14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox 4 has been in the works for many, many months now and there's been a beta available for more than half a year. In fact, Mozilla's upcoming browser was initially supposed to land before the end of 2010. An early spring release is looking more likely at this point, and Firefox 4 is still getting some changes even at this late point.
While Firefox 4 should be in "feature-freeze" at this point, it looks like some subtle but significant changes are planned for the UI. Specifically, the title bar, already under a heavy redesign, will become even smaller when the window is maximized by positioning the tabs at the very top.
At the moment, there is still some unused space at the top of the title bar, above the tabs. This may have been intended to give the UI a slightly less crowded look, but many have complained about the wasted space.
So part of the Mozilla team and contributors is working on a tweak which removes the unused space and places the Firefox menu and the window control buttons at either side of the tabs. This takes up the least amount of space possible without compromising usability.
When the Firefox window is not maximized, there will still be a larger border above the tabs. This enables users to manipulate the browser window from the title bar like they are used to.
This is exactly like Google Chrome handles the same issues. The Firefox 4 UI already borrows quite a lot from Chrome and, while some Firefox purists may not be too thrilled about it, it doesn't really matter where the idea originated from, as long as the principles are solid, it's nice to see that Mozilla is placing the product before 'pride.'
Experimental builds with the UI tweak are available from developer Bill Gianopoulos and they may be part of the Firefox 4 Beta 9, though there are no guarantees. [via Mozilla Links]