351166 - non-native fx2vr tab styles out of place with common gtk themes

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

it probably isn't a good idea to use inflexible non-native widget styles on tabs on a platform that gets a bunch of fairly different widget themes usually shipped and easily selectable by default, and where the default selection varies by distributor and the seasons

the environment has a fair bit of tabbed apps, so the gratuitous difference in appearance is not very nice

theme as of fx2.0b1 replicates native tab style well, test and icon details nonwithstanding (which I guess is fine), although the tabs tend to be a bit undersized

fx2vr themed tabs look out of place due to different hue in several themes, and in several themes spiffy details especially on the selected tab are lost.

it's probably better to just use native tab style on gtk by default since that stuff works (which is awesome! and it's a shame to throw that away by default), and let the platform do the whole looking cool thing flexibly and relatively consistently overall since it can if we let it

screenshot uses themes packaged in debian, overlap with themes shipped in an ubuntu dapper default install (where there are more) is >50% 

Firefox 2.0b1 on the left, gedit 2.14.3 in the middle, Firefox 2006-09-01-04-mozilla1.8 on the right.

Comment 1

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

Attachment: screenshots of tabs on various gtk themes, fx2b1, gedit, fx2b2+

Comment 2

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

I think this may be improved by bug 350690 and/or bug 350689.

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 350994 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Peter Kasting]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think this may be improved by bug 350690 and/or bug 350689.

Maybe improved, but even after those land we still won't come close to Firefox 1.5 in terms of looking native.

Comment 5

[Kingsly John]

On Linux(w/default GTK theme) the contrast on the regular/non-current tabs
is very poor  making it strenuous to read them.

    As you can see in the image below, the 3 tabs are in 3 different levels of
contrast.(the first one is a regular tab.. the second one is with
hover/mouseover and the last is the current tab.)

    http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ffox2b2qz7.png

    The current tab is the most legible/clear one and the only time I tend to
look at the tabs is when I'm looking to switch to another tab and it takes too
much effort to read the text in those tabs.

Compare readability with the same fonts used in the bookmarks/menu toolbars.

Even in the new theme concept mockups the contrast of the fonts is not affected and they look perfectly legible.

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Image:Fx2-new-theme-concept-tabs.png

IMO normal vs bold is good enough to differentiate between the current tab
and others. maybe a leave the other tabs in the regular background color and
make the current one white/bright. but there's no need to make the fonts
duller.

Comment 6

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #5)

That's bug 350690.

Regarding GTK, what about not using the new fancy tabs in Gnomestripe at all?

Comment 7

[Peter Kasting]

After multiple different patch landings, we now do a much better job of respecting theme colors and being legible in different contrast modes.  That part of this bug (comment 5 etc.) should be FIXED.

The rest of the bug, which suggests we be native by default, is (perhaps sadly) WONTFIX.

Because we look less "out of place" now, I'm resolving this bug FIXED; please be very specific on what issues are not fixed if you need to reopen/followup.

Comment 8

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** Bug 353352 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

oh my god, it's even more windows XP'ish on version 2.0rc1 than it was in 2.0b2