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As of March 31st, Mozilla has turned two decades old.
Netscape Communications made two important announcements on January 23rd, 1998:
- First, that the Netscape Communicator product would be available free of charge;
- Second, that the source code for Communicator would also be free.
On March 31st, the first developer release of the source code to Communicator was made available.
Sources:
mozilla.org is 20 years old
Mozilla marks 20th anniversary with commitment to better human experiences online
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McDonald's -- Because you're worth it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @11:43PM (5 children)
Mozilla is 20 years old, and to celebrate they are going to change Firefox's UI and extension model again.
j/k
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @11:47PM (4 children)
Only off by about 4 months: https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/new-firefox-organized-better/ [mozilla.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:09AM (3 children)
There is a trend amongst modern UIs to make it difficult to make discovery of options, widgets, features, etc. difficult.
For example, a new version of Firefox, how do you change the proxy? Well, you go to preferences and type "proxy" into the search box. But that presumes that you know that you want to change the proxy.
Another example, in an incognito browser window in Chrome, how do you open a new tab? Well, you hover over the place next to the existing tab and a button (unlabeled) appears. But why isn't it visible all the time? What possible benefit is there to hiding this button? Note that this behaviour only happens on the incognito window. Why? Why should the incognito window hide a button that is visible in a normal window?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:32AM
Whereas, if you're a long-time Firefox user, you probably know by heart the old way. Tools-options-network, connection settings button. Without in any way implying that's necessarily a *better* method in abstract, what seems over the top to me is that there is no backwards compatibility - the old way that had probably worked for 10 years without interruption simply quit working for no apparent reason.
"Another example, in an incognito browser window in Chrome, how do you open a new tab?"
Doesn't ctrl-t work?
"Well, you hover over the place next to the existing tab and a button (unlabeled) appears. But why isn't it visible all the time?"
Poor design coupled with a very well placed typo, perhaps.
Chrome is just awful from the start of course. Precious snowflake of a program can't possibly have a standard titlebar even. What is the point of having UI standards if you can just go ignore them completely whenever you wanna? (And yes, I know, it's not just chrome, MS violate their own rulebook constantly as well.)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:52AM
Its simple, they are doing AB testing which is a form of NHST. This inevitably leads to nonsense and destroys the field that adopts it.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:37PM
UX experts, which in my experience are way beyond Sturgeon's Law, probably touching 99.5-99.9%, have asserted that "discoverable" interfaces are more engaging.
And hey presto - UIs now come complete with a bucket load of Stockholm syndrome.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves