Another default theme coming

[Khaine]

I really hope that you stick with Qute being the default theme, as currently the new one looks very ugly. Frankly I don't see how you can get one theme to look good and fit in with every operating system.

[[Unknown]]

I know everyone's saying this maybe - at least in this topic, and I'm not going to read 5 pages just to be sure of that, but...

1. I would NEVER have switched to Firefox/Firebird from IE if it looked like this by default, even with Qute available on the side. I hate personally, any application that tries to force its non-windows look on me.

2. Pinstripe is consistent with the look of Mac OS X. Qute is consistent with the general look of Windows. I don't see the problem.

3. I know people I do work for who, frankly, would not use a browser unless the icons were similar to IE. I could get them to switch to Firefox with Qute (if I try and convince them it's better against spyware/etc.) but if it looks like Mac OS X they would NEVER go for it. It would MOST CERTAINLY decrease and hinder any efforts (I make many!) of evangelism I make.

Just my constructive criticism. I won't lie and say it would stop me from using it, because I would change the theme - but most IE users don't realize this can *even be done* at first, and often I get clients to use it by telling them (not with me there.)

Thanks,
-[Unknown]

[clemens]

Judging for the picture, this new theme doesn't look good.It makes Fx look old and rudimentary.

EXACTEMENT!
I wouldnt want to show this to anyone else because its SO ugly!
If this is what Firefox is going to look like, how can i "persuade" someone to try it in favor of IE, when looking at it, it doesnt represent something new, exciting, fast and fourious?
This resembles something like an unfinished toy....

Sorry, but if you made a poll, thats what surely most of the people would say about it...

For short:
Right idea (License, consistent look), but definately wrong decision...

[xdiag]

We have also had a desire to present a consistent look and feel for our browser across the platforms that we support - including Windows, MacOS X and Linux. This allows us to create a stronger brand identity for ourselves.

This argument sounds a bit strange to me. Is branding really more important than OS integration? The number of users who will profit from consistency across platforms will be rather small. OTOH we will get a situation like with seamonkey: it's consistent across platforms but not really fitting into one of them.

[PhoenixNostalgia]

I know everyone's saying this maybe - at least in this topic, and I'm not going to read 5 pages just to be sure of that, but...

1. I would NEVER have switched to Firefox/Firebird from IE if it looked like this by default, even with Qute available on the side. I hate personally, any application that tries to force its non-windows look on me.

2. Pinstripe is consistent with the look of Mac OS X. Qute is consistent with the general look of Windows. I don't see the problem.

3. I know people I do work for who, frankly, would not use a browser unless the icons were similar to IE. I could get them to switch to Firefox with Qute (if I try and convince them it's better against spyware/etc.) but if it looks like Mac OS X they would NEVER go for it. It would MOST CERTAINLY decrease and hinder any efforts (I make many!) of evangelism I make.

Just my constructive criticism. I won't lie and say it would stop me from using it, because I would change the theme - but most IE users don't realize this can *even be done* at first, and often I get clients to use it by telling them (not with me there.)

Thanks,
-[Unknown]

I agree completely. Browser users aren't as savvy as we are. Most people I know just use a program not knowing it can be skinned, and if some of them find out, they won't change the skin because chances are, they would encounter glitches due to inevitable programmer error. AND YET ANOTHER LEVEL is that a lot of people don't realize that like a program, skins can be frequently updated as well. They don't like a skin that makes the browser twitch, then poof, no more of that for them.

First impressions count. Like Unknown said, if you wanna "sell" IE, one of the easiest ways to do so is make it look prettier than the competition right out of the box. Most people stick with the default theme, so that should be of utmost importance to the VID team.

[nobody2234]

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

Oh dear God, no.

Dear Arvid,

When I sent out my email about theme licensing to you..., you indicated that you were not comfortable with allowing us and others to make modifications and create derivative works, which is a critical piece of the Mozilla open-source nature. We were forced to look for other options.

It appears he was willing to work on this. And seeing how huge of a backwards step this new theme is, its lame the way this was handled.

I hope you understand that I, personally, am reluctant to continue a close working relationship with someone who posts our private email in a public forum without consulting me. I am replying here since you have brought this discussion here, so that the forum community can see my response.

I agree it was wrong of Arvid to post the email without at least notifying you, but you have to understand how frustraded he probably was, and the email didnt really contain any sensitive information, so no harm done.

I think jedbro says the rest for me very well:

Fact :.. Out of respect, Ben and the Identity team should have contacted Arvid and had multiple discussions about licensing and ideas for a NEW theme post Deceber 9th, 2003.

Fact: A lot of us here (the majority perhaps) think the "new theme" is much inferior to QUTE's standards and a very bad move for pushing Firefox on windows.

Fact: This definitally should have been done in a more OPEN discussion where other profesional artists could have commented.

I really hope issues like this are handled in a friendlier and more open way in the future.

-Jed

so please keep feedback constructive.

To think that this theme is an improvement is either the work of a blind person or an idiot, take your pick.

All I can say Arvid is sorry about this. Hopefully it won't scare you away from further Mozilla work.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know if the plan is to still call Firefox "Mozilla Browser" as per the Mozilla Branding Guidelines (http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap/branding.html)? If not, what is the rationalization, Mozilla is such a well known name!

[Nitin]

Jeez, will people STOP trying to mediate on an open forum. Its only making things look worse.


There was a misunderstanding, and it should be resolved privately.

Themes forum

[avih]

@everyone:

as much as u (and i) like qute, pls stay civilized and stop flaming the new theme. it's not a bad one, it's not finished, and the artists are putting many hours into this one too, i'm sure.

so pls, take it easy on the new suggested theme.

avih.

[Jeff_pony]

The new theme looks ok to me, its not great but its better than what Opera released with 7.0. In some ways its exciting to have a new theme as its the easiest way to get a completely new look to the browser. The graphics in a UI have to move on once in a while else the app will start to feel old. I suppose the question has to remain who should have made these theme changes. What confuses me is why new icons, etc have been checked in if this change was immanent.

[PsychoticWolf]

FWIW, as far as I'm concerned, Arvid, Qute is welcome to be included on Mozilla Update. So please, if you decide to make it available as a standalone theme, (in light of the rather poorly handled (and IMO poor) decision to replace it) submit it to the site. See http://update.mozilla.org for details. and feel free to contact me personally.
-- Wolf

[TD]

please keep feedback constructive.

Here is some constructive feedback:

What a waste.

Rather than taking a little time to talk to Arvid Axelsson, as in more than one email, and explain that if he wasn't willing to negotiate his stance on Qute's license that you would have to replace it, you go out and make a whole new theme.

Needs a lot of work and isn't finished you say? In my opinion it makes this whole state even worse as you are throwing Mozilla's resources at a problem when you already have a perfected good (superior even judging from the look of that ugly image) solution. Don't you think the man power and money being put into this could be better used fixing bugs, writing documentation, evangelising the product to users/businesses rather than being thrown away on this?


While Mozilla Firefox is a good product, and I'll certainly continue to use it, I'll keep this incident in mind next time you ask people to donate time or money to help out since you're willing to use what you already have in such an unproductive manner.

What a waste.

[PhoenixNostalgia]

please keep feedback constructive.

Here is some constructive feedback:

What a waste.

Rather than taking a little time to talk to Arvid Axelsson, as in more than one email, and explain that if he wasn't willing to negotiate his stance on Qute's license that you would have to replace it, you go out and make a whole new theme.

Needs a lot of work and isn't finished you say? In my opinion it makes this whole state even worse as you are throwing Mozilla's resources at a problem when you already have a perfected good (superior even judging from the look of that ugly image) solution. Don't you think the man power and money being put into this could be better used fixing bugs, writing documentation, evangelising the product to users/businesses rather than being thrown away on this?


While Mozilla Firefox is a good product, and I'll certainly continue to use it, I'll keep this incident in mind next time you ask people to donate time or money to help out since you're willing to use what you already have in such an unproductive manner.

What a waste.

As scathing as TB's post is, he's got a point. I don't think that Qute was even considered as the final 1.0 theme in the first place. According to Ben, they started having issues sometime last year, yet somehow Arvid was able to checkin changes to Qute only less than a month ago? I dont understand why the Mozilla team would continue to let Arvid improve his theme (which looks stellar in the latest nightly, btw) so recently and not let him know that they had something else up their sleeve.

At first I questioned Arvid's use of posting emails in the forum, but you know what? If my work was being used and improved upon by myself so recently and to find out that its replacement is over six months in the making, I'd be pretty annoyed myself. Thats just screwed up in my opinion. Arvid checked in well publicized improvements just a month ago and now his work is tossed out so suddenly. Both sides are at fault here. I was willing to give Winstripe a chance, but yeah, I agree, a real waste of time for Arvid. Tossing out something that just looks so good with Windows is a mistake. Now to wait for the reviews that Mozillazine proudly links to on its front page to contain comments such as "drastically backwards step from its 0.8 theme" and "what was the Mozilla team thinking?"

[nexx]

I can only hope that Avrid, Ben and all else involved can work together to have the best possible product. Qute is one of the best (if not the best) default themes I've ever seen in a program, and it would be a real shame to see it dropped because of missunderstandings.
I will reserve judgement on the winstripe theme until I see it in full, but will probably continue to use Avrid's brilliant peice of work instead.

[yurk]

I think assuming everyone on Windows is using the Luna look is wrong. Only a little more than 50% of Windows users are XP users (see the Google stats), many of us are still using Windows 2000 (or the 2000 interface in XP). We should also think that Longhorn will have a different look as well. The new window and new tab button should therefore be made more generic and not try to mimic the Luna interface.

On a totally unrelated note, Mozilla is shipping with two themes (classic and modern), Firefox could do the very same thing with Qute and Pinstripe. The choice could be provided at installation time, as it would advertise more the feature.

[nexx]

Mozilla is shipping with two themes (classic and modern), Firefox could do the very same thing with Qute and Pinstripe. The choice could be provided at installation time, as it would advertise more the feature.

Superb idea.