Windows 8 Version Of Firefox Coming
Promises seamless Metro integration.
As you might know, Windows 8 will expand Microsoft’s Metro UI, which is currently utilized by Windows Phone, Xbox Dashboard and other software giant products.
Trying to jump ahead everyone but Internet Explorer, which will also have a version specific for the Metro user interface, Mozilla has revealed its plans to create a “Firefox on Metro” for the upcoming Windows 8 OS.
What so special about it?
Just like all Metro apps, Firefox on Metro will focus on a full screen and touch optimized experience.
In addition to that, it will support 3 different snap states, a full screen, ~1/6th screen and ~5/6th screen, which is up for the user to decide.
As for the UI itself, Mozilla is yet to decide whether it will use XUL, C/C++ or HTML/CSS and JS.
Whether or not other browsers will follow, remains to be seen.
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Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism career back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.
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Just a quick IMO:-
XUL would bring the plethora of extensions but would also bring the unnecessary bloat.
C/C++ would make sense for the UI to integrate into Firefox but would affect the extension platform we’re used to seeing.
HTML, CSS and JS would fit best for Metro but it could prove fiddly for Firefox integration if extension compatibility is considered.
Can Firefox survive without extensions? Jetpack extensions don’t seem to be that popular, I don’t think it’d be possible for Mozilla to abandon non Jetpack extensions…
I really don’t know if Firefox can survive without extensions. I, for one, would sacrifice security and speed over functionality, if I had to.
Hooray Mozilla!
What about Rust language?
It has rusted. Just like how Firefox is slowly turning into rust.
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What are they doing? How different can it look than the IE metro interface.
They really need to stick to solid things.
Windows 8 has the option of the metro interface or the classic interface
which basically looks the same as Windows 7. If you opt for the classic
interface then you can use Firefox as it is. It won’t take much effort
for them to get Firefox ready for that at all. So it is sticking to solid things in that respect. Memshrink and Project Snappy will continue to do their good work behind the scenes and Firefox will be fine.
It’s under development. Most probably it will take some more years to finish it.
Lol… maybe Mozilla should just focus on fixing the buggy FullScreen API as it is of now before venturing into anything else fullscreen – being far behind Chrome and Safari on that…