Another default theme coming

[tmkt]

I don't like either theme...
Of the 2 I prefer Qute's, seems more modern.. The new one looks rather flat, the buttons dont have much character..

A new theme for Firefox should so something Noia does..
Uses different backgrounds, cutemenu icons.... It's really a good demonstration of what Firefox can do and how fully it can be themed..
Charamel does the same..
Lynchnot's themes are also nice and clean, and modern looking...
Aaron's themes also have many good things going for them, nice clean, clear bright looking icons.. Just missing out on the rest of the browser not being themed.
Not that I really care what the default theme is, since ever since Qute became it..the first thing I did was install some other theme.w

[Anthropic]

Wget:

How useless does a function have to be in order to throw the open source principles out the window? Just give me a ballpark figure here.

The artwork is a identifying mark so that users know who made the browser and that they are in fact using a Mozilla release of Firefox. It's an identifying mark. It would make no sense to have an identifying mark if everyone can use it. The fact also remains that the browser is still fully functional if you remove the artwork.

The theme is different in that:

A. Most users use the buttons for everyday brower tasks, i.e. navigation, or bookmark management, or tabbed browsing. The theme is an intregral part of the UI portion of the program. The about screen is not an intregral portion of the UI.

B. The idea of open source is that the developers are creating content that could concievably used anywhere. For example, GNOME icons are used in far more places than simply GNOME. Perhaps someone making a school yearbook program could use the Winstripe bookmark icon in their software. An image that says "Firefox" and an icon that stands for Firefox are only of use in Firefox.

[hawks5999]

Heh, this is funny as hell.

Hardly anyone is actually reading anything in the thread.. They just come here, see the picture, and post the END-OF-THE-WORLD message -- just like they all did with the Firefox name change. Then of course there's the Qute author and Ben supporter battle.

Yer all a buncha freakin' babies. A month after it's release, you won't even think about it anymore.

I have to chime in with an amen for this sentiment. I mean really, folks, it's a theme. Channel some of your energy into ending world hunger or something. It's not that big a deal. I mean you can change the theme to whatever you freakin' want anyway. At work I use Luna Blue and home BlueCurved. And you know what... it doesn't freakin' matter. All this talk about how this is going to be the downfall of Fire* is craziness. I've used PhireBox since 0.1 and it was never the theme that drew me and I don't recommend it to anyone because of the theme. Hello? native popup blocking, tabbed browsing and a customizable toolbar. These are the things people are coming to FireFox for... not Qute, WinStripe, Orbit or any other default theme.

[Piel]

this new theme SUCKS.

I'm sorry but I can't find a diplomatic way to say the following.

What a foolish, short-sighted choice on the part of the devs. For the sake of uniform look and feel, you sacrifice the uniqueness of each platform. Does MS Office look the same on Windows as it does on Mac? NO. Why? because they don't look at all alike. You are trying to ram a square peg into a round hole.

But it doesn't matter seeing as how we all know that this open-source initiative is not as open as we'd like it to be.

[shorlander]

I am loathe to respond to this thread since the amount of flames and trolls is fairly high. One might say ridiculously high, but I will anyway because there appear to be at least a few legitimate comments.

We started working on this "port" of icons from the Pinstripe theme a few months or so ago. Between work and real-life that amounts to around less than two weeks of actual focused work, at least on my part. Not really a lot of time to review, contemplate, and tweak anything that is close to polished. Certainly nothing I would consider "final". If I gave themes version numbers, this would be a 0.1 release at best. To be very clear: it is not finished. Not even close I would say. It had to go in now, so what we had finished we used. We would have liked to have time to finish but that wasn't an option.

I am not going to touch on why Qute had to be replaced, I don't know any of the details. To be quite honest, I think Qute is a very nice theme in most respects.

As everyone knows appearance is a highly subjective matter. What one person thinks is beautiful might induce vomiting in another. So feel free to dislike the new theme, I don't care, it is your right.

Now if someone has some constructive comments about the new icons, please email Kevin or I(<a href="mailto:stephen@noved.org">stephen@noved.org</a>) so they can be considered and addressed properly. Bitching and moaning about it on the Mozillazine board isn't going to get you anywhere. I am more than happy to take criticism and implement good ideas, but I don't have time to wade through these boards and pick out the good stuff from the mindless babble.

Hint: "thsi theem sUcks!!!!" is not constructive

[iamnotniles]

The constructive comment I'd have is don't use a theme as default when it's nowhere near finished.

[esavior]

Ha! see thumper I should email them my suggestions >.<

[MORA]

The constructive comment I'd have is don't use a theme as default when it's nowhere near finished.

My point exactly. Why ship a brand-new Firefox milestone with a 0.1 ('at best') theme? If the current Winstripe is the product of only a couple of weeks work, why don't we wait for it to mature and start shipping Winstripe with the first beta's of 1.0? Firefox itself may still be a technology preview, but as we reach 0.9 people will be judging it more and more as a preview of 1.0.

[smorgan]

What a foolish, short-sighted choice on the part of the devs. For the sake of uniform look and feel, you sacrifice the uniqueness of each platform. Does MS Office look the same on Windows as it does on Mac? NO. Why? because they don't look at all alike. You are trying to ram a square peg into a round hole.

There is no suggestion here that the themes will be identical. Rather, the idea is to have a certain basic similarity across all platforms, while at the same time customizing them as necessary to fit the look of the native platform. I am looking at Office on Windows and Mac at this moment, and I can tell you that there is *significant* similarity between the icon sets. Most are identical, except for slight changes in color or depth.

A better question would be "Does MS Office strive for consistency in it's icons, while at the same time blending with the native system?" The answer is that without a doubt it does, just as the *stripe suite of themes is intended to do as it develops. You picked a great example, but one that does not ultimately support your point.

[StoneCold]

Hint: "thsi theem sUcks!!!!" is not constructive

You are right. But the buttons looks very basic, and in competition with quote, the new theme looks very bad.

Mail and Print buttons are to small, the Forward and Back button look very basic, I think, the quote buttons are the better choise.

Stop and Home buttons look to much like Internet Explorer, not like Firefox.

I hope, Ben and Arvid will remove any mistake, and will work again, together.

[Piel]

I am looking at Office on Windows and Mac at this moment, and I can tell you that there is *significant* similarity between the icon sets. Most are identical, except for slight changes in color or depth.

A better question would be "Does MS Office strive for consistency in it's icons, while at the same time blending with the native system?" The answer is that without a doubt it does, just as the *stripe suite of themes is intended to do as it develops. You picked a great example, but one that does not ultimately support your point.

Look at the latest versions of Office 2003 (windows)

http://www.microsoft.com/office/word/pr ... 5121120120

and 2004 (Mac)

http://www.appleinsider.com/gallery/off ... hp?image=4

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the similarities.

[Athletictrnr1981]

Why is everyone bitching about a simple theme?

DOESN'T EVERYONE REALIZE THAT THIS IS A FREE PROGRAM????

Everyone here just take a step back and cool down.

It's not the end of the world, just a new theme.

And it's not your place to be bitching about this....none of you (including me) are developing this.

So when you take on a massive project such as FF, you will begin to realize 'you can please all the people some of the time; you can please some of the people all the time; but you can never please all the people all the time'....so just let it drop.

And remember....Ben is doing this as a free program to the world, nothing says he has to or that he has to provide this free of charge.

[Paradox52525]

Doesn't Opera use a Pinstripe-esque sort of theme? Admittedly it's been a long time since I tried out Opera, but when I saw the first Pinstripe screenshots my first thought was "it looks like Opera now." Now I know it will look a bit different in Windows, but are we really helping the brand identity by making FF look more like it's major IE-Alternative competitor? I can just imagine what the Opera users will be saying about this... and I have to agree it doesn't go too well with Windows.

[esavior]

To the people who are coming in late to the discussion I ask politely to keep the rant posts to a minimum. There has been a lot of good points made on this thread and the more posts that flame or flame flamers that are made here, the higher chances this thread will be locked.

About the office mac/windows the icons do actually look very similar. There are only a few differnces, though all the icons have been gelified but they retain their basic shapes. Atleast thats what I can tell from the pictures.

[tmeader]

It's a THEME. JC. If everyone is so worried about how this will adversely effect the adoption of Firefox (which I HIGHLY doubt. Especially since this is, according to an email response I got from the author of Winstripe, barely a first release. He promises it will definitely improve, this was nothing more than a "get it working" stab at it), I would instead recommend helping out those of us in the build forum who are actually trying to get the browser problems which generally impact users cleared up, instead of complaining for, my god, 28 pages about a bunch of icons... THAT CAN BE EASILY CHANGED. The author of Qute has already stated he will be making his theme downloadable. How does this not automatically shut everyone up about this is beyond me.

And before everyone complains about how "sh*tty" the new theme is, it might be good to keep in mind that Qute has been actively worked on since early 2001. That's 3 solid years of development. Winstripe, while possibly not as good as Qute at the moment, is an amazing effort with only 2 weeks of work.

The theme is NOT going to change back. If everyone wishes to keep wasting their breath on here, best of luck. But like I said, there are much more important things in Firefox that need fixing... since this can be changed at will, this is hardly as life and death as, I still can't believe it, 28 pages makes it out to be.