546259 - enable aero glass for the main window

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Theme, enhancement)

Comment 1

[Antoine Turmel [:GeekShadow]]

Some addons already do that :
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=AERO+GLASS

Comment 2

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: patch

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: patch

updated to tip

Comment 4

[ronin.achilles]

@Dao: I tried using this code via Stylish to apply Glass... it worked well, except for one problem... 

- Apply Glass via Stylish
- Press 'Alt' to show the Menubar momemtarily
- Leave 'Alt' so that the toolbars go into their original position
- Look at the area just below Navigator-Toolbox... it has remnants from the Glassy era :)... with the same thickness as the Menubar.

Now this could be because I used it through stylish... may not be the case, once its used as a part of the browser code... is there an experimental build to try out?

Comment 5

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

It's not because of Stylish but a bug in the fix for bug 450767. Would you mind filing a new bug?

Comment 6

[Ryan Flint [:rflint] (ping via IRC for reviews)]

Comment on attachment 434493 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

Patch looks good, but we should make sure that bug 458407 is going to get attention before landing this. Dynamically changing the window appearance (f.e. applying a persona) also causes some strangeness, I've filed bug 554764 for that.

Comment 7

[ronin.achilles]

(In reply to comment #5)
> It's not because of Stylish but a bug in the fix for bug 450767. Would you mind
> filing a new bug?

Filed #554770

Comment 8

[Rob Arnold [:robarnold]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (From update of attachment 434493 [details] [diff] [review])
> Patch looks good, but we should make sure that bug 458407 is going to get
> attention before landing this.
I don't think that this bug should affect the theme (though it does it seems because the patch for bug 450767 seems to have a bug where it doesn't determine the opaque regions correctly).

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/2d6cc579661f

Comment 10

[Myzar]

Sorry to comment in a fixed bug , i've just tried the nightly with this check and i get this, i guess a screenshot is better than words

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/1306/uglye.jpg

After browsing abit it gets worse, like the glass area isn't repainted anymore

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/344/ugly2.jpg

Comment 11

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Sorry to comment in a fixed bug , i've just tried the nightly with this check
> and i get this, i guess a screenshot is better than words
> 
> http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/1306/uglye.jpg
> 
> After browsing abit it gets worse, like the glass area isn't repainted anymore
> 
> http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/344/ugly2.jpg

Can you please file a new bug?

Comment 12

[Myzar]

Sure i will , even tho my english isn't very good, I just noticed that this only happen with d2d/dw on , disabling them everything looks fine. So it's an iteration with d2d/dw

Comment 13

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

According to the mockups (https://wiki.mozilla.org/images/3/35/Firefox-4-Mockup-i05-%28Win7%29-%28Aero%29-%28BottomTabs%29.png), there wont be Aero borders (the white line around page content), while this implementation does have them. Is there a separate bug for this?

Comment 14

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

no...

Comment 15

[bogas04]

After hiding bars , browser implements aero dwm on content too! So aero is there , but functionality is uncertain. Maybe this is wrong place to inform , still

Comment 16

[bogas04]

Attachment: Image describing problem with new aero system

Image reference of DWM and content problem

Comment 17

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> After hiding bars , browser implements aero dwm on content too! So aero is
> there , but functionality is uncertain. Maybe this is wrong place to inform ,
> still

There's bug 554770 filed on that already.

Comment 18

[bogas04]

sorry if i caused inconvenience

Comment 19

[d]

Attachment: The new aero effect causes this

I am seeing this with the latest nightly. I can't imagine that it is supposed to look like this, it's hard for the eyes and isn't close to what the mock-ups show.

Comment 20

[Darren Kalck [:D-Kalck]]

Are you using a black background ?

Comment 21

[Steffen Wilberg]

That's the appearance of all maximized windows on Vista.
IE8 has a black toolbar as well, but a brighter (non-glass) tab bar.

Comment 22

[Steffen Wilberg]

IE8 has a black *navigation* toolbar as well.

Comment 23

[d]

Oh, right. Well, Minefield certainly wasn't ready for it. But I guess it'll get better when more progress is done. I'll use a Persona for now, as I can't stand the look.

Comment 24

[Steffen Wilberg]

Note that only Windows Vista makes the glass parts look black on maximized windows. On Windows 7, there's no difference between maximized and not-maximized windows.

Comment 25

[d]

(In reply to comment #24)
> Note that only Windows Vista makes the glass parts look black on maximized
> windows. On Windows 7, there's no difference between maximized and
> not-maximized windows.

I see. Do we have the control required to make Vista behave the same way?

Comment 26

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Well, the discussion about color of screen background and Vista sometimes reverting to displaying black is entirely irrelevant here.

The real issue is that this is semi-transparent and will show whatever color the window behind Firefox might be displaying at this position, not necessarily the desktop background.  Therefore, unfortunately, toolbar text really needs to be readable regardless of the color displayed behind the window.

Comment 27

[gabe]

only way to do that is to have toolbar text change to light when backgound black and vice versa or disable semi-transparen

Comment 28

[d]

(In reply to comment #26)
> Well, the discussion about color of screen background and Vista sometimes
> reverting to displaying black is entirely irrelevant here.

How is it irrelevant? If Firefox.next got released looking like that, people would almost be unable to use it.

Comment 29

[redsign]

(In reply to comment #26)
> The real issue is that this is semi-transparent and will show whatever color
> the window behind Firefox might be displaying at this position, not necessarily
> the desktop background.  Therefore, unfortunately, toolbar text really needs to
> be readable regardless of the color displayed behind the window.

Yes and that's why this is clearly against the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines: 

"Consider using glass strategically in small regions touching the window frame without text. [...] Don't use glass in situations where a plain window background would be more attractive or easier to use."

(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa974173.aspx#glass)

Comment 30

[Leman Bennett [Omega]]

(In reply to comment #29)
> (In reply to comment #26)
> > The real issue is that this is semi-transparent and will show whatever color
> > the window behind Firefox might be displaying at this position, not necessarily
> > the desktop background.  Therefore, unfortunately, toolbar text really needs to
> > be readable regardless of the color displayed behind the window.
> 
> Yes and that's why this is clearly against the Windows User Experience
> Interaction Guidelines: 
> 
> "Consider using glass strategically in small regions touching the window frame
> without text. [...] Don't use glass in situations where a plain window
> background would be more attractive or easier to use."
> 
> (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa974173.aspx#glass)

Microsoft doesn't follow its own guidelines. I wouldn't expect anyone else to do so either. The best case would be for Mozilla to come up with a solution of its own. Using the blueish background that's in the mockups and activate it for the whole window when the window is maximized would be a worthy compromise for Vista users.

Comment 31

[redsign]

(In reply to comment #30)
> Microsoft doesn't follow its own guidelines. 

Mostly they do, especially in this case here. Just have a look how the glass is used in Windows and you'll see that it's not used in that amount and not for regions with text on it. 

>I wouldn't expect anyone else to
> do so either. 

The use of glass as described in the guidelines are not described just because someone wants it to be used that way but because there are good reasons not to use glass on regions with text and in an extensive amount. Even if the guidelines wouldn't say anything about that it would still be a bad decision. 

> The best case would be for Mozilla to come up with a solution of
> its own. Using the blueish background that's in the mockups

That would be a reasonable solution but another solution would be to use the glass on the navigation toolbar only, imho. That's also the way IE and others handle it. I have never seen a program with that much glass.

Comment 32

[d]

The mockups looks great in my opinion. The issue here is that the current builds look nothing like them. But that will change and get better as progress is made towards the official release.

Comment 33

[Darren Kalck [:D-Kalck]]

(In reply to comment #31)
> Mostly they do, especially in this case here. Just have a look how the glass is
> used in Windows and you'll see that it's not used in that amount and not for
> regions with text on it. 
So, you should have a look at Office 2010.
Currently, the text on aero glass (menu bar, caption etc.) is perfectly readable whatever the background (dark or light), due to the glow arround the text.

Comment 34

[redsign]

In Office 2010 the glass is made brighter and not so transparent so that the text is readable. I think it looks good in the mockups and think that most of us here will agree that the current implementation is not the last word on the subject. I just wanted to say that using the glass on the navigation bar only would be another solution for this. :-)

Comment 35

[Leman Bennett [Omega]]

(In reply to comment #31)
> (In reply to comment #30)
> Mostly they do, especially in this case here. Just have a look how the glass is
> used in Windows and you'll see that it's not used in that amount and not for
> regions with text on it. 

The Gadgets Window still looks the same in Windows 7 despite the guidelines.

Otherwise most of its default apps interfaces have never been updated. Those that they do update are going to the Ribbon UI. Of which ironically puts controls on the glass window frame, violating the guidelines.

> The use of glass as described in the guidelines are not described just because
> someone wants it to be used that way but because there are good reasons not to
> use glass on regions with text and in an extensive amount. Even if the
> guidelines wouldn't say anything about that it would still be a bad decision. 

Microsoft uses itself in the demonstrations on how not to use glass. In the guideline, they are saying that it shouldn't be used for everything. I understand that. But in the case of the final Fx4.0 mockup, its not abused IMO.

In a couple of those cases they mentioned, they clearly used glass despite those guidelines. Even the Windows 7 taskbar and Start Menu violates those directives.

> That would be a reasonable solution but another solution would be to use the
> glass on the navigation toolbar only, imho. That's also the way IE and others
> handle it. I have never seen a program with that much glass.

Try turning on Opera 10.51's toolbars. SiSoftware Sandra uses glass extensively. Outside of that, I haven't seen many apps that were bothered to update themselves to use the new Windows UI stuff period. You would have to pry Windows Xp from their cold, dead fingers first.

Comment 36

[Ryan A. C.]

IMHO either our glow needs to be stronger (on windows 7 anyways - compare the title bar glow with Firefox's glow) or we should drop the glow entirely and make the text white (see windows 7 start menu for precedent - even when you set your glass to white there's still a bit of a 'black glow' behind there)

Comment 37

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to comment #36)
> IMHO either our glow needs to be stronger (on windows 7 anyways - compare the
> title bar glow with Firefox's glow) or we should drop the glow entirely and
> make the text white (see windows 7 start menu for precedent - even when you set
> your glass to white there's still a bit of a 'black glow' behind there)

Ah if whatever is being displayed behind that portion of  the Firefox window is solid white, exactly how is making the text white going to help?

From what I see, today;s changes have improved the situation dramatically.  The issue I see still remaining, is that it is still hard to read the Main window menu in the case where the menu toolbar is not hidden and the Firefox window does not have focus.  Perhaps dimming the main menu items when the window is not focused should only be done in the non-glass case?

Comment 38

[bogas04]

How is it fixed if there are issues related to aero?
check my comments @  Bug 554770

Comment 39

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

dao - didn't you back this out?

Comment 40

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

No, but I pushed http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/69e17a1b3034

Comment 41

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

(In reply to comment #40)
> No, but I pushed http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/69e17a1b3034
Alright, so this was fixed, but it has been disabled until bug 555182 is resolved.

Comment 42

[bogas04]

bug 555182 is now fixed