Comments for Mozilla UX

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by Stefan Lasiewski

Stefan Lasiewski — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:50:23 +0000

While I appreciate the new fonts, I do want to point out that these fonts use 8MB of space, which is a lot considering that the average Android app is less then a few megabytes. The Android directory /data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/res/fonts uses 8MB.

Firefox is getting so large it is almost unusable on lower-end ARMv6 phones, which is contrary to the mission of the ARMv6 project.

For higher end Android devices which have more space, I’m sure the fonts are great and useful. However on lower-end ARMv6 phones, the Firefox growth interferes with other functionality on the phone. I currently cannot apply security updates to other software on the device.

Comment on Firefox, Android and Quit Buttons by Kent Knudsen

Kent Knudsen — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:41:22 +0000

Quit is sort of implemented in Google apps and also other apps. When pressing the back button most apps quits and disappears from the list of running apps. GMail, Maps and other Google apps does quit by pressing the back button. So I think Firefox should have a quit function by standard. It can’t of course be the back button as it is used for going back to the previous viewed webpage. I think it’s a good idea to have the QuitNow add-on. Thanks.

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by gngl

gngl — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:08:02 +0000

“Worse when you look at Charis. No Greek extended characters at all and even the modern Greek alphabet isn’t complete … Take the tick for 3. Strong character support away from Charis!”

Well, Charis *is* lacking in the Greek area (strange, given its name), but this font has been designed specifically to support all languages using Roman characters. That sounds deceptively simple, but Charis has, for example, extra tables to support advanced diacritic placement and other stuff that needs Graphite to display properly. From the POV of some people, at least, supporting all the languages with weird diacritics and Roman-derived characters is probably worth more than the omission of a single language.

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by TT

TT — Wed, 01 May 2013 03:33:52 +0000

Thanks for the info (and sorry about the dictator ref’s – hope they were taken as written, tongue in cheek). The work underway seems to be after the ideal solution and has been under discussion since 2010! Anything that can be done by users in the meantime, e.g. substitute a font file that has glyphs needed? I found font.name settings in about:config but changing them didn’t seem to do anything. The Ubuntu font is quite nice and has the glyphs I’m after and I got it onto the Samsung SIII I’m trialing OK. I now just want to get Firefox to use it (without rooting). Surely that can’t be too much of an ask? None of my searching has turned up a “how to” so I hope it’s not impossible.

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by ibarlow

ibarlow — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:04:16 +0000

I really want to switch to an Android device but so far have only found the LG Optimus that can even half render ancient Greek fonts properly in a mobile browser.

There is work underway to provide a download-on-demand mechanism that detects when we try to display text in a script for which no font is available, and offers to automatically fetch the necessary font. You can follow these bugs for more details: http://bugzil.la/619521 and http://bugzil.la/648548

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by TT

TT — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 05:57:07 +0000

“Absolutely nothing wrong with Droid Sans and Droid Serif for web use” ???

There is if you’re interested in classics. I really want to switch to an Android device but so far have only found the LG Optimus that can even half render ancient Greek fonts properly in a mobile browser. Some Samsung devices allow system font changes but then these aren’t used by any of the Android browsers I can find (Firefox included).

But Open Sans and Charis are no better!!

Compare Open Sans (1 Greek extended character – http://www.fonts2u.com/open-sans.font?charmap=54) with DejaVu Sans (233 Greek extended characters – http://www.fonts2u.com/dejavu-sans?charmap=54&page=1). Worse when you look at Charis. No Greek extended characters at all and even the modern Greek alphabet isn’t complete (http://www.fonts2u.com/charis-sil.font?charmap=8). Take the tick for 3. Strong character support away from Charis!

So I’m wondering, in the open aka “free” source paradigm that is supposedly Firefox, why we’re subject to a font dictatorship? Why are we having love it / hate it conversations about the fonts dictated? Why can’t the choice of font be left to the user, or am I missing something obvious? The iPhone has no problems with this with the built in fonts. No prizes for guessing that I’d rather load a suitable, beautiful (in my eyes) font and use Firefox on Android, though!

Comment on Coming soon: The Firefox Developer Toolbox by Paul

Paul — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:38:07 +0000

These changes are a huge step in the wrong direction. The Inspector tool is far less useful than under previous versions. I urge you to stop work on these misguided efforts and revert to the useful functionality you had until just recently.

Comment on UX Principles Behind Firefox for Windows 8 Preview by Persistant

Persistant — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:46:58 +0000

I have left Firefox few months ago for Chrome because of a number of issues (flash) and response time. I have started to try UX and it seems to be significantly improved in particular in memory management. A few bugs still but for a nightly version it is great. (Logmein is not working though. Freezes UX at connection.)

I love the new design and wait to see UX on W8 UI.

Thanks for all the good work.
//CJT

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by ibarlow

ibarlow — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:04:20 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Pierce! I filed a bug against the issue, you can follow along here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=864786

Comment on Improved type on Firefox for Android by Pierce

Pierce — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:53:44 +0000

The new fonts are beautiful and I’m glad to hear so much thought is being put into striking a balance with the design, support, and ideology.

Perhaps ironically, though, viewing this page in reader mode has some real issues. In particular, the text of the entry is first displayed in a small gray font with all links and paragraph breaks removed, and is then duplicated with normal formatting.

(also, the email address validation for comments does not accept “+” symbols :-/)