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Firefox
iPox Version 3
iPox version 3 is now available!
iPox v3 has landed with some re-designed elements, bug fixes, and iPox Aqua mixed in.
So what’s new?
- The scrollbars have been re-designed utilizing CSS. They are now a light grey with a nice mouse over effect.
- The throbber has been reverted back to the Mac throbber.
- The URL bar has been re-designed to *hopefully* work better with URL extensions. It’s now all CSS and even highlights when active.
- Added a full screen button.
- Also includes many fixes under the hood to incorporate a bunch of smaller, missing elements. Probably didn’t catch them all, but it’s better.
Should Web Developers Switch To Google Chrome?
Nettuts+ tries to make the argument that web developers should switch to Google Chrome but I’m not buying it.
Their reasoning?
- It’s cross platform. – But so is Safari, Firefox and Opera.
- Web Inspector – Which Safari also has.
- Extensions – Which Firefox has many more of, and better ones too.
It’s a nice article, but nothing too convincing unless you’ve never checked out the same features in Firefox and Safari.
I’m sticking with Firefox as my Firebug extension is indispensable and Firebug light just doesn’t cut it.
Are Firefox Themes Dying?
I’ve been developing Firefox themes for the past few years and, as I see Firefox change and evolve, I’m beginning to wonder if themes are going to become a thing of the past.
Why?
- Firefox is pushing personas. They are now standard in Firefox 3.6.
- Themes are complex with lots of pieces to edit and are not easy for users to create.
- Getting them to work cross platform is tricky. Testing cross platform is even harder.
- Themes have to be tweaked often to work with Firefox updates. On major releases, possibly completely re-created.
MidnightFox Apologies & Fixes
Update:
The problem themes have been pulled from Mozilla’s site and new versions have been added. The new versions have been tested on Mac and Windows XP in Firefox 3.5.x and 3.6.
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A few days ago I pushed out updates to MidnightFox and MidnightFoxy that would work with Firefox 3.6 and they failed on Windows. I’ve since marked the themes as Mac only on the Mozilla site as they have no issues on a Mac.
I’m going to research the issue as it seems that iPox is not having the same problems but it’ll take me time.
Re-Package Your Theme For Firefox 3.6
With the release of Firefox 3.6, developers that used the iPox Remix tutorials to create their theme will have to create a new install file and folder structure. Don’t worry, it’s not to hard.
AppStorm Firefox Persona
I’ve recently discovered the AppStorm network of sites. There is one for Mac, iPhone and web apps. All sites have great posts and I’ve become a fan. It doesn’t hurt that they gave away free software in December either. 
They also have a number of desktops on Flickr to help promote the site and one in particular I thought was extremely nice. So, with permission, I re-used the desktop picture as a Firefox persona.
If you’d like to grab a copy of the Appstorm persona, you can get it here. Firefox and the free Persona’s extension is required.
Christmas + Firefox = Tinseltown
Do you like Christmas? Do you like Firefox? Then Tinseltown is for you.
Tinseltown (click to enlarge)
Tinsteltown is a Christmas theme for Firefox that turns your browser into a winter wonderland of Christmas fun.
If you’ve already tried Tinsteltown, then check out the update that just came out. It fixes a few bugs and adds support for Firefox 3.6.
For more information on this theme, check out the Tinseltown page.
Firefox 3.6 Theme Compatibly
Good news and bad news.
The bad news is that my themes are currently NOT compatiblewith Firefox 3.6. I tested it out the other day and nothing happened. No error, no theme, no luck.
The good news is I was able to find out why and fix it. I had to re-do the theme structure and install files but I did get it to work. If you are using iPox Remix as the basis of your theme, you’ll need to make the updates as well. I hope to have a how-to on that soon.
yExplore 2.0 For Firefox Now Live
It took two months and a few rounds of revisions, but yExplore 2.0 for Firefox has been made public on the Mozilla Add-ons site!
Check out all the new features here and let me know what you’d like added.
Fix Your Fonts, Fix Your Browser Problems
For a few weeks I’ve been having strange issues with browsers on my Mac. Firefox couldn’t render Arial properly, Flock had issues rendering fonts in search results, Opera was down right unusable and Camino had issues with Gmail fonts. Safari was just fine however.
Opera Browser Issues
I tried to Google the answer but got nothing. I thought it had to do with Snow Leopard, but it seemed I was the only one. I was pretty sure it had to do with fonts so I started digging.
