Mozilla team it’s working really hard on another release, the 3.6. And they are expecting to make public the first Beta on October 13, according to The Register. But the date it is just an estimative, so don’t be surprised if they postpone it for a few days more.
We’ve been talking about the incoming versions of Firefox, especially Firefox 3.7. And using some official statements from Mozilla, the main idea of that version is to remove the menu bar and introduce a very similar look-n-feel of the Office 2007/2010 ribbon (but later, other statements tried to dismiss this article by saying that they are not considering a ribbon, just hiding the menu bar).
Glassy look for Mozilla Firefox 3.7 (no preview of that on 3.6, too bad)
On the other hand Firefox 3.6 seems that is only going to take minor tweaks, here are some of them:
- Lightweight themes
- Improvements in TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
- Optimized session restore feature.
- Enhanced page rendering.
- New additions for CSS.
Mozilla team is working really hard on brainstorming the idea and design of Firefox 3.7 (currently in 3.5, 3.6 it’s just around the corner). What’s the main idea? Hide the Menu bar and use a very similar look-n-feel of Office 2007/Office 2010 Ribbon.
They are using their Wiki to give us some of the advances made so far, the ideas floating in the air and of course receive feedback from most of the Mozilla lovers (and non-lovers as well, why not?). And here are the ideas that they have so far:
- Embracing Glass: Toolbar and Tabs using Glass. Raised translucent buttons that are slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar. Raised 3D look to achieve tactile “feel”.
- Neutral Tones: Overall neutral color scheme that can transition among platforms. Can remain attractive and slick without fighting for focus from web content.
- Hiding the Menu Bar: Hiding the menubar by default (on Vista/7) allows us to use Glass, free up vertical space and retain platform consistency.
- Page and Tools Buttons: Condense and trim existing menu structure into two buttons “Page” and “Tools”. Similar to Safari and Chrome.
- Combine Stop/Reload: Combine Stop and Reload into one button. Reduces visual “clutter” and combines two buttons that have mutually exclusive functionality.
- Home Button/Tab: Remove “Home” Button from default toolbar. Move functionality to a “Home Tab” containing your homepage.
More info: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Sprints/Windows_Theme_Revamp/Direction_and_Feedback
Personally I think those are very nice and significant changes. Office, Vista and 7 seems that they are setting the standards of any UI (no surprise there, Windows will still be the world’s main OS for a few years more). But the good news is that Mozilla it is also trying to establish browsers standards, like the “Page and Tools Buttons” that is a common feature in Safari and Chrome.
And also the “Combine Stop/Reload” feature it is something that I’ve been waiting to see in Firefox for a long time. I know, it’s a very tiny thing, but don’t you love having the same functionality in different browsers?
And what are the other changes that you would include?
