in different places (top of he screen or attached to the window), it would far better satisfy the neds for cross-platform intuitiveness than simply keeping icons the same in the default theme.
Well if I were the guys at Mozilla I _would_ worry about going after the IE market. Let’s see,how many people use IE vs. how many people use Safari…besides mac users are so brand loyal that anything Steve Jobs shits out they’ll buy.
IE/Windows users are the easy ones to convert – the inherent shittyness of IE becomes readily known to a first time FF user.
I just got one of my friends to switch from IE6 to FF and he won’t go back. So who cares what mac user’s think about the theme…and besides lots of stuff still doesn’t work in Safari…like googleTalk…so most of the mac users i know have FF too.
Complaining about the default theme is a waste of time…you should be complaining about how websites don’t work in every browser and why there isn’t unified browser standards for CSS rendering and the like.
so what. thats why there are user custom skins avaiable.
you know windows and mac arent enemies.
more like rivals. its not a bad idea to mix the two. + as long as they have nice
pixel shading in the os x version thats fine with me.
Camino looks amazing, and is super light… but it doesnt support firefox add-ons… dang.
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[...] UPDATE2: I was still using the old del.icio.us firefox extensions. Since I installed the new release of the extension (really hard to figure out how my work would be without social bookmarking) everything works fine. I really enjoy the new interface, while some criticized their Mac theme. [...]
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