Firefox 4.0 theme mockups

Robert Hallock 28 Jul, 2009 at 3:56pm ET Article published in Tech

Firefox 3.5 was only recently brought kicking and screaming into the world, but the Mozilla foundation is already on the move with mockups of the UI for version 4.0.

The author notes that the iteration with tabs above the address bar is contentious and has its own problems including a lack of user familiarity, longer mousing distances, an absent title bar and a break with consistency.

Assuming for a moment that these are final mockups (they’re not), which would you choose?

Comments

28 Jul 2009 ~ 4:02pm ardichoke Interesting.... can't say I approve of dropping the menu bar though.... I hope there will be an option to restore it.
28 Jul 2009 ~ 4:27pm Kwitko Slick. I like the minimalist look and maximum screen real estate.
28 Jul 2009 ~ 4:29pm mertesn If forced to choose between the two, I'd go with the tabs in the title bar area. It leaves more space for the web page, though neither layout seems particularly bad.
28 Jul 2009 ~ 5:27pm MachineDog By far the familiar one. I've used a similar UI for a long time with the basic theme, glasser, and hide menubar.
28 Jul 2009 ~ 8:56pm Garg Do Not Want.

If I want a menu bar-less existence, I'll use Chrome. Mozilla: please do not copy Chrome.
28 Jul 2009 ~ 11:39pm chrisWhite Oh that's hot, very, very hot. Don't like the Tab bar above it but everything else is perfect, I have such a minimalist Firefox UI anyway.
29 Jul 2009 ~ 2:31pm yagga to add to Gargoyle's statement...

Mozilla: please do not copy IE.
29 Jul 2009 ~ 3:44pm mirage I use Compact Menu addon in Firefox to remove the menu bar for practical purposes not for copying anything. Menu bar reduces the screen space.
29 Jul 2009 ~ 7:54pm chrisWhite Mirage nailed it.
29 Jul 2009 ~ 8:46pm ardichoke Nailed it for people like you perhaps... but there are people (myself included) that don't want the menu bar gone. They better have a way to restore it for people like us.
29 Jul 2009 ~ 8:53pm mas0n I'm guessing all you will have to do to show the menu bar is press Alt, like using the Hide Menubar extension. Considering Firefox is a browser that allows endless themes, I don't know why people even care what the default is.