Ever since Firefox borked their tabs I've given up on it as my default browser. Every now and then I open it up for testing and when I still see buttons instead of tabs I make a mental note of trying again in half a year or so.
Light theme is especially insulting with white buttons on light-light gray.
It even doesn't repsect Windows' system theme settings, because in Windows you can have apps keep light theme but apply colors to taskbar, Start menu and title bars. Edge gets it, Chrome doesn't, but at least there's enough contrast, Firefox completely misses the mark.
How to make a better default Firefox UI
11–20 of 266 posts
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#12I'm the author of Lepton, a popular theme for Firefox. You can see how I made various decisions from my perspective and how I improved on some of Mozilla's less-than-stellar decisions. I think that might explain how we improved it and made it popular. This article is part of a series. - https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/%5BArticle%...
How I find Lepton? In the addons store there's nothing listed under themes for that name. Or is Lepton a previous generation UI for Firefox that no longer exists except on old releases? Sorry if these are stupid questions, I did read the article but I may have missed some things.
Since Mozilla does not allow it as an add-on, you must download and install it yourself.
Yes. I know it's really uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the fact that it was this popular is also proof that the existing UI was inconvenient.
https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix/wiki/Installatio...
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#13If anyone is interested, I've worked on creating a cleaner interface for Firefox with sidebar tabs here: https://github.com/bjesus/fireside
Oh, it looks pretty neat.
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#14The main issue I've had with their new UI is the massive size of everything, it's fair enough for fat finger phone displays but is annoyingly wasteful for any regular sized desktop.
This is partly due to the increased padding as per the article, but also because they removed the "compact" UI density option. However you can bring this back under
about:config
browser.compactmode.show
The option is labelled "not supported", but it's been like that for years.
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#15Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?
Tabs being buttons doesn't really bother me and if anything this is such a common alternative to tab appearance that even Windows 95's tab control has a mode to make tabs look like buttons (AFAIK it was used in the original task bar). It was also used for, e.g. switching channels/windows on mIRC since the 90s too.
However personally i do not like how these particular "tab buttons" look like and if nothing else (they remind me of those long pills that often feel hard to swallow :-P), i am used to them looking like tabs and see no reason for that change (fortunately Firefox allows you to customize its look and i have a userChrome.css that makes it look more to my liking).
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#16Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?
It bothers me because it's different enough from everything else with tabs that I have (not only browsers, file managers, editors etc) and I just can't jibe with it. Why throw all semantics out of the window? It looks like a button but doesn't behave like one.
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#17Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?
There's so much things going south with each update I just don't care anymore.
The overall state of UX is very sad for Firefox and also Thunderbird (I had to stop using it after their menu bar fiasco and other "improvements").
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#18Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?
Why wasting space for a button lower border if it's actually a tab's title and not a button?
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#19This is the same problem that modern Windows has: these systems are designed by 20-something year old designers who wear specs with thick coloured frames and who only use Mac and Safari. They don't give a shit because they don't have to use these systems ever; for them these systems are something they screenshot and put in their portfolios.
> these systems are designed by ...
I don't understand what you're referring to, this firefox addon? Or standard firefox? I'd image that firefox developers actually use it as their browser too..
Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI
#20Is anyone else not at all bothered by the tabs "being buttons"? I feel like I'm the only one sometimes. Are they really that jarring for first-time users?
It doesn't impact my use of Firefox. They are just wasting pixels putting a gap where one doesn't belong. But I think at this point I am used to insane UI decisions and just roll with whatever organisations give me, few seem interested in any form of consistency or easy discovery.