1011921 - Incorporate Status-4-Evar and Classic Theme Restorer into FF/TB for UI Choice

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Untriaged, enhancement)

Description

[David Rankin]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 2013120700

Steps to reproduce:

Upgrade to FF29 and the new Australis interface from FF26


Actual results:

Completely disappointed in the interface and more importantly the ability to use Firefox the way I had for the past decade. It took hours of wasted time to search and install addons to get Firefox back to a usable interface. Gentlemen, this isn't a sour-grapes bug/feature request, it is a real-world-problem when dedicated Mozilla users cannot count on Mozilla to provide continuity in browser UI. Business, cannot afford the man-hours required to retrain and provide education every time some developer decides to radically change the way trusted products have worked.


Expected results:

The solution is to provide a CHOICE and CAPABILITY to choose the classic interface. A new feature is a bug if there is no way to turn it off. After the painful experience of testing addons to get back a usable UI on firefox, the solution in the end could be as easy as incorporating the addons "Classic Theme Restorer" and "Status-4-Evar" into Firefox and defaults that allow users to choose [ ] Classic UI and have firefox look/behave the way it did through FF26. (not 100%, but to a very usable level)

Don't get me wrong, I've been in opensource for over 15 years, lived through fundamental failures in roll-outs (KDE4/GNOME3), and the common thread in all the big flops was failure to provide continuity between the look/feel/operation between versions (along with the classic failure of version # races that result in pushing crippled software out the door well before it is ready) Here with relatively simple incorporation of 2 existing addons, Mozilla can avoid the user backlash that inevitably comes.

This is a FEATURE REQUEST.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to David Rankin from comment #0)
> Completely disappointed in the interface and more importantly the ability to
> use Firefox the way I had for the past decade.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

> It took hours of wasted time
> to search and install addons to get Firefox back to a usable interface.
> Gentlemen, this isn't a sour-grapes bug/feature request, it is a
> real-world-problem when dedicated Mozilla users cannot count on Mozilla to
> provide continuity in browser UI.

Actually, many people responded to the new version by... not noticing any difference.

> Business, cannot afford the man-hours
> required to retrain and provide education

We have an ESR release for businesses and enterprises, which sees less change and we support for longer. That said, the new design will be a part of the next version there, too - it will just take a little longer to arrive.

> every time some developer decides
> to radically change the way trusted products have worked.

I take issue with your wording here, right after "this isn't a sour grapes bug". We did a lot of user research. This was not "some developer" deciding on a whim, on their lonesome to screw over all the poor users, as you imply.

> Expected results:
> 
> The solution is to provide a CHOICE and CAPABILITY to choose the classic
> interface. A new feature is a bug if there is no way to turn it off.

This is where we fundamentally disagree. With as many users as Firefox has, we would have to provide options for every single thing we change. That is not a reasonable demand, nor does it scale from an engineering perspective.

> After
> the painful experience of testing addons to get back a usable UI on firefox,
> the solution in the end could be as easy as incorporating the addons
> "Classic Theme Restorer" and "Status-4-Evar" into Firefox and defaults that
> allow users to choose [ ] Classic UI and have firefox look/behave the way it
> did through FF26. (not 100%, but to a very usable level)

"as easy as" is a misrepresentation of the fact (unknowingly or otherwise). Integrating these add-ons is not "easy". It would take a lot of time and effort to do the code integration, correct their bugs, and ensure that the toggle you propose would work correctly.

The cost/benefit ratio here is quite simply not favourable for the general population of Firefox users. For exactly that reason, I'm wontfixing this bug.