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

Posted December 24th 2009 by Kevin Schram under Computers | Internet Highlights

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Firefox 4 Screenshot

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.

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

Shane Freemantle | December 24th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Perhaps they should name Firefox 4 – Firefox Marmite Edition, because people are either going to love it or hate it. I thought the idea was to innovate and not imitate.
[Reply]
Mark Smith | December 24th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
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.
I really expected better from Mozilla.
As things are, the pull down menus are perfect, especially for those who find the mouse difficult, or those who prefer to do as much as possible with the keyboard.
I dislike Chrome for the lack of this. I tried it, and came back to FF shortly after.
That ***** ribbon thing forced me to abandon MS Office and use Open Office instead.
Now, FF is going down the same route I am not at all happy about this.
One of the best things about FF is that it is highly customisable. I just hope that there’s a classic UI add-on. For those that say ‘it’s old fashioned’, I say ‘are the Beatles old fashioned?’.
Without a way to get the classic UI back, I, for one, will downgrade to a previous version.
[Reply]

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