Here comes the hero of Christmas!

Holidays are coming soon and unfortunately for me and all Firefox theme users we no longer have a custom Christmas theme. All that's left are some Personas backgrounds which in my opinion don't look that great when combined with the default theme. I have mentioned this before in one of my previous posts and what I've written is about to become a reality.

I am making a Christmas version of my Purple Fox theme ( preview below ).

In other words I will try to become the hero of Christmas and create a modified version of my Purple Fox theme which will include this awesome Christmas design. The idea came to me back in July when I was on a holiday with my family high in the Rila mountain.

All I can say is : I am happy with my theme. By far I have only created a custom toolbar background and I'll see if I can add custom Christmas icons to the add-ons manager as well. Also I will be uploading the theme around November 15th. It takes a week or two for an add-on to get reviewed. In other words you'll have a Christmas theme somewhere around November 20th. I will remove the Christmas version in January 2012. After that you should download the Classic Purple Fox theme with the 2 sub-skins.

Large preview of the theme: http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/536/large.png
More info soon. I'm looking forward your comments! : )

Firefox 8 is out! Review in few sentences.

Version 8.0 of our favourite browser has been released. The folks from Mozilla are following the fast release cycle. Soon I will be moving to Firefox 9 beta but I thought it would be nice to make a post about what is new in Firefox 8 is a few short sentences.

1. Again there are no changes in design so it safe to update. My themes are compatible. Hope you like them.
2. Speed has been slightly improved compared to version 7. It feels a bit faster.
3. Guys from Mozilla fixed some bugs

What's new in Firefox 8:

The latest version of Firefox has the following changes:

• Add-ons installed by third party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
• Added Twitter to the search bar for select locales. Additional locale support will be added in the future
• Added a preference to load tabs on demand, improving start-up time when windows are restored
• Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements
• Added CORS support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
• Added support for HTML5 context menus
• Added support for insertAdjacentHTML
• Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
• Improved WebSocket support
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues

Please see the complete list of changes in this version. Web and extension developers should also view the curated list of platform changes. You may also be interested in the list of changes in the previous version.

That's basically all users. Changes are not that big but I guess Mozilla is trying to take small steps in Firefox development. I still think that this should be version 4.0.4 but hey I'm just a theme developer. I can't do anything about this.

Have a nice day! : )

Firefox 8 beta short review!

Been using Firefox 8 beta for 24 hours. Here are my first impressions!

Compared to Firefox 7 Firefox 8 beta doesn't feel faster. It actually feels the same as Firefox 7. Maybe there are some small improvements when it comes to speed but when I was using Firefox 6 beta it felt much faster than Firefox 5. Same goes for Firefox 7. When I was using the beta it felt much quicker than Firefox 6.

The are no design changes as well. Maybe mozilla are focusing more on performance rather than design. They are probably fixing known issues and stuff. The new and cool thing I've noticed is the new tab animation when you have 3-4 or more open tabs. If you want to move the active tab left or right it doesn't drop like it used to be. It moves the inactive tab. It's a bit hard to explain. You have to see it yourself. Another thing I've seen on the internet is that it's faster on 64bit machines. I'm running a 32bit windows but if you have 64bit machine and you feel any difference in performance in Firefox 8 beta let us know by sharing your thoughts in the comments below! 

Firefox 7 coming tomorrow.

According to Mozilla Firefox 7 should be released tomorrow. Currently I'm using the beta and it definitely starts and loads pages faster. Personally I don't expect anything new in terms or performance or design. They are probably going to fix a few more bugs in the final release.

Meanwhile all my Firefox themes support Firefox 7 and 8 alpha. Everything works and looks fine. Latest versions of Sky Pilot and Purple Fox which includes 2 awesome new designs have been approved and are now available on the Mozilla add-ons site. Hope you like the new designs and bug fixes.

Next on the update list is Orange Fox and I'm working on a 3rd Bloody Red sub-skin ( see post below ) which should be released as soon as version 7.0.19.09.11 gets reviewed. Hope you like what I'm doing and despite the fact that I have less time to work on themes I'm doing the best I can to keep my themes compatible with newer Firefox versions.

Enjoy and please donate if you can. Even the smallest donation helps. If you want to help you can donate by clicking the pay pal button on the left. Thanks!

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Firefox 7,8,9 release dates + preview in few sentences!Be the first to try Firefox 9!

You all probably know (or most of you) that Mozilla is going to release new Firefox version in 6 weeks.Well guess what they are going to release Firefox 7 by the end of the month.And yes I'm not joking.Here's what I found in the Mozilla wiki about the future releases.

Firefox 7
currently in BETA channel
moves to RELEASED on September 27, 2011
I personally tried the beta.It's nice.Compared to Firefox 5 and 6 it's definitely better.They've fixed some bugs and the speed is insane. 


Firefox 8
Firefox 8 is currently in AURORA channel and it will move to Beta on September 27, 2011
I tried the Aurora and all I can say it feels the same like Firefox 7 beta.It doesn't feel faster but the good thing is that for the short time I used it I have not found any bugs or crashes.I think they'll add speed improvements in the beta but will see.

 Firefox 9
currently in NIGHTLY channel
moves to AURORA on September 27, 2011
Yup they've released an alpha version of Firefox.Tried it for a few minutes but I saw nothing new but I might use it for awhile to see if there's something new besides  the compatibility check add-ons window which pops before you start the browser for the first time.Firefox 9 is coming in 2012 that's for sure.Mozilla is planning huge design changes and improvements which will open a job for Firefox add-on developers like me.If you want to be one of the first to try Firefox 9 I've put a link for download at the bottom of this topic!

Download Firefox 9

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New versions of iAqua and Toy Factory waiting for the editors review!

Yesterday I released new versions of iAqua and Toy Factory.It'll take a few days for the editors to review theme but you can download them by clicking the view all versions button on their download pages.What's new?

Version 6.0.20.07.11 of iAqua
*Fixed bug with navigation button
*Fixed bug with drop icon
*Fixed background bug with add-ons manager
*Fixed categories bug in Firefox 6,7,8
*Fixed pop-up window background
*Theme size scaled from 660Kb to 610KB
*Added Firefox 8 support!

Version 6.0.24.07.11 of Toy Factory
*Added Firefox 8 support
*Fixed bug with categories in add-ons manage with firefox 6 and above
*Improved add-ons manage design
*Added smaller install window
*Fixed bug with url bar
*Fixed bug with navigation buttons

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