14 DAY TRIAL // An early development preview of the next major iteration of Firefox features graphical user interface elements specific to the GUI overhaul planned for the evolution of the open source browser. Mozilla has made available for download a nightly build, namely pre-Alpha 5 for Firefox 4.0 (although still labeled v3.7), a release that is tailored to Windows Aero in Windows 7 and Windows Vista, but that also sports changes illustrative of the UI redesign planned for the successor of Firefox 3.6. While Firefox 4.0 pre-Alpha 5 is indeed available for download from Mozilla, users must understand that the release is aimed at early adopters and is designed for testing, and not to be run in production environments or as a fully fledged browser.
Mozilla is currently making its way to the first Beta development milestone of Firefox 4.0, however, it’s not quite there yet. Essentially, the browser vendor intends to produce a Developer Preview of the next major version of its open source browser, ahead of the Beta. In mid-May, the first nightly builds of Firefox 4.0 Developer Preview became available for download and testing. At that time, Mozilla was yet to introduce the new UI elements. This detail has obviously changed since.
Early adopters might recall that Mozilla offered a Firefox 3.7 Alpha Build, back before 3.7 was melted into Firefox 3.6.4, that featured Aero support in Windows 7 and Vista, complete with Glass effects. The facelift synonymous with Firefox’s GUI being tailored to Windows Aero in terms of transparency and translucency, as well to Microsoft’s Ribbon/Fluent GUI, is however reserved for version 4.0, and won’t make it into v3.6.4.
But just because this release of Firefox 4.0 pre-Alpha 5 does bring to the table the evolution of the graphical user interface for the browser, albeit incomplete as it might be, it doesn’t offer a guarantee that it will make it into the Developer Preview or the Beta builds in its current form. Mozilla is hard at work on advancing Firefox on many levels, both under the hood and on the surface, and plans for the redesign were more ambitious than Firefox 4.0 pre-Alpha 5 lets to be seen.
One aspect of the GUI that does appear to have gained some consistency is related to the positioning of the Tabs. Firefox 4.0 pre-Alpha 5 allows users to right-click on the Menu area and select to have the Tabs positioned either above the Address Bar or below, their traditional position. The options to hide the Menu and Toolbar bars contribute to increasing the real estate screen space dedicated to browsing. Additional details of the GUI redesign that users are bound to notice are the new buttons for common actions such as Back, Forward, Home and Reload. What continues to be missing is the implementation of the Ribbon/Fluent style Menu, similar to Opera 10.5, Office 2007/2010, and Paint in Windows 7.
Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 / Mozilla Developer Preview of Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 4 for Windows is available here.
Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 / Mozilla Developer Preview of Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 4 for Mac OS X is available here.
Firefox 3.7 Alpha 4 / Mozilla Developer Preview of Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 4 for Linux is available here.
Firefox 3.6.3 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6.3 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
Firefox 3.6.3 for Linux is available for download here.
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