Firefox becomes a contender

Up until a few months ago, Firefox was never on my list of browsers that I flirted with. It was never opened, not even for the hallowed web developer toolbar that so many swear by.

But then a few things changed. I discovered the Tails extension (for revealing Microformats) and the Firebug extension (sooo good). Combining this with Neil Lee’s G4 optimised build (with cocoa style widgets), Tab Sidebar and one of Aronnax’s pro themes I had something that looked and acted pretty much like my ideal browser. The sheer flexibility of Firefox was starting to outweigh the lack of Mac feel and behaviour.

Now, we all know that Firefox’s greatest asset is it’s extensions, but a benefit of this has only just got through to me. It allows for developers to add support for fledgling web 2.0 services (such as CoComment and the aforementioned Tails) without relying on the browser vendor to implement integration (if indeed it ever came). This flexibility is mind-blowing.

Now take a look at the new features being implemented in the Firefox 2.0 developer previews (Known as ‘Bon Echo’). SVG Text, Microsummaries, Inline Spell Checking (although I guess not using the OS X dictionary) and search suggestions. Most exciting of all, is the move to the Cairo graphics library, which on OS X, will allow Firefox (and Camino) to use the new shiny Quartz renderer, rather than the old Quickdraw, which should make a real difference to looks. I’m looking forward to this!

My hope is that the Firefox Mac theme sees an update too. Less stripes, more recent style preferences tabs and generally more Tiger styling. Aronnax has put together a proposal theme for the Bon Echo builds, but I strongly suggest setting up a new profile or user account for trying out Bon Echo. It’s not called a developer preview for nothing.

Sure, there are still plenty of annoyances, and its not seeing as much action as current faves Omniweb 5.5 and Camino, but it’s now a contender, which it’s never been before. So the browser indecision continues, only much worse, and I feel more than ever that I really should try and get out more.

Tags: bonecho, browsers, firefox, osx, polygamy

A new home for Aronnax

Whenever anyone has asked me if I was going to a Firefox theme, I tell them there’s no point. There’s a chap called Aronnax, who has created some beautiful themes that make Firefox feel a whole lot more like a Mac product.

Recently, his site at spymac has been down a lot, so I offered him the Take back the web.org site as something more reliable. I felt it was so important that his themes are as available as possible, as they really make Firefox liveable on a Mac. He’s redesigned too, take a look.

Tags: firefox, themes

Safari tabs for Firefox updated

How to improve the original tabs hack with close buttons.

Tags: browsers, code, firefox, safari, themes

SXSW: Afterthoughts

1. I’m seeing a lot of photos of me on Flickr, and I’m not liking what I’m seeing at all. Time to lose weight, gain hair, maybe shave off the Veen beard, change clothes or something.
2. I must do something to eclipse the Firefox logo. Its nice to be known for it, and I’m very grateful for the profile, but it would also be good to be known for other things too! Its been a rod for my own back, and cli Read the rest…

   Tags: firefox, sxsw

Josh has come to save our Aas.

I posted this as a browser news sidenote earlier today, but I think it’s worth mentioning this significant event here too. Until now, all the paid workers at the Mozilla Foundations were those on Mozilla/Firefox. The Camino project – embedding the gecko rendering in a native cocoa browser was undertaken entirely by volunteers, mainly Mike Pinkerton. They didn’t just work on Camino though, as I understand it, Mike also helped produce the Mac builds of Mozilla. (As an aside, read this fascinating interview at Ars Technica).

Tags: browsers.mozilla, camino, firefox

Spot the difference

When I mentioned that ABC News used the ‘older version of the logo’, there were a few people wondering just what was so old about it.

After the initial rush to get the Firefox logo out for v8, it was soon enlarged for use in the situations such as the windows installer graphics, and its many flaws were enlarged too. I recreated the logo in Illustrator, this time paying much more attention to detail. This was going to be a version that would hold up to being printed large (like this!).

Tags: design, firefox, logos

Firefox on ABC

I never thought I’d see this, but it’s a feelgood moment for sure:

Just a shame they used the older version of the logo! You can download the videos here

Tags: firefox

Alternative Sage Toolbar Icon

My previous modifications to the Firefox Toolbar have one problem. Certain extensions’ toolbar icons become borked. This is due to forcing a css priority, unintentionally overriding css rules for these icons.

The fix is simple, the following rules just need to be re-applied in userChrome.css, after the rules for the main toolbar:

 #sage-button {
  list-style-image: url("chrome://sage/skin/sage.png") !important;
}
toolbar[iconsize="small"] #sage-button {
  list-style-image: url("chrome://sage/skin/sage-small.png") !important;
}

So, while I was at it, I created a new toolbar icon for Sage, based on the new RSS Live Bookmarks icon:

Tags: firefox, rss, sage, themes

Firefox of the Day

This afternoon, Firefox got the honour of being Radio 2’s Website of the Day on the Steve Wright show. For those outside the UK, blissfully unaware of these British institutions, Radio 2 tends to be the MOR music station, and Mr Wright’s show probably attracts the 35yr old plus market the most. I won’t go into how I came to be listening to it, but the level of the piece can be summed up in these wee quotes:

Tags: firefox, radio

Optimized Firefox for G5's

Last week, I linked to a guy who was producing optimized builds of Firefox specifically for Powerbook G4’s. These unofficial builds were noticeably faster, almost blinding. Now, Neil Lee has gone and cooked up a build just for G5’s too.

Grab the build from here, which also includes Kevin Gerich’s pretty widgets as standard!

Tags: browsers, firefox, g5, osx, software

Safari style tabs for Firefox OS X

As a CSS designer, I’m really enjoying the ‘customisablity’ of Firefox with a language that I understand. I can’t program, but I can do CSS, which it uses to define the look of its interface.

Here’s another little mod for OS X* Firefox users. It emulates an aqua version of Safari’s upside down tabs. I personally love this style, and prefer the more compact size of them compared to Firefox’s default tabs (which are designed to emulate the window title bar).

Tags: firefox, safari, themes

Sage on OS X

So far, Sage is the only thing that’s tempting to use Firefox over my Omniweb 5/NewsFire combination. More playing and fiddling ensues…

Tags: firefox, osx, plugins, rss, sage

Go Firefox, Go!

As already reported by Asa, after only 2 days the estimated download of Firefox 1.0 preview release is at half a million! The aim is to get 1 million downloads in 10 days, so things are looking good! Whether this will now tail off – who can say? Keep an eye on SpreadFirefox.com which has a live totaliser to keep you updated.

Tags: firefox

Native (looking) Firefox OS X widgets

(File under ‘obsessive browser theming’)

Following on from the previous post, I’ve made some improvements to the form widgets CSS for OS X. Phillipe pointed out to me how to add background images to <input> tags by setting the border to solid 0px white, and the background colour to transparent. So, buttons, textfields and textareas can now look like this in Firefox:

Tags: firefox, osx, themes, widgets

Tweaking Firefox with CSS

I’ve only recently discovered the power of Mozilla’s ‘user content’ files that reside in the profile directory. I’d created a user.js file to add preferences for things like pipelining, but I’d never looked into the others – ‘userChrome.css’ (for tweaking the interface), and ‘userContent.css’ (for tweaking the web page display).

Here are the tweaks and customisation that I’ve done to my copy of Firefox to give you an idea. First of all, make life easy for yourself and install Chris Neale’s ChromEdit extension. This allows you to edit the user files from within Firefox. Once you’ve restarted, ‘Edit User Files’ will appear under the Tools menu.

Tags: code, css, firefox, themes

Firefox desktops updated

I’ve now moved the Firefox desktops to a new site takebacktheweb.org. This is by far the most requested download on the site, so moving them will help my bandwidth.

The desktops have also been updated with the latest, more polished version of Firefox logo, and the official strapline ‘take back the web’.

Tags: desktops, firefox

Hold the Front Page

It’s a sign that times are a changin’. Behold the front page of today’s Sydney Morning Herald...

May these good omens continue!

Tags: firefox

branding firefox

Shortly before Christmas, I had an email from a chap called Steven Garrity, who works for Silverorange, and runs a blog called ‘Acts of Volition’, in which he publishes a radio show on regular basis. (really worth a listen BTW). He asked if I would like to join a recently created Mozilla branding team, with the immediate aim of producing a new logo identity for the Firebird browser, soon to be renamed firefox (Ben Goodger has written up the reasons and process for the name change). The branding team came into being after Steven wrote an article recommending changes to Mozilla’s existing branding. I jumped at the chance, and today Firefox 0.8 is finally released, and the work is no longer confidential.

Tags: design, firefox, logos, mozilla

Edit CSS in Firefox

Quick tip if you haven’t come across this before. There is an excellent web development extension available for Firefox called Edit CSS. Quite simply, it allows you to view all style sheets for the current page in the sidebar, make edits and see the result as you type. The amount of time this saves is amazing.

A problem with many firefox extensions is that they break in current and mac builds, and this is the case here. The useful option to save the css once edited doesn’t work. Even with this bug, its a worthwhile download.

Tags: css, firefox, plugins

New Browsers

After excitedly downloading the Omniweb 5 Beta yesterday, I was all prepared to give a critique, but as usual, John Gruber says it best.

Suffice to say that OW 5 shows a lot of promise, but the beta crashes and hangs too much too often to use it for any length of time. The thumbnail tabs are wonderful and I’m no longer a sceptic. The toolbar icons are not to my taste though. I feel a browser theme coming on…

Tags: browsers, firefox, omniweb, safari

Firebird for OS X

Mozilla Firebird for Mac OS X now has a sweet new default theme created by Kevin Gerich and Stephen Hollander. Until now, Firebird has always looked too ‘PC’ , but many find it the fastest browser on the OS X. This new default theme is beautiful, and well thought out. It makes all the difference and it now looks more OS X than Camino. Firebird removes all the ‘extras’ found in Mozilla, such as email and chat, but keeps the Javascript console, which I find immensely useful for web development.

Tags: firefox, osx