Silver's Simple Site - Weblog - Tags - Theming

Since the menu change in Firefox to make the menus look like WinXP's themed style on all versions of Windows, rather a lot of people have been upset. Quite understandable, really, as the change has just made Firefox's menus look seriously lame on non-themed systems.

So much is the annoyance, that I've gone and started hacking nsNativeThemeWin.cpp to try and make it support theming menu components on Windows. It ain't pretty, but I've managed to fix some bugs with the toolbox and toolbar appearances already (which help a lot), and have got basic themed menupopup and menuitem support going. It lacks the classic appearance currently but, now I know my way around, that should be easier.

Well, it's taken a few days of work, but Firefox's finally look right in the Luna XP, Windows XP and Windows Classic themes. Woo.

In case you hadn't guessed, I don't believe there is any way my work to fix Toolkit's toolbar and menu appearances on Windows will make it into Firefox 1.5. The patch has been ready and waiting for review since 2005-09-18, yet it'll still completely miss. All it does is demonstrate the problems with the review process. :-(

Also, I've stopped working on the menu shadows bug due to yet more Mozilla.org politics (drivers, again).

They've gone and done it folks. Without any warning, they have suddenly decided that my branch-only ban-aid needs to land on trunk for baking. WTF?

It seems that only one regression has so far turned up from the unexpected trunk landing. That's a bit of surprise itself, but there you go.

I'm still expecting drivers to say "actually, no" to the whole thing landing on branch, even though Asa did set blocking1.8rc1+ on the 5th, but we'll see. Asa himself is already going and minus-ing quite a lot of stuff, so things don't look good.

I have now totally run out of patience with drivers, and I honestly don't know what I'll do the next time the screw me or any of 'my' bugs about.

Yes, they forced the theming patch on to branch, but they also screwed it up, in two ways. It is both impressive and unbelievably embarrassing.

Well, that's it folks. The patch is no longer in the branch, and the menus in Firefox 1.5 will look like crap unless you use the Windows XP default 'Luna' theme.

I wont go in to any more detail than I did in the bug, though I will say that I will continue with this work on trunk for 2.0, due next millennium.

This is just to outline my plans for working on native theming for menus and toolbars, and related bugs:

• First priority is to get the pure-CSS appearance in winstripe right. The target appearance is Windows XP Classic. This is being worked on in bug 313388. This is currently going well, and is nearing completion.
• One single native bit will be written with the pure-CSS version - -moz-MenuBarHoverText, which will be (at this stage) implemented (on platforms which use winstripe, or maybe all) to work exactly like the CSS colour chosen for the hover text colour.
• The above work will be checked in to trunk CVS (after reviews, etc.) and will remove the -moz-appearance properties currently there. This will mean everyone will see the pure-CSS appearance, and this is exactly what is intended.
• Any problems found with the pure-CSS appearance (excluding, obviously, "it's not themed!" which I know a few idiots will file) will be fixed at this point, as once the native code is re-enabled, only odd groups of people will ever see it again (OS/2 users, for example).
• At this point, there will be an expected regression with the Firefox Bookmarks toolbar, which will be fixed (the exact method is yet to be decided).
• Work will then begin on the native code necessary to support the theme engine in Windows XP. This may involve some minor tweaks to the CSS, but the ideal result is that only -moz-appearance properties are added. -moz-MenuBarHoverText will be adjusted (on Windows only) to follow the correct rules for menu bar text with themes.
• This will be reviewed and checked in, and that will be it done.
• Regressions will be fixed here, of course. :-)

It may seem like a long-winded way of doing things, but it will mean you get a top-quality result, as each key part will be written separately, tested separately, and checked in separately (for regression spotting).

Here we go again, and this time I'm not in the mood for any shit. I just want to warn everyone that if I get messed about with this again, I'm just going to stop. They can find some other deluded soul to fix their mistakes next time.

It's not a good day, and there's plenty to piss me off:

• Someone broke the authentication for Trac (wants-to-be-Bugzilla when it grows up thing) for the IRC bot I work on.
• Possibly same someone put a disrespectful message on the test version of the new Computing Society website.
• Still no-one wants to review the patch which is blocking my theme work.
• My ISP is dropping my ADSL connection an average of 15 times a day for the last two weeks.