Firefox Ditches the Dialog Box | Webmonkey | Wired.com

Firefox Ditches the Dialog Box

• By Scott Gilbertson
• 
  

Get ready to say goodbye to Firefox’s multitude of dialog boxes. Recent design mock-ups show Firefox moving toward an “in-content” look where settings, the add-on manager, themes and other “things which formerly appeared in dialog boxes” will now become just another tab in your browser.

The mock-ups were posted by Mozilla designer Stephen Horlander, who calls them a “work in progress” and notes that the final versions may differ significantly. At this point, the designs have a natural feel. To navigate through the various preference setting in Horlander’s mock-ups, you simply use the back and forward buttons as you would on any other web page.

While the final look may change, the move to in-content displays is already well under way. The recent alpha testing release of Firefox 4 already has a tentative design for the new in-content Add-ons manager. Firefox has also long used in-content views for session restore, about:config, network error pages and phishing/malware warning pages. Horlander says that “future possibilities for integration are things like preferences, the library, home tab, tabcandy and about:firefox.”

Whether or not Horlander’s designs for the preferences panel and other UI elements make it in time for Firefox 4 remains to be seen, but the future of Firefox, and possibly browsers in general, is looking free of dialog boxes.

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http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/06/firefox-ditches-the-dialog-box/

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