Photon Engineering Newsletter #3

Three! Time for update number three! Ah-ah-ah…

Let’s get straight to it.

Recent Changes

Menus/structure:

• Work on the new application menu is nearing completion. Edit controls and Firefox Account status have been added, along with keyboard navigation. The “exit” and “zoom” controls are the last remaining features to implement.
• The new overflow menu panel is done, except for polish and bug fixes.
• The above are still behind the browser.photon.structure.enabled while we finish initial development, but we expect to turn them on by default (in Nightly) in the next couple of weeks.
• The new sidebar switcher has landed. You can change what’s displayed in the sidebar (bookmarks, history, synced tabs) from at control at the top of the sidebar itself.
• Work on the new Library button is starting.

Animation:

•  Work continues on animations for downloads toolbar button, stop/reload button, and page loading indicator – but these haven’t landed yet.

Preferences:

•  Searching within preferences is taking shape on Nightly! It now comes with the right highlight color, and tooltips for sub-dialog search results.
• User testing of the updated reorg is under way.

Visual redesign:

• Toolbar changes included new toolbar button hover and active background styles, increased vertical padding, and a new back button design. Work on toolbar button and location bar style is nearly complete.
• CSS changes for compact and touch modes has landed (but needs more plumbing before it’s activated).
• Lots of small regression fixes.
• History sidebar style changes being worked on.

Onboarding:

• The skeleton of the onboarding overlay system add-on is under review. This will initially be used to introduce new Firefox users to some of the great features of Firefox they might not otherwise know about. Later, we’ll be using this same framework to help introduce existing Firefox users to the changes coming in Firefox 57. Here’s a short GIF from the prototype showing what the experience is like, starting from a badge on the new-tab page:
  
• Other improvements to the first-run experience are planned to ship in Firefox 55: a better download page, updated stub installer, removing the default-browser prompt, and a less intrusive data-privacy notice. We want to help new users start using Firefox without annoyances or hassle.

Performance:

• More rigorous reflow tests have landed for window opening, tab opening and tab closing. More tests coming up for windows and tabs, and the AwesomeBar.
• Mike Conley started his first The Joy of Profiling episode. (And if you’re interested in profiling, don’t miss Ehsan’s talk on Gecko and the Native Profiler!)
• A reduction of main thread IO during early startup, and yet more startup improvements.
• Upcoming work to delay NSS initialization until after first-paint.

 

That’s it for now. More next time!