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Stratiform 3.0
By muckSponge
787 Favourites1K Comments127K Views
Official Mozilla Download
The ultimate user friendly customization add-on for Firefox. Puts the power in the average user's hands to customise the browser's look.
Translate Stratiform for your preferred language.
Found a bug? Report it here and we will try to smush it. Check Stratiform's list of known issues before filing a bug report.
From your friendly developers, *SoapyHamHocks and =SpewBoy.
Published:
Comments1762
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Since I've become such a big fan of Stratiform, I thought I would give the latest version a bit of a review. First of all, I'm very impressed with the major changes. I love the new layout/UI; the animated background, the new Rubix-like colour options, and the overall design of the interface. I also love how you've laid everything out, which is definitely an improvement from the old layout; I like how you can change the colours all in one section, and also the curve radius. I also like the samples/previews for buttons and text fields much better. I'm also impressed with the new themes, I look forward to you developing/perfecting them.
Now I would like to offer some constructive criticism. Firstly, I'm not sure whether I'll be the only one to say this, but I find a strange optical illusion occurring on the Rubix and Soft7 button themes, making the back button appear smaller than the forward button. If the back buttons could be made slightly larger as to avoid this, it would be perfect. I also noticed that the Soft7 icon for the back button will not work on a theme with a large back button, which is disappointing. In addition, it would've been nice to see a subtle hover state for the Rubix buttons, or to have them look slightly less "tall". Furthermore, the Soft7 tabs also look very similar to the Strata40 tabs, it's quite hard to tell them apart, and would've been nice to see something more unique. Lastly, just to throw some ideas out to you; I think it would be nice to see an almost-clear text field, similar to the design of the default one, to match minimalistic set-ups, and maybe a black one too, to match dark colour schemes. Translucent and black status pop-ups to match would be great as well. I also look forward to seeing more Tab and Firefox Button themes. Overall, a job well done, and I thank both SpewBoy and SoapyHamHocks for putting in all the effort and hard work. <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="



Oops, that should be =AP-GRAPHIK.

Thanks for the critique. I'll try and reply to some of the criticisms.
First off, the "optical illusion" you are seeing is most likely because you are used to seeing the back button and icon bigger than the forward button, so when both are the same size, comparatively your mind thinks the back button is smaller. This is not so much an optical illusion as it is something that you need to get used to. We will not be making the back button bigger for those styles, as the design is deliberately symmetrical in that regard. In the case of Soft7, it is actually based on a visual style, so we do not have much artistic freedom for that style, as the goal is to make it look exactly like the visual style (and mockup).
The Soft7 icon is something we can look into fixing for other styles.
Rubix was actually a pretty rush job and has a few issues with split menu buttons. A hover effect was never planned for the style, as it was meant to be a very hands on, solid approach to the UI, like real buttons, and real buttons do not have hover effects. Originally I did go with a "half pressed" hover effect at one point, which depressed the button slightly, or made it less tall in other words.
The Soft7 tabs were designed by :devAP-GRAFIK: so again, we don't have a huge amount of artistic freedom over these, but because there are no tabs in the visual style we do have a bit of leeway, and we can work on making the tabs a tad more unique in the future.
Hope that shed some light on the reasoning behind our design choices. Thanks again for the critique.
First off, the "optical illusion" you are seeing is most likely because you are used to seeing the back button and icon bigger than the forward button, so when both are the same size, comparatively your mind thinks the back button is smaller. This is not so much an optical illusion as it is something that you need to get used to. We will not be making the back button bigger for those styles, as the design is deliberately symmetrical in that regard. In the case of Soft7, it is actually based on a visual style, so we do not have much artistic freedom for that style, as the goal is to make it look exactly like the visual style (and mockup).
The Soft7 icon is something we can look into fixing for other styles.
Rubix was actually a pretty rush job and has a few issues with split menu buttons. A hover effect was never planned for the style, as it was meant to be a very hands on, solid approach to the UI, like real buttons, and real buttons do not have hover effects. Originally I did go with a "half pressed" hover effect at one point, which depressed the button slightly, or made it less tall in other words.
The Soft7 tabs were designed by :devAP-GRAFIK: so again, we don't have a huge amount of artistic freedom over these, but because there are no tabs in the visual style we do have a bit of leeway, and we can work on making the tabs a tad more unique in the future.
Hope that shed some light on the reasoning behind our design choices. Thanks again for the critique.
Just started using Firefox 29 [Portable]: what a disappointing redesign of the interface! Don't where to start, but without a vertical column of Bookmarks that displays and functions as in immediately prior versions, no possible way for me to use it.
Haven't attempted 'Classic Theme Restorer' but specs indicate it returns lost functionality.
Curve form of the new tabs is interestingly 'baroque' but belongs in a design museum; to my eye completely outclassed by 'crispness' of Chrome. How sad … Looks like Firefox is becoming the Windows 8.1 of browsers, with fewer security flaws one may hope.
Hope the new Stratiform can rectify some of these new shortcomings — depending on you!
Haven't attempted 'Classic Theme Restorer' but specs indicate it returns lost functionality.
Curve form of the new tabs is interestingly 'baroque' but belongs in a design museum; to my eye completely outclassed by 'crispness' of Chrome. How sad … Looks like Firefox is becoming the Windows 8.1 of browsers, with fewer security flaws one may hope.
Hope the new Stratiform can rectify some of these new shortcomings — depending on you!

That's the plan
Firefox 29.0 should have a sidebar toggle dropdown toolbar button and the keyboard shortcuts should still work (Ctrl/Cmd + B for bookmarks sidebar). If not, I know this functionality is in Aurora (30.0). I know the tabs are still rather different but once we finish Stratiform 4.0 that shouldn't be a huge problem.


There should be a reset button in Stratiform's options. Alternatively you can open up about:config and search "stratiform" and just reset any results that show up to remove all preferences.
Note that Firefox 28 isn't very compatible with Stratiform and we are working on some alpha builds to resolve the problem (check my journal entries). The next version is a complete reqrite which takes a whole new approach to styling your browser so it is taking a while to develop.
Note that Firefox 28 isn't very compatible with Stratiform and we are working on some alpha builds to resolve the problem (check my journal entries). The next version is a complete reqrite which takes a whole new approach to styling your browser so it is taking a while to develop.
Thank you so much for the prompt reply and guidance. Some other update to this installation of Firefox must have blown Stratiform apart because Reset failed and subsequently, after attempting to configure settings that did not take effect, 'about:Config' displayed no Stratiform entries at all.
So I wiped this old installation and reinstalled anew with 17 Add-ons.
It all took some time but the reward is that Stratiform works again AND Firefox loads in a fraction of the time.
All good wishes!
So I wiped this old installation and reinstalled anew with 17 Add-ons.
It all took some time but the reward is that Stratiform works again AND Firefox loads in a fraction of the time.
All good wishes!

Thanks! It is in development. SoapyHamHocks has had internet issues for over a month now so progress is hard going unfortunately. He does seem to do a lot of work on Stratiform without internet though (fewer distractions I suppose), I just can't actually see it because I live in a different country so I don't actually know how close v4.0 is to completion 


An update is in the works. SoapyHamHocks has been having internet connection issues for the last 3 weeks, so I can't really comment on our progress but in the few times I've been able to talk with him, the new version is actually coming along rather well considering he has no internet. I've been focusing more on some of our other projects (like Pseutro) and uni.
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