Comments on: Mac Theme Refresh

By: Daghead

Daghead — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:51:18 +0000

I REALLY hope the Menu Bar options end up using TWO buttons, and is placed beside the bookmarks toolbar, where it is most sensible.

The design of ribboned apps was noted a few times; Be aware of how Microsoft came to its senses and in Office 2010 beta, changed the Office button to be labeled ‘File’ which is great, even though that leaves ‘Help’, ‘Add-ins’, ‘Options’, and ‘Exit’ out of catigorization (where the need for a general controls button comes in for Firefox’s case).

By: Mr Lizard

Mr Lizard — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:52:15 +0000

Whatever you do, whatever changes you make, please please please put this on the top of the list:

TAB CLOSE BUTTONS ON THE LEFT

I know the stubborn Firefox dev team have flat out refused to do this in the past, but please, you’re the ONLY app that puts a close button on the right. Having seen Windows PCs, I know that’s how they do it there, but not on a Mac.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:31:15 +0000

@Bob

As a Mac OS user I ca say I do not compare my applications to the Finder, but thank you for speaking on behalf of us all. Appreciated.

I like the mockups for 4.0, and I like tabs in the titlebar.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:05:41 +0000

“What I don’t understand is why you guys just won’t use completely native buttons… What the hell is wrong with using Safari/Finder’s back/forward buttons? Why don’t you use the same background color as every other damn application on Mac OS?

These design decisions are incredibly poor, and the UI designers behind Firefox really need to stop churning out so much crap. Firefox has the potential to look great just by using default UI elements, why are you trying so hard?

Thanks.”

This.

And please do NOT hide the title and do NOT extend the tabs into the title bar. Take the Finder as a benchmark, if you’d like. That’s what OS X users compare their applications to.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:25:59 +0000

Thanks for another detailed writeup, and some good looking designs. In the 4.0 section, it seems like there’s a little copy-paste issue there — do I understand correctly that the search field and address field will be formally combined? And that the blue Google pulldown is how you select your search engine? And that no location is displayed when searching, just your term? It’s slick in a way, but I worry that it reinforces misconceptions that non-web-savvy people have (the kind of people who will type “facebook.com” into google and click the first link instead of typing it directly into the address bar).

Am I right that the proposal is that the two fields be combined? Will this be optional?

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:57:54 +0000

All I ask is one thing. Use as little vertical real estate as you possibly can. All Mac users are on widescreen displays and many are displays with poor vertical resolution. Try and make as good or better than Safari.

By: Alain Meyer

Alain Meyer — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:55:41 +0000

What I don’t understand is why you guys just won’t use completely native buttons… What the hell is wrong with using Safari/Finder’s back/forward buttons? Why don’t you use the same background color as every other damn application on Mac OS?

Thanks.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:23:17 +0000

I like these proposed changes, but my 2 cents is concerning the “Identity” button. I think if the design of this feature is actually a button, the interface will start to look more cluttered than necissary. Personally, I prefer the “no background” version. Nice and simple, doesn’t need to be more than that.

By: ChristonJP

ChristonJP — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:01:11 +0000

Please, please, do not make Tabs on Top required, and please, if you can, don’t make them default. It’s one of the most visually annoying, disrupting things that was in the Safari 4 beta I was so glad to see go away. Aside from that, I agree with everyone else who has mentioned that the option for closing tabs needs to be on the left. It is the OS default, and Firefox is the only place where that’s different.

Also, please DON’T make the menu limited to two items, or put the bookmarks bar in the menu, once again, it would be too confusing for regular Mac users. I understand that consistency between OSes is important for support folks – having done phone support for too long – but consistency with the OS is more important for users.

By: Flavio

Flavio — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:55:22 +0000

3.7
i don’t get why browser people is retaining the home button. is anyone using it? (how do you know that, got some kind of keystroker?)
It has some sense if you add a quick-jump like Opera, and if you do, present it on every new tab we open.

On the variations about page-attached-tabs, i got to say the loading bar is very disturbing and little comunicative. I’d go with a dark tab that progressively gets lighter from left to right and ends up of the color of a bkg tab.
I tried a color-tab addon and it doesn’t upgrade the experience, btw could be a way to show loading tabs (for eg a light yellow while loading, then default color) and tabs that generate errors (google-marked as dangerous pages, 404, plugin fail… make sense if you are going to thread the tabs as i’ve just read about).

Instead of having it darker, i’d prefear a bookmark bar more noticeable, i mean, if it’s there is because i want to use it, often i forget to use it because i don’t spot it and go type “gmail”…

4.0
i love the return to a small back button.

the tabs-on-top is not bad, but i don’t like the less space for window-dragging (that on osx is far more common).
i like the darker bkg for prominent active tabs (i don’t understand why don’t you upgrade this already, it’s just a skin color tone!)

i don’t get what the identity is needed for. if it’s for the OS, we have it already on the menu bar; if it’s for website-based-login, it should be positioned something contextually near the page, for eg in place of the extensions.

Don’t trade status bar for the extensions, i don’t understand why moving it on top, if you install 10 extensions you get a shorter url-bar? that’s silly, and the cut-text on the edge of the window is hate-able.
Instead move the Find-bar (cmd+f) on top of a page, it’s not usable down there, i always hate that. It would also be more OSX-looking.

Oh, i know this is about UX but i’d love to see no background loading of flash, is wonderful to browse YT on Safari because of that.