Firefox Theme Classic Compact
Like many users of EnvironmentalChemistry.com, we use Firefox as our primary web browser. I've been using Firefox since 2003 when it was known as Firebird and along the way I started customizing the default Firefox theme to reduce the amount of vertical space used by menus, toolbars, etc. When Firefox 2.0 was released in 2006 I had to rebuild my theme to make it compatible with Firefox 2.0. Since updating my theme took a great amount of time I decided to share my efforts with others who might also want a very compact Firefox theme and as a result, "Classic Compact" was born.
My objective with "Classic Compact" was to build a theme based on the default or "classic" Firefox theme and to remove as much padding, margins and border thickness as possible from toolbars, menus, tabs, etc. without sacrificing usability.
Classic Compact Options
To unlock the full potential of Classic Compact and all of the optional settings (including Firefox 2.0 toolbar buttons, the new keyhole arrows, OS native scrollbars, support for dark OS background colors and more), install the companion extension "Classic Compact Options" which can be downloaded from the official Firefox Add-ons site.
Available Options
- Toolbar Buttons: Classic Compact 3.0 buttons (default) or Classic Compact 2.0 buttons. More toolbar button sets may come later.
- Navigation Bar Arrows: Classic arrows (default) or the new keyhole arrows
- Background styling: Gradient backgrounds (default) or flat background
- Toolbar dividers: No dividers (default) or chiseled dividers
- Corner styling: Rounded corners (default), square corners, round tabs only, or square scrollbars only.
- Scrollbars: Classic Compact styling (default) or OS native
- OS System Colors: Light/gray backgrounds (default) or dark/black backgrounds. This option is users of really dark operating system colors. It changes the critical black/dark glyphs to white and light hues.
Some Suggested Setting Combinations
- Most Compact: default settings for "toolbar arrow style", "background style" and "toolbar dividers"
- Firefox 2.0 Look: Toolbar buttons - Classic Compact 2.0; Toolbar Arrow Style - Classic Arrow Buttons; Background Style - Flat; Toolbar Divider Borders - Chiseled; Border Corner Styling - Round tabs only; Scrollbars - OS Native
- Firefox 3.0 Look: Toolbar buttons - Classic Compact 3.0; Toolbar Arrow Style - Keyhole arrow buttons; Background Style - Flat; Toolbar Divider Borders - Chiseled; Border Corner Styling - Rounded; Scrollbars - OS Native. NOTE: This is the least compact configuration.
- My current favorite: all default except "border corner styling" which is set to "square scrollbars only"
Previews
PLEASE NOTE: Classic Compact uses the computer's system colors for menus, backgrounds, etc.
NOTE: Dark background colors are controlled by the operating system preferences. the "dark/black backgrounds" option only changes theme elements to be compatible with dark backgrounds.
Compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux
As of v3.0.4, Classic Compact is fully compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux versions of Firefox. This makes Classic Compact an ideal theme for anyone who would like Firefox to maintain a similar look and feel across the different OSes they use.
I would like to thank Peng (aka HardinComp on the MozillaZine forums) and Aronnax for their extensive help with testing Classic Compact on Linux and Mac OS (respectively). Their help was crucial in making Classic Compact compatible with Linux and Mac OS versions of Firefox 3.0.
Download Classic Compact from Mozilla Add-ons Site
Download Classic Compact Options from Mozilla Add-ons Site
UPDATE NOTE 7/1/2009
I will begin working on an update for Firefox 3.5 within the next few days. I don't know how much work will be involved but I at least hope to have updated betas out within the next week or two. Hopefully Firefox 3.5 didn't screw up too much.
112 comments:
NOTICE: Comments are user generated feedback and do not represent the views and/or opinions of EnvironmentalChemistry.com.
thanks, this last update looks (at first sight!) better than the others. Good job!
Thanks Gigi for the kind words. I've been working like crazy to really make Classic Compact polished.
Any suggestions are welcome.
Hi Ken,
This is Suresh from India. First of all a big thanks for your efforts with the Classic Compact (CC) theme for Firefox (FF). I have been a big fan of Littlefox (another good compact theme that i have been using for about 4 years now), but ever since I saw FF3-b3 and CC 3.0.2, I have converted! CC 3.0.3 is also really good.
However, in the interest of everyone, it would be great if you can have provide some kind of option to allow the user to decide whether they want to use traditional buttons or the default button style.
Keep up the good work, and thanks again.
Regards,
Suresh.
Hi Suresh,
Thank you for you comments and I'm glad you like Classic Compact.
Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to provide an option to choose between traditional back/forward buttons or the new keyhole buttons. If this is even possible, it would require theme modifications that are beyond my abilities. The keyhole icons are, however, still contained within Classic Compact image files.
Users can revert back to the unified buttons by adding this userChrome.css file to the "chrome" folder in their Firefox profile or add the contents of this file to the existing userChrome.css file in the chrome folder.
Classic Compact v3.0.4 is now available on Mozilla Add-ons. This version addresses the changes made to the CSS structure for scrollbars in Firefox 3.0b5. It also introduces full support for Firefox 3.0 running on Mac OS.
Very VERY big fan of your work on this great Theme of your.
I do however feel a bit sad over FF3 betas and the current version of the Theme.
I would like to suggest propose a brand new theme or a split between this theme and a "Default Compact"
Classic Compact is staying true to FF2 while a Default Compact would stay true to FF3 (like he new forward backwards button etc.)
Another thing is that I'm using Vista now. I really use to hate the weird blue-ish purple default background on Firefox, but I had grown use to it. Is here anyway to use the default OS's background like in v2.0.2?
Really great work Ken, Thanks a on for this Theme.
Anoners,
Maintaining multiple themes would require more time than I have to spend on this. With that said Classic Compact does contain large toolbar unified keyhole buttons. Users can activate those buttons in Classic Compact by saving this userChrome.css file to their Firefox profile chrome folder.
In regards to background colors, Classic Compact is supposed to use the OS colors of the computer Firefox is on. Thus if users have set the toolbar background on their computer to say green, Classic Compact is also supposed to have a green background for its toolbars.
Hi,
This looked like a good plugin: I already use Toolbar Buttons with small icons selected. I downloaded & installed v 3.0.0 of CC as I am running FF 2.0.0.13. But it has made no difference whatsoever and in fact doesn't even seem to have been installed as it doesn't appear as others do in "Add ons". Ditto when downloaded and re-installed.
Only thought is I (unsucessfully) tried to install CC 3.0.4...which after a bit told me it was unsuitable for FF 2. Is it possible that this has messed with the subsequent attempted install of CC 3.0.0??
Any advice? I like the benefits that CC seems to have...I just can't see them!
Thanks
On Firefox 2.0, Classic Compact version 3.0.0 should reduce the vertical space used by around 40 pixels on Windows XP when the navigation, bookmark, tab, find and status bars are turned on. If you have problems with v3.0.0, uninstall it and then install Classic Compact v2.0.2.
The newer versions of Classic Compact will not work correctly on Firefox 2.0 because of the changes that are taking place in Firefox 3.0 makes it very difficult to make a theme that is compatible with both Firefox 2.0 and 3.0.
The Firefox 3.0 version of Classic Compact is being updated regularly due to changes in Firefox 3.0 itself and as I further refine the theme. Right now the latest test version of Classic Compact is much more compact than even Classic Compact for Firefox 2.0.
Last update (as of 4/1/2008, or 3.0.5) looks really horrible on ff3, i mean HORRIBLE. It's quite bad - i liked the compact style with no useless eyecandy. I guess i have to look for alternatives.
I'm working on developing an options panel that will allow people to change some details. If I can make this options panel work, I will provide an option to turn off gradients. In the short run, if you provide constructive specifics about what design elements you do and do not like about the new theme, I will work on as set of CSS instructions that can be added to the userChrome.css file to turn off some of them.
The new styling was based on feedback I was receiving from other users as I worked to reduce the amount of vertical space that was used by toolbars.
The styling of scrollbars was necessary so that I could release a single install file for all OSes due to bugs in Windows Firefox.
The 3.0.5 update really ruined the theme for me. The toolbar gradiends are ugly and make the text ureadable, and the custom scrollbar looks horrible. The rounded menu selection graphic looks bad too, and all in all Firefox no longer looks like a part of my OS.
I really appreciate your work, I just hope you'll make these changes optional. For now, I'm reverting back to 3.0.4 which looks VERY nice!
-Lars
Lars,
I'm working like crazy trying to figure out how to implement the options button and panel we see with some extensions in Classic Compact.
My goal is to give people the ability to swap between the old square "Windows classic style" and the new rounded style. I also want to give people the ability to either use classic arrows or the new keyhole arrows.
My hope is to make this a part of v3.0.6. While I have pretty much mastered theme development, I know nothing about extension development, which is making this objective exceedingly difficult to accomplish. I don't even know if I will be able to implement the theme options panel within Classic Compact or if I will have to distribute it as a separate install.
One thing the new gradients do is give me the ability to shave another 9px off the vertical height with v3.0.5 compared to v3.0.4. Compared to v2.0.2 (for Firefox 2.0), v3.0.5 uses up to 16px less vertical space. It also uses 59px less vertical space than a default Firefox install.
I would prefer to use OS native scrollbars, but that is not possible right now because of bugs in both Windows Firefox and the new Firefox add-ons site.
If anyone has experience developing extensions and would be willing to help me build the options panel, please contact me.
Wonderful work! :)
I really like this theme. At first I wasn't sure I want to install it, because I thought it might make my FF3 look too "old". But you've integrated all the new chrome in FF3 very nicely, and your theme just compresses things to make more space for my browsing.
Good work - thank you!
-Ezuk
First off, thanks so much for developing this theme. It's my favorite without a doubt. Together with Compact Menu 2 and a hidden status bar it's browsing bliss.
Having said that, the only thing that I don't like that much is the rounded scrollbars, buttons, etc and the "gradient" menus. Add my vote to the people that prefer the "flat" look of the default theme. Please consider bringing that simplicity back to your theme.
In either case, thanks again for your hard work and dedication.
Hello!
Many thanks for this great theme, can you tell me where I can download the version 3.0.0?
Because I was using that version. I tested others version but I like more 3.0.0
Can you please?
Thanks.
@Me,
I am working on building an options panel for Classic Compact that will allow people to modify the appearance of some of the design elements in Classic Compact. I hope to be able to release it very shortly.
@tito
I pulled version 3.0.0 because I discovered it had gotten messed up by Firefox 2.0. I don't know what exactly happened but when I was testing, 3.0.0, I tried it first on Firefox 3.0b3 and then on Firefox 2.0. Later (after it had been published on the add-ons site when I went back and tried v3.0.0 on Firefox 3.0 I discovered it was all messed up. If you contact me via the "contact us" link at the bottom of this page and provide an email address, I can email you a copy of 3.0.0, but I do not want to make it generally available.
I would recommend using v 2.0.2 as essentially it is the same 3.0.0.
Another vote for removing the toolbar gradients...
Ken:
I'm having a hard time installing Classic Compact Options. I get an error: "Firefox could not install the file at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/downloads/file/26597/classic_compact_options-1.0-fx.xpi because: Invalid file hash (possible download corruption) -261"
I've tried the download on two different machines so far, with no luck. :(
Is there an alternate download location?
OK, I figured it out. The "xpi" that the addons site was giving me was in fact an html error page wanting me to login since the addon is sandboxed, even though I was already logged in.
I figured that the site was somehow not "seeing" my session so I re-enabled third party cookies and then I could download and install the extension perfectly.
I wanna thank you again for the excellent work. I can only imagine how hard it must be to please all the users of your theme, but you've gone out of your way in offering such customization (a first for a theme, AFAIK).
Sincerely,
me, a very happy Classic Compact user (Toolbar Buttons: Classic Compact 2.0, Toolbar arrow style: Classic arrow buttons, Background style: Flat, Toolbar divider borders: None, Border corner styling: Squared corners, Scrollbars: OS Native)
Me, I'm glad to hear you figured out your download problem.
Yes it is very hard to please everyone, hopefully the new Classic Compact Options extension will allow me to satisfy the most popular requests I get. I'm not the first to do this, there are some other themes that have some form of options panel.
One repeated request I've gotten is to support Thunderbird. The thing is, I don't use Thunderbird as I use Pegasus instead, so I'm not sure how keen I am to take on this task.
I'm very glad to hear you really like Classic Compact and the new options panel.
This is a great theme, and the options add-on is appreciated. I've always thought the Winstripe theme was best and Mozilla has only made the theme on XP worse with every update. Your theme + extension really make using FF3 a much more familiar and better experience.
I'd like to request that you add the original themes from FF so we can have an option to revert back to our favorite default themes. Also, an option to make everything take on the system look would be awesome.
Thanks.
I don't completely follow the suggestion to provide an option to the original FF themes, but providing a non-compact option is well beyond the scope of this theme and would require way too much work. I also don't know if I want to add any more toolbar button sets as each set of buttons significantly increases the download size of the theme.
Right now the theme and extension are being translated into other languages via Babelzilla, which means adding new options takes much more work then they used to because I'll also need the new options translated into the various languages that will be supported by a group of volunteers. If new options are added in it will be some time down the road as I have to keep things settled down right now while the translation process is underway. Maybe a few months after Firefox is released and I've had time to collect a mess of suggestions, I'll pick out the best/most popular option suggestions to implement.
I am getting an error trying to install the compact options xpi. I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11, FFbRC1, and Compact Classic 3.0.7.
No matter where I install the options from, I get this error:
Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004003 (NS_ERROR_INVALID_POINTER) [nsIRDFService.GetLiteral]" nsresult: "0x80004003 (NS_ERROR_INVALID_POINTER)" location: "JS frame :: file:///Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsExtensionManager.js :: EM_L :: line 271" data: no]
Source File: file:///Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsExtensionManager.js
Line: 271
Any help is appreciated.
Can't install in Firefox 3 RC1
Hopefully there will be an update that works. Thanks.
I was able to confirm the problem with installing Classic Compact Options on Firefox 3.0rc1 and it appears to be a regression bug in Firefox. It appears that Firefox 3.0rc1 is having problems with my use of named entities (e.g. &) in the install.rdf and DTD files. I have converted over to using numeric entities (e.g. &) and this seemed to have resolved the problem.
I have uploaded a new version of Classic Compact Options (v1.1.1) to AMO and hopefully it will be approved quickly. I would appreciate it if users could verify whether or not this resolved the issue for them (it did for me).
Hi, I just upgraded Personas (v.1.0a6) and it seems it's not compatible anymore with Classic Compact anymore, when previous version worked perfectly :-(
n.b. : I'm on Linux, if that can help to locate the problem...
I have never heard of Personas before now, however, I found its webpage on the Mozilla Labs website and from what I can tell it is not compatible with the full release version of Firefox 3.0, which is required for the latest version of Classic Compact.
There are a massive amount of changes between Firefox 2.0 and 3.0 and in order to make Classic Compact compatible with Mac, Windows & Firefox at the same time I had to deviate from the default themes in many very significant ways. If it is even possible to make Personas compatible with Classic Compact it can't even begin to be tackled until Personas is updated to be fully compatible with Firefox 3.0. Even then it might not be feasible to make Classic Compact and Personas compatible with each other due to the changes that had to be made to Classic Compact from the default theme.
I use Linux, and it appears that I'm getting the Windows buttons through your theme; any chance of including the Linux ones? I have no problem with having to select "Linux" from within the extension if necessary.
(If this is a double-post I apologize.)
I could add new toolbar button sets, but I would need toolbar pallets that meet my pallet size and placements for large and small icons. Please see the following two image files for what I would have to have to add new image pallets:
Large toolbar buttons
Small toolbar buttons
Whatever button pallets I added would have to fall under the open source General Public License (GPL) in regards to copyrights.
I do not have a Linux box so I could not create these button pallets myself, but it would be easy enough to add them if they were provided to me.
After an extensive search, I've found most of the icons (so far, no Bookmarks, and I haven't found 32x32 icons for everything). However, I have no idea how the "highlighted," "greyed out," and "pressed in" versions are created; in at least some of the cases, it looks like weird GTK voodoo is handling it. I'll keep looking, but I might end up not caring enough about getting my icons to match.
KEN : "from what I can tell it is not compatible with the full release version of Firefox 3.0, which is required for the latest version of Classic Compact."
Well, I just saw that my version of personas is not the latest one (note to self, auto-update is not always up-to-date...) but it works perfectly with Fx3.0. I'll try the latest, or I'll switch back to earlier version that was working...
Thanks anyway.
As for the buttons, I use linux too, but I'm glad that your theme uses windows look'n'feel, I think the linux default theme is really ugly...
This is a very nice plugin, please keep adding more options to it, the more compact FF is the better.
I have a problem though. I set the tab clip width and minimum width to the same number so that the tabs won't change their width, but they still do. Are both width settings measured in the same way?
The tab clip width and minimum width options are actually settings that are a part of Firefox three, but are only accessible via "about:config" I have simply provided access to these two options via the Classic Compact options panel. I do not know exactly how they measure width. I would recommend playing around some by adjusting their widths until you achieve the effect you desire. Increase one or descrease the other until the width of your tabs stops changing.
Hello!
Your Theme is very nice. But I have one little problem: If I choose to have the menus in one button, i can't manage to move this button into the toolbar. If that is possible, it would give some more space for the page...
Once the "Merge Menu" option is enabled, you need to move your navigation toolbar buttons to the menu bar because you can not turn off the menu bar. This is done via "View" -> "Tools" -> "Customize".
Once all navigation toolbar items have been moved to the menubar you can disable the navigation toolbar.
Thanks for the great theme and options add-on. Would it be possible to add an option to change the vertical height of the tabs? Right now they are so thin that the favicons are taller than them which doesn't look very nice in my opinion.
I'm very puzzled by your report that the favicons are taller than your tabs. The tabs are designed to be the exact same height as the favicon plus 1 pixel at the top and bottom for the border. If your favicons are indeed taller than your tabs then there is a problem.
With that said, I am considering adding some new options including being able to adjust tab height. I'm probably going to wait a few more weeks before deciding what options to add and it will probably be mid to late August before the update is pushed to the Mozilla add-ons site and approved by Mozilla add-ons reviewers.
To further explain my last comment regarding the tab height, it appears to be related to the multi-row optional feature of the Tab Mix Plus extension where if you have enough tabs open to cause there to be more than one row it starts a new row of tabs beneath the first. It is only when there are multiple rows that the tab height is too small. I think it might be an issue with your theme not handling multiple rows correctly (though I wouldn't have expected you to test for this case) because when I switch to the default theme it appears that height of tabs is the same whether there is a single row or multiple rows.
I was going to link you to the developer version of tab mix plus that works with ff3 but it appears as though the site has recently become unavailable. I might be able to figure out how to get the xpi of that extension if you need it to test (or if you just want to use it with your firefox since its a really nice add-on).
I could see multi-row tabs from Tab Mix Plus being a problem. The CSS instructions for tabs are goofy and negative margins have to be used to get tabs to render correctly. This in part is due to the not so nice DOM structure of tabs.
I can't fix the Tab Mix Plus issue without increasing the overall height of tabs for all users, which would result in an angry outcry from the "make it as compact as possible" crowd.
The solution is going to have to be an option to allow users change to tab heights.
Hi,
First of all thanks for making the Classic Compact theme, it's really great!
I am experiencing one problem, however, which is that the keyhole buttons don't seem to be working properly. No little dropdown arrow appears to the right of the back/forward buttons. And no text is appearing in the dropdown.
It looks like this:
http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/8742/keyhole1kb6.png
and this:
http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/2488/keyhole2ma1.png
Basically, this renders the keyhole buttons useless, as I have no idea (unless I rely on my poor memory) what page each blank square points back to.
If this is something you can address and fix, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks - j
Hi J.,
Like you I use Firefox on Windows XP, however, I can not replicate the problem you are demonstrating. What other extensions do you have installed in Firefox? You may be experiencing a compatibility issue with another extension.
Thanks,
Ken
Hi, thanks for your quick reply, Ken, I appreciate it.
I use a lot of extensions. :) They are:
Application: Firefox 3.0 (2008052906)
Operating System: WINNT (x86-msvc)
- Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5
- Add to Search Bar 1.7
- Better Gmail 2 0.5
- ChatZilla 0.9.83
- Classic Compact Options 1.1.2
- CustomizeGoogle 0.72
- Download Statusbar 0.9.6.3
- DownThemAll! 1.0.3
- Extension List Dumper 1.14.1
- FireFTP 0.99.1
- Forecastfox 0.9.7.6
- Gmail Space 0.5.94
- Hyperwords(tm) 4.0.2
- IE Tab 1.5.20080618
- iMacros for Firefox 6.0.5.4
- Japanese-English Dictionary for rikaichan 1.06
- Java Console 6.0.04
- Java Console 6.0.03
- Java Console 6.0.05
- Nightly Tester Tools 2.0.2
- NoScript 1.7.4
- Organize Search Engines 1.4
- PagMan 1.0.1
- PDF Download 1.0.1.2
- Perapera-kun 1.0
- PicLens 1.7.0.3458
- QuickRestart 1.1.2
- Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6.1.080416
- Table2Clipboard 0.1.1
- Yet Another Smooth Scrolling 2.0.8
I hope this helps!
Thanks,
j
Hi J.,
First I'm a little confused, your screen capture looks like Windows XP. Are you using Windows NT or are you using Windows XP?
Second, I see you have a LOT of extensions, and your problem might be that one of them is causing a conflict. I would recommend disabling them in some systematic pattern to determine which one (if any) are causing the problem. First disable the following extensions and see if your problem is resolved:
- Tab Mix Plus (I've already had a few conflicts with it that had to be resolved)
- NoScript
- Adblock Plus
- iMacros for Firefox
- DownThemAll
If disabling those extensions and restarting Firefox resolves the problem, then enable half those extensions and restart Firefox to narrow down the list. If disabling these extensions doesn't solve the problem, pick another batch of extensions to disable.
Keep repeating the disabling and enabling of extensions in a systematic fashion until you have either ruled out the extensions as causing the problem or have found the extension that is causing the problem.
Also make sure all of your extensions are really Firefox 3.0 compatible and make sure you are using Classic Compact v3.0.8.
If you figure out what is causing the problem, please let me know.
Cheers,
Ken
Ken,
I'm sorry, I should have clarified that. I'm indeed using WinXP SP3, Firefox 3, and Classic Compact 3.0.8.
And yes, as you suspected, Tab Mix Plus is definitely the culprit. I followed your instructions and narrowed it right down. I can "toggle" the functionality of the keyhole buttons by enabling/disabling Tab Mix Plus. So that's it for sure.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions, I appreciate it - j
J,
What setting in Tab Mix Plus is causing this problem? If you could answer this it might allow me to either find a fix in Classic Compact or work with the Tab Mix Plus developer to find a fix on their side.
Thanks,
Ken
Hi Ken - I am developing a theme and was wondering if you know of any way to dynamically change css values in the browser instead of having to jar the theme up every time you need to change/test something?
I didn't find much on the mozilla theme wiki and thought you may have some good advice.
Thanks!
Wesley,
There are no safe shortcuts to theme development. I've seen some suggestions for shortcuts but they can be very quick ways to destroy a theme. It is best to take the slower but more methodical approach of manually editing code and bundling JAR files so that Firefox doesn't introduce unexpected stuff. There is a discussion on this very topic at: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=659549
Hey, it's very nice, but I was wondering if there was something that would let us get the buttons that matched our Firefox 3 Default. Correct me if I'm wrong, they're the Windows type, and I like Windows quite a bit but on my Linux partition I'd really appreciate the buttons from the default, which calls itself Tango. I set it to that and they look VERY different, is this planned at all in any future updates?
The only way I could add the default buttons for Firefox on Linux is if I was provided with button pallets that matched the Linux buttons, which could be added to the theme.
Since I do not use Linux, the only way I could add a Linux pallet is if a Linux user worked with me to acquire the necessary icons.
Anonymous: I had the same concern, but when you look at how Firefox (in particular, Tango) pulls icons in Linux, it's kind of complex. For some icons, it provides its own, but for many, it uses your Gnome theme (this includes the forward/back buttons and stop/refresh). Thus, creating a unified pallet including both the Firefox-specific icons and the ones from your theme is difficult.
A Linux Gnome based icon pallet could be built for this theme assuming the Gnome icons are fall under an open source licensing model (e.g. GPL). The catch is someone has to provide me with all of those icons. What I would have to do is build two new pallets for Classic Compact from those pallets. One would be for small icons (see example small icon pallet here). The other pallet would be for large icons see example large icon pallet here).
The catch is that if there are different Linux Gnome icon sets then I'd have to pick the most popular icon set otherwise the download size of Classic Compact would be inflated too much.
If you had a list of them I'd happily try to get some pictures of all mine, I just can't figure out how to grey out ones like the Bookmark one and I can't even find a couple of them.
By the way, how does it borrow Gnome icons for me if I'm using KDE? Does Gnome do it differently and if so would I probably have to get two types? I wouldn't mind but I'm just curious.
All I need are the normal state icons. I can make the disabled, active and hover icons from the normal icons. Hopefully there png files somewhere within the Linux file system for these icons. At the very least they should exist in the uncompiled source files for Linux.
I'm not sure how the default Linux Firefox theme knows how to pull Linux icons.
Okay, so I found all of those except that last one after Paste before the different style Back/Forward, which one is that?
Also, would just a screen shot work or would I have to figure out how to put them into their own image, and what's the best way to get the image there?
Contact me via the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page so that I can give you my email address so that you can send me the graphics files you found. It is best to email them to me as their original files so that I can work with them. The reason is that I need to preserve the "alpha" transparency of PNG files.
Oh, guess I didn't make clear, though I could look for those files (not sure where to start) I meant I found the Icons themselves, didn't realize you specifically needed the original ones, though I'll try looking for those.
Excellent theme! Thanks for providing it for free.
I have only one request: Can you eliminate the horizontal spacing between status bar icons?
Currently, each icon sits in its own "cubicle" and that consumes real estate -- resulting in less space available for hotlink URL to display in the status bar.
Alternatively, if you could tell me what code I need to set in userChrome.css, then I'll just change my file and you don't have to change your theme.
Thanks!!
Hey Ken, I just wanted to say thanks for fixing the tab height issue with tab mix plus. I was the one who asked about it a while back.
Hi... GREAT theme... using it all the time... HOWEVER, would it be possible to change the colour of the bookmark and rss icons on the menu... they are extremely bright! A monochrome option where they are less colourful or even a grey would be BRILLIANT. (Is this something I can change myself?)
THANKS for the work.. : )
Super theme & Addon!
Regarding the Classic Compact Options,
Can you add more Background colors to your options?! this would be super if you can do this!
Thanks
I really like Classic Compact 3, but I have a slight issue with it now. For some reason today, checkboxes and radio buttons in the Firefox options menu wont show up. I tried disabling my other addons, and the one that fixed it was Classic Compact Options... but I do want to use that! I am on FF3, using Windows XP with windows classic theme. Can you help me fix the problem?
leonresevil2, you will probably find that your problem with check boxes is being caused because you have set the option "OS system colors" to "very dark/black backgrounds". If you return this setting to its default option your problems should go away. This option is intended for people who already have the system colors of their computer set to black backgrounds. It does not change the background colors used by Firefox, it only changes the checkboxes, arrows, etc. to white so that they will show up against black backgrounds.
Hi Ken. First, thanks for Winstripe Modern -- I hate the default Firefox theme.
I've been working my way down the long list of must-have add-ons that are showing as incompatible with Firefox 3.1beta, and just tried to force compatibility for Winstripe. Looks good, and I haven't noticed any conflicts with any other add-ons.
But there are eight .css warnings showing up on the console that are unique to the use of the theme. Obviously they're not a big deal, but you might want to take a look when you get time. Cheers!
Warning: Error in parsing value for '-moz-appearance'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://global/skin/scrollbars.css
Line: 85
----------
Warning: Error in parsing value for '-moz-appearance'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://global/skin/scrollbars.css
Line: 89
----------
Warning: Error in parsing value for '-moz-appearance'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://global/skin/scrollbars.css
Line: 201
----------
Warning: Error in parsing value for '-moz-appearance'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://global/skin/scrollbars.css
Line: 205
----------
Warning: Error in parsing value for 'white-space'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://browser/skin/browser.css
Line: 1506
----------
Warning: Error in parsing value for 'white-space'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://browser/skin/browser.css
Line: 1513
----------
Warning: Error in parsing value for 'outline'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://global/skin/toolbarbutton.css
Line: 76
----------
Warning: Expected color but found 'none'. Error in parsing value for 'background-color'. Declaration dropped.
Source file: chrome://browser/skin/searchbar.css
Line: 52
Thank you for this list of CSS warnings. I will be working on rolling out an update for Firefox 3.1 very shortly and this will be a big help.
Like many have said, this is indeed a nice theme.
However, with the Fire.fm addon installed, there is a row of pixels under (and sometimes beside) the buttons that will cause the adjacent button to spasm hysterically.
Aside from the slightly irritating spasming, it's awesome (as far as the realm of my usage extends).
I just started using classic compact 3.0.9 and noticed that when I open up a dialog box, I can't see any check marks. I have this theme on two computers with the same result. Tried different options using classic compact options with no luck. Both computers have windows xp and the only add-ons that are installed on both are pdf download and colorful tabs. Disabling these did not help. Has anyone else experience this problem?
Latest nightly builds of Minefield has broken this fine theme. I cannot set it to show only icons, without text.
fantastic job! I had not moved to FF3 because I couldn't find a suitable minimalistic theme as miniFox which I was using on FF2. I finally moved to FF3 thanks to your amazing job on this theme. Downloading the Options extension was mandatory for me, in order to customize the theme to it's fullest making it as classic and minimalistic as possible.
I used to like that miniFox themed the menus as well, minimizing margins between entries and making them alike the rest of the minimal appearance of the browser, could this be possible to add to the options extension maybe?
Thank you very much, I really appreciate your hard work on this totally awesome theme!
Very Nice and very compact. If there is any complaint, it's that I don't see check marks in boxes and drop down menus or the dot in radio buttons in any of the menus. I don't go through menu options often though, so it only is a minor problem for me.
I like this theme a lot, but unfortunately it breaks some of the options in the DownThemAll extension. I would greatly appreciate if you looked into this.
This was the last theme I expected to add a border around the content area. I was happy to find the option to turn that off. The border got in the way of my habit of placing the mouse pointer along the left edge when I scroll.
I can't see the checkbox or radio buttons in firefox options... I've lived with it for some time but now it's starting to .... me off
please update for 3.1..:)
Great add-on (with Classic Compact Options). It always worked OK with Windows but with Ubuntu there is a weird problem: I reduce the menu bar to "Menu" and then I move everything from the navigation bar up to the menu bar. This way I can remove the navigation bar for extra vertical compactness, which is very important on my eeePC with its 600 pixels vertical. Everything seems OK but when I restart Firefox the icons etc revert back to the navigation bar, leaving only "Menu" on the top-most toolbar -- I can't seem to find a way to make the icons stick to the menu bar after FF restart. The settings between my Ubuntu and Windows setups are identical. Any ideas?
I see someone else has the same problem: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=640240&start=210&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
I seem to just solved the Menu bar problem in Ubuntu just above. I removed the long spacer between 'Menu' and the rotating FF icon before I moved the rest of the icons to the menu bar. I restarted several times and everything seems ok -- the icons stay on the menu bar.
Thank you so much for creating this theme. I am using a netbook, and the additional space for my browsing is very helpful. Could you please also create a similar one but with a dark/black look? The buttons too? Like the RulerDark theme. That would be perfect.
Hello, I just wanted to say I really love your theme! I wanted to thank you for it.
Just a question, though... Would it be possible for you to create an option for custom icons in the theme? I'd rather like to switch the icons to the new Phoenity Aura iconset.
Please e-mail me in reply!
I've used LittleFox, Minifox, MicroFox, etc. Classic Compact is clearly the best of the compact themes.
As mentioned by others, there is a conflict between the Classic Compact Options extension and the appearance of checkmarks in all the option menus when the theme is used with its option modifying extension. The checkbox selections change, but the checkboxes remains blank. When the theme is active without the modifying extension, this does not seem to be an issue. This behaviour is being observed in FF3.0.8 (all the 3.0.x builds) on W2K.
Also, the scroll bars resize with changing text size and can eat up an unreasonable bit of screen real estate when upsizing text or become excruciatingly small when downsizing. This seems to be linked to the rounded scrollbar buttons, and not linked to the Classic Compact Options extension. When the theme is used with the modifier extension and OS square scrollbar buttons are selected, they seem to remain constant as text is resized. But that is not the case when the theme is run without the Classic Compact Options and the scrollbar buttons are rounded by default.
Also mentioned by others, a dark variant of this theme would be most welcome, or the option of selecting a background color. The ability to change the highlighted color of the active tab would be a big improvement as well. When enough tabs are open to fill the bar and wrap the the next, it can be difficult to discern the active tab. A highlight with greater contrast would be helpful.
The Strata theme in 3.x versions seems to be a good starting point. It might be more reasonable to bring your 3D compacting magic to this newer theme than to keep tweaking the terrific job that you've done with Classic Compact. Keep up the good work.
BUG report:
- classic compact options
- theme
- background style -->
this option NOT set to default will prevent youtube rating stars and thumbs up/down from showing.
all the best
Arie-
Hello Ken
I have a little bug-report to make.
I'm using Vista Ultimate x64. Latest Firefox (3.0.10) and latest Classic Compact (3.0.9). When I have the addon Locationbar2 turned on (ver. 1.0.3) the searchbar next to the address bar kind of flips out. When I put the mousepointer to the right of the adressbar (around where the "show more" arrow in the adressbar) the searchbar kind of becomes longer, and then smaller, and so on until I move away the pointer.
When I remove/disable Locationbar2 however, it's no problem with it whatsoever. Should I report this to Locationbar2's author or you? (As this only occurs with your skin, and Locationbar2) :)
Thanks for an AWESOME skin anyhow, I just love getting maximized surf-space :)
@Esset,
I'd report your problem to the other developer as well. They may have added some styling instructions that I can not account for, which are causing the problems.
I'm working on building the enthusiasm for updating my theme for Firefox 3.1, but I'm not looking forward to the task. Getting Classic Compact ready for Firefox 3.0 took a couple hundred hours of work, mainly because I tried to get an early start on it during the beta process and had to keep changing things as the betas changed. This time I'm waiting until 3.1 is just about ready for release before I do anything so that I don't have to make a bunch of changes to this theme because of late changes to Firefox. I can't afford to spend a hundred hours or more on this revision.
Please upgrade into ff 3.5 the the classic compact theme.
I like it.
Thanks
Hi,
I like this theme too. Please upgrade.
Thanks,
Tsab
I love your theme! It allowed me to make Firefox only 41 pixels high with the tab bar and 21 without it. It's just amazingly slim!
Take a look at the screenshot:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2383/classiccompact.png
I somehow managed to make it even thinner once (19 pixels! - 1 below the icons, 2 above), but don't really know how.
I'm with everyone else.. please upgrade it for Firefox v3.5 (RC1). It's clearly my favorite theme. I can use Nightly Tester Tools to get it working, but it's not the same.
I am strategically holding off updating Classic Compact because we were already at RC1 with Firefox 3.1 when it was scrapped in favor of 3.5 and the beta process started all over. When I updated Classic Compact from Firefox 2.0 to 3.0 it became a nightmare of chasing nightlies, and wasted huge amounts of my time.
After the way the 3.0 beta process was handled with theme breaking regression bugs being introduced in the final betas due to unnecessary changes to the theme structure I'm none to keen to get burned twice.
I'm way to busy to be trying to be changing things multiple changes to keep up with the regression bugs.
My goal is to update once I'm 100% certain I won't be thumped by theme breaking changes that require me to fix what got broken.
Looking forward to your 3.5-compatible releases of Classic Compact & Options. CC is by far my favorite theme.
Firefox 3.5 was released today.
I am holding off updating until your theme is ready.
I hope the update to 3.5 is not too much hassle.
I would echo many of the previous comments -
Thanks for all your work on Classic Compact. It is by far my favorite theme for Firefox.
I just updated to FF 3.5 but I may have to revert to 3.0.11 because I am unhappy with the appearance of the browser.
I wish I could help.
I hope too that this theme will be compatible very soon for 3.5
So nice on little resolutions
really hope you upgrade to 3.5 - ive had to change to this rip off theme not half as good as classic compact for the time being.
Looking forward to your 3.5-compatible releases of Classic Compact & Options. CC is by far my favorite theme.
I'll second that. I am sorry you have gotten burned before friend. I pray you well friend.
Bro Steve
Romans 6.23
CC IS THE BEST THEME EVER
PLEASE UPDATE TO 3.5 AND USE SOME MORE POLISHED ICONS
THANKS A LOST FOR YOUR WORK
I'm not big on plugins and themes. I don't want a showy browser. I want my online experience to be streamlined. In fact, I'd like to notice the browser part as little as possible. That said, I've been addicted to your compact theme and plugin ever since I first installed them. FF 3.5 disabled them and now it feels really clunky. I will be so happy to see these return. Is there a way to be notified when the new versions are done?
Take your time, we all appreciate your work very much!
Argh 3.5 is hideous, where can I download the file so i can hack it myself?
Please, please, 3.5 release as soon as possible.! :) I will lose my mind using anything but Classic Compact.
I'm really busy, but I will now make updating Classic Compact and Classic Compact Options a priority. I'm on a deadline push with a big web development project, but maybe I can start to work on this by this weekend. I won't know how much work it will take to do the update until I see how much things were changed with FF3.5.
Hopefully the documentation as to what was changed is better than with FF3.0. I'm not holding my breath on that.
looking forward to a version that supports 3.5 - great work - and thank you!
Look forward to the update. Thanks for taking the time.
I wouldnt dream of using FF without classic compact.
Hope your dev project runs smoothly
I'm also looking forward to the update, thanks for your effort!
Please Update to FF 3.5
I too am addicted to the classic compact theme. The theme is manditory on my Acer netbook with its vertically challenged 1024x600 resolution. I'm anxiously awaiting the FF 3.5 update.
Okay, I have personally switched over to Firefox 3.5 and am making mental notes of what has changed. If you know how to, you can do a version bump of Classic Compact to make it work on Firefox 3.5. There may be a few cosmetic issues, but early reports are nothing major is broken. Anyone who tries to force Classic Compact on Firefox 3.5 can post findings of bugs here or at: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=640240&start=210
I have forced Classic Compact on Firefox 3.5.
At the moment, it is working fine.
The only cosmetic change I see is that the "new tab" button (the "cross button") in the "tabs bar" is missing. Sure you have noticed it.
I have seen in google that there are users that do not like this new button. Then, it could be an option to add to Classic Compact Options: show/hide the new tab button.
Why don't you release the current version for firefox 3.5, so other users that don't know how to force it are able to use it. You can say it is a provisional version.
I think that Classic Compact is a must for netbooks (that is my case).
Thanks for Classic Compact.
I haven't tried Classic Compact on FF3.5 yet as I only installed 3.5 yesterday and wanted a couple of days to use it with the default theme to get used to what might have changed. I'll look into the new tab issue. Maybe with luck I can get a beta out faster than expected.
Fellow readers and fans of CC -
The following 2 lines worked for me in removing both the New Tab button and the List All Tabs button from FF 3.5 .
/* remove New Tab button and all List All Tabs button */
.tabs-newtab-button {display:none !important;}
.tabs-alltabs-button, .tabs-alltabs-box-animate, .tabs-alltabs-box {display:none !important;}
/* first line eliminates new tab button,
* second line eliminates list all tabs button at right */
This snippet should get pasted into the file userChrome.css located in
C:\Documents and Settings\{YOURUSERNAME}\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\(gibberishnumber)xxxxxxxx.default\chrome ,
right after the completion of the @namespace line.
For convenience, make a copy of the unaltered file beforehand just in case of problems. Happy tweaking, and thanks again Ken!!
Dear Ken,
Firefox in DUTCH looks much better with your CC theme, it seems that with bigger monitors also the windows are growing, so I wait on your version 3.5.
Very GOOD Job.
Jean
Big fan of Classic Compact as well. With the trend towards wider and shorter monitors I find your theme to be mandatory.
I hope you can get a 3.5 compatible version posted shortly.
Thanks,
JBL
Nice to hear you're working on a v3.5 compatible version!
This is definitely the best compact, space-saving, simplistic and oldschool-looking theme I have seen so far.
Keep up the good work!
Am I right to assume that you're also going to update the Compact Classic Options extension too?
BTW, you might want to post a notice on the official Mozilla page, because a lot of people are already asking.
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