Pinstripe XP (Cross Platform) for Firebird

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » December 19th, 2003, 7:24 am

I recently threw together a "port" of the default Mac Firebird theme (Pinstripe). Here's a peek:

<img src="http://www.kmgerich.com/archive/images/pinstripexp.png" height="399" width="785">

The jar file is here: http://www.kmgerich.com/pinstripe/pinstripexp.jar . This is a work in progress. You'll notice some things like the download manager look unfinished.

When you go to download the jar, my web server may spew a bunch of text at you. If that happens, just wait for it to stop, then do a Save As.. and save the file to your disk. I haven't put a page together for it yet but I trust you know what to do with the jar file (Hint: http://texturizer.net/firebird/themes/#install ) . Feedback would be appreciated. I'd especially be interested in a screenshot of it running on Linux.

Edit: Only works with the most recent nightly builds (the ones after the recent <a href="http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=36049">toolkit change</a>)

jedy · Post by **jedy** » December 19th, 2003, 8:03 am

Forward and back buttons don't show up (win 98se, Firebird 0.7).

What version did you design this for?

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » December 19th, 2003, 8:13 am

Oops, sorry. Forgot to mention that this will only work on the nightly builds after November 20 or so, not the previous releases.

doh · Post by **doh** » December 19th, 2003, 12:31 pm

Very nice! Icons are very high quaility (good contrast). Running it fine on :Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031210 Firebird/0.7+ (aebrahim).

One comment/question I have is:

Is the permanent text label for the Go button ("Go") next to the arrow necessary? Can the text be optional? Also, is the throbber only one size?

Other than that, it looks absolutely gorgeous.

scratch · Post by **scratch** » December 19th, 2003, 5:02 pm

if you didn't get this done soon i was going to ask for permission to release mine. anyway, a few comments:

i made a new tab button for the trivial extension that i added to my xp port of the theme. could you add one to the official version? i can send you the graphics i made if you'd like.

i prefer the addressbar as it looks on macos, so that's how it looks in my version of the theme. does anyone else agree with me on that?

i don't have a recent nightly installed so i can't see what tabs look like, but again i tried to emulate the mac look (i.e. -moz-appearance: none on inactive tabs).

these second two lead me to the idea that maybe you could have two versions of the xp theme: one that has a native addressbar and tabs, and the other that has them styled the same way they are on macos?

alcatraz52 · Post by **alcatraz52** » December 19th, 2003, 6:05 pm

I liked the old Pinstripe icons on OSX better..they were more unique!

Oh well, thanks! It looks great

banjobacon! · Post by **banjobacon!** » December 19th, 2003, 9:38 pm

Half the throbber is missing.

Kevin · Post by **Kevin** » December 20th, 2003, 8:15 am

Scratch, I think being consistent with the platform is important. That's why I took out things like the rounded search bar and the homegrown tab design. It takes away things that make Pinstripe look like it fits into the OS on the Mac, but since we're not on a Mac here, I don't think it matters too much. I'll leave making an exact copy of mac controls to others.

Banjobacon!, I can see where you'd think that, but no, the look is by design. The throbber is not just a rip of the Mac progress wheel - it's hand built. Each one of those spokes are slightly more transparent than the other so you get a fading effect as it goes around. This doesn't come across too well in the throbber animation because GIF doesn't do alpha blending. The MNG version is much nicer

For the static throbber image, I'd like to have just a blank space there like a normal Mac application. But that wouldn't work because you have to be able to actually see it to drag the throbber around to various toolbars when you customize. So I settled for a faded version of the first frame of the GIF animation.

scratch · Post by **scratch** » December 20th, 2003, 8:38 am

okay, i just think they look better that way. as for the throbber, how about using the MNG throbber and requiring people to get the extension before they use the theme? and even without seeing the throbber, you'd know where it is. I think i'm going to switch it to a blank image in my version. i've actually been planning to for a while but have just been too lazy to get to it. heh.

TychoQuad · Post by **TychoQuad** » February 12th, 2004, 6:25 am

Scratch: Do you have a thread for yours? (The one with all the widgets OSX Style?)

Also, Could you people please include Toolbar Enhancements skinned buttons?

Hermeneut · Post by **Hermeneut** » February 12th, 2004, 9:13 am

Sweet work -- you've made my day. Now all we need is the Toolbar Enhancements extension to be skinned to Pinstripe and we're away.

Hermeneut · Post by **Hermeneut** » February 12th, 2004, 9:13 am

And maybe a Cute Menus version?

Anthropic · Post by **Anthropic** » February 12th, 2004, 9:30 am

Wow, thanks for the quick work! Is the artwork supposed to be missing in the about box?

Radiowriter · Post by **Radiowriter** » February 12th, 2004, 7:25 pm

Anthropic wrote:Wow, thanks for the quick work! Is the artwork supposed to be missing in the about box?

The about screen is pretty basic in 0.8 but I don't think that's a theme thing. I don't think they had it all together when 0.8 was released.

Anthropic · Post by **Anthropic** » February 12th, 2004, 7:28 pm

Well, the new artwork seems to be in only when you use the default theme.