David Naylor: Blog

Om du använder Firefox är det dags att ladda ner Firefox 4 som släpptes för ett par timmar sedan.

Om du använder Chrome, men helst av allt skulle vilja ha en Firefox som var mer som Chrome, så tycker jag du ska prova fyran.

Firefox 4 är i princip färdig att släppas. Det ska bli väldigt trevligt att få den nya versionen på jobbet, där vi kör Polopoly för att driva ekuriren.se.

Polopoly bygger på en hel del javascript, och kan inte direkt anklagas för att vara överdrivet snabbt. Firefox 4 är omkring tre gånger snabbare än version 3.6 när det gäller att köra javascript. Det borde alltså innebära att mitt huvudsakliga arbetsredskap blir märkbart snabbare när Firefox 4 släpps!

Kör Chrome i stället, kanske någon tänker. Och ja, Polopoly är väldigt snabbt i Chrome, men då uppstår i stället en del andra buggar. Bland annat beter sig textredigeringsfälten konstigt.

Så tack, men nej tack. Jag väntar hellre på Firefox 4.

If you’re trying out Firefox 4 (beta at the moment) and don’t like the new, sleek and streamlined look – don’t panic. There is help to be found.

Justin Scott has a great post showing you how to get Firefox 4 to look more like Firefox 3.x.

Firefox’s Bug 572160 has been fixed. That means that if you choose to have “Tabs on Top” checked the tabs will move all the way up in the title bar if you are in a maximized window. Like this:

That means there is no need for hacks like this one any more.

Bug 465086 is also well under way, which will make it easier to close several tabs with the mouse. Tabs will automatically re-size so when you’ve closed one tab, the close button on the next tab will end up directly under the pointer. So to close three tabs, you just go click click click without moving the mouse!

My top two love-to-hate bugs for Firefox 4 look like they might get fixed for final version.

Bug 572160, put tabs in the title bar when the window is maximized.

Here’s what it might look like:

This makes much better use of the screen space than before. The bug has finally been made a blocker, which means that Mozilla will make sure it is fixed before version 4 is released. Good stuff!

Bug 455694, implement animation for tab reordering and detaching.

Here’s a video of this feature in Internet Explorer 9:

This bug isn’t a blocker, but there is plenty of work being done to fix it. If I’ve understood things correctly, they are also getting rid of the weird, useless miniatures that appear when you drag a Firefox tab.

Edit: As of Firefox 4 beta 9, tabs will automatically move to the title bar when the window is maximized. So the following hack isn’t really needed any more …

Firefox 4 beta has moved the tabs up above the navigation bar, but not all the way up in the title bar where Chrome and Opera both have put them.

Firefox 4 beta

Opera 10.6

Chrome 6 beta

The hack

Now, the Firefox developers seem to be working on a fix for this, but in the mean time there’s a quick hack which lets you do this right now in your Firefox 4 beta.

First, locate (or create) your userChrome.css file.

Then add the following code:

Edit 2: Thanks to dsid who posted this css code which seems to work with the latest nightlies and betas (as of 2010-09-10).

This will make the tabs go all the way to the top of the window, which makes them very easy to target with your mouse when the window is maximized. (Since it doesn’t matter if you push your mouse outside the screen.) However, this means you can’t grab the window above the tabs to drag it. You can still grab it to the right of the tabs though. With the code above, there will always be an area next to the minimize-maximize-close-buttons which you can drag.

If you like, you can move the tabs down from the edge by increasing the padding-top values.

Hope you found this as useful as I did. Thanks to Gdgtry for the original code!

I’ve been using the nightly builds of Firefox 4 for a while now, and thought I’d just blog about a few of the nice improvements that have been made.

Sync

Firefox now lets you connect and sync your bookmarks, passwords, history and settings between different computers. Personally, I have been using the Weave extension to do this for quite a while. Specifically I have synced history and passwords between my home and work computer. Bookmarks I have intentionally kept separate.

The especially nice thing is that this works with Firefox Mobile too. And if you have an iPhone, there is the Firefox Home app which loads your Firefox history, bookmarks and tabs for the Safari browser.

Tab sets

A new feature for those who have a *lot* of tabs open. With tab sets, you can hit Ctrl+Space and organize your tabs into groups. It is hard to explain in words, so have a look at the video here.

New theme

Firefox’s look has been given a complete overhaul. The goal of the new theme is to get out of the user’s way and to leave as much space as possible for the web content.

Here’s what the end result should look like:

The current betas have parts of the new theme, but not all of it.

For anyone using Windows Vista or Windows 7, this will be a welcome update since it fits better in with the operating system. Especially since the new theme supports Aero Glass, i.e. the semi transparent windows in Vista & 7.

Tabs on top

One major part of the new look is the fact that tabs have been moved to the top of the window, above the navigation and bookmark bars. (Anyone who wants the tabs below the navigation bar can move them back.)

There are pros and cons to both placements. Having them at the top feels more logical though, since the tab applies to navigation buttons and the location bar. Also, there is screen space to be saved if you push the tabs all the way to the top of the window when maximized. This hasn’t yet been fixed, but it looks like it will be.

WebM support

WebM will probably be the next big thing on the web. Imagine being able to watch video on the web without the hassle of plug-ins? Well, when the web browsers all support a common video format that could become reality. At the moment, Internet Explorer is the only browser not to support WebM.

App tabs

In Firefox 4, you can right-click a tab and make it into an “App tab”. This basically pins the tab over to the left and hides the page title. Useful for tabs that you keep open all the time, such as e-mail or Facebook. Here is a nice video explaining the feature.

Behind the scenes

Apart from the new features that are directly visible to the user, Firefox 4 has loads and loads of improvements in the way it interprets web pages. So when you do upgrade, you’re also making life easier (& more fun!) for every single web developer out there.

If you haven’t already, you can get the latest Firefox 4 beta here.