Mozilla is pushing on with the redesign process of Firefox’s graphical user interface. Early adopters that have followed closely the evolution of Firefox 4.0’s facelift will be able to tell that the New Theme project page now features extended timeline after a recent update. At the same time, Firefox 4.0 developer Stephen Horlander has revealed additional elements that are an integral part of the Firefox 4.0 facelift. Users will be able to access screenshots depicting Mozilla’s plans for the evolution of the UI of the next major version of Firefox via the images included at the bottom of this article.
“The new theme for Firefox will modernize the web browser interface, reflecting the power, simplicity and customizability of the world's most popular browser. Ensuring that the application feels like a natural part of the user's desktop, web life, and task flow are key goals,” Mozilla reveals on the New Theme page for Firefox 4.0.
However, as testers running the early Alpha development milestones of Firefox 3.7/ Mozilla Developer Preview 1.9.3 have been able to notice, changes are already being integrated into Minefield releases. The screenshot illustrating Windows Theme Progress is taken from a Firefox 3.7 Alpha build.
But there is additional work that went into the UI overhaul for Firefox 4.0. “Panel Styles - I did some work on styling panels(specifically notifications) on various platforms,” Horlander explained. “Everyone on the UX team liked the Glass Border approach. It is consistent with Windows 7 taskbar panels (with the addition of the half-diamond) and feels lighter. I also did some work on how this could look for panels outside of notifications.”
As users can see from the screenshots, Mozilla is embracing both Windows 7’s Aero Glass and the Ribbon/Fluent GUI specific for the platform’s default apps such as Paint and WordPad. Firefox 4.0 will also feature an “edit tray” that will become visible as users deal with text.
Firefox 3.6.4 Beta is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6 Lorentz Beta (3.6.3 Plugin 1 / v3.6.4) for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 / Mozilla Developer Preview of Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 4 for Windows is available here.
Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 / Mozilla Developer Preview of Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 4 for Mac OS X is available here.
Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 / Mozilla Developer Preview of Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 4 for Linux is available here.
Firefox 3.6.3 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6.3 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6.3 for Linux is available for download here.
