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Firefox 4 gets animated: New videos show slight browser tab changes
We've already seen some photo mockups showing a few of the changes that could appear in Firefox 4.0. Now one of the contributors to Firefox has posted a couple of videos showing how browser tabs might work in that version of the popular web browser. The videos highlight something that's a bit tricky to show in pictures: animations.
One video depicts how Firefox might look when you're rearranging browser tabs in the future. The other shows what it will look like when you create a new tab. In a nutshell, it looks like Firefox 4.0's tabs might behave exactly like those in Google Chrome.
In Firefox 3.6, when you click a tab and drag it you see sort of a shadow of the web page you're currently viewing. You can drag it to the position on the tab bar where you want to drop it, and the tab bar will snap into place. Chrome and Firefox 4 feature smoother transitions.
When you create a new tab it doesn't just pop up out of nowhere, but rather slides from right to left (see the image above for a rough idea of what this looks like). When you drag a tab from one place in the tab bar to another, all the open tabs will slide around to make room for the repositioned tab.
One area where the Firefox 4 concept has a leg up on Google Chrome is in tab tearing. When you click a tab and drag it out of the tab bar in both programs you can create a new browser window containing just the web page that was open in that tab. In Chrome, this process is a bit jumpy. When you tear off a tab, there's no real animation. You just have a thumbnail of the web page and when you lift your mouse button the browser window snaps into place.
In the Firefox concept video, when you tear the tab from the first menu, there's a quick animation. And then when you lift your mouse button the windows gradually (but quickly) zooms from thumbnail size to full size.
You can check out the new tab animation here, and the tab tearing and rearranging video here.
[via Windows 7 News]
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsphezFeb 8th 2010 5:54PM
Not trying to sound like a fanboy, but seriously, has there been any news of FF4 that doesn't sound like something already found in Chrome?
hdraogmirFeb 8th 2010 6:28PM
This seems to be the current fad. I mean, Chrome has this, Opera already has this; it's nice to see Firefox catching up with the gang.
jrwaltbFeb 8th 2010 7:19PM
Actually I think Firefox 3.6 is better then Chrome 4 without Noscript. With Noscript FF kills them all. Where is Noscript in chrome?
KeegdnaBFeb 8th 2010 9:22PM
If they're gonna be taking ideas from chrome, at least they're taking the good ones.
delphinus87Feb 9th 2010 8:09AM
Same for me: not to sound as a fanboy, but Safari 4 does the whole tab rearranging and drag and drop thing exactly like that. Chrome has similar new tab animations on OS X (it slides up from the bottom), as well the minimal Aero theme in Vista and 7.
w/e, Im all for condensing the best of Chrome and Safari into FF. Wouldn't that just make FF all the more better?
EliFeb 9th 2010 8:12AM
"When you create a new tab it doesn't just pop up out of nowhere, but rather slides from right to left "
Looks to me like the new tabs go Left to Right, not Right to Left....
I think it looks really nice. I'm a die-hard Firefox supporter, though I can certainly appreciate the nice style and speed of Safari and the simple design and speed of chrome.... neither of those 2 feel like 'home' to me like Firefox does. I hope this increment of it also focuses on performance and stops memory leaks.
Brad LinderFeb 9th 2010 8:14AM
I plead temporary dyslexia. I've updated the post.
POWELLFeb 9th 2010 8:13AM
Firefox is a good option for web browsing because its fast and easy to use.i use chrome and Firefox and i personally think that Firefox is better than chrome.i waiting when Firefox come with this new version.
lindstrom.loveFeb 9th 2010 9:45AM
Being a die-hard utilitarian I hope there will be some way of disabling this via css, just like its currently possible to create easily readable flat tabs via css. Maybe its time to make the switch to Dillo, I'll miss the videos though :(