[ubuntu-art] What about Firefox?

Frank Schoep frank at ffnn.nl
Mon May 1 11:30:56 BST 2006


Hello everyone,

I've been planning to stir up this discussion for a long time, but I never 
really found a good time for it, mainly because I'm not sure my issues are 
universally accepted, but I'll try my best to convey my point.

My main gripe is that Firefox is not consistent with the rest of the default 
bundled Ubuntu applications. I've filed several bugs in a row on the look and 
feel of Firefox on Ubuntu Dapper, several of which are delegated to 
ubuntu-artwork and others didn't receive a response at all.

The list is as follows, I've sorted them highest priority first (my opinion, 
of course). The bug descriptions are quite clear I think so I won't reproduce 
them here:

Color mismatch in dialogs using default Human theme:
https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/39264

Inconsistent (unthemed) icons in toolbar:
https://launchpad.net/bugs/42265

Toolbar display should be "Icons and text" for consistency:
https://launchpad.net/bugs/42263

Download progress bar misaligned on (de)select using default Human theme:
https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/39269

I wouldn't be so nitpicky if Firefox wasn't a major application having a 
quick-launch icon by default. I think a large portion of the userbase is 
bound to see and use Firefox on a regular basis, so I'm going over it with a 
comb to find any issues with it. The Epiphany browser does not have any of 
the issues described above.

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to work on a solution, possibly 
starting with the first bug first. The bugs I listed are cosmetic, so I 
guessed ubuntu-art would be a good place to start.

For solving the first (color mismatch), and possibly the second (icon 
mismatch) I think we could develop a new Firefox theme ("Human" ?) which 
either obeys the GNOME theme for colors and icons, or it should by default 
use the Human colors and icons so it looks good on a default install.

Because Firefox totally ignores several GNOME theme settings it's really 
confusing to use Firefox with a high-contrast GNOME theme. Again, Epiphany 
does get this right, it even uses the large high contrast icons in the 
toolbars.

Maybe we can reuse work done by GNOME-Fx:
http://gnomefx.mozdev.org/

The third bug could be easy to solve but is less applicable to ubuntu-art so I 
won't talk about it here. The last and fourth bug is a minor one and I'm not 
sure where to start fixing it. Anyone having ideas on this bug is welcome to 
share them!

To recap: I definitely want to see bugs one and two fixed and I'm interested 
in helping out myself. I would appreciate it if we could create a plan of 
action and implement a fix for the two top issues. I'm hoping someone has 
experience theming Firefox and GNOME themes.

Furthermore, any thoughts on the third and fourth issue are welcome, 
preferably by adding comments to the bug reports in Launchpad / Malone.

Thanks for your time reading this, I hope I didn't waste it.

With kind regards,

Frank Schoep



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