Now that Firefox 3 is out, I have a lot of themeing to do!
The first theme to be released for Firefox 3 will be iPox and I’m happy to announce the beta is out today.
The beta was born from the Mac default theme and has been built from the ground up. This is all new code people. 
The beta has been working great on my iMac, but it’s not as pretty on Windows. And Linux I have no idea.
Remember a while ago when Charamel roamed the streets? It was one of the most detailed and perfect Firefox themes I’ve ever seen. Well now there is Silvermel; a silver version of Charamel.
Silvermel has every detail down and outstanding design everywhere you turn. It’s a work of art that you just have to see. Lucky for you, you can! It’s available on the Mozilla Addon’s site and works for Firefox 1-3 and Thunderbird 1.5 or 2.
This is one Firefox theme you have to see to believe. 
While browsing through the Mozilla Addons site yesterday I came across the official WALL•E Firefox theme!
Unfortunately the theme is Windows only. However, with a bit of investigating, I was able to extract the jar file and install it on my Mac.
The theme is pretty good. WALL•E is a bit hard to see behind the address bar and I wish the bar was semi-transparent so that he was more visible. It’s also a bit hefty at over 3MB. Other than that, it looks pretty slick and works well. Nothing to extraordinary, but fun none the less. As it makes its way to 1.0, the theme has a lot of potential to grow into something spectacular.
Well, I spent a few hours yesterday trying to figure out how I was going to go about upgrading all my themes to Firefox 3. So far, I haven’t had any good ideas.
The new theme structure with Firefox 3 is different than Firefox 2. I knew it would be. And, at this time, there is nothing out there to help a theme developer know what to change or what to update. There is a long list of ongoing theme changes, but what does that really mean? What are the steps to upgrading a theme?
I updated iPox to install on Firefox 3 and took it for a run. What happened? Well, lets just say there were a few issues.
I was hoping for an easy transition from Firefox 2 to 3 but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
Once the betas become release clients, then maybe I’ll start theming. However, this looks like it could be a complete re-code.
MidnightFox has always been a great theme. It’s dark, yet usable and, as stated by others, one of the best dark themes out there. However, I wanted more.
While fixing a few toolbar issue with MidnightFox, I started updating other pieces. I reworked the tabs, the bookmarks, some menus and the the navigation buttons. Taking extero’s icons and leveraging Pixelmator’s menu design, I created much nicer toolbar with icons that ‘pop’ when you roll over them.
MidnightFoxy was first set to replace MidnightFox, however some of the testers were partial to the old buttons. So MidnigthFoxy was born. It’s basically the same theme, only with a more polished toolbar.
If you tried to download the iPhone Facebook sidebar extension or the latest MidnightFox theme beta, you may have noticed the button didn’t properly install the files. Instead it threw some odd error. This is an issue that effects mostly Windows users.
I’ve since been made aware of the issue and included a link to download the theme and extension file directly. Once downloaded, just open your addon’s window in Firefox, drag and drop them in and they should install.
Sorry about the confusion and thanks to those who brought it to my attention.
Tom, a fan of MidnightFox, emailed me the other day about issues surrounding the ugly status bar and other toolsbars in MidnightFox. I don’t see the issues, but some Windows users do. So we worked together to iron out the problems. Along the way, I started tweaking things I no longer liked about the theme.
One of the biggest updates were all new toolbar buttons. I used the same icons I have in extero and I took some direction from Pixelmator for that’s the graphic design program I was using. I also tweaked the tabs and a few other areas to create a darker more polished version of MidnightFox.
It’s that time of the year again. Time to put up the lights, shop till you drop and dress up your Firefox with Tinseltown, a Christmas theme.
I’ve no formal update plans for Tinseltown, so I’m asking you. What would you like to see updated?
I’ve been running Tinseltown for a few days and there are no major issues that I see. But you may be seeing something that I’m overlooking. So please do share.
My latest Firefox theme, extero, has hit version 1.0 and is live and ready for your enjoyment!
extero is a gray theme with bright brilliant icons from Jonas. It was created to be just a little bit different, but nothing overboard.
Checkout extero and see what you think.
