Australis Discussion

[LordStriker]

Hmm... They should have probably stuck with square tabs. Firefox users really don't like curves in anything.

Count me in. At least, I really hope there will be an alternative way to make the tabs normal/squarer and it will last without breaking every now and then...

I'm really worried about this. Those wavy tabs are horrible ( I like Chrome's, but not Australis' ), in my opinion. I wouldn't want to chase anyone to keep his style/addon updated.

[andre92]

horrible tabs...

[Hanki]

my Biggest complaint is the Glass on these new tabs. i hope a theme will over-ride that or i might be forced to use another browser. IMO the devs are smoking something hard

[Rodze]

Time to invoke the Copy Chrome Card: its background tabs are not glass, just a wee bit transparent.

I've been using glass on background tabs, but I had to make the font bold and ugly so it is readable and it still isn't sometimes (and I use the lowest glass transparency possible). I'm not even sure why I'm still with it to be honest. Probably waiting for a theme change that will force me to open userChrome.css again.

[Gizmoded]

Australis is a nice UI Redesign/ Refinement.

[sdrocking]

Bug 727650 - Implement the new Australis styling for the navbar
Is the star button also moving out of the URL bar?

[patrickjdempsey]

As predicted back when Chrome 6 was released with it's "no-surround" buttons, Mozilla is dropping the button surrounds... although the lack of a hover state for the buttons seems very strange as there really is no way to tell if a button is disabled now. Weird.

What's also strange to me is the hard-coding of button colors. With a little bit of SVG magic they could easily take their buttons and add a mask that makes the active button state match the UI "highlight" color (at least the hue... the brightness (and possibly saturation) would have to be forced to work within the frame-work.

Edit: At least after two years there's finally a total plan for the overall UI that's more unified than the current cluster-ball of mixed elements from 3.0 on. 3.0 was actually the last time that there was a complete and total UI re-design, that's why they still call the default theme Strata even though the top-level UI looks very different from 3.0, under the skin it's very much the same. The problem will be that Rapid Releases means this will emerge slowly in fits and starts instead of all at once under direct guidance, which increases the probability of weird changes over the span of it's development. (As well as a huge pain for theme authors who have already seen constant changes come their way every month for the last 2 years).

[faulty_fox]

Looking at https://people.mozilla.com/~shorlander/files/australis-designSpecs/australis-designSpecs-windows7-mainWindow.html

Are they still planing to copy chrome's tabs? This is ridiculous. Especially if you consider how they wanted to make the tabs curved in firefox 4, but they couldn't do it and came up with the excuse that it doesn't look good, sharp, etc. .

And this is not a redesign, this is just a blatant try at bringing back those chrome users who use it only because of it's interface.

I think it's sad that after all the effort of creating the app-button, they are just replacing in with the same button chrome uses only with a different icon.
I am very disappointed by this move of mozilla. I really hope that is not the last version of the mock-up.

[mikedl]

Have I mentioned I hate the tabs in Australis? (among other things - I thank whatever deity for CSS)

@PROPHET: Agreed.

[bogas04]

Not only the curved tabs , but also the settings button is taken blindly from Chrome. I mean the only element after tabs on top which distinguished us from chrome was this Firefox Menu Button which IMO came coz of the Windows7 apps/Office App/Ribbon UI(Major in Win8) look , and now its going away for idk which reason...

I think there is some conspiracy going on in the Mozilla HQ , they are planning to doom Mozilla Firefox if not Earth in 2012.

[patrickjdempsey]

Especially if you consider how they wanted to make the tabs curved in firefox 4, but they couldn't do it and came up with the excuse that it doesn't look good, sharp, etc.

No they didn't do it because they couldn't figure out how to do it without it being a mess. Apparently they never figured out how to do it because this new design just completely gets rid of the background tabs, which I suppose "fixes" the problem of how to support overlapping tabs while maintaining transparency for Glass and Personas.

And this is not a redesign, this is just a blatant try at bringing back those chrome users who use it only because of it's interface.

Please take a moment to fine the old mockups and compare them. Other than the blue gradient and the Back button, virtually everything about this theme is different from the Firefox 4 mockups.

I think it's sad that after all the effort of creating the app-button, they are just replacing in with the same button chrome uses only with a different icon.

This could be a win considering it would be moveable. Although now the question of the validity of keeping the titlebar when not in fullscreen mode becomes moot. It's basically just a big empty mouse drag target.

[mikedl]

I think there is some conspiracy going on in the Mozilla HQ , they are planning to doom Mozilla Firefox if not Earth in 2012.

Nah, that's supposed to be the Mayans, with regard to the latter ... but ... maybe Mozilla has a hand in the former?

Sorry for being OT but, nonetheless, bogas, I share your pain whether or not it has anything to do with 2012.

Have I mentioned I hate the Australis mock-ups (especially the tabs)?

[patrickjdempsey]

I mean the only element after tabs on top which distinguished us from chrome was this Firefox Menu Button which IMO came coz of the Windows7 apps/Office App/Ribbon UI(Major in Win8) look , and now its going away for idk which reason...

No it was from Opera. Actually, a great deal of the look of Chrome was taken from a combination of Opera and Netscape Navigator 9 (which was based on Firefox). It's all a big circle.

Also, there are over 160 themes compatible with current builds of Firefox... and some of them are very very nice.

[bogas04]

I mean the only element after tabs on top which distinguished us from chrome was this Firefox Menu Button which IMO came coz of the Windows7 apps/Office App/Ribbon UI(Major in Win8) look , and now its going away for idk which reason...

No it was from Opera. Actually, a great deal of the look of Chrome was taken from a combination of Opera and Netscape Navigator 9 (which was based on Firefox). It's all a big circle.

Also, there are over 160 themes compatible with current builds of Firefox... and some of them are very very nice.

Its itself a big debate ,the way both browsers have implemented it now , had their mockups made on same day...

[bogas04]

I think there is some conspiracy going on in the Mozilla HQ , they are planning to doom Mozilla Firefox if not Earth in 2012.

Have I mentioned I hate the Australis mock-ups (especially the tabs)?

I would have not hated them so much , but the fact how they first went in some new direction , worked months on that , and then totally scrapping it for no obvious good reason is VERY VERY disappointing :/ Makes us feel as if they are confused or something