Branding Mozilla: Towards Mozilla 2.0 701
sgarrity writes "I've written some recommendations for the branding and visual identity of the Mozilla Foundation's project and product line. I argue that the Mozilla Project should adopt a simple, strong, consistent visual identity for the Mozilla products including consistent icons across applications that mesh with the host operating system. Read Branding Mozilla: Towards Mozilla 2.0 and let us know what you think."
What people really want... (Score:4, Informative)
Though, yes brand name recongition helps with any such advertising, of course.
Re:Mozilla needs it (Score:4, Informative)
I've been popup free for almost 2 years, I have forgotten about them and when I see someone else use a browser that lets them through, I cringe.
Artical Text (Score:2, Informative)
Recommendations for the branding and visual identity of the Mozilla Foundation's product and project line - by Steven Garrity
Summary
This document is intended to offer suggestions to the Mozilla Foundation for the future of the Mozilla brand and visual identity. It is not intended to replace or redo the good work that has already been done in this area. Any suggestions made here that contradict, conflict, or replace guidelines, recommendation, or other work that has already been done reflects more my ignorance as the author than my opinion of what has been done.
As the Mozilla project moves towards an end-user focus from a developer and platform focus, the branding and visual identity of the organization and its software will need to be revisited. With the recent separation from Netscape and AOL, the need for the Mozilla project to have a brand of its own is all the more necessary.
Keep What Works
First, the Mozilla project has a lot going for it. It has a long heritage, reaching back to the early Netscape web browsers. The Mozilla name was an apt choice as a nod to the roots of the project. It is also unique (free of trademark issues), memorable, and relatively easy to spell and pronounce. Mozilla is a good name.
Lose What Doesn't Work
The Mozilla project is lacking a strong visual identity. The Mozilla lizard is widely recognized by developers and early-adopters on the web, but does not reach far beyond these groups. It is also used inconsistently across projects and products.
Any good visual identity builds on what is already established, while improving on the weaknesses of past. So too should the visual identity of the Mozilla project and products. A unified, consistent, but flexible brand and visual identity would be a great compliment to the technology developed under the Mozilla project.
Products, Projects, and the Foundation
The broad scope of the Mozilla project has lead to confusion among end users. The term "Mozilla" is used to describe a web browser, a suite of applications, a platform, and an entire collection of software projects.
The recently formed Mozilla Foundation has already started the work of clarifying the terminology. The name of the Mozilla Foundation itself is a good and clear name that obviously defines the official organization that manages the Mozilla project.
They have also clarified the eventual naming of key Mozilla products; the current Mozilla Firebird project is the temporary development name for what will eventually be called Mozilla Browser; the current Mozilla Thunderbird project is the temporary development name for what will eventually be called Mozilla Mail. This is clear, simple, and smart.
Seemingly simple and obvious declarations like this are important for the success of the Mozilla project. People can't use software that they don't know how to ask for. People can't tell others about software that they don't know what to call.
The Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Mail names are clear, simple, and strong names for what will become the flagship products of the Mozilla project.
Version Numbers
The Mozilla application suite is approaching version 2.0 (version 1.5 at the time of this writing) and the independent applications are approaching 1.0 (Mozilla Firebird is at 0.71 and Mozilla Thunderbird is at a humble 0.3 at the time of this writing). Many have speculated that the official replacement of the application suite with the independent applications would be appropriate time to declare them version 2.0.
The change in focus and new independent applications certain does warrant a new version number.
The Mozilla Suite ver. 2.0:
* Mozilla Browser
* Mozilla Mail
* Mozilla Calendar
* Mozilla Composer
The Visual Identity So Far
As the software produced by the Mozilla project stabilizes and matures, so too should its visual identity. The Mozilla 1.0 suite was generally intern
Re:Spot on. (Score:3, Informative)
I have to laugh, one example was of the two Mozilla apps placed prominently on the Start Menu right where IE and Outlook Express are by default. Is this an option in a full installer? If not, put it there. :) Make it an option to gently 'replace' IE and Outlook Express. Replace the shortcuts, import favorites, e-mails, and contacts by default. Import Server Settings, proxies, the whole nine yards.
Windows XP does this by default. Those top two buttons are the user's default email program and browser. When you first start firebird, and it asks if you want it to be the default browser Windows swaps out the links for you.Re:Oh god not again (Score:2, Informative)
I hear most often pronounced Moe (of the Larry and Curly kind) and zilla, like z then illa as in gorilla.
Re:Be a Good Desktop Citizen (Score:3, Informative)
Try Firebird. You'll be surprised how much better than Mozilla it is.
Re:Be a Good Desktop Citizen (Score:2, Informative)
I'm running WinXP here, with Mozilla 1.5 and IE 6.0. Seems to me you got it totally backwards.
Mozilla 1.5: 1 click selects all, another click places the cursor, double-click selects a word.
IE 6.0: 1 click selects all, another click places the cursor, double click selects the whole line again - there is no way to select just a word, afaik
Re:Great Idea... Some Other Suggestions (Score:5, Informative)
X = Popup Blocker
X = Handles CSS properly
Re:Any color but RED (Score:5, Informative)
Redhat
Target
Lucent Technologies
Pizza Hut
KFC
yeah, no big players there.
Re:Godzilla? (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, a judge declared that the -zilla suffix was not an infringment, and had become a ubiquitous bit of culture.
Mozilla (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Artical Text (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I have to disagree here... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Spot on. (Score:3, Informative)
I'd take issue with it, but that's probably one of the few examples of OS integration I'd accept.
Re:Mozilla is a development platform... (Score:2, Informative)
So, it is being aimed at the consumer projects forked off mozilla.
Re:Mozilla needs it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
Guess the problem could be between the screen and the chair.
Re:Press Kit (Score:3, Informative)
A nice example of how this probably should be handled is the OpenOffice [openoffice.org] project's 'media kit', including product flyer, FAQ, logos, and even CD labels and slip covers for the various versions.
Why bother? Because. (Score:3, Informative)
With that said, you can still find some free wizards to in various places. [freewarehome.com]
If you use the Luna [mozdev.org]* theme for Mozilla Firebird, run some special customizations with the UI, it'll look EXACTLY like IE (put the location bar in it's own dialog, add a go button, get rid of the search bar, switch the stop and refresh buttons, add the bookmarks and history button, and you've almost got yourself a direct copy (without the sponsored media button and a search button -- but you already have a search bar that you got rid of))
Making toolbars moveable has been slated for AFTER Mozilla Firebird 1.0, so at least you know they are on it. But there are so many programs that don't have moveable toolbars that your argument is invalid anyway.
Regarding making a non-Microsoft Internet Explorer, I think that is a horrible idea. If you can't get used to the Options dialog in Mozilla Firebird, then you don't deserve to be called a teckie. I know some pretty slow people that fell right into that, and away from IE's checkbox heaven.
*Luna does not yet run under MF 0.7. It does run under 0.6, though.
Re:Great Idea... Some Other Suggestions (Score:3, Informative)
> Why would I want to use CTRL+PAGEUP/PAGEDOWN to switch panes when I can use ALT+TAB. ALT+TAB is
> consistent across applications and it's closer to the home position on most keyboards.
Oh, that's easy. Right now, between Opera and Mozilla, I have fifty-two web pages open. It's that low because I pruned out a bunch of them a few days ago. Both browsers have session management, so these pages open up when I start my system. Even though I understand that it is not the norm for most users, I am immensely comfortable with this arrangement.
ALT+TAB (and ALT+SHIFT+TAB) is, for me, the hotkey for application switching. Inside applications, CTRL+TAB is the standard hotkey for document switching. In some programs, CTRL+PgUp and CTRL+PgDn control sub-switching from within a document.
For example:
CTRL+TAB switches between web page tabs in Opera, Mozilla, Netscape 4.x (iirc) and MyIE2 (an extension of IE that blocks popups and adds sidebar extras, MDI tabs and gestures). It switches between spreadsheets in Excel. It switches between currently open email folders and messages in Eudora. It switches between open text files in EditPad. It switches between sub-windows in Nero (CD burner).
As you can see, CTRL+TAB is, if not ubiquitous, pretty common and pretty useful. I might have a hundred documents open at any given time, and it would be a serious insane bitch if I had to ALT+TAB through the entire list to get to the one I want. Instead, I can ALT+TAB between the ten open applications (ignore my many Command Prompt windows, as Windows has no MDI option for that, which is a real waste), and then I can CTRL+TAB to the specific document I'm looking for. And then I can use that CTRL+Pg{Up|Dn} for a little finer granularity, like to get to Sheet 2 of my current Workspace.
Everyone has different habits, so I understand if you wouldn't benefit from the same things that I benefit from. But don't take away these features, because there *are* people who need them!
--
-JC
PS: To my surprise, people in my office have really taken a liking to Mozilla's Bayesian filter (the "Junk" button).
Re:What people really want... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I don't understand this cookie-phobia (Score:2, Informative)
bzzt! HTML does not contain cookies, therefore email that comes in HTML does not have cookies. Cookies are part of the HTTP protocol.
HTML in email can reference web servers that will serve a cookie to you, but the cookie is not in the body of the email itself. This is why its important to disallow HTML-capable email clients from loading anything from a web server.
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
It is a security feature. Mailer viruses, for example, count on being able to find an address book in a certain location. Problem with doing this with Mozilla is that the location on the machine is random. In a similar vein, a malicious website that can exploit a vulnerability could sniff off, for example, your stored passwords or address book, except that the path to this is random.
Mitigating this security is that an app running on the system could read a certain file which stores the various profile directories and then schnarf up the info.
But it definitely raises the bar a bit, security-wise. If you're trying to push settings around, you can read the file.
Don't know what to tell ya about the Windows integration. I'd assume, from their side, that the user config is built to be cross-platform. All of the stuff you described there exists solely on one platform. Note that Mozilla stores user information in one of the locations IE does, namely in the users' Application Settings folder. This should be propogated around like IE's, so I'm not sure what the problem might be, other than uniformity under Windows.
All my favorites are in (dot)mozilla directory (Score:3, Informative)
I can log into any Unix workstation via ssh or a dedicated xterm and load Mozilla. When I do, my "home" directory contains all the setting for every application including Mozilla. So my bookmarks, app settings, desktop environment, etc. are all centralized and apply to any station.
Re:All my favorites are in (dot)mozilla directory (Score:3, Informative)
Aside from that, you can set the location of the bookmarks file by putting this in your user.js file:
I think a problem with sharing the "native" IE favourites is, Windows organises its favourites as a bunch of *.url files, which contain not much information. Mozilla favourites are all in a single file and contain info such as the URL of the site-icon. So they don't easily mix.