Custom themes and Personas at the same time is possible!

[ShareBird]

I've already started to work on something like this as part of my SwitchThemes extension. It seems the only way I have to fix some annoyances is to build a couple objects that will make the extension able to do this. And I have the impression the solution from Brand Thunder goes in the right way...

[LoudNoise]

Walk softly. http://brandthunder.com/eula/

[ShareBird]

Walk softly. http://brandthunder.com/eula/

Hmm... Copyright on javascript code? Or on the idea to use modules and own objects to acquise what I want?

[KLB]

You can be inspired in the right direction without using their code. They can copyright the exact code they can't copyright the idea.

[mcdavis]

You can be inspired in the right direction without using their code. They can copyright the exact code they can't copyright the idea.

Seconding this (about not copyrighting ideas, only certain concrete expressions of ideas) but be careful even there. Look at this:

http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html

and read the part about the "Silicon Valley virginity test". It's probably overkill in this case, but I've resisted the urge to look at what BT add-ons are doing on several occasions for just that reason.

[KLB]

I agree that it isn't a good idea to spend too much time studying their work. Doing so could lead to accidentally mimicking their code too closely. Then again, how much you want the likes of BT spend a great deal of time studying open source add-ons that do things similar to their objectives for inspiration. I mean you can't change Personas behavior without spending a great deal of time reverse engineering the code.

Mozilla shouldn't allow add-ons that collect user behavioral data serendipitously when it isn't necessary for the core function to the add-on from the user's perspective. At the very least there should be giant verbiage directly below the download button that says "this add-on collects and transmits personal data" or something to that effect. Some kind of verbiage that exposes such behaviors very obviously to users. It would certainly put an end to "spyware" that masquerades as a useful add-on.

[MilchFlasche]

Again the main purpose of such an extension would be simply to highlight the fact that there is no technical reason why Personas and 3rd party themes can't work together. We then need users who want both a persona and a 3rd party theme to keep giving Personas Plus low rating reviews over this issue. It isn't enough for theme developer to rate down Personas Plus -- regular users need to do it in mass.

We need users to speak up and make their voices heard that 3rd party themes are an important part of Firefox and Personas needs to support them.

I'm a user and I'm willing to speak up. I've seen "Personas vs. custome themes"-related discussions on Mozilla Google Groups, here (in the Charamel official thread too) and another Firefox support forum (forgot the name), and also this bug has well filed on BugZilla for more than 2 years (just passed anniversary!). I have also expressed my concern in a Firefox support ticket, but never got positive responses from Mozilla.

What else can we do?
=======
[Update]
Here's where I spoke up: https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-TW/firefo ... iew-317064

[patrickjdempsey]

What else can we do?

Write an extension that allows it. If I wasn't such a terrible programmer I would do it myself. We are well beyond the point where it is reasonable to wait for Mozilla to fix this themselves. Two years is a long long time to wait for a feature that we already know *works*.

[David.Vincent]

Write an extension that allows it. If I wasn't such a terrible programmer I would do it myself. We are well beyond the point where it is reasonable to wait for Mozilla to fix this themselves. Two years is a long long time to wait for a feature that we already know *works*.

I have made an extension : you can simply enable/disable personas with themes that can display personas (Noia Fox, Noia 4, FXChrome, Bloody Red, Nuvolla,....)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toggle-persona/

[patrickjdempsey]

I'm not able to test it now, but will give you feedback when I do!

[patrickjdempsey]

Hmmm... your extension still requires multiple restarts.

[jivko]

Seems to be working well.

Before :

After :


Tabs look a bit broken but the problem is in my theme I guess. I'm going to make a post about this add-on on my Blog http://firefox-goodies-blog.blogspot.com/ Great job David. It's a good start.

[David.Vincent]

Hmmm... your extension still requires multiple restarts.

Only when you add a new Persona (3 restarts). But when you always use the same Persona you enable it with one restart.
I am a beginner in Java programming. So my add-on is very simple. If somebody find the way to enable directly a persona with no restart for all themes it will be great.

Thank you for testing.

Seems to be working well.

Tabs look a bit broken but the problem is in my theme I guess. I'm going to make a post about this add-on on my Blog http://firefox-goodies-blog.blogspot.com/ Great job David. It's a good start.

Thank you.

The add-on only enable/disable Persona but don't change anything of the theme.

For my Noia Fox theme, I keep the Persona's configuration : if the Persona's author choose a blue color for the text, the text displayed by Noia Fox is still blue....

When I will have a little time, I will work on themes that don't support Personas like Nasa, Lavafox, FT Deep dark,..... I think that I must add some css line code to my add-on.

[patrickjdempsey]

@jivko, you need to specifically support Personas yourself. For my theme I created a separate file that is imported by browser.css that has all of the Persona-specific stuff in one place so it's easy to find. Use these pseudo-classes on elements to be styled by a Persona. For easy testing, just visit the main Personas website and hover over the images... thankfully Mozilla hasn't "fixed" the bug that allows this to work.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/%3A-moz-lwtheme

[David.Vincent]

Finaly my add-on (posted august 14) was finaly viewed by Mozilla and will not be full reviewed because "This add is too difficult to use for it to be appropriate for a wide audience in its current state."

My Noia Fox theme is dying because the new AMO look is only for 3-4 favorites themes and my add-on that could help some new Firefox users to have Personas with their favorite theme isn't reviewed + new Firefox version every 6 weeks

--> I don't know if I will continue to be a Firefox developer.