The Mozilla Mobile team has unveiled some of the user interface design decisions that it made in developing a version of Firefox for tablets.
Mozilla UI designer Ian Barlow takes us on a tour of the UI.
First there’s theming, making Firefox look at home on Android 3.0 while retaining the familiar look, feel and visual elements of Firefox on the desktop. Notice the forward/back buttons, bookmarks button and reload button … look familiar?
Next up - the Awesomebar. Love it or hate it, the Awesomebar is a core feature of the modern Firefox, and Firefox on the tablet will feature this one-stop-shop for bookmarks and history items.
Finally, tabs. Mozilla is adopting two techniques here, depending on when the the tablet is held in landscape or portrait orientation. In landscape mode the tabs will be persistent in the left-hand bar )I hope this can be switched for left-paws - I’m not a left-paw, but I still think about those who are!) and hidden under a single tab icon when in portrait mode.
So, Mozilla has a beta of Firefox for Android handsets out already, and a tablet version is in the pipe.
