246771 - Toolbar icons in kindergarten-style - revert to Aqua style buttons

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Manfred Schubert]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040614 Firefox/0.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040614 Firefox/0.9

Firefox 0.9 now has toolbar icons in kindergarten style. Please revert to the
great looking Aqua styled toolbar icons of 0.8.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. See toolbar of Firefox 0.9



The themes manager still shows an Aqua styled button as preview for the "Firefox
(default)" theme. Why was this changed at all?

Comment 1

[Manfred Schubert]

Attachment: Kindergarten toolbar icons in Firefox 0.9

Comment 2

[Manfred Schubert]

Attachment: Great looking Auqa styled icons in Firefox 0.8

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

Sorry, I have to close this bug as invalid. The powers-that-be have chosen this
theme and are still tweaking it. You might have a different opinion, but
personal preferences aren't valid bug-reports. You can always install a
different theme, or  design your own.

Comment 4

[Manfred Schubert]

The "powers-that-be" - who are those sissies that they don't dare to reveal their name? Post the 
responsible person's e-mail address, so that I can tell him my opinion.
The new look sucks and no amount of "tweaking" is going to change that. That's not an opinion; that's 
a fact. It's a fact for two reasons mainly:

a)
One basic rule of the graphical user interface says that objects that can be manipulated are icons, and 
actions that manipulate are menus or buttons. Apple understands this in the Safari toolbar where the 
actions are buttons. Apple understands this in the Finder toolbar where the actions are buttons and 
objects like the iDisk are icons. Camino understands this where actions in the toolbar are buttons - and 
this is the same company as Firefox! And Firefox 0.8 understood this rule as well. Now in Firefox 0.9 
the commands in the toolbar look like objects. This is objectively wrong.

b)
The icon look like kindergarten style. Good, this is my opinion, but a poll amongst Mac users will reveal 
that I'm not alone here. These icons are aesthetically insufficient.

Comment 5

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

insulting comments aren't going to get you anywhere.  You might want to comment
at http://kmgerich.com/archive/000064.html, but being an insulting person is
more likely to get your bugzilla privs removed.

Comment 6

[Manfred Schubert]

Maybe you yourself should read the comments in the web log you linked to. Many good reasons are 
given there why these icons are bad. So please stop marking this bug as invalid.

Some quotes:

"Well, this is very discouraging. I thought one of the top selling points of .8 was the new mac-like 
theme. What happened? Firefox for Mac has lost it's mac-ness. It now looks like a Windows app ported 
for the Mac. The new icons are too simple, too bright and too cartoony. Its a shamefull day for Firefox 
on the Mac."

"This 'unified look' thing is absurd. Everyone knows that XP and OSX are irrevocably different and taking 
an iconic middle ground will just lead to a half-rate UI on all platforms. Didn't the Mozilla Suite teach 
you guys that fact? I agree that the new Pinstripe icons are the best choice, but their windows 
counterparts are just plain yuck on that platform. The winstripe idea needs to be chunked and a return 
to the drawing board is needed with just XP UI correctness in mind, not this unification ****. Yeah, 
Winstripe is still early in development, but the concept behind the theme will just plain not work. So 
sitting around and waiting for the theme to mature is near idiotic because it is going to mature into a 
bastardized child of OSX and XP unless the whole concept changes."

"Count me in with the folks who were a bit disappointed after seeing the inclusion of Winstripe in FF 
0.9. Now don't get me wrong - this theme is not ugly. It's quite well done and (imho) more consistent 
than many of the previous themes.


But and this is my primary complaint - they are not OS X icons. For example, if you compare the icons 
from Winstripe with the Finder's toolbar icons you'll see that Winstripe seems rather flat and weak in 
comparison.


Branding and software interfaces is quite a tricky topic - Personally, I as a user do not want the Firefox 
brand forced upon me every time I look at or interact with the browsers' toolbar. I (as I'm sure many 
people did) love the Mac OS because of the consistency of its user interface - regardless of what app 
I'm using things (usually) look and work in familiar ways.


KDE, Windows XP and OS X all have their own distinctive look and feel (= branding) - imagine if every 
piece of software introduced its own (different) look and feel, forcing the user to adapt to a slightly 
different standard whenever he/she switches between apps - I'm not sure how desirable that would be.


From my POV Firefox (or any software brand, for that matter) should attempt to create their branding 
through the use of distinct symbols and then adapt their style according to the guidelines of each major 
Desktop environment.


Communicating a consistent branding message doesn't equal and/or require forced uniformity :-)"

"I am a professional designer / art director, and while I do appreciate all the hard work put into the new 
theme (and I have tried it in "small icon" mode) I tend to agree with those that prefer the theme in 
version 0.8. Maybe it is just the fact that the graphite mono-tone 0.8 version gives the feel of a unified 
interface and does not compete (and cause clutter) with the content displayed in the web page. Maybe it 
is the fact that the "buttonized" 0.8 version icons create a clean horizontal line aligned with the URL/
address field. Whatever the reason, I do prefer the 0.8 version...not that the 0.9 is neccessarily bad, I 
just think 0.8 is better. Then again, design is always subjective. I do hope you choose to release the 0.8 
version as a packaged, downloadable theme for 0.9 browser users and grant us the option to choose."

"Another voice calling for the return of the original Pinstripe design. I'm actually surprised that there's 
even a question but the the "button" icons are a better fit for the Mac desktop, and I came here 
expecting (yes, honestly expecting) to hear that the original Mac-style pinstripe would be coming 
back... at least as a downloadable theme if not a "standard option" the way Mozilla comes with 
"Modern" and "Classic". How about that, as a compromise?


I had been considering switching to Firefox as my main browser, after 0.8+/0.9RC fixed the problems I 
was having with the extensions, even if it's a little more sluggish than Safari on my G4/466... but I can't 
stand leaving it open now, so that's obviously not an option. *sigh*"

Comment 7

[Michael Lefevre]

resolving again. please don't reopen it again - this is not a valid bug, and
bugzilla isn't the right place to have this discussion.

Comment 8

[riscky]

VERIFIED INVALID

Manfred,
Also take note of what Kevin said at the URL below... try "smaller icons" (the
little check box on the customize toolbar)... kevin will be releaseing a graphie
version soon... I would assume that would be the .8 style... and that a better
version should exist in a weeks time.