In the latest Firefox 3 meeting notes Mozilla linked to a mockup of what they would like to see the Places Organizer look like when all is said and done. Despite being mentioned for the first time in the meeting notes this design (pictured above) is actually several weeks old.
So I thought this would be a good time to show off some other mockups of Places, and to give my opinion on a few of the features:
- Star Button, Sidebar, and Toolbar (mockup) – I like that Mozilla will be placing "smart" folders on the Bookmarks toolbar by default. These will be used to show you things like the most used tags, most visited bookmarks, and more.
- Address Bar Searching (mockup) – I love how visible the highlighting of search terms is.
- Places Organizer (mockup) – This is what we have pictured at the beginning of this article, and the most surprising thing to me is the Vista-themed manager. I’m not sure what it would look like on other platforms, but they would definitely have to customize it for the different operating systems.
I do have one concern with the Places Organizer though, and it’s the thumbnail screenshot that’s seen when viewing the details of a bookmark. I’m not sure whether that screenshot is taken on-the-fly when it’s needed, or whether Firefox stores a thumbnail for all of your bookmarks? That just seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead either way, and I could see it being a source of poor performance. I’ll be optimistic though because that would be pretty cool to have thumbnail previews for your bookmarks.
- Integrating Tagging and Bookmarking (mockup) – This shows the distress Mozilla is going through trying to pick how they should let users tag and bookmark pages.
The next milestone for Firefox 3 is scheduled for next Tuesday, September 18th, but it’s possible that they won’t make the date. Following that release will be milestone 9 which is expected around the middle of October, and by that point the Places Organizer should almost be in full swing.
I can’t wait to see what Mozilla comes up with, and as always we’ll keep you posted on any significant additions to the nightly builds.
Source: Yahoo! News
Thanks for the tip CoryC!
I must admit, that sure looks cool. The problem is it’s hard to know what will actually be implemented.
Ditto
That was my initial thought as well. I’m trying to hold any judgement that I may have until after some of the stuff actually makes its way out the door.
Places will make it into Firefox 3 before release. The backend is implemented (although it’s still being fine-tuned), and while the front-end wont’t be in M8 (Alpha 8 for the uninitiated), it will be in M9 (Beta 1).
If you’re wondering how close the finished version will be to Alex Faaborg’s mockup, I’d guess pretty close. The parts that have landed so far are a good match to their mockups.
i have 2 concerns about this mockups:
1. why do the tags are inside those pale gray rounded rectangle? i guess it suppose to represent tags, and although its very good looking (reminds me of star trek TNG computer interface) it doesn’t seems to belong there. but i am sure they will grow on me.
2. what if some1 wants to use far more tags then the usual 3 they show there? will i have to scroll through a long line or something?
and what is the order in which all the tags will show up in that field?
i also wonder if they will support some sort of hierarchy of tags. but i guess i have bigger problems to solve then decide on this.
I sure hope that it is close to that. I just can’t see them moving away from the Menu Bar like the mockup implies. I really wish they would, but I have a hard time seeing that happen.
I’m thinking they are making them look like buttons that can be clicked. I don’t know what would happen when you click them, but I’m sure something would.
I’m guessing that they will just have an arrow at the end that when clicked will show a dropdown menu of all the remaining tags.
and speaking of tags, i didn’t see anything about a Tag Cloud, which is probably the most popular way that websites choose to display the tags you created.
if i will have to tag a new bookmark, using a long, A to Z list of my current tag, it might be less then ideal.
the same thing goes to just browsing through my current tags.
but then again, i think Firefox is the first mainstream application, on multiple platform, which will actually be using the idea of Tags to store and retrieve data. and that means a lot of trial and error.
i really wish them all the best with this.
While the tag cloud might be useful for some people I think that is something they will probably leave out. You have to remember that Firefox revolves around the development of extensions, and so their goal is to probably add the basic tag functionality so that extension developers can do the rest.
i dont think that in this case a tag cloud falls under basic functionality. cause unless they have something up their sleeves, i don’t see the current UI to be very comfortable when it comes to handling a lot more tags then, lets say, 3 per bookmark.
of course i might be wrong, and when i actually get to play with it, i would find it works fine, but right now, even though they have to take into consideration the novice user as well, i do believe that something a bit more advance (and it doesn’t have to be a tag cloud) should be used.
but i guess will all be smarter in a few days, or a couple of months.