Mid-2009 brought with it the first indications that Mozilla was planning a major overhaul of the graphical user interface for the next major iteration of Firefox, namely version 4.0, not 3.6 which is considered only a minor upgrade to v3.5, and not v3.7. It now appears that the efforts done for the Firefox 4.0 GUI redesign are starting to take contour and that the company has chosen a direction in which to take the end user experience in 2010. Included with this article are a range of sketches and mock-ups of the way designers envision the Firefox 4.0 revamping at this point in time. It is important to note that the screenshots provided here are nothing more but concepts, and certainly not the final implementation of the GUI for version 4.0 of Firefox, and that they apply only to the Windows flavor of the open source browser (especially to Windows 7).
To cut a long story short, Firefox 4.0 will feature style elements common to Microsoft’s Ribbon/Fluent GUI, but also design similarities from Google Chrome and Opera 10.5. As far as Firefox 4.0 is concerned, Mozilla is planning the “Introduction of “App” tabs. [But also to] combine location bar and search bar (separate location and search items can be customized). Tabs-on-top option (possibly left/right as well). In bar search “button” with drop down of other types of search. Ability to attach stop/reload/go to location bar (TBD). Expanded home tab functionality. Disable bookmarks bar by default if it has not been altered from default. Remove status bar. Create a place for extensions. Profile/identity UI,” revealed Firefox 4.0 developer Stephen Horlander.
