Another default theme coming

Discuss application theming and theme development.
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pzesar
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Post by pzesar »

i fully agree to lordmedikit
Tradnor
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Post by Tradnor »

I used IE for a long time even though I knew Mozilla was better, just because I didn't like the default Mozilla theme. Actually, I didn't even know about themes; I just thought that was how Mozilla looked. But when I installed Firefox, it instantly felt natural using the browser, and I think the default theme was a big part of that. Of course people can change to whatever theme they like, but they'll only do that after they've decided to keep using the browser. So the default theme is critical for impressing new users. I don't think this new theme will do that. It wouldn't have done that for me. Of course you can say the appearance is superficial, and Firefox is a great browser regardless of what it looks like, but surface impressions do matter here. Otherwise nobody would care about themes at all.

Like the previous poster, I will not upgrade if it means losing the Qute theme. Whether it's the default or not doesn't matter to me personally, if I can still choose to use it, but I'm afraid going with the theme posted previously will have negative consequences for Firefox's adoption.
LayZ
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Not totally surprised - but a bad idea

Post by LayZ »

I'm not totally surprised because I remember reading somewhere a while back on someone's blog about a new theme in the works. But then with the recent checkins by Arvid I thought that information must have been incorrect.

I will reserve final judgement until I see the new theme in action but here's what I think currently:

If, like Ben stated, this new theme is still under heavy development and will look better in the future then releasing 0.9 with an incomplete theme will produce lots of negative feedback on slashdot, blogs, etc. It'd be better if peoples efforts were concentrated in testing the new extension and theme managers.

The current theme fits in well with IE6 on Windows XP (the only version of IE that I thought had decent icons), it also looks good on the other windows versions and is acceptable under Linux. This makes people switching over to it more comfortable - not everyone will switch theme. Couple the qute theme with the new IE migration stuff which will be in 0.9 and you've got a very easy migration path for IE users.

More communication with Arvid should have occurred even if they wanted him to sign a NDA so news of the new theme wasn't leaked too early. If he was aware his decision in 2003 would likely result in the withdrawl of his theme then he'd have sorted out the issues earlier.

Visually, Windows and Mac apps are totally different (Mac has menubar at top of screen and different standard menu items) making an app that fits in with both platforms and is also consistent between platforms is impossible so why bother trying?

Someone on the forum commented about keeping the same theme too long makes the product feel 'dated' as Firefox is not 1.0 yet I'd say that it is not the case
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Post by TychoQuad »

I don't care what Firefox comes with, I will check out the new theme, give it a good chance, and if need be, get Qute from update.mozilla.org.

I think one thing everyone has missed here, is that regardless of whether the new theme is better, or worse, regardless if the new theme/extension/download manager is an improvement or not, regardless of if Phoenix, Firebird or Firefox is the right choice in name, Regardless if the Mozilla style prefrences manager was more useful or not, PEOPLE WILL TALK ABOUT IT!

It wouldn't surprise me at all if these changes were inspired by the fuss it would cause. People talk, people argue, people post slashdot articles, and uninformed people read those articles and ask their friends what the hell they are complaining about.

There's a saying, "All news is good news" It basically means that talk on a product is promoting it, good or bad. We've seen this happen over and over with Mozilla's FireWhatever, and regardless of what people think now, in 6 months time, noones really going to care.
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Jeff_pony
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Re: Not totally surprised - but a bad idea

Post by Jeff_pony »

LayZ wrote:Someone on the forum commented about keeping the same theme too long makes the product feel 'dated' as Firefox is not 1.0 yet I'd say that it is not the case

That was me and I stand by it. I just feel that its not always a bad thing to change the icon set. Until this new theme is released how can we know if it is better or worse than the old one. With Opera 0.6 a lot of the people loved the default theme for that and could not understand why you would want to change it, I wonder how many would suggest going back to that 0.6 theme now? Same with the change from Px Classic to Qute. I think its to soon to say if this is a step back or not, most people loved the theme made for the Mac Fx.
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Nietzman
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Post by Nietzman »

Short and simple: I think the idea of shipping both themes is the best one yet. Please consider it.
Last edited by Nietzman on June 6th, 2004, 5:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
e-Gandalf
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Post by e-Gandalf »

ben: you find us not constructive? We want Quote, we don't like the new theme. We find it ugly. We're afraid that Firefox with such theme will not be attractive for potential users. Constructive advice is: stay with Qute.
If there is any problem with Qute, tell us about it. It looks that Arvid want to give Qute for Firefox, and You're the one who don't want to take it.
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Post by xexagon »

My two pennies worth:

I use Pinstripe and far prefer it to Qute. It's more modern looking, sleaker and squarer. Basically more tasteful.

There appears to be a nostalgic attachment to the Qute theme . . . people are familiar with it . . . perhaps a shift in the appearance of the browser represents a shift into a broader arena, outside of the technical world?

The appearance of the browser should be updated once in a while - keeps things fresh, and appearances are important!

Qute's an ugly theme (apologies to the developer).

Oh, and publishing private emails is wrong!
TychoQuad
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Post by TychoQuad »

I just realised something....

NOW WE KNOW WHY THE NEW EXTENSION/THEME MANAGERS HAVE COLOURED BOXES AS ICONS!!!

It's because Arvid wasn't informed. Why inform him if his theme isn't default? Let him discover and impliment the changes himself when everyone else finds out.
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GrailKnight
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Post by GrailKnight »

Just like an OS that ships with a few diff. themes to choose so should a browser.
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e-Gandalf
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Post by e-Gandalf »

Guys - as somebody wrote before. 98% of people will NOT change theme! People who we will try to evangelize will se screenshots in newspapers - with the DEFAULT theme. We don't have to do anything for advanced users - they'll choose theme. But avarage user will not. Giving such theme as a default one is the worst you could do for advocaters of Firefox. :/

Jesus_x touched second point on mozillanews. Why WE as a community were not informed about this change in december 2003? And when Mozilla Foundation will inform us if Avrid wouldn't post it here? What is a community for Firefox producers? Anything more than "bug trackers"?
Tradnor
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Post by Tradnor »

Jeff_pony wrote:The graphics in a UI have to move on once in a while else the app will start to feel old.
xexagon wrote:The appearance of the browser should be updated once in a while - keeps things fresh

I don't get this "change for the sake of change" attitude. If there are problems with the current theme, that's something worth addressing, but we're not talking about some relic of a past era of UI design. Firefox is supposed to be "pre-release" software at this point, and the big push for widespread adoption will come at 1.0, so the majority of the people to be concerned about have never seen Firefox before. The appearance won't look "stale" to them. If you want a fresh look, you can load all the new themes you want.
Dave88
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Post by Dave88 »

The new theme dosen't look that great to me at all, I actually like the OSX Pinstripe theme but only if I'm using an OS skin which corresponds to the theme.

Qute {& iCandy Jr. I might add} just sat better with XP's default Luna interface & so many more themes for windows than Win/Pinstripe ever did, I think they should reconsdier it as the default theme.
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Post by Jeff_pony »

Tradnor wrote:I don't get this "change for the sake of change" attitude. If there are problems with the current theme, that's something worth addressing, but we're not talking about some relic of a past era of UI design. Firefox is supposed to be "pre-release" software at this point, and the big push for widespread adoption will come at 1.0, so the majority of the people to be concerned about have never seen Firefox before. The appearance won't look "stale" to them. If you want a fresh look, you can load all the new themes you want.

Why change and implement anything? Why change the theme from Px Classic to Qute. Its to move forward.
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LayZ
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Re: Not totally surprised - but a bad idea

Post by LayZ »

Jeff_pony wrote:
LayZ wrote:Someone on the forum commented about keeping the same theme too long makes the product feel 'dated' as Firefox is not 1.0 yet I'd say that it is not the case

That was me and I stand by it. I just feel that its not always a bad thing to change the icon set. Until this new theme is released how can we know if it is better or worse than the old one. With Opera 0.6 a lot of the people loved the default theme for that and could not understand why you would want to change it, I wonder how many would suggest going back to that 0.6 theme now? Same with the change from Px Classic to Qute. I think its to soon to say if this is a step back or not, most people loved the theme made for the Mac Fx.

I think the main strong point of the current theme is the familiarity to XP users, as XP is the latest version of Windows then I'd say this does not look dated but more likely familiar.

I used to be happy with Mozilla's classic theme (the one that looks like Netscape 4.x) when they added support for it to pick up the WinXP widget styles, but now Mozilla's classic looks dated.

There's probably a few themes that are better than qute but it fits in well and is default so no need to change it. I'm worried that the new theme might not be as familiar for people and they may be scared to switch because it was different.

Example, I know someone who was using Netscape 4.x, they decided to download 6.1 which had just been released at that time (Netscape defaults to 'modern') and immediately went back to 4.x. I changed the theme to classic and they were happy.

A few years later and they're more confident and I could switch to firefox without any problems, but a few years ago they'd have not liked a browser that looked significantly different.
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