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mania · 12:53 PM

check it out. I like it. edit: this is from the nightly.

CheesePuff · Jan 28, 2008, 12:56 PM

I just wish the menu's and button's would use native OS X controls as that would complete the user interface experience but until they do I keep finding myself going back to Safari.

0157988944 · Jan 28, 2008, 02:41 PM

This is just the Leopard version of their other kludged together interface. Why don't they actually hire a Mac user? The thing that puts me off is the separation between every toolbar. Safari is just one smooth gradient, while firefox has a dark bar, then a lighter bar, which overhangs the tab bar with a hug drop shadow.

mania · Jan 28, 2008, 04:40 PM

I am still on Tiger - so not sure what you mean by 'Leopard version'. Its a vast improvement IMHO. Its fun to download the nightly versions each day and see what you get. One time it made all jpegs look really weird yellow and blue and orange. Had to switch to Safari for a day.

0157988944 · Jan 28, 2008, 04:42 PM

I'm saying the GUI looks like they took the old interface and Leopardized it. It's still just as chunky, but now in a leopard theme.

timmerk · Jan 28, 2008, 10:51 PM

Firefox 3 final will have native mac controls. Or so Mozilla claims..

TheoCryst · Jan 29, 2008, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by timmerk

Firefox 3 final will have native mac controls. Or so Mozilla claims..

As far as I know, the theme will not be using Cocoa/Carbon widgets, and will instead stick with their cross-platform XUL controls. This new theme is the closest they can get without breaking cross-platform compatibility. The controls displayed in webpages, however, are real native widgets pulled from the OS. Still vastly better than 2.0 (IMHO), but not quite good enough to get me to drop Safari.

Art Vandelay · Jan 29, 2008, 12:36 AM

Interesting that they chose to go with native Aqua widgets when WebKit abandoned them due to the speed hit imposed by them.

besson3c · Jan 29, 2008, 12:44 AM

Originally Posted by TheoCryst

As far as I know, the theme will not be using Cocoa/Carbon widgets, and will instead stick with their cross-platform XUL controls. This new theme is the closest they can get without breaking cross-platform compatibility. The controls displayed in webpages, however, are real native widgets pulled from the OS. Still vastly better than 2.0 (IMHO), but not quite good enough to get me to drop Safari.

Your criteria for a web browser revolves around form widgets?

zro · Jan 29, 2008, 12:56 AM

No native Keychain, Spelling dictionary, and above all lack of AppleScript support will always kill Firefox for me.

besson3c · Jan 29, 2008, 01:09 AM

Originally Posted by zro

No native Keychain, Spelling dictionary, and above all lack of AppleScript support will always kill Firefox for me.

Reasonable arguments...

No Web Developer extension, proper support for add-ons (I grew tired of the cat and mouse game between Apple releasing browser updates and add-ons such as PithHelmet breaking), Firebug, Bookmarks Synchronizer, ColorZilla also kills it for me, as well as consideration of the fact that there are sites that don't work properly in Safari. TinyMCE is still buggy in Safari 3 which is also a problem.

I just wish that Firefox wouldn't become slower and slower the longer you have it open. I suppose this is due to memory leaks somewhere...

How do you use Applescript in Safari?

zro · Jan 29, 2008, 01:22 AM

From the script menuextra.

besson3c · Jan 29, 2008, 01:26 AM

What do you do with the script menuextra?

zro · Jan 29, 2008, 02:06 AM

Lots of stuff. Mostly AppleScript, but a couple of shell scripts also. It's actually very handy. I suggest you try it.

Curiosity · Jan 29, 2008, 03:59 AM

Is that really the size of the address bar? It is way too small! I presume the themes will still work on Firefox 3. Why obscess so much about whether the window looks like all the other Mac windows?

mania · Jan 29, 2008, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by Curiosity

Is that really the size of the address bar? It is way too small!?

no I customized it.

besides development my main reason for FF is adblock plus. blocking ad servers significantly speeds up so many pages.

KENTOSI · Feb 8, 2008, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by TheoCryst

As far as I know, the theme will not be using Cocoa/Carbon widgets, and will instead stick with their cross-platform XUL controls. This new theme is the closest they can get without breaking cross-platform compatibility. The controls displayed in webpages, however, are real native widgets pulled from the OS. Still vastly better than 2.0 (IMHO), but not quite good enough to get me to drop Safari.

That is, as a matter of fact, the only reason why many people try to avoid firefox on a mac. The native widget implementation on forms just isn't there. I mean, the buttons might look alright, but click on the textbox and there's no blue outlining. And click on any select box and the options dropdown still looks nothing like the OS.

It seems that the developers haven't really given this area much focus. I don't know if it's because they're confident that it'll be easy to implement native form widgets in the final stages or whether they're happy to drop that support all together. But until they get that in I personally will still keep using Safari with the latest WebKit nightly builds.

Even if they choose to immitate the native widgets very accurately due to the difficulty in adopting native ones (as Art Vandelay might be suggesting or WebKit) that would still be acceptable so long as the imitations look and behave as if they were native.

If anyone wants to help get the message across, the following bugzilla bugs have already been reported. Please check them out, re-run the steps mentioned in them and give your feedback:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=393917
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402625
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=403700

Cheers!

timmerk · Feb 8, 2008, 08:57 PM

I thought a big feature of v3 was that it would use native Cocoa GUI widgets?

TETENAL · Feb 8, 2008, 10:02 PM

Firefox 3 is Cocoa but it's still using XUL for the chrome widgets. And that's not going to change since that's the whole point of Firefox. If it used Cocoa for the chrome, then it would be Camino. And there is already Camino.

timmerk · Feb 8, 2008, 10:08 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Firefox 3 is Cocoa but it's still using XUL for the chrome widgets. And that's not going to change since that's the whole point of Firefox.

The whole point of Firefox is fake XUL GUI widgets? Huh.

frdmfghtr · Feb 8, 2008, 10:11 PM

Got a link to the nightlies?

Art Vandelay · Feb 8, 2008, 10:43 PM

I think there's some confusion here on the use of the word widgets.

The Firefox GUI (toolbar widgets, preferences, etc) is XUL. The widgets within a webpage (checkboxes, popup menus, etc) are supposedly native, Aqua Cocoa widgets in Firefox 3.

timmerk · Feb 9, 2008, 12:46 AM

Firefox is slow, bloated, and sucks. But it's better than IE 7 and below!

0157988944 · Feb 9, 2008, 12:50 AM

What exactly IS XUL?

besson3c · Feb 9, 2008, 12:53 AM

I haven't used Safari 3 a whole lot because I grew tired of missing out on the functionality that Firefox provides me, but I definitely found Firefox to be much faster and stable than Safari 2. Of course, Firefox has also been far more supported a browser than Safari too.

besson3c · Feb 9, 2008, 12:54 AM

XUL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

wataru · Feb 9, 2008, 05:01 AM

You people hung up on the widgets are nuts. Who ****ing cares?

voodoo · Feb 10, 2008, 04:49 AM

Originally Posted by wataru

You people hung up on the widgets are nuts. Who ****ing cares?

Seems like just about everyone who posted in this thread except for you cares.

besson3c · Feb 10, 2008, 01:33 PM

I don't care either.

voodoo · Feb 11, 2008, 07:22 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I don't care either.

Seems like JUST ABOUT everyone who posted in this thread except for you cares.

Thanks for your ever so valuable input though.

Madrag · Feb 11, 2008, 08:13 AM

I haven't tried FF 3 beta, but I'm currently using webkit (nightly build r30119) and it is really fast!
(I haven't tried safari 3 yet, but I reckon safari 3 may be faster than 2?).
In comparison, for me, FF2 is usually faster than safari 2, but now with this webkit, I'm seeing a blazing diference in speed, and FF2 seems like a slug now

besson3c · Feb 11, 2008, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by voodoo

Seems like JUST ABOUT everyone who posted in this thread except for you cares.

Thanks for your ever so valuable input though.

No problem! I also like pie.

Cold Warrior · Feb 11, 2008, 03:17 PM

All (not a shot at besson):
Let's keep this on topic. Not everyone cares about the finite points of XUL et cetera, but, judging from similar interest in the Blu Ray thread, there's an audience out there.

On-topic comments are welcome. If you don't care, we don't need a poll. Your absence will be enough.

analogue SPRINKLES · Feb 11, 2008, 06:42 PM

Wow, original stuff.