Where has the optional "new tab" button for the toolbar gone

[teoli2003]

The final goal is to make the tabbar a regular toolbar: it means that the new tab button will be movable again, and any button would be addable to the tabbar. There are also plan to put it immediately to the right of the tab and not at the far end.

But it is unlikely that all that will be ready for Firefox 3.1. Some will wait 3.1.next (being 3.2 or 4.0).

[agileaction]

That's a really bad "ENHANCEMENT". I've been using firefox for several years, and I always place the New Tab button to the left of Location bar. Even this is not the default setting but at least I can do this in customize dialog. And I like to use big icons for toolbar actions instead of the small icon in order to place mouse pointer easily. The New Tab button is most frequently used button and it should be accessed through the easiest way. But see the current design, a small button, at a farthest place to the Location bar and mixes with a tabs drop down button and close button. Are Mozilla designer/developer testing users' mouse skill or muscles of their hands?

It's good to follow better model. But is everything in IE/Opera better? Borrowing should be based on a careful consideration and investigation, because Firefox is not at version 0.x and nobody knows it. Lots of people are using it and they are already used to some features of current releases. This could be a burden of Firefox but it's also the wealth of Firefox. IMO, an old but well-known feature is better than a feature borrowed from a different style browser. Even someone thinks it's better but at least we should leave space for other people who like different flavor. So please add "New Tab" to costomize dialog. Please....

[malliz]

The final goal is to make the tabbar a regular toolbar: it means that the new tab button will be movable again, and any button would be addable to the tabbar. There are also plan to put it immediately to the right of the tab and not at the far end.

But it is unlikely that all that will be ready for Firefox 3.1. Some will wait 3.1.next (being 3.2 or 4.0).

So another release with a half finished "Feature"

[teoli2003]

The final goal is to make the tabbar a regular toolbar: it means that the new tab button will be movable again, and any button would be addable to the tabbar. There are also plan to put it immediately to the right of the tab and not at the far end.

But it is unlikely that all that will be ready for Firefox 3.1. Some will wait 3.1.next (being 3.2 or 4.0).

So another release with a half finished "Feature"

Yes, the problem is that UI modifications land far too late in the development process. Beta1 or beta2 is too late to get feedback and eventually uncover a problem and respin of the feature a development cycle.

Mozilla have improved there development cycle, but this point needs attention for the future. UI landing should not wait for layout/back-end to be finished, except of direct dependancy.

[steviex]

Yep, and all this last minute stuff breaks all of the Third party Themes, not to mention TabMix Plus, and any other UI based extensions.....

Isn't the Beta stage for polish, not whole new features..... Wouldn't a few more Alpha Builds be better to implement this stuff, or are they just making the roadmap up as they go along....

Don't they have a Feature Freeze ??

[RaiseMachine]

Isn't the Beta stage for polish, not whole new features..... Wouldn't a few more Alpha Builds be better to implement this stuff, or are they just making the roadmap up as they go along....

Certainly feels that way.

Everyone's got to realise that, for the most part, Firefox development is no longer innovative but seemingly just for parity with other browsers, which is a losing approach in my opinion.

[XtC4UaLL]

Everyone's got to realise that, for the most part, Firefox development is no longer innovative but seemingly just for parity with other browsers, which is a losing approach in my opinion.

Huh?
http://tinyurl.com/5hthda lists 73 Bugs/RFE's (excluding Fx2 parity). As you can see from each bug's creation date, there always was this kind of "parity" stuff wanted - from 1999 up untill now.

[RaiseMachine]

I'm aware that a certain "kind" of parity has to exist but not to the point of stifling innovation. I want Firefox not a IE+Opera+Safari+WhateverElse.

[malliz]

Isn't the Beta stage for polish, not whole new features..... Wouldn't a few more Alpha Builds be better to implement this stuff, or are they just making the roadmap up as they go along....

Certainly feels that way.

Everyone's got to realise that, for the most part, Firefox development is no longer innovative but seemingly just for parity with other browsers, which is a losing approach in my opinion.

Seems less like "Parity" and more like a knee jerk reaction

[trieste]

Yep. Knee jerk. I see that we're copying a lot of Chrome's UI features, but not its perceived speed. Why let fence-sitters choose between extensions (Firefox) or perceived speed (Chrome) when they can easily have both if the developers here focus on the right direction?

It's either that or we're adding half-baked solutions with disappointingly low customisability or the inability to turn them off. Lest people suggest that I help with the programming instead of whining about it, perhaps it will be better for the suggesters to realise that much effort can be saved on not bothering with half-baked features at all.

The fact that we even have this thread...

[RaiseMachine]

Everyone's got to realise that, for the most part, Firefox development is no longer innovative but seemingly just for parity with other browsers, which is a losing approach in my opinion.

Seems less like "Parity" and more like a knee jerk reaction

Leaving the knee out, you get the reaction of ...

[steviex]

The speed improvements will come in Firefox 3.1 with the new TraceMonkey routines....

AND.... Can we PLEASE KEEP THINGS POLITE... NO INSULTS, PLEASE.

Always remember, that anything that seems not to work in 3.1, the Developers can change in 3.2

Let's see how 3.1 turns out, pick it to bits, then feed that information back to the Devs, POLITELY, so they can get 3.2 RIGHT...

Firefox 3.1 is after all not a Major release, like Firefox 3, but an Intermediate sized release.....

[trieste]

I apologise if my post came across as a bunch of insulting lines, I definitely did not mean it that way and was just summarising my opinions as well as the presumed opinions of others. I'm sorry too if that post was exaggerating or wrongly presumptuous in any way.

I know about Tracemonkey, that's about the only reason why I keep up so eagerly with the nightly builds and have submitted countless crash reports generated by the browser when TM doesn't like a website. Javascript execution speed with it is phenomenal. Nevertheless, many users still perceive alternative browsers to have quicker website loading speed, because websites are not pure Javascript.

I figured that a good way for developers to decide what to implement is to make a note of the most-frequently-downloaded extensions and take it from there, not react to the innovations that pop up with new alternative browser releases.

Some recent UI changes have been made and the reactions have been more negative than mixed because of the lack of customisability. I guess that finally gave the poor tabbar some attention, some needed tweaking for customisability, but I still do not understand the rationale behind the reworking of the Throbber button. Would it not have sufficed to just hide it by default?

Users have been very effective and communicative in getting their bug reports submitted to the developers. I think that is only half of the work cut out for everyone. There need not be unilateral decision-making in adding new features.

[teoli2003]

There need not be unilateral decision-making in adding new features.

How would you make it? A poll? By who?

[trieste]

One solution is mentioned in paragraph 3.

Another solution is to actually take into account user comments on new features in Mozillazine threads about nightlies. Many people here have many 2 cents to add.