UX branch discussion

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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faulty_fox
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by faulty_fox »

They are pretty much digging their / firefoxes grave. Instead of supporting add-ons, themes and their developers go against them.
Yeah we'll see how that works out for them.
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joeg
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by joeg »

Today's a holiday in Germany, and I'm bored, so I decided to try the UX build.
Image
By the way, what you see in the image is a new, about-to-be-released version of a third-party theme: the inimitable "Red Cats Green Flavor". Somehow, it still works. =D>
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sabret00the
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by sabret00the »

marty60 wrote:sabret00the, yes it's true Chrome took some users away but like all shiny new things it gets old after a while. I read posts on the internet and the main selling point for Firefox is customization. I agree no software stays the same but they seem to have bought into the Google philosophy that less is more and the only purpose of a browser is to keep us safe.

Security is important but there's more to it than that. I don't know what's up with the obsession the developers have with the UI but as it has been stated already on the thread it's not what most users complain about. For those of us who pay attention we'll get updated addons (hopefully) while who knows how many novices move onto something else in frustration.

UI will always be important due to the fact that as public perception of modern design changes, it's important to keep pace with that. As for customisation, you have to remember the number of users that do customise is truly tiny, I suspect that power users will feel marginalised, but as the same time, will be able to (albeit with extra effort) retain the same level of customisation that they're used to.

malliz wrote:Usually when developers say simplification they mean this will save us work. You also have the fact that Asa Dotzler would like to see third party themes disappear completely.

Source?
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omeringen
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by omeringen »

JoeG wrote:(. . .)
By the way, what you see in the image is a new, about-to-be-released version of a third-party theme: the inimitable "Red Cats Green Flavor". Somehow, it still works. =D>

You already know why you're having issues. Take a look at "safe mode".
(bTw, i am having hard times to decide if that post is a joke or not. He is an old member and he should be aware that what a nightly and nightly based builds(ux etc.) is made for.)
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phuzi0n
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by phuzi0n »

omeringen wrote:
JoeG wrote:(. . .)
By the way, what you see in the image is a new, about-to-be-released version of a third-party theme: the inimitable "Red Cats Green Flavor". Somehow, it still works. =D>

You already know why you're having issues. Take a look at "safe mode".
(bTw, i am having hard times to decide if that post is a joke or not. He is an old member and he should be aware that what a nightly and nightly based builds(ux etc.) is made for.)

Germans don't joke so I'm going to guess that he's just complaining that his theme is broken in UX builds.
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by Frank Lion »

sabret00the wrote:
malliz wrote:Usually when developers say simplification they mean this will save us work. You also have the fact that Asa Dotzler would like to see third party themes disappear completely.

Source?

Look it up yourself, you lazy devil, it's been all over the Net for ages, including Google Group discussions and even on his own MozillaZine page here.

It's ridiculous that we have you pontificating here in the guise of a Builds geek and yet don't even know something as basic about Firefox as this.
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by Frank Lion »

Omega X wrote:Addon makers will just cut a hole into Australis if they're not given an option. Not sure what theme makers left that will tackle things post Australocalypse.

I've only had a quick look at UX and, theme-wise, the tabs are not a problem. That one is easily solved.

What will be a problem is this new (non) Customisation side. So much so that if it is not solved then I guarantee that just about all third party themers will stop. No themer in their right mind is going to bother theming something where they cannot even move the toolbar buttons around to suit their own personal taste, let alone those of their users.

To understand why, you need to look at why people make themes in the first place. They are made by people for themselves who don't like the look of the default theme. That's it, it is all primarily about appearance and that's how they start and later, if the look works, those themes are made available to the public or elsewhere. So bearing in mind that themers control every UI pixel seen in a theme, you can imagine how delighted they'd be to find that they couldn't even move the searchbar or Forward/Back around, let alone all the rest!

As I said, themes are primarily about appearance, but where appropriate extra functionality/clarity can be added, i.e. wider sidebar by default, search history dropdowns years before the devs added it. There is also even a certain amount of 'retro fitting' when needed. For example, adding back the RSS feed icon into the urlbar or adding back the Forward/Back dropmarker, etc.

However, all of that last lot are not really in the themers brief, they are bonus extras. In a nutshell, the job of a themer is to make stuff look pretty, not to continually retrofit the look and features of the default theme or even of their own stuff.

That 'Customisation' stuff may indeed prove 'a bridge too far' for most theme developers.
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by sabret00the »

Frank Lion wrote:Look it up yourself, you lazy devil, it's been all over the Net for ages, including Google Group discussions and even on his own MozillaZine page here.

Yes, because I bought the allegation to the discussion. The onus is clearly on clearly on malliz here.

Frank Lion wrote:It's ridiculous that we have you pontificating here in the guise of a Builds geek and yet don't even know something as basic about Firefox as this.
Builds geek? Heh! I just like the burning edge and Firefox enough that I've bothered to enough to contextually educate myself. Ironic since I'm asking for information to educate myself further on the matter of Asa and themes and you're attempting to turn it into a homework project.
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joeg
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by joeg »

phuzi0n wrote:
omeringen wrote:
JoeG wrote:(. . .) By the way, what you see in the image is a new, about-to-be-released version of a third-party theme: the inimitable "Red Cats Green Flavor". Somehow, it still works. =D>
You already know why you're having issues. Take a look at "safe mode".
(bTw, i am having hard times to decide if that post is a joke or not. He is an old member and he should be aware that what a nightly and nightly based builds(ux etc.) is made for.)
Germans don't joke so I'm going to guess that he's just complaining that his theme is broken in UX builds.
I guess I expressed what I wanted to say badly. It wasn't a joke. After reading only the last few entries in the UX build thread, and not having anything to do, I simply decided to have a look at it - no more, no less.

(1) Having read Briscoe's comment, "There are hardly any themes left that are compatible with the latest Firefox release", I was actually surprised to see that the theme I mentioned generally worked, but was wondering about those two issues. I didn't feel the theme was "broken", and I didn't mean to complain at all.

(2) Although I certainly know what the Nightlies are made for, I really don't know much about the UX build. As I mentioned, I decided to try it because I was bored.

(3) I first tried the UX build with a brand-new profile, clicked around a bit, and then decided to try my old profile just to see what would happen. When I saw the result, I wondered whether there was any way to fix those two issues. This is why I wrote the post.

If or when I get a reply that enables me to fix them, I'll fool around with the UX build a bit more. If I don't hear anything, I'll stick with the "regular" Nightlies. I have no problem waiting till changes in the interface make the regular Nightly. As long as I can use my theme, I'll stick with Fx. I've been here since the Netscape days. If they ever really make it impossible to use third-party themes, I don't know what I'll do.

(4) Contrary to what omeringen wrote, I really have no idea why I had those two issues, and I have to confess that I'm not sure what would happen in "safe mode".

(5) I'll let someone else address the comment that "Germans don't joke". All I can say is that I've lived here for about twenty years and can't corroborate it.
Last edited by joeg on March 29th, 2013, 4:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Frank Lion
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by Frank Lion »

sabret00the wrote:Yes, because I bought the allegation to the discussion. The onus is clearly on clearly on malliz here.

onus, my backside....and you really think this silly little forum is the Oxford Debating Society?

Get yourself on Google search and be 'bothered to enough to contextually educate' yourself.
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scratchee
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by scratchee »

Frank,

How possible do you think it would be for someone to create a compatibility extension that gets all the buttons back freely place-able again, which themes could be based on? could themes bundle such an extension? (I don't know if themes can act like extensions). Maybe if every theme in existence bundled (required) an extension that returned the functionality it would be enough of a slap in the face to convince Mozilla to "finish" their implementation? Especially if the extension could work on its own, with the default theme, fixing the issue without any visual changes (until you customize of course).

If that is possible, how hard do you think it would be?

My experience here is close to 0, but it seems like extensions would be powerful enough to correct this, as long as
1) someone bothers to "fix" things.
2) everyone else are willing to accept working on top of the "fix".

(I ask you frank because you obviously have some experience here, feel free to not bother if the answer is complex/unknown atm)
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by sabret00the »

Frank Lion wrote:
sabret00the wrote:Yes, because I bought the allegation to the discussion. The onus is clearly on clearly on malliz here.

onus, my backside....and you really think this silly little forum is the Oxford Debating Society?

Get yourself on Google search and be 'bothered to enough to contextually educate' yourself.

Silly little forum? It's a forum which I've enjoyed being a part of. It's taught me a lot about a piece of software that I love and enjoy and inspired me to try and make it better. In that regard, I'd hope that people throwing around accusations, felt enough of a sense of accountability to take responsibility and post a source. I personally checked Asa's blog once you pointed me there and was unable to find the statement pertaining to themes.

I'm not a themes user to be honest, most of the ones I've enjoyed in the past have bogged down the browser. As such I don't generally retain knowledge or take much notice of news pertaining to them. I was in fact surprised to read your post above where you state that toolbars won't be able to be customised. I'm not only surprised but am actually interested to know what this means? To the best of my knowledge, users can't modify toolbars, only the contents of, are you saying that as per the evolution into the Australis era of Firefox, things like moving buttons freely will disappear from Firefox? I remember reading something that said despite the add-on space being moved to the navigation bar, the Add-on bar would remain accessible; is this incorrect? Will users truly be unable to move Add-on buttons and even the AwesomeBar to the Add-on bar? Has a firm decision on this actually been made?
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by malliz »

sabret00the wrote: The onus is clearly on clearly on malliz here.


http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/arch ... oking.html

Asa wrote:I'll re-iterate that I think 3rd party old-style themes are an outdated technology not worth advocating. It's absolutely fine for Firefox to use because it's our API for the front end look and fee. But we apparently have the resources that no old-style theme out there does because the overwhelming majority of old-style themes are simply incomplete or make a mess of critical UI elements. In addition, they have very little following among end users. Recognizing that, we've moved to a new and better system that's generated tons more user enthusiasm than old-style themes ever did and that was absolutely a great move. Now I just hope we drop old-style themes completely and relegate that kind of change to extensions.


Now you can crawl back under your rock
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joeg
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by joeg »

Asa wrote:... we've moved to a new and better system that's generated tons more user enthusiasm than old-style themes ever did ...
I don't understand this observation. When I compare the numbers of users on these two pages, if you disregard the Yahoo! persona, they seem to be on a relatively similar order of magnitude.
http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/gallery/All/Popular
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... te-themes/
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Re: UX branch discussion

Post by malliz »

Well at the time I think he was talking about persona's but since he's been in charge they have been neglected as well so your guess is as good as anyone's as to what his game plan is at the moment.
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