Firefox 3: no border below/no margin above active tab

[Murat Gunes]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

The tab bar doesn't have a border below the active tab, and the lack of a unified border (similar to the non-GTK one in FF2) causes the active tab to overflow into the page view by one pixel (this may be theme dependent).

In a strictly technical sense, this is not a bug, since it's exactly how other GTK tabs behave, but the abrupt transition it causes is visually displeasing, so I think it should pass as an UI bug. The look and feel it causes is unprofessional, and the fact that other projects (such as Epiphany) inherit the same behavior shouldn't be a reason not to fix it in Firefox, if technically feasible.

[Dao (dao)]

Might be intended. I don't actually think it's bad.

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

Maybe it's just a personal preference thing.

I particularly think it looks weird when the page background color is similar to, but but not the same as, the tab color. The change between the two colors is hard to distinguish and looks a bit muddy.

e.g. data:text/html,<body%20bgcolor%3D"%23eeeeee"><%2Fbody>

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

Created an attachment (id=290436)
screenshot 2: http://www.mozilla.org/

> when the page background color is similar
> to, but but not the same as, the tab color

e.g. this screenshot of http://www.mozilla.org/

[Ventnor-bugzilla (ventnor-bugzilla)]

The new look matches Epiphany and other native apps so I don't think a change is likely.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

The tab bar doesn't have a border below the active tab, and the lack of a unified border (similar to the non-GTK one in FF2) causes the GTK tabs to overflow into the page view by one pixel (this may be theme dependent).

In a strictly technical sense, this is not a bug, since it's exactly how other GTK tabs behave, but the abrupt transition it causes is visually displeasing, so I think it should pass as an UI bug. The look and feel it causes is unprofessional, and the fact that other projects (such as Epiphany) inherit the same behavior shouldn't be a reason not to fix it in Firefox, if technically feasible.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

if this is to be changed, then the fix will happen in upstream mozilla bug 405673 which is properly documented in this bug. Setting the ubuntu package to won't fix.

[uga (yegor-jbanov)]

There is another issue with the active tab. There is no top margin, which makes the tab stick to the navigation bar. Also, there is no left margin on the left-most tab, which makes it unpleasantly stick to the left border of the screen when Firefox is maximized. 1px at the top and 1px on the left would already make it look much better.

System: Ubuntu 9.04 (default theme)

[uga (yegor-jbanov)]

There is another issue with the active tab. There is no top margin, which makes the tab stick to the navigation bar. Also, there is no left margin on the left-most tab, which makes it stick to the left border of the screen when Firefox is maximized. 1px at the top and 1px on the left would already make it look much better.

System: Ubuntu 9.04 (default theme)

The red arrows on the attached screenshot show where the problem is.

[ShawnJGoff (shawnjgoff)]

This will make my theme look ugly unless FF uses the tab background color for the strip.

[uga (yegor-jbanov)]

This may be fixed on the theme level (either GTK or CSS) as opposed to changing Firefox code to force margins and borders, so your theme should be safe.

[Vish (vish)]

 Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. Unfortunately a paper cut should be a small usability issue that affects many people and is quick and easy to fix. I'm afraid this bug can't be addressed as part of this project.

Since the firefox status is wont fix, waiting for the upstream fix is the only solution.

 A paper cut is a minor usability annoyance that an average user would encounter on his/her first day of using a new installation of Ubuntu 9.10.

 For further info about papercuts criteria , pls read > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut

 Don't worry though, This bug has been marked as "invalid" ONLY in the papercuts project.

[uga (yegor-jbanov)]

Michael,

Native apps do not have a border because the content of the tab is native too and there is no background color change (thx, Daniel, for pointing that out). Web-pages use their own custom themes and will rarely match that of the native windowing environment.

BTW, the Windows version of Firefox has a border under the active tab even though native apps do not, and it has correct left and top margins.

Why do you think it is appropriate for Windows but not for Linux?

This bug needs more discussion and should be reopened. And, it should be fixed in Epiphany too.

Best,

Yegor

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> The new look matches Epiphany and other native apps so I don't think a change
> is likely.

Actually, the borderless "new look" actually does *not* match Nautilus (native file explorer, which uses tabs), nor does it match gedit (native text-editor, which uses tabs).

If we're talking about "matching native apps", I'd say these two (natilus/gedit) are among the most-"native" apps that there are on Gnome.

Reopening, since AFAIK the justification for closing was that we were trying to match the native look (which we don't). Screenshot coming up to demonstrate.

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

Created an attachment (id=439648)
screenshot 3: nautilus vs minefield (showing we don't match "native" look)

Here's a screenshot of nautilus vs minefield. Both have "#eeeeee" as background color. (I changed my gnome theme to achieve that in nautilus).

As shown in the screenshot:
 - Nautilus's border makes a clear delineation between the tab vs. the content.
 - In Minefield, on the other hand, the lack-of-a-border makes the tab/page boundary look messy, since the colors are similar but not quite the same.

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04, btw. (I don't remember if Nautilus/Gedit had the border in earlier Ubuntu versions.)

[Dao (dao)]

Nautilus doesn't put a dividing line between the tabs and the content, but draws a border around the entire content area, i.e. on all sides, which we certainly don't want in Firefox.

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Nautilus doesn't put a dividing line between the tabs and the content, but
> draws a border around the entire content area, i.e. on all sides, which we
> certainly don't want in Firefox.

Sure, and I'm not suggesting we do that. I was just pointing out that the "our look matches the native Gnome apps" argument (from comment 4) doesn't seem to have a lot of support. (at least, not anymore, with newish versions of Gnome apps -- it might have been more valid a few years back.)

[Dao (dao)]

And I'm pointing out that your counter example doesn't have a lot of merit...

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

(In reply to comment #11)
> And I'm pointing out that your counter example doesn't have a lot of merit...

Well, if we're trying to match a native-theme look, I think nautilus & gedit are actually pretty reasonable targets to emulate. But that's beside the point.

Regardless of the particular example, the fact remains that the "no border between tab and content" look is *not* a standard feature of native tabbed Gnome apps. (regardless of whether it's a tiny border around all of the content vs. a border on the bottom of the tab) That's all I'm pointing out. That struck me as a new piece of information that might cause us to re-evaluate the reasoning behind the WONTFIXING of this bug. If not, that's fine -- feel free to WONTFIX again.

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

(In reply to comment #12)
> Regardless of the particular example, the fact remains that the "no border
> between tab and content" look is *not* a standard feature of native tabbed
> Gnome apps.

(to clarify, I'm not saying that *no* gnome apps have borderless tabs -- gnome-terminal & the epiphany web-browser are two examples that lack a border below the tab. On the other hand, nautilus & gedit & the midori web-browser all have a border -- admittedly because of a small border around the whole content area, it seems, as Dao points out in Comment 9. That's all the tabbed gnome apps I can think of right now. :))

[uga (yegor-jbanov)]

The "native apps" argument is not valid precisely because web-apps/web-sites are not native. I would like to hear a good argument from design/usability standpoint. My argument is that native and non-native content does not mix naturally.

If we want examples, may I suggest:

- Firefox (Windows and Mac versions)
- Google Chrome (all versions)
- Apple Safari (all versions)
- Opera (all versions)

All, without exception, have a border between the tabs and the web content (in some cases by putting the address bar in between).

Unless someone has a breakthrough idea, I recommend that FF for Linux follows the industry standard.