
Firefox 57: new Photon design screenshots - anaxag0ras
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/05/14/firefox-57-new-photon-design-screenshots/
======
abrowne
Live mockups here (found via a link in Bugzilla; I don't know how accurate
they are, but S[tephen] Horlander is a Mozilla designer): [https://people-
mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mocku...](https://people-
mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mockups/)

~~~
nachtigall
And here are some first images for Photon on Android: [https://www.soeren-
hentzschel.at/firefox-android/erste-bilde...](https://www.soeren-
hentzschel.at/firefox-android/erste-bilder-und-videos-zu-photon-fuer-android/)
(article is in German, but the images will do ;)

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lostmsu
IMHO, Firefox needs to focus on performance now. There's nothing wrong with
the 'old' UI. It is performance that made me move to Chrome.

~~~
sergiotapia
Try Brave to get a taste of what browsing used to feel like. Just ridiculously
fast. It's so fast it "feels" fake, hard to explain. Try it.

~~~
dstaley
Brave is built with the same rendering engine and JavaScript engine as Chrome
(Blink and V8). I think the speed increase is probably due to the built-in ad
blocker.

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sorenjan
Where's the search bar? I use that more than the URL bar, doesn't mean I don't
want a URL bar too. Classic Theme Restorer will stop working when Mozilla goes
web extensions only, and now this?

~~~
Dunedan
I stopped using the search bar long ago in favor of using "smart keywords"
([https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-
address...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar))
in the urlbar. Maybe that's an option for you as well.

~~~
Brakenshire
I make DuckDuckGo my principal search engine, then use !bang syntax in the
url/awesome bar.

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felixer
Mozilla needs to stop messing with the UI and removing functionality. From
removing a lot of UI customization, to requiring extension signing, forcing
PulseAudio on Linux and now removing the search bar. Congratulations Mozilla,
it's Chrome.

I'm not sure who they're catering to anymore. People that like Chrome, but
don't want to use it?

Edit: it looks very different than Chrome, but I feel like they're constantly
copying (removing) functionality

~~~
kuschku
They’re messing with the UI because the current UI still uses XUL (an
antiquated XML based widget toolkit with lots of bugs, slow performance, and
the cause of many Firefox issues).

This new UI is entirely HTML – allowing the browser to be a lot faster.

> to requiring extension signing

That’s to prevent the vast majority of Firefox users from getting auto-
installed toolbars.

> forcing PulseAudio on Linux

You’re free to maintain the Firefox ALSA backend, which less than 1% of Linux
users use, and which no one was willing to continue maintaining.

~~~
dralley
>This new UI is entirely HTML – allowing the browser to be a lot faster.

No, that is definitely not true. The rewrite is, however, part of an effort to
make the UI something which _can_ be represented in HTML easily, and they may
be working on making as much of it HTML as possible, but bits of the UI will
be XUL for a long time to come.

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Brakenshire
Anyone know what's going on with the icons in the top left of the first
screenshot? Or on this mockup posted by abrowne below:

[https://people-
mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mocku...](https://people-
mozilla.org/~shorlander/projects/photon/Mockups/linux.html)

Would be quite useful to have an area like that for web apps. The browser
could apply a heuristic similar to that used by Chrome for the 'pin to home
screen' (a website that fulfills the PWA guidelines, and is used repeatedly),
which would then be pinned to the new tab page, and when they are open go to
that area at the top left. Or something.

But, anyone know what it's actually used for?

~~~
abrowne
Pinned tabs, with a notification for new activity?

~~~
Brakenshire
Ah, yes, just found that this already exists in firefox. Is it new?

~~~
abrowne
Not particularly, I can't remember it not being there.

~~~
notatoad
IIRC it came about during the last big redesign, australis.

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sweden
People are so worried in moving buttons around and making things blue while
calling it a redesign and here I am, just wishing for native horizontal tree
style tabs in Firefox.

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frik
The page constantly re-renders on mobile - worst "responsive design" coded in
JS ever seen.

Firefox market share is in free fall for months. Sad, but no wonder. They
don't care about users. Support the old API as long you call your browser
"Firefox". Fire all your "designer" that mess around with the UI - they habe
too many off them, they are bored and change the look way too often. I removed
the update service, and use Firefox only for local development and reverted
back to the old Firebug. I would be interested in Servo plus an HTML based UI
from them - but I don't wait for them, it see,s it will take 2+ more years for
a useable version. I would have assumed the support the current Firefox with
XUL until then, but without old API support and without XUL support, there is
no reason for Firefox anymore. Chrome and Safari are far ahead.

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johnnydoebk
Overall I like it but the __short __centered URL bar, unused space around it,
and trimmed URL are terrible.

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mrspeaker
I've been loving the "minimized" tab theme that shipped recently (I can't
remember what it's called - I can never find the "themes" stuff for Firefox...
not prefs, not sure where you set it) - but one issue with it is you can't
drag the window around by clicking a tab. I see they've addressed that by
adding a few pixels above the tab now. I think this is a good idea, but I hope
it means they've reduced the vertical size of a tab too: otherwise all the
vertical-space gain is lost.

People here are complaining "stop changing the UI", but web browsers are our
main interface to everything... and they are feeling very 90s - I welcome any
efforts to do something different or updated!

One thing that I think would be interesting to try is to treat the browser as
only the header by default: it doesn't have a "height". When you start the
browser it's 80px high, and the window only shows after you load a tab. The
landing pages seem like a waste/unnecessary to me. Annnyhooo.

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whatnotests
The design looks great - I look forward to other improvements to follow suit
(performance, plugin architecture, security, etc).

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Animats
I'm still annoyed at Mozilla for killing off Jetpack. They told developers
that was the long-term path. I haven't decided whether to update my add-ons or
end-of-life them. Usage has declined in proportion to Firefox usage.

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pbuzbee
For me, Firefox's customizability is its biggest advantage. When this update
rolls out and breaks many extensions and complete themes, I'm not sure what
reason I'll have to choose Firefox over Chrome.

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Grue3
Looks like an EDGE ripoff. Why is there space to the left of pinned tabs and
to the left of URL field? Is it used for something? I have no unused space in
my Firefox UI right now, so this seems wasteful.

The only thing I like is that they moved bookmarks star back into the awesome
bar. The current "joint bookmarks button" is the ugliest piece of UI I've ever
seen.

~~~
ssdfe
It's really weird how for a long time stuff looked like Chrome with everything
getting the smooth corners everywhere and then they gave the Developer Edition
theme which had angles everywhere and now we get the Edge/Chrome all-in-one
treatment. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Firefox is just throwing
different UIs at a wall and seeing what sticks.

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IE6
I'd prefer to see firefox attempt to disrupt the browser UI landscape somehow
(in the same way tabs-in-the-browser did way back when) than see them just
copy another design. Firefox decided it wanted to look like Chrome and now
it's deciding it wants to look like Edge.

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uwu
it's looking more and more like chrome

i'm not a fan of the wasted space around the centered but not-wide-enough url
bar (urls are truncated even in the screenshots)

the rest seems decent though

it says the screenshots are mockups so i hope they improve

~~~
plorkyeran
Photon is significantly less like Chrome than Australis.

~~~
kibwen
As far as I can tell, among technical commentators, there is a one-dimensional
spectrum of browser UI design: on the one end is Chrome, and on the other is
Netscape Navigator 3. Because this does not look particularly like Netscape
Navigator 3, by definition it must be Chrome-like. :)

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appleflaxen
Someone on HN posted the spec-ulation talk by Rich Hickey recently [1]. I
found it really persuasive, with the fundamental point being: when you update
your software in an incompatible way, you shouldn't bump the "major version"
number; you should rename it.

I hope the firefox devs consider this approach. Firefox has great name
recognition, but it will be a deficit if users learn that it is a name that
means breakage.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLBGkS5ICk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLBGkS5ICk)

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jazoom
I might give it another look if they finally use native scroll behaviour in
Android.

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Magnets
They keep messing around with the UI and changing it so often while also
breaking extensions.

If you remove those features why wouldn't I just use chrome? It's faster and
has more consistent usability

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zcyzcy88
Fucked again. No one can stop Mozilla make Firefox more like Chrome.

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Artlav
Not again...

We can't we just summarily execute all designers? It would save so much
diffuse suffering.

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abrowne
Tagentially, since Fx 57 will also kill legacy extensions like Htitle¹, I'm
glad CSD (tabs in the titlebar) on Linux is showing some recent activity:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299)

1: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/htitle/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/htitle/)

~~~
kuschku
They’re going to go even more GTK centric? That might actually drive me off,
tbh.

I don’t want to rewrite my GTK themes all the time, just because GTK loves
breaking the API. I don’t want to patch every version of Firefox manually to
at least use Qt’s file and print dialogs.

~~~
abrowne
Firefox already (ab)uses GTK+. Tabs in the titlebar will be optional.

~~~
kuschku
It’s not about tabs in the titlebar being optional – in fact, I want them –
but Qt’s API for that is still in development, and GTK’s CSD is probably the
worst possible implementation of that feature.

And yes, every day Firefox continues using GTK or even adding any more
integration is a bad day.

~~~
abrowne
Fair enough – I certainly wouldn't mind a Qt version of Firefox – but as a
user of GTK+-based desktops – lately mostly MATE, but also Xfce and sometimes
GNOME – I _like_ Firefox's GTK+ integration

