Mozilla shows off Firefox Mobile interface concept

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Mobile Minute

Mozilla shows off Firefox Mobile interface concept - Video

by Brad Linder Jun 11th 2008

Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Want to know what the upcoming Firefox Mobile web browser will look like? So do we. And the video above may or may not give us an idea. Aza Raskin, the head of user experience for Mozilla describes the concept interface shown in the video as a "conceptual mockup" of an "experimental UI." In other words, there's no gaurantee that the final version of Firefox Mobile will bear any resemblance to the concept. But then again, it might look exactly like this.

In a nutshell, the concept UI shares some features with Firefox 3, including tabbed browsing and the "awesome bar," which shows you results from your browsing history when you enter a URL. But there are a few aspects that have been designed with mobile devices in mind:

You can navigate a page by clicking and dragging it. There are no scrollbars, which means more screen real estate.
There are also no back, forward, refresh, or other buttons on the main screen. The web page takes up the whole screen.
You can find navigation buttons by dragging the screen to the right, which brings up a series of buttons on the left side of the screen, including back, forward, bookmark, and page info.
You minimize a window by dragging it to the left or right and clicking the zoom button. You can then navigate between open tabs or open a new one.
When you reach the bottom of a web page, there will be buttons for performing specific functions like submitting a page to Digg or del.icio.us or mapping an address found on a web page

Want to try the user interface yourself? There's a web-based demo available. And the code is open source if you want to check it out or contribute to the project.
[via Mozilla Labs]

Tags: firefox, firefox-mobile

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Josh said 7:34PM on 6-11-2008

This is absolute genius... I am truly amazed. Finally someone not named Apple is trying to revolutionize the mobile world. I applaud Mozilla.

edward said 7:57PM on 6-11-2008

Sweet work guys. I would use it, and wish I had it long ago. How do you select text and copy text?

kingkool68 said 10:36PM on 6-11-2008

Are there any mobile browsers out there that let you copy and paste? How do they do it?

R said 7:59AM on 6-12-2008

@kingkool68..

It's been a while since I used Pocket PC/Windows Mobile. But I believe you can copy/paste by highlighting the text with the stylus, then press and hold on top of the highlighted text with the stylus, and then a pop-up menu will appear with copy/paste options.

James said 12:23PM on 6-12-2008

I believe his point was that if drag = scroll, how can drag = highlight (for copying)? In Opera, you have to bring up a menu and switch to "copy mode" (instead of scroll mode). I would expect much the same sort of thing with the new Firefox Mobile.

kingkool68 said 10:36PM on 6-11-2008

This looks exciting. I can't wait for Android phones to come out.

Brandon said 9:07AM on 6-12-2008

So it's only for touchscreen devices? :(

schwinn said 9:09AM on 6-12-2008

Does anyone know if this will be available for PalmOS devices? Or, for that matter, a tentative release date for it? Just curious to see if I can continue to use my Palm or if I will have to get something else to browse properly (Blazer-browser sucks).

Schwinn said 9:14AM on 6-12-2008

Anyone know if this will be available for PalmOS? Or anyone have a rough idea of a release date?

Just curious to see if I need to get a new device, or if I can continue using my Palm. (Blazer-browser SUCKS.)

HalfAzn said 11:04AM on 6-12-2008

Pretty sweet. I like what I saw.

James said 12:24PM on 6-12-2008

Does anybody want to explain how that demo is supposed to work? It just kind of goes haywire when I look at it (Firefox 2.0.0.14).

edward said 9:47PM on 6-12-2008

Try another browser, failing that reinstall flash.

Sorry for the generic response, I don't have any information specific to your problem.

Leonardo said 6:25AM on 6-14-2008

Do you realize how small are those tabs thumbnails going to look like on the screen of a mobile? Looks cool for a tablet PC interface. But a mobile? hmm. I don't know.

GM4981 said 3:25PM on 6-19-2008

I was wondering if web page scrolling with hardware scroll wheels and hat controllers will be enabled in addition to touch screen dragging.

It was also not clear from the demo if other view options would be available, such as fit to screen and changes text size. The demo makes it appear that the largest zoom size is full page width. On a small screen (320 x 240)--especially in portrait mode--you often need to zoom in and view only half the width of the web page or smaller just to make the text legible. Is zooming in available as a popup or settings option?

Could we specify starting drag zones to bring up these option bars? While the idea of maximizing screen viewing space for the web page if wonderful, it might get annoying if they come up every time that I am simply scrolling around on a page. Just a thought. Maybe an option you could place on a popup menu or in a settings menu. It would be especially important to be able to turn off any kind of page dragging when you want to copy and paste. I currently have to do this in Opera mobile. I often find information that I need to save in a Word document by cutting and copying or copy phone numbers to my contact database.

Overall, I think your interface is a fascinating new idea and eagerly look forward to having it available as an wonderful alternative to Pocket Internet Explorer, which I avoid if at all possible.

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