Firefox 2.0 available [LWN.net]

Firefox 2.0 available

Posted Oct 26, 2006 16:47 UTC (Thu) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688)
In reply to: Firefox 2.0 available by job
Parent article: Firefox 2.0 available

> Going back to the previous design with a close button on each tab is a big
> drawback usability wise, in my opinion. Closing tabs using the mouse is
> suddenly a process you have to aware of.

<sarcasm>
I know what you mean. It's like when window managers started putting close buttons on the windows that they close. I was really confused when that happened. It just didn't make any sense to attach a button to the object that the button would affect.
</sarcasm>

> I think there was a reason so many other projects copied Firefox design
> with one close button in a fixed location.

I think the reason is that most projects don't have people who are well versed in, or care about, usability. They end up copying an example implementation from a high-profile program.

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Firefox 2.0 available

Posted Oct 28, 2006 18:55 UTC (Sat) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link]

Yes, copying features from high profile programs that actually seem to grasp what useability means. As opposed to the firefox kids, who just seem to make stuff up at random, then claim it's the result of useability tests. While I have used and loved FF and its predecessors for years, since early Mozilla days, I'm finding that what passes for useability research just seems like some recent college graduate's half formed concepts.

While I know that this tendency will reverse in time, in the meanwhile I have to do increasingly arcane research to find out how to restore functionalities that the ff developers have removed visible gui controls for.

Then, while chiming in on how great the new FF useability is from one side of the mouth, the other side speaks: well, you just type in this obscure about:config command, or change line x or y of some buried js config file...

Useability is more than just picking what works for a certain type of average user.

I'm hoping that the firefox devs will at some point in the future relearn the joys of 'Advanced' options. Keeping the surface level configuration choices very simple is something that clearly is a good thing, but pulling out more and more configurations and forcing me to learn more and more obscure commands to fix the latest defaults is about as far from my idea as useability as it gets I'm sorry to say.

These problems, by the way, are becoming increasingly noticeable on the GTK based Linux FF.

While I still consider the core Gecko engine to be probably the best out there, the wrapper for it is currently only salvaged by the great work of all those extension developers who are willing to spend their time restoring core functionalities [while I haven't checked out ff 2 yet, is it actually true that 3rd party cookie blocking is now removed as an option?]