Mockup screenshots of a new default Firefox theme have been uploaded by Stephen Horlander to his Mozilla website. The new user interface goes by the name of Australis according to the file names of the images on the ux presentation page.

The majority of screenshots show the Apple Macintosh version of the new theme, while only two show how it would look like on PCs running the Windows operating system.

The following mockup shows how the new theme would look like on Windows versions of the Firefox browser.

The next how it would look like on a Mac.

Interested users find all mockups on the presentation page over at Mozilla.

A major change is the integration of the Firefox menu button in the tabbar. This moves the first tab to the right of the interface. The active tab is now displayed with rounded corners, while all other tabs are displayed directly on the background of the web browser and not on an inactive tab background.

A Deviant Art user has created a theme for the browser that mimics the mockup. The theme is only available on Deviant Art and not on the official Mozilla website. Interested Firefox users can download them theme from this page or at the official Firefox Add-On repository over at Mozilla.

No compatibility information are provided on the page. It is likely that the theme is compatible with all versions of Firefox that use the new menu bar button, which would mean all versions from Firefox 4 on.

How do you like the new theme? Let us know in the comments. (via)

Firefox 3.7 Pre-Alpha 6 was released yesterday by the developers. And while we would not recommend using it in a work environment it does showcase some of the recent interface changes that may make it into the beta and final builds.

Especially Windows Vista and Windows 7 users can enjoy the new Aero Glass interface. It does seem that the Firefox developers need to fine tune that interface a bit as it made the menu texts almost unreadable on certain backgrounds.

firefox 4 design

The tabbar now integrates some of the navigational toolbar elements. That’s in theory not a bad thing especially for users who like their browser header to be as small as possible. The elements at the right side of the tabbar however seemed to mess things up a little bit. Most users are used to seeing a close tab button there. Mozilla have now placed five buttons to the right of the tabbar of which two display an X.

Even more confusing is the fact that the rightmost X stops loading a page while the X on the left side of it closes the active tab.

The other buttons from left to right are reload, display all tabs and open a new tab. The layout of the buttons can be changed so that it is possible to move, remove and reorder the buttons.

The bookmarks toolbar does not seem to make use of Aero at all, the tabbar only if it is placed right underneath the menu bar.

Removing the menu bar from the layout will now display a single menu button in the browser’s interface, much what Opera have done in Opera 10.50.

firefox 4 menu bar

The latest Firefox 4 builds, still labeled as Firefox 3.7 currently, are available for all supported operating systems from the Mozilla ftp server.

Redesign plans existed for some time but progress has only been made recently. A new – fairly incomplete – preview of the new add-ons manager has now been added to the latest Firefox nightlies.

Several blogs have already reported about the changes including Mozilla Links or Boriss’ Blog.

Overview of the changes in the new Firefox add-ons manager:

• Redesigned user interface
• Languages, search engines, extensions, themes and plugins can all be managed from the add-ons manager.
• Add-ons manager is now displayed in a tab in the web browser, can be accessed with about:addons
• New extensions manager backend including api changes
• Ram and CPU usage information

The last feature has not been mentioned in the other blog posts. It is only visible in the preview screenshot shown below:

There is currently no button to launch the add-ons manager but users can enter about:addons in the address bar and bookmark the url for faster access.

What’s your opinion on the new add-ons manager?

Update: The Firefox developers have added another option to open the browser’s add-ons manager. Firefox users can enter the shortcut about:addons in the address bar of the browser to load the add-on manage in the active tab.

The add-on manager has been redesigned in the meantime. Take a look at the screenshot of the current version of the add-on manager.

The new add-on manager lists extensions, plugins, themes, user scripts and even an option to find and install add-ons right away.

Firefox 4 developer Stephen Horlander published some new design mockups of Firefox 4 on his personal blog. The major element in this mockup series of Firefox 4 seems to be the App button as he calls it. This is the same one-button approach that the other web browsers have already implemented or started to implement.

The Firefox button in the mockup above is the App button that leads to all the menus that are usually found in the menu bar of Firefox 3. Some users might argue that it is a waste of space to put the app button in single toolbar instead of placing it into an existing toolbar. The removal of the title bar would have barely any effect on the available screen estate otherwise.

Stephen posted some app button variations that place the app button next to the tabs instead or next to the title bar; Something that would free up screen estate.

A visual comparison between the latest Firefox 4 mockup and the current Firefox 3 design shows that the developers aim at reducing the header area of Firefox by 40-50%.

Additional changes in the mockups include:

• Refining Toolbar Button Appearance: Some initial work has gone into making the toolbar buttons more visible on light backgrounds and more crisp and dimensional (pressable).
• Location Bar: Created some very early visuals for reevaluating site identity. Also the location bar is now properly recessed instead of floating.
• Retain Separate Search Bar: With the LocationBar containing an increasing amount of functionality it may be best to retain a clear distinction between the two fields.
• Bookmarks Widget: On a default profile or existing profile that hasn’t modified the Bookmarks Toolbar it will be hidden by default and the Bookmarks Widget placed in the Navigation Toolbar.

What are your thoughts on the new mockups of Firefox 4? Long needed changes or something that better remains untouched?

The most obvious difference between version 1 and 2 of the design mockups is the loading bar that has been placed above each tab in the Internet browser. That’s actually a clever way of indicating the page loading status to the user. The current release version of Firefox displays a loading icon but no progress bar.

The bookmarks toolbar has also be added again to the Firefox interface. If you remember it was not included in the first design mockups that have been posted a few months ago. The menu bar has been replaced with a single page button that leads to the menus. That’s a big change for users who do not use add-ons like Tiny Menu which offer this functionality more or less in current versions of Firefox.

You can check out the new Firefox 3.7 design mockups for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows XP at the Mozilla Wiki.

Firefox 3.7 Design Mockups:

The design mockups of Firefox 3.7 look like they are making use of Aero Glass in Windows Vista and Windows 7. The RSS and bookmark icons have been moved out of the Firefox address bar and the two new entries Page and Tools have been added to the header. Page apparently contains functions and options that are directly related to the active page while Tools will be used for changing the UI of the web browser. Tabs are now rounded as well.

The design for Windows XP is basically the same as for Windows Vista sans the Aero Glass effects.

Firefox 4.0 Design Mockups:

Two different design mockups have been posted for Firefox 4. The main difference lies in the location of the tabbar. Firefox 4 version a comes with the tabbar in the usual place while version b moves the tabs to the top of the web browser similar to the tabs in Google Chrome.

Some of the most obvious changes include the absence of the status bar, the unifcation of the address bar with the search bar and a big new bookmarks button. Version b seems to have drawn several design inspirations from the Google browser. It does not come with a title bar anymore which could be a problem for long page titles. The bookmarks button is gone in this release and the page and tools buttons are placed in the tabbar next to each other.

The Mozilla team added a pro and con list to the second design mockup which is addressing all these concerns.

Verdict: Many of the changes proposed can already be done with add-ons which is probably a better way of handling changes. Add-ons allow users to remove the status or title bar, move the tabs on top or combine the address field with the search field. The biggest risk will be design changes that most Firefox users do not like or do not want to cope with. It is possible that the Firefox community will create add-ons that address these problems. It could also be that Firefox users decided to look at alternative browsers instead.