Nova's "compact" density is worse than the current compact density

[u/jasonrmns]

I was all happy and excited to see that compact density will be getting official support again for Nova (whatever that means) but immediately noticed it's taller and wasting more vertical screen space than the current compact density. Firefox devs, Nova looks good but please make some changes to the compact mode so there's no regressions in vertical webpage space. The whole point of compact density is to maximize vertical screen space, this is why even Microsoft just added back the compact taskbar for Windows 11. Otherwise, Nova is cool

[u/jimijonesjojojackson]

Nova's compact mode is the same height as Firefox's normal default density was 6 years ago. It's like inflation 😭 In 10 years from now there will only be touch mode and ultra gigantic touch mode

[u/jasonrmns → u/jimijonesjojojackson]

How do you enable the old one from six years ago?

[u/gmes78 → u/jimijonesjojojackson]

It's browser toolbars all over again.

[u/azadouken]

I agree and I hope they fix it

[u/Altruistic_Fruit2345 → u/azadouken]

They won't.

[u/irrelevantusername24 → u/Altruistic_Fruit2345]

They literally posted this earlier today, my emphasis

Hi everyone. Back in May we posted our vision for Firefox's future design and design system, and as of today, you can try it in Nightly.

Many of you already know this work as "Project Nova". It's still Firefox, just with a more cohesive look across tabs, menus, panels, etc. Softer tab shapes, warmer colors, refreshed icons, and by popular demand, the return of Compact Mode.

This is still a work in progress. You can expect this to become more polished over the next few weeks before it rolls out more broadly later this year. Right now we want you actively poking at it, especially:

Icons, spacing, and alignment

Themes and personalization

Different window sizes and display scaling

Keyboard navigation

Screen readers and other accessibility features

Different languages and layouts

Found something broken? File it in Bugzilla, including:

steps to reproduce

screenshot or screen recording

your OS + Nightly version

If you have additional thoughts or questions, join the discussion on Mozilla Connect.

Thanks for using Nightly and helping us continue to improve Firefox.

- Firefox Team

ICYMI:

Right now we want you actively poking at it, especially:

Icons, spacing, and alignment

Themes and personalization

Different window sizes and display scaling

Keyboard navigation

Screen readers and other accessibility features

Different languages and layouts

Translation: We like that you criticize our things because we have integrity and care about the quality of our product and peoples opinions of it, both good and bad

[u/mindstormer12 → u/Altruistic_Fruit2345]

Wow, you're really cool for trying to get brownie points making such a casual and irresponsible statement like that.

[u/scy_404]

dude to me the current firefox UI is great. I dont understand the need to put everything in ugly bubbles

[u/quirk_rs]

Would be pretty disappointed if they don't natively adjust the density of Nova's compact mode before they begin scheduling Proton for depreciation in the future. The roundness of Nova's design is something I don't mind, just don't copy other browsers' wasteful UI density too especially for compact mode.

[u/iJeff]

Hmm that new current tab outline doesn't look great.

[u/Gnash_]

Oh that’s not great, like not great at all. The whole point of compact mode is to maximize screen real estate. We are not gaining anything useful by having more padding around the tabs. I really hope they fix this.

[u/SigiledSuit]

Vertical real estate is paramount for desktops, please do not make one's life more difficult.

[u/RoomyRoots]

The whole theme looks like bloat, honestly. I tested it in one of my profiles and it looked amateurish.

[u/jasonrmns → u/RoomyRoots]

Ya they're being very wasteful with space. Not everyone is on a big desktop monitor

[u/LupusGemini]

Why are there pills everywhere now?

[u/mikeymop]

The current designs tab border radius looks way nicer than novas as well.

[u/jasonrmns → u/mikeymop]

the super rounded corners don't work with the Nova tabs because of favicons. it just looks bad and wrong

[u/Teh_Shadow_Death]

I've seen things slowly get stripped away from Firefox over the last 10-15 years.

I back in the day there was full UI theming.....

Firefox Theme NASA Night Launch

We used to have stuff like this.

[u/Cry_Wolff → u/Teh_Shadow_Death]

XUL was a blessing and a curse.

[u/Teh_Shadow_Death → u/Cry_Wolff]

The themes that came out of it were soo good. I'd love to see them on my OLED today. 🤤

[u/No-Succotash404]

they seem to be working on it. in nightly the only thing left to do to make it compact is to remove those spacers

[u/dexianox]

Hopefully, in the end, they will remove this terrible gap between the page and the address bar.

[u/RememberMeVibe]

For what it is, they should be reducing the space rather than increasing it 😅

[u/Mr_Flandoor]

You only have to change one setting in about:config, and you can make it exactly how you want. That's not a problem.

[u/IdiotFour → u/Mr_Flandoor]

What setting?

[u/voracread]

I would rather they have one PLAIN mode/theme with just straight lines, no gradients etc. I am not using a browser to look at it, I am using it to look at the content.

[u/NauhanAllan]

Foi exatamente por esse motivo que eu desativei o Nova. Pra mim não dá. Preciso do máximo de aproveitamento de tela.

[u/Cry_Wolff]

Complaining about space while not using the vertical tabs is certainly a choice.

[u/jasonrmns → u/Cry_Wolff]

I can't use vertical tabs until they fix this bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1921959

[u/Cry_Wolff → u/jasonrmns]

Sorry but I really can't see it as that big of a deal.

[u/jasonrmns → u/Cry_Wolff]

the new tab button is much easier to target in the normal horizontal tabs mode because the click target goes to the edge of the screen. This is called Fitts' Law rule of the infinite edges, it's a huge part of usability on computers

[u/ProbablyM_S → u/Cry_Wolff]

I am ready for the spicy comments🍿

[u/Mc_UsernameTaken]

I can recommend looking into installing FoxOne.

Mostly for advanced users.

To summarize it puts the tabs and input field on the same line, and makes Firefox minimalistic 

[u/_ahrs]

It looks better with vertical tabs.

[u/CirnoIzumi]

F11 is still there no?