Win; Mac; Linux Hot on the heels of Firefox 3, the Opera team announced today that they are preparing for the launch of Opera 9.5, and they are doing so by shooting out the first (and possibly last) Release Candidate to the public. This comes just about one week after they added a new default theme to the browser.
The Opera browser has been prancing around with the same ol' theme for several years now, which can easily be seen from our look back at older versions of popular browsers. Needless to say a makeover has been long overdue, and it's now here! The new theme is dubbed Sharp, and is currently available in the latest snapshot release of Opera 9.5.
Mac only (kind of works on other OS's... read on) The features and performance of Firefox 3 have helped me fall in love with the browser all over again, but the "native" themes need some work.
Are you one of those people who like to conserve every square inch of screen space when it's possible? If so we have a treat for you today! We're going to demonstrate how you can become the ultimate Firefox minimalist with the help of some extensions and themes. If you implement everything that we have listed below you'll wonder where half of your browser has gone. You might also go cross-eyed...
Firefox 3 is scheduled to be finished in the next month or two, and with it users will begin seeing a completely redesigned interface that is tailored to the operating system that they are using. This version of Firefox has already made significant advances in terms of performance, and it seems as though the only thing people have been criticizing in Firefox 3 are the new themes.
Microsoft Office is a powerhouse suite, and it does of course include templates for the various applications. What it doesn't really have, however, are templates that tie together the different apps within the suite. It looks as though Microsoft may have realized this pitfall, and so they posted six very nice (and free) designer templates that each come in nine different color schemes.
Stardock has released a new application called MyColors that will really appeal to college students/alumni and sports fanatics. The program itself is a free download, and it's goal is to completely skin your Windows XP or Vista operating system. It changes the theme, background, icons, gadgets, media player, and more.
Being a web developer I heavily rely on using a variety of colors in my designs. A tool that has always come in handy for me are color pickers. There are so many different color pickers available that I thought it may prove useful to outline some of my favorites for Windows. Don't worry... they are all free!
I was starting to become skeptical as to whether it was possible to have an Aero Glass theme for Firefox much like that of Internet Explorer 7, but there is now proof that it can be done. One top-notch developer took it upon himself to create an extension that would create a fancy eye-catching interface . The result is the Glasser extension.
I know that some of you like to live on the dark side, and this Gmail theme will absolutely fill that burning desire. You'll need to be using Firefox and have Stylish installed in order for it to work, and I have to admit that this is one of the most complete Gmail themes that I've ever seen.
We love to cover new and exciting application launchers because they can really improve the productivity of a user. When we came across the free sTabLauncher for Windows we really felt like this is something a lot of people would love.
One of the big features that Ubuntu 8.04 was supposed to ship with in April was a completely revamped theme. That one of the key things that everyone was looking forward to, but it has since been erased off the list.
Stardock just released a new cursor management program called CursorFX (previously known as CursorXP). It is designed so that users can install any of the hundreds of cursor themes that have been created. One of my personal favorites is Uista, which is particularly slick on Vista.
Last week we kept you up-to-date on Mozilla's progress for the Firefox 3 theme on both the Linux and Mac OS X platforms. Today we finally have a glimpse of what both XP and Vista will look like once the new icons are integrated into the browser. The mockups are posted above with the icons straight from the Iconfactory:
We've known about Mozilla's plans to provide platform specific themes to users in Firefox 3, and it looks as though some glimpses of what the future holds is now in our hands. Those of you on a Mac and testing out Firefox 3 nightlies are able to install an extension dubbed as Proto for Mac OS X. Once installed you'll be able to see all of the eye candy that's pictured above.
One of the things that I'm looking forward to the most with Firefox 3 is to see what kind of redesign they will come up with for Vista users. Right now the Firefox theme in Vista is anything but stellar, but it is possible to improve it with very little work on your part. We are going to walk you through several changes that you can make, all of which will keep the default Firefox theme in tact.
It's December, and with the holidays just around the corner it is time to spruce up your browser to help spread the Christmas cheer! What you need are some Christmas Firefox themes to get the ball rolling while you put up the decorations around the house. And we've got you covered in that department! ;)
Pidgin is an extremely popular open source instant messenger, but have you ever thought to yourself what it would be like if Mozilla created something similar? It would be possible to make the instant messenger do almost anything you want with the use of extensions ...
Launchy is one of the best application launchers available, and it is about to get a lot better with version 2 that is right around the corner. Just today Launchy 2.0 Alpha 8 was quietly released in the Launchy forum, and I've been using previous Alpha's for over a week. Despite being early in the development process it is incredibly stable.
Almost all of our MyFive articles up until now have been about things that we like, but we also want to use this as a way to discuss improvements to applications, websites, and more. It will kind of be like our Opera article where I wrote about things I would like to see in the browser.
