Designing Tools
blog.mozilla.org
Designing Tools
1–10 of 53 posts
Re: Designing Tools
#2Two questions:
To those who are color blind, how do you overcome color blind in software? Do you guys have software to help changing color on your computer? Should and will Firefox address that kind of problem?
Nightly defaults to the dark theme. I like old white theme. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947242 why do we choose the dark theme over the white theme? I am not color blind but I use computer typically between 12-18 hours. Who made that decision? Can we make the white theme default again? I honestly don't think the dark theme helps reading. If anything, the dark theme hurts me viewing.
Re: Designing Tools
#3Mozilla keeps changing the dev tools while the WebKit inspector remains fairly consistent. I no idea how to quantify it, but I just prefer the inspector, by a long shot. The networking tab and DOM inspector are brilliant.
Re: Designing Tools
#4Two questions: To those who are color blind, how do you overcome color blind in software? Do you guys have software to help changing color on your computer? Should and will Firefox address that kind of problem? Nightly defaults to the dark theme. I like old white theme. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947242 why do we choose the dark theme over the white theme? I am not color blind but I use computer typ…
Yes, the current dark theme does not have high enough contrast. There is a bug opened to switch to higher contrast colors in the dark theme here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=971418 (and this will likely be uplifted to Aurora after landing).
Re: Designing Tools
#5The main reason I don't switch to Firefox's dev tools is whenever i write a css attribute in the inspector, Chrome will present me a nice list of possible values I can choose, while Firefox just sits there patiently until I start writing. I don't always remember all the values and this really breaks my workflow.
Re: Designing Tools
#6The main reason I don't switch to Firefox's dev tools is whenever i write a css attribute in the inspector, Chrome will present me a nice list of possible values I can choose, while Firefox just sits there patiently until I start writing. I don't always remember all the values and this really breaks my workflow.
Firefox also provides a suggestions list for CSS properties and values in the rule view and the markup view of Inspector since Firefox 25.
Re: Designing Tools
#7The main reason I don't switch to Firefox's dev tools is whenever i write a css attribute in the inspector, Chrome will present me a nice list of possible values I can choose, while Firefox just sits there patiently until I start writing. I don't always remember all the values and this really breaks my workflow.
Good point, I was surprised it didn't work like that. Guess it's one of those little things.
Personally, I think that console could do some work. Chrome console is top notch, and there is too much noise in FF version, with CSS and other stuff.
Re: Designing Tools
#8The main reason I don't switch to Firefox's dev tools is whenever i write a css attribute in the inspector, Chrome will present me a nice list of possible values I can choose, while Firefox just sits there patiently until I start writing. I don't always remember all the values and this really breaks my workflow.
Good point, I was surprised it didn't work like that. Guess it's one of those little things. Personally, I think that console could do some work. Chrome console is top notch, and there is too much noise in FF version, with CSS and other stuff.
FWIW, you have pretty fine grained control over what appears in the console (CSS, JS, Logs, etc.) as well as the level of logging (Error, Warning, Log)... see the dropdown buttons at the top of the console tab :)
Re: Designing Tools
#9A little off-topic, but I was just reading this:
> In response to this, Mozilla has designed a way to lock the device and offer guest access to apps predefined by the user with a green light to allow anyone to use them. All other apps will remain behind a password protected wall until the primary user changes the settings.
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240215078/Mozilla-launch...
This is actually an idea I also came up with after the whole Miranda thing at the UK airport and finding out that the UK authorities can arrest you just for not revealing your devices' passwords, which I think is just insane, especially if you're just passing through UK. I don't know what the UK people are thinking, but they can't let anymore days pass by without repealing this awful law.
But I think I had a slightly better idea for this. Don't just make it obvious that there is another account on the phone. That doesn't improve things too much. Completely hide the accounts, and when you're asked for a password, it should open up the account according to the password you're using.
So if you pass through the UK airport, and they get your phone, and they get prompted for a password, you can just tell them the password to your "safe" account, and they would be none the wiser. That's what I've been hoping Google will implement for Android, but it would be nice if Mozilla did it to push this idea out there.
The second thing I wanted to say here, and also something I've been thinking about for even longer, but perhaps now is the perfect time to do it - Mozilla should create a Firefox to Firefox (or to Chrome extension) end-to-end encrypted chat app. This could all of the sudden bring true communications privacy to over 300 million people at once. It would be amazing!
The reason I say it's the perfect time to do it now, is because Open WhisperSystems has already done most of the work on creating a very secure asynchronous protocol that even works with groups, and they've said they're already working on a browser solution, anyway.
I'm sure they'll create a Firefox extension either way, but if you could work with them on this, help them out with the funds they dearly need, and then put the app front of center on Firefox as an integrated part of Firefox (you could even promote it as a secure communication solution to enterprise users), that would be fantastic.
The problem with end-to-end encryption right now is that it's barely seeing any support from small fundless groups, and none of the large platform owners seem to have any interest in deploying it. Mozilla is one such large platform owner, it's also an open source organization, and they seem to be working on improving their users' privacy. So I couldn't think of a better large platform to do this first.
Re: Designing Tools
#10Two questions: To those who are color blind, how do you overcome color blind in software? Do you guys have software to help changing color on your computer? Should and will Firefox address that kind of problem? Nightly defaults to the dark theme. I like old white theme. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=947242 why do we choose the dark theme over the white theme? I am not color blind but I use computer typ…
We (I am the author of that post) definitely care about color blind users and want to make our tools as usable for as many people as possible! Photoshop allows you to simulate varieties of color blindness and we keep that in mind. We are also trying to provide better visual cues, like shapes/textures rather than relying solely on colors. The network panel in nightly for example has shapes to indicate HTTP response codes.
Secondly, once you switch to the light theme (available in the options pane of nightly) it should persist for you, so it will become your "default".