Firefox 4 UI Mockup Revealed [Mozilla UI Designer Shows Off Mockup Of Upcoming Firefox 4's Release, Similar to Microsoft Office, Google Chrome]

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Mozilla’s product designer Stephen Horlander is the man responsible for the way that Firefox looks. On his personal blog, Horlander has revealed five changes that are in the works for Firefox 4, and even provides a nice mockup of how it’ll all look. Firefox 4 looks like it will be borrowing some design elements from Microsoft Office and Google Chrome.

The first and probably biggest change that is in the works to come to Firefox 4 is that the ‘menu bar’ is being replaced with an ‘App Button’. Similar to the ‘Ribbon’ interface found in Office 2007 and the two control buttons found on Google Chrome, the menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc.) is being compressed into a single button. Horlander specifically says one reason they went in this direction is because of Microsoft heading that direction with the Office and other native Windows apps.

Secondly, the toolbar (Forward, Back, Address Bar, Refresh) will be getting a refresh. Third, the Address Bar (or Location Bar, as Horlander calls it) will be changed to let you ‘evaluate site identity early’. Fourth, Horlander promises that unlike Chrome, Firefox will maintain a separate search box for your Google, Wikipedia searches instead of combing the Address and Search Boxes.

Finally, a special menu  button will be added to easily allow you to access which extensions you have running. Check out the screenshot of Horlander’s mockup of Firefox 4′s for yourself.