577132 - Give items in Aero Glass area ability to change their styling to adapt to Aero's color scheme

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Theme, enhancement)

Description

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; sk; rv:2.0b2pre) Gecko/20100706 Minefield/4.0b2pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; sk; rv:2.0b2pre) Gecko/20100706 Minefield/4.0b2pre

Some days ago, I saw screenshots of new Trillian 5 and I must say, they are very attractive. They adapt single button idea, but they take it even further. It looks native. I mean, 100% native. And ikt can change it's color according system. So I have two requests:
1. Made Firefox Button look like 100% native title bar button.
2. Give Firefox Button ability to adapt to Aero's color scheme

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

Attachment: Trillian 5 screenshots

Comment 2

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Those trillian screenshots look great, unfortunately there are a few other considerations with the Firefox button that we have to take into account:

-we want to have it turn purple to indicate private browsing mode
-in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to differentiate from other browsers and leverage our brand
-in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to make the window easy to find with your low resolution peripheral vision
-(not as important) we want to use the color to indicate shipping versus nightly builds, the plan is for minefield to have a black button

Comment 3

[imradyurrad]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Those trillian screenshots look great, unfortunately there are a few other
> considerations with the Firefox button that we have to take into account:
> 
> -we want to have it turn purple to indicate private browsing mode
> -in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to differentiate
> from other browsers and leverage our brand
> -in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to make the
> window easy to find with your low resolution peripheral vision
> -(not as important) we want to use the color to indicate shipping versus
> nightly builds, the plan is for minefield to have a black button

Why not black for private browsing and blue for minefield?

Comment 4

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Those trillian screenshots look great, unfortunately there are a few other
> considerations with the Firefox button that we have to take into account:
> 
> -we want to have it turn purple to indicate private browsing mode

Why not just put temporary off-switch button to title bar?
> -in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to differentiate
> from other browsers and leverage our brand
> -in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to make the
> window easy to find with your low resolution peripheral vision
> -(not as important) we want to use the color to indicate shipping versus
> nightly builds, the plan is for minefield to have a black button

I understand, but there is two options:
1. Make inner edge and Firefox word in orange (with possible adjustments if neccesary)
2. Change only inner edge and Firefox word

Comment 5

[Shaun]

Hi Alex, can (will) there be an option for the button to adapt to Aero's colour scheme, or are the relevant sections of code already in place and exposed to any and all interested extension developers?

Comment 6

[Tan Wei Lin Jason [:Ryuji]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Those trillian screenshots look great, unfortunately there are a few other
> considerations with the Firefox button that we have to take into account:
> 
> -we want to have it turn purple to indicate private browsing mode
> -in the normal state we want to use the fact that it is orange to >differentiate from other browsers and leverage our brand

Suggestions:

Just make the "Firefox" wording in Firefox Button orange colour and Purple in Private browsing mode. And therefore you can give Firefox Button ability to adapt to Aero's Colour scheme. 

Or 

Make this feature as an option of Firefox so that the users can choose the colour of Firefox button in normal and in Private browsing modes for themselves.

Comment 7

[Tan Wei Lin Jason [:Ryuji]]

Attachment: Which component can be given the ability to adapt to Aero's Colour Scheme?

1- Firefox Menu Button
2- Active Tab
3- Navigational Toolbar

Comment 8

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

4. PL

Comment 9

[Tan Wei Lin Jason [:Ryuji]]

What is PL?

Comment 10

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

Progress Line

Comment 11

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>Progress Line

that would be very cool.

In terms of changing the color of the Firefox button, an additional consideration is that users will be looking for this color to identify the window (similar to finding a desktop icon). This is especially true if they are running Office 10 with a few windows open, where word = blue, excel = green, etc.

Comment 12

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

But then PL can't have default color and even if yes, then it can't be green, as the default color is light blue. You should consider this before PL's landing.

We can also choice "the light way", meaning that only small elements in tab bar and title bar would have this ability. They could have light glow effect around their edges when hover. Looks very cool in my head; it will fit with Aero's color, but yet not blend with it. Can someone make mockup for it?

Comment 13

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> We can also choice "the light way", meaning that only small elements in tab bar
> and title bar would have this ability.

Correction:
We can also choice "the light way", meaning that everything in tab bar (except active tabs)
and title bar (including Firefox Button*) would have this ability.

* Speaking oif which I have an idea how to keep both requirements in co-existence. First, we will have to look like native title bar button. Then we would add Firefox icon to it, where it used to be, which can change it's color if Firefox is in PB, and by pressing it user will be able to invoke standard conetxtual menu. Next to the Firefox icon will be text Firefox with drop arrow with function as it has now. After that, it change it's colour and glow mentioned above.

Comment 14

[Tan Wei Lin Jason [:Ryuji]]

(In reply to comment #11)
> >Progress Line
> 
> that would be very cool.
> 
> In terms of changing the color of the Firefox button, an additional
> consideration is that users will be looking for this color to identify the
> window (similar to finding a desktop icon). This is especially true if they are
> running Office 10 with a few windows open, where word = blue, excel = green,
> etc.

Therefore, I proposed that, by default Firefox Button is Orange in Colour. If the user change the colour of the Button, The "Firefox" wording become orange instead. 

I am not sure if this will solve your concerns about users using colour to identify window. 

Suggestion: 

Ok. This is my idea, if it is possible to be done. Why don't we allow user to set Different colour for different Firefox window?

This allows users to set colour on different firefox window, allowing them to easily identify different Firefox window based on the colours that they have chosen.

Comment 15

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

OK, let's move this non-technical discussion to here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.usability/browse_thread/thread/e0de163338f6db04#

Comment 16

[Antoine Turmel [:GeekShadow]]

Maybe it can help :
http://www.withinwindows.com/2010/07/01/retrieving-aero-glass-base-color-for-opaque-surface-rendering/

Comment 17

[Al Billings [:abillings - ex-MoCo]]

If we're working on this, why is it marked as unconfirmed?

Comment 18

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #17)
> If we're working on this, why is it marked as unconfirmed?

We aren't, we'd need bug 578780 first.

Comment 19

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

Interesting discussion, but I don't think this is blocking theme work.

Comment 20

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Only half on topic, but we are worried about users not realizing that they are using someone else's sync account, for instance if you are using a public or friend's computer.  This problem gets compounded when you introduce account manager, and the ability to quickly create an account at a web site with a randomly generated password (meaning you just handed exclusive access to the particular sync account you happened to be using).  Since we need a good ambient visual cue, we are playing around with the idea of user specified Firefox button colors for post Firefox 4:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=469304

This helps in the same way that making it purple for private browsing helps (sync is kind of the opposite of private browsing).  It somewhat undermines our brand and application recognition (one of my earlier concerns), but users should identify more with the product if it is more about them instead of being about itself.

Anyway, wanted to give an update here since this is where I starting pondering the idea :)

Comment 21

[Tan Wei Lin Jason [:Ryuji]]

If Users can change the colour of Firefox Button at will, I believe that will make them happier. After all, Firefox is about all customization.

Comment 22

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7qk6ri8zj1qbpfg9o1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1283006282&Signature=RtwYzTZ9o8Bt8Pd1iT9yTtTmPWQ%3D

Comment 23

[Antoine Turmel [:GeekShadow]]

(In reply to comment #20)
> Only half on topic, but we are worried about users not realizing that they are
> using someone else's sync account, for instance if you are using a public or
> friend's computer.  This problem gets compounded when you introduce account
> manager, and the ability to quickly create an account at a web site with a
> randomly generated password (meaning you just handed exclusive access to the
> particular sync account you happened to be using).  Since we need a good
> ambient visual cue, we are playing around with the idea of user specified
> Firefox button colors for post Firefox 4:
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=469304
> 
> This helps in the same way that making it purple for private browsing helps
> (sync is kind of the opposite of private browsing).  It somewhat undermines our
> brand and application recognition (one of my earlier concerns), but users
> should identify more with the product if it is more about them instead of being
> about itself.
> 
> Anyway, wanted to give an update here since this is where I starting pondering
> the idea :)

Look nice :)

Comment 25

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

Is this bug still valid?

Comment 26

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

(In reply to Peter Henkel [:Terepin] from comment #25)
> Is this bug still valid?

I don't think the Australis design needs this.
If you have any elements that could be colored like this. Please reopen this bug.