Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to make a better default Firefox UI

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 266 posts

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#251

Post by viraptor »

paldepind2 wrote: post #239
viraptor wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh... UI was comparable. Chrome was a bit faster. For the ads, see some snapshots of what that campaign looked like at the time https://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-... It was a massive push of basically spammy links all over the internet. To be clear, I'm sure some people switched for the features. But given the scale of the sponsored push to every internet user, we can't really say features…

Thanks for the link. That certainly shows that Google was sponsoring an aggressive and fairly ugly ad campaign. > UI was comparable. They were not at all comparable. Here is an image of what Firefox looked like when Chrome was released [1]. Here is an image of what Chrome looked like at release [2]. Barring some design tweaks Chrome looks roughly like any modern browser whereas Firefox looks ancient by modern standar…

The bookmarks could be turned off in FF and many other things changed with extensions. Overall... I can see how someone could say they're different, but it's a "meh" for me. Yeah, they're different but not in a meaningful way for me.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#253

Post by Schlaefer »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #102
Schlaefer wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved on to sideberry and hide the normal tab bar completely. But if you open two identical tabs in the default layout I have no clue which one is active anymore. You can't understand that UI, you have learn it. It's infuriating.

It doesn't render the one you clicked on in a different colour? That might be a issue with the theme you use, my firefox shows the active tab in a clearly different colour from the inactive one.

It changes the color, but that color has no inherent meaning. Let's eradicate any prior knowledge of what was clicked. Let's say you make screenshot of the current state, and show that to a random person on the street, who has never used FF before.

What are the odds of that person identifying what is currently active?

If the counter is "you know because you remembered" or you "know because you learned" then any of these answers indicate a inferior and non-intuitive UI design.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#254

Post by hulitu »

jsrcout wrote: post #196
DonHopkins wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It bewilders me that any rational UI designer would be so arrogant as to make the unilateral unchangeable decision for all their users that they should only have tabs on one side, be it the top, bottom, left or right of the window. Why restrict users to using tabs on only one side and one side only? What's so special about that side, and bad about the other sides? What if the user is left handed, or has a tall monito…

I, too, remember when GUIs (not UXs!) respected the user's desires, workflow and general agency. That's not entirely gone yet, but it's going. Heck, Office 365 updated lately and now I have this ongoing little contest of displaying the tiniest number of coworker Teams comments in the hugest amount of white space. The results beggar belief. Edit: Teams (it's a Chrome browser window, but that's not really relevant to m…

If you say "Teams" the rest is just redundant. It is the worst piece of UI ever created.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#255

Post by 015a »

DonHopkins wrote: post #162
015a wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own, but: I strongly believe the opposite. Of course having more than 6 or 8 tabs open in a horizontal tab bar makes tabs difficult to manage and track. I've used Arc for the past 6 months. Having 6 or 8 tabs open in a vertical tab bar is also difficult to manage or track. I end up just spam-closing all of them and starting fresh pretty much every 4 hours anyway. Here's the two arguments I've heard that…

It bewilders me that any rational UI designer would be so arrogant as to make the unilateral unchangeable decision for all their users that they should only have tabs on one side, be it the top, bottom, left or right of the window. Why restrict users to using tabs on only one side and one side only? What's so special about that side, and bad about the other sides? What if the user is left handed, or has a tall monito…

I agree that it is odd, even from an "efficient market hypothesis" angle. There are people who use Arc literally only because of the very well-integrated and implemented vertical tab bar (versus, oftentimes jank & ugly addons in Firefox/Chrome). In other words, we (humanity) have to create and maintain an entire new browser just to solve this one problem for users that could, very easily, be a checkbox in a settings menu.

Same with Windows 11; I know one person who refuses to upgrade literally only because the Windows 11 taskbar is bottom-of-monitor only; they don't support moving it to the left or right-hand side of the monitor.

Its actually unhinged. Our industry was filled with years, decades even, where we were so excited and proud to build things to be as powerful as possible, to do as much as possible. Nowadays, companies want to build the least they can possibly get away with. Its sad what we've lost.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#256

Post by djao »

encom wrote: post #148
zx8080 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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").

Firefox v89 was the last version I used. I just couldn't be bothered with them constantly changing and removing features for no reason. I switched to Vivaldi, which offer basic functionality like vertical tabs, and a fully customisable UI out of the box. It's far from perfect, notably being closed source which was hard for me to swallow, but it annoys me far less than Firefox ever did. I have it set up how I like it,…

What exactly about Thunderbird 115 ruined it? I run 115 and it looks mostly the same as before. I avoid the "cards" view because it has numerous problems, but the "classic" view works fine for me.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#257

Post by OJFord »

beAbU wrote: post #44
OJFord wrote: post #22

Whenever I see someone using (or a screenshot of) horizontal tabs I'm just shocked that people put up with it, or perhaps even more so that it's still the default in all major (and minor?) browsers. I recommend Sidebery, but more than that I just recommend something to get your tabs listed vertically in a sidebar, so they don't squash each other up as you add more until you can't tell what's what at a glance, the wid…

Whenever I see someone using (or a screenshot of) vertical tabs I'm just shocked that people put up with so many open tabs at once. I have maybe max 20 tabs open at any given time. When I'm done with $TASK I close all the tabs (save 2-3 that remain open and pinned, mail, calendar, etc). The tab bar is like my stack. I only fill it up for the task at hand, then clear the stack and move on when done. If there are thing…

20 vertical tabs would be a lot more readable and distinguishable from one another than 20 horizontal tabs.

Sure it makes it more manageable to treat them like temporary bookmarks (guilty!) but you don't have to, that's not why I like them.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#258

Post by yorwba »

donkeybeer wrote: post #242
yorwba wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you perhaps have muscle memory for the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut that used to open a large side panel but now just shows a narrow horizontal bar? I do and I'm certainly annoyed by this redesign, but I discovered the "manage bookmarks" shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O that opens a larger pop-up window with your bookmarks, which so far seems almost as comfortable as the old side panel. It also lets you search for bookmarks and rig…

I am not sure what Ctrl+Shift+B used to show you, but Ctrl+B shows me a sidepanel (similar to the History panel) for bookmarks for me.

Thanks! Turns out I might not have muscle memory after all and simply forgot which shortcut to use.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#259

Post by saurik »

nathansherburn wrote: post #226
medstrom wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange, the absence of padding gives me room to breathe, because if I can quickly scan a menu with my eye then I feel I have good overview and control over affairs. With more padding, you cannot do the same scanning motion with the eye, you have to read each item as a single atom unto itself, and suddenly the menu has become a jungle of megaliths where it's easy to get lost.

There is research out there that shows use of white space can improve things like reading speed and comprehension. An example for text paragraphs: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Reading-Online-Text%3A... I think it really depends on individuals though. If you can memorise a dense screen of buttons you'll be able to work faster, avoid scrolling etc. But it'll make the UI harder to use for people who don't use i…

That study itself shows mixed results and tradeoffs, and so I think saying it is about regular users vs. power users does this a dis-justice... they didn't even find an effect for leading (which is what most people seem to want to manipulate).

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#260

Post by [deleted] »

logicprog wrote: post #200
pdntspa wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That feeling of anxiety when looking over software should be taken as a cue to get better at it, not a feeling to be processed as such. Because it goes away as mastery goes up. Pretty soon all that whitespace becomes anxiety-inducing in and of itself

I think you're making condescending assumptions in order to explain away my different preferences, and I don't appreciate that. The feeling I'm experiencing is not anxiety at not knowing how to use the software or read the information presented, I am very comfortably a power user of basically every piece of software I use regularly. It's simply the fact that high levels of visual noise are more difficult to process t…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN