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Firefox 5 UI mock-ups from Mozilla: pinned sites, slicker search bar, and more
Over the last few days, Mozilla's lovely Are We Pretty Yet? has been steadily accumulating Firefox 5 interface mock-ups. If you haven't visited AWPY before, its primary purpose is for listing and fixing bugs in the Firefox 4 UI -- but it seems it will now also be used to showcase potential interfaces for Firefox 5.The mock-ups include concepts for 'desktop apps', which are Firefox's answer to IE9's pinned sites, and hopefully they'll re-use the same meta tags so that website developers won't have to accommodate both browsers. Presumably a similar interface will be used for Open Web Apps when they finally emerge, too.
There are some suggested changes to the search bar, mostly to make it more streamlined -- and no sign of it being merged with the location bar, like Chrome or IE9.
Firefox Sync looks like it will be more prominently advertised, both on the about:home default start page, and in Remember Password and Edit Bookmark dialogs.
Finally, it looks like enabling/disabling and updating add-ons could be significantly streamlined in Firefox 5. It seems a little odd to break out into a separate window after moving to a tabbed add-on manager in Firefox 4, though.
It's unlikely that any of these are more than design concepts at the moment, so don't get too scared or excited. We shouldn't have long to wait before real builds of Firefox 5 begin to emerge, anyway -- probably by the end of March.
There are a couple of full-size screenshots of the mock-ups after the break.
(Click to zoom)
(Click to zoom)
Comments
12
Subscribe to commentsNickFeb 17th 2011 7:05AM
I hope this is some sort of HTML5 native menu implementation, without having to install crap.
villezFeb 17th 2011 7:37AM
Combine the search and URL bar allready. FFS.
Oskar (:icecold)Feb 17th 2011 8:03AM
@villez install Omnibar add-on.
I prefer separated way.
JeffreyFeb 17th 2011 11:06AM
@villez
I think they could still keep the search bar separate but they should minimize it to just the search icon (magnifying glass). You click and a search box pops down and when you enter a search term the drop-down expands down farther to show results the way they look in RockMelts search overlay.
That and Mozilla should have their own Distributed (P2P) Search Engine built-in.
2late2dieFeb 17th 2011 8:01AM
"Firefox 5" theme for FF4 in 3, 2, 1... ;)
@villez "Combine the search and URL bar allready"
why? I personally remove the search bar and just use keywords from the awesome bar, which is hell of a lot more reliable and fast than having the browser guess what I want to use for search. On the other hand if I wanted to I could use the search bar for a more conventional approach. Keeping them separate gives you the flexibility to use it whichever way you prefer - combining them means you can only use it the one way. No, thank you.
moneeFeb 17th 2011 9:27AM
@2late2die Use chrome for a couple of month and you will understand why an unified bar is a lot better, the browser doesn't guess, the browser acts accordingly to what you type, also the fact that Omnibar is in the top5 most downloaded addons should be an answer by itself.
2late2dieFeb 17th 2011 10:18AM
@monee I use Chrome daily and FF's awesome bar is just better; at least the way I use it - fewer clicks, more relevant result, more flexible, faster. In any case, as I pointed out in my original post, I use FF's bar exactly the same way as an "omnibar" in chrome or IE (I don't have the search box in FF), so I'm not arguing against omnibar as such, I'm simply saying that having the option to not use omnibar (i.e. separate url from search) is better than not having that option.
(Incidentally, "most popular" doesn't always mean "best", see Justin Beiber)
villezFeb 17th 2011 10:11AM
@late2die, @oskar
Use Chrome for couple of months and you will understand.
RyzvonusefFeb 17th 2011 10:15AM
Yay for future innovation! Now then...
IcanhazFF4plz?
Oskar (:icecold)Feb 17th 2011 10:38AM
@Ryzvonusef not yet :D
http://www.canweshipyet.com/
motangFeb 17th 2011 10:35AM
Very cool concept.
SilverWaveFeb 17th 2011 3:35PM
I never use the search bar - just pop a newtab and use the full google as god intended.
Select the word and right click - search google.