E.x. if I open this screen from a dark page, I don’t want my eyes to get burned out by the jarring contrast of a almost-white-but-just-barely-grey background.

where is V8 for firefox ? ..must HAVE (tracemonkey)…FF is still too slow WRT Javascript execution [methinks this is more to do with "a process per tab" metaphor in Chrome than JS performance since i experience JS performance in chrome as linear regardless of number of tabs open as opposed to Firefox's near-logarithmic (BIG-O(n)) behaviour] ..the core of the problem; in firefox, the Javascript-Heavy sites i have open LAG with multiple tabs; Chrome=no lag…But no cool extensions (like ubiquity) either :S !!!]

So …add one JS engine/Threading Model upgrade to my list of must-have and i’ll have ur babies :D

Cheers
Tiggr.

The more i read the firefox “new tabs” discussion the more one thought springs to mind…

“I’m reading this using chrome not firefox strangely (mozilla fanboi here) and …well…i love chrome’s new tab page..but only after many months of use.”

It gets my “most visited” pages right. (tick)
It allows me to search my history (tick)
better yet- it shows “recently closed” and “recently bookmarked” lists…(tick) (tick)
I can search without changing modes by typing in the url-bar (awesome bar) (tick)
I can just type the url of the porn sites i know by heart in ;o) (TICK) *ToungeInCheek*

so, my thought is to make like microsoft and steal ;) …bring the chrome new-tab into ff as-is …add awesomebar…include ubuiquity (and mouse-based ubiquity) and the great sliding metaphor from fennec for tab-lists/settings etc and…..Um..No…wait a minute…i think i just really want the chrome new-tab mechanism + Fennec as my main browser :D..that should do it!

My AUS2c (about 0.00…something in USD ;))

On me: I’m an electrical and computer engineer. I’m easily distracted, and I find distraction exquisitely irritating. I get strong feelings about the most logical ways for things to work, and I find things that conflict with them to be distracting. I use a MacBook at home, where the right hand is always near the one-button trackpad and the left hand is often off on more important missions. The most efficient interfaces for that are buttons, menus, and gestures, and I find any non-typing task which requires the left hand to interrupt its work and attend the meeting (e.g., modifier key pressing) to be distracting.

On Firefox: I like it (as I did Mozilla and Netscape and Mosaic), in part because it is so tweakable. I rely on about:config to kill text blink, GIF animation, the “Awesome” Bar (a.k.a. “Bar Clippy”), the Get Add-ons Pane (a.k.a. “Add-ons Clippy”), and Internet Keywords (a.k.a. “URL Clippy”). I rely on userchrome.css with about:config to inter the user-hostile “Ashen” theme (a.k.a. “Firelight”, “Slate”) and compact the remains (although I’m still working on using FF2’s Toolbar-small.png to restore buttons that don’t waste space and do use shape and color to communicate information to the user, without resorting to an overkill non-Mozilla download.) I rely on extensions “No-Script” (in blacklist mode) to block Flash animation and its network hoggage (among other things), and “Toolbar Buttons” to add more one-finger trackpad goodness.

On tabbed browsing: I’ve been pretty happy with most of Firefox’s capability and customizability, especially 3.0.x, and I hope subsequent tabbed browsing implementations don’t reduce any of that. I use Preferences, about:config, and userchrome.css, to: open new pages in new tabs, always show the tab bar, open links in new tabs in the background, load new-window tabs in the background, protect existing tabs from being clobbered by folders of bookmarks, clean off “blank” tabs (although the icon is proving stubborn), and as previously mentioned, minimize the font and height of tabs and clean off the Ashen theme.

One FF3 tab improvement I was particularly excited to find was browser.tabs.tabMaxWidth . On FF2 this was internally fixed at 250 pixels, so unless tabMinWidth was also set to 250 (a logically unimodal but unappealing solution), the resulting behavior was arbitrarily trimodal. Now set to my screen width of 1280, the behavior is more linearly bimodal, which I enjoy very much.

The only tabbed browsing enhancement I use is HashColouredTabs+ . I tried a number of tab color extensions including Chromatabs and found HCT+ the least distracting. Perhaps more importantly, I finally learned how to hack it to implement my number-one most wanted function: the Perpetual New Tab. In the Modern Age Of Computing, there is no logical reason anyone should ever have to manually open their own blank tab. That’s what computers are for; they already possess all the necessary information. And yet that’s what Firefox currently makes everyone continually do who doesn’t have a second mouse/trackpad button and who doesn’t want to use up a whole other hand just to hold down a modifier key or who wants to use the Bookmarks Toolbar. To my further astonishment, no extension that did it ever appeared (to my knowledge), and I finally tired of waiting. Now I’ll never again even have to think about opening a new tab. Hey, New Tab Button — don’t let the door hit ya where the dog should’a bit ya. (I can also have them open whatever I want, but for now I’m happy with about:blank….)

A few years ago I tried out every tab enhancement out there I could find, and at the time, settled on Showcase. I tried to get into the habit of using it, but it was was just too much effort for what I got out of it. Distraction, I found, comes from three things: clutter, noise, and surprise.

Clutter is static. For clutter, the user is a state-machine: for any current state the user may be in, there is a set of desired next state possibilities, and that set is limited. Clutter is any possibility outside of that set that the user can detect. For example, if I am looking at the browser and can see the New Tab button but would never desire to press it, then the New Tab button is clutter.

Noise is dynamic. For noise, the user is a difference-detector. Humans evolved to detect prey and threats by the most minute changes in position, orientation, shape, color, brightness, sound, etc. Such changes cause sensory organs to generate signals to the brain which alter its operation. Animal physiology is incredibly good at it. If the signal is undesired, it is noise. For example, the popup ad.

Surprise is a failure of expectation. For surprise, the user is a modeller. The human brain works by modelling reality in an attempt to eliminate surprise, shift the execution of repetitive functions from the concious mind to the nervous system, reduce distraction, increase speed, and maximize efficiency. If the result of an action is nondeterministic, maximum efficiency can either not be achieved or not be sustained. For example, compare user performance with a “Recent Items” list to that of the Apple Menu.

Users form a spectrum. What one user desires to be able to do from a given state is not the same as for another, so what is clutter to one is not to another and is a desired option to a third. The noise that sucks one user’s attention away from their desired goal is undetectable to another and contains desired information to a third. The surprise that thwarts unconcious learning of hand-eye coordination may be intolerable to one user, unnoticeable to another, and fun to a third. So it is not a possibility for an interface designer to select any single level of clutter or noise or surprise and rightfully expect to satisfy any significant portion of the user spectrum. A user interface, regardless of baseline, cannot be good without having sufficient user customizability.

Regarding in-line search (a.k.a. “Search Clippy”), I’d want to turn it off. I don’t need or want my tools maintaining records of what I did in between sessions without my control, much less doing mysterious things with them or distracting me with their unsolicited opinions. But certainly feel free to implement as many versions of Clippy as you like, as long as you also always provide a way to prevent their execution.

Regarding the Cognitive Shield: your chosen name reminds me of “Reality Distortion Field” and “Slomin’s Shield”, and sounds like it blocks one from using one’s own brain…. But you described it as a “personal watermark”, so why not call it that? Or Cognitive Signet, Cognitive Crest, Cognitive Banner, Cognitive Medallion, Cognitive Coat-of-Arms, Cognitive Amulet, Cognitive Talisman, Cognitive Totem, Cognitive Periapt, etc.? Something with less “impeding” power and more “facilitating” power. One thing I can say is that the dynamic recent-items aspect would, like every other recent-items list, cause interference with my nervous system, so that like every other recent-items list, I’d probably ultimately turn it off. But I am very intrigued by all the other aspects of the GUI, and if its content could be made deterministic and controllable (e.g., Bookmarks Menu) then I could potentially dig it. Hmmm…that’s an idea…creating a local HTML file with Bookmarks Menu-like content and displaying it with the Perpetual New Tab function….

Ok, maybe that was $0.03.