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Overall I love the redesign, but I wish they would have compacted the top chrome a bit so it matches the height of other major browsers. Firefox has slightly ta

Overall I love the redesign, but I wish they would have compacted the top chrome a bit so it matches the height of other major browsers. Firefox has slightly taller chrome for no good reason, as seen in this picture: http://i.imgur.com/BlPRitn.png http://i.imgur.com/BlPRitn.png When I'm doing cross browser development I want my stuff to line up in all three browsers. At least Firefox no longer has the heaviest browser chrome. Safari wins that dubious distinction now by keeping the tabs below the address bar. I also noticed that Firefox finally added a better option to disable cache for one tab which will be very useful while developing: http://i.imgur.com/Nc5eamq.png http://i.imgur.com/Nc5eamq.png It's still not as good as Chrome's ability to automatically disable cache while devtools are open, but its way better than what I had to do before, which was override the automatic cache management settings to limit cache to 0 MB of diskspace.

antidaily 13y ago
I agree. Add some bookmarks bar items and it's even taller. Add the 'Title Bar' and it's even taller. And I dont see the short icons option available anymore.
simonster 13y ago
There is a reason for the taller top chrome: it makes the window easier to drag around. Compared with Chrome, there is a larger window drag area above the inactive tabs (but not the active tab). I think this is a pretty neat design.
- NathanKP 13y ago
  On the contrary, Firefox actually has less drag space: http://i.imgur.com/atYV8Xo.png http://i.imgur.com/atYV8Xo.png If you count it by pixel there is 10px of window drag space above the tabs in Firefox, but 11px of window drag space in Chrome. So technically Firefox would be harder to drag around. The thing that is bigger in Firefox is the fat tabs, and all the extra space above and below the address bar, which seems to be there solely for the purpose of allowing the back button to be larger than the address bar. It's a nice looking design touch, but not that much more usable, just wasteful.
  - simonster 13y ago
    You are looking at the drag space above the active tab. Only the inactive tabs get expanded drag space. You can see this by putting the mouse pointer above an inactive tab and slowly moving it down. The inactive tab doesn't highlight until you are 3 px(?) within the borders of the tab, and until that point, dragging will drag the window. It's not huge, but having that larger drag target does make the window easier to drag. The tab height difference is also only 3 px, so given that Firefox gives 1 px less above the active tab, it's 1 px "wasted" vertical space for a design that looks much more visually appealing IMO.
    - NathanKP 13y ago
      Good point. Yeah I agree that is a nice feature. Now if Firefox just kept the shrinking of inactive tabs like they currently have, but reduced the size of the back button, and reduced the extra padding around the address bar then they could shrink their browser chrome size to the same size as Google Chrome or even smaller, while making it more usable than Google Chrome.
gcommer 13y ago
If you want to shrink the top chrome, you can right click on it (getting the menu to choose toolbars), hit customize, then check "Use small icons". With this option, FF is thinner than chrome both fullscreen and floating. Edit: Actually, just updated and it looks like they got rid of that...
- NathanKP 13y ago
  The "Use small icons" option used to be there, but I don't see it anymore. I think that they removed it.
  - gcommer 13y ago
    Yeah, they did. But you can get it back with Classic Theme Restorer[1], which has the "Small buttons on navigation toolbar" option. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
    - barrkel 13y ago
      Beware this extension. I installed it and it broke the Customize feature completely, even after uninstalling it.
      - barrkel 13y ago
        Disregard this. Update: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7676747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7676747
ubercow13 13y ago
You can reduce it because yes it is useless. Something like this (one of these is pointless but I can't remember which one..) /* correct titlebar icons position */ #titlebar-content > * { margin-top: -6px; } /* Reduce the padding between the URL bar and the tabs/content */ #nav-bar-customization-target { margin-top: -2px !important; margin-bottom: -2px !important; }
- steamer25 13y ago
  Presumably (for the uninitiated) under userchrome.css? http://www-archive.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html http://www-archive.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html
  - ubercow13 13y ago
    Yes or using Stylish which has an option to add chrome style scripts

antidaily 13y ago

I agree. Add some bookmarks bar items and it's even taller. Add the 'Title Bar' and it's even taller. And I dont see the short icons option available anymore.

simonster 13y ago

There is a reason for the taller top chrome: it makes the window easier to drag around. Compared with Chrome, there is a larger window drag area above the inactive tabs (but not the active tab). I think this is a pretty neat design.

NathanKP 13y ago
On the contrary, Firefox actually has less drag space: http://i.imgur.com/atYV8Xo.png http://i.imgur.com/atYV8Xo.png If you count it by pixel there is 10px of window drag space above the tabs in Firefox, but 11px of window drag space in Chrome. So technically Firefox would be harder to drag around. The thing that is bigger in Firefox is the fat tabs, and all the extra space above and below the address bar, which seems to be there solely for the purpose of allowing the back button to be larger than the address bar. It's a nice looking design touch, but not that much more usable, just wasteful.
- simonster 13y ago
  You are looking at the drag space above the active tab. Only the inactive tabs get expanded drag space. You can see this by putting the mouse pointer above an inactive tab and slowly moving it down. The inactive tab doesn't highlight until you are 3 px(?) within the borders of the tab, and until that point, dragging will drag the window. It's not huge, but having that larger drag target does make the window easier to drag. The tab height difference is also only 3 px, so given that Firefox gives 1 px less above the active tab, it's 1 px "wasted" vertical space for a design that looks much more visually appealing IMO.
  - NathanKP 13y ago
    Good point. Yeah I agree that is a nice feature. Now if Firefox just kept the shrinking of inactive tabs like they currently have, but reduced the size of the back button, and reduced the extra padding around the address bar then they could shrink their browser chrome size to the same size as Google Chrome or even smaller, while making it more usable than Google Chrome.

gcommer 13y ago

If you want to shrink the top chrome, you can right click on it (getting the menu to choose toolbars), hit customize, then check "Use small icons". With this option, FF is thinner than chrome both fullscreen and floating. Edit: Actually, just updated and it looks like they got rid of that...

NathanKP 13y ago
The "Use small icons" option used to be there, but I don't see it anymore. I think that they removed it.
- gcommer 13y ago
  Yeah, they did. But you can get it back with Classic Theme Restorer[1], which has the "Small buttons on navigation toolbar" option. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
  - barrkel 13y ago
    Beware this extension. I installed it and it broke the Customize feature completely, even after uninstalling it.
    - barrkel 13y ago
      Disregard this. Update: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7676747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7676747

ubercow13 13y ago

You can reduce it because yes it is useless. Something like this (one of these is pointless but I can't remember which one..) /* correct titlebar icons position */ #titlebar-content > * { margin-top: -6px; } /* Reduce the padding between the URL bar and the tabs/content */ #nav-bar-customization-target { margin-top: -2px !important; margin-bottom: -2px !important; }

steamer25 13y ago
Presumably (for the uninitiated) under userchrome.css? http://www-archive.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html http://www-archive.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html
- ubercow13 13y ago
  Yes or using Stylish which has an option to add chrome style scripts