Today, the
Mozilla development team decided to give another open preview into the future
of its highly embraced Firefox browser. Last week, it gave an open preview of
upcoming Firefox 3.7 and the various UI design aspects it has embraced. The
team is now giving us an inside look at some early brainstorm designs in
Firefox 4.0.
At first sight, it seems as if the team is taking some
design wins from Google Chrome by implementing more UI transparency in the tab
bar as well as two positioning options. Tabs can either be positioned below the
address bar as they are now, or they can be placed above it similar to Chrome.
According to the
development
blog, the “tabs-on-top” concept effectively saves vertical space, requires
shorter distance to page mouse controls and removes visual complexity as the
tabs usually have to be connected to the rest of the window.
Unfortunately, the drawbacks with this Chrome-like design is
that it breaks user familiarity with the classic Firefox layout and some pixel space
is lost between the application icon and window widgets.
The Mozilla team is also working on a combo Stop/Refresh/Go
button that will be implemented sooner in Firefox 3.7 and includes a few new
features. The idea behind this is that it saves application pixel space by
integrating all three actions into a single button. For the visually-oriented
type who enjoy eye candy, the button changes colors based on the user’s
actions. For instance, typing will turn the button green with a “Go” while webpage loading will turn it into a red "Stop".
These are all very user-friendly brainstorming ideas and we
are pleased that the Mozilla team is maintaining its open frame of mind as
usual. However, there is still no solid news regarding any engine-specific features or internal improvements.