By default, Firefox 2 uses large icons in its toolbars. It also uses a custom skin as the default instead of integrating with the OS look and feel.

Adding Add-ons

A few productivity customisations and website developer tools results in much the same look as before. The changes are:

• Tab Mix Plus to make tabs fit their <title> up to a narrower maximum width with no tab list button.
• Extra icons in the menu bar are from Link Widgets with the Links Toolbar icons.
• Acitivity Indicator aka the throbber removed from menu bar.
• Extra icon in the toolbar for Sage.
• Extra panel in the status bar for HTML Validator Extension.

Winestripe

The Winestripe theme for Firefox is a popular way to make Firefox fit in with Windows XP.

Add-ons in Winestripe

Using the same Add-ons as with the default theme.

Small Icons with Add-ons in Winestripe

To use the Small Icons mode:

1. Right-click the toolbar.
2. Select Customise.
3. Customise Toolbar window is displayed.
4. Untick the Show Small Icons checkbox.
5. Click the Done button. (Should say OK.)

Things I notice:

• There are gaps above and below the Address Bar combobox.
• Menu Bar has not shrunk to normal height for a menu bar, even though the small icons have made this possible.
• Borders between toolbars don’t match Windows colours.
• Differences in tab height don’t match XP.

Mockup for Add-ons

• Menu bar height.
• Icon styles and spacing.
• Border styles and colours between toolbars.
• Tab heights, border colours, border joins and number of borders.

Spacing between buttons seems slightly random in Windows Explorer, but Large Icons mode generally puts about 12 pixels of space between each icon.

I gave Home a dropdown arrow as it’s a list of destinations.

Mockup for Small Icons with Add-ons

There are traces of compactness in XP. Windows Explorer has several controls sharing the same border:

• Bottom of the Address bar combobox.
• Bottom of that toolbar.
• Top of the sidebar.
• Top of the ListView.

This mockup applies that degree of compactness.