Mimicking the Pale Moon Effect in Older Versions of Firefox

[slendertechofficial]

So, recently I fell in love with the firefox ui from version 11.0.


So, I thought, maybe there could be a way to have this old version of Firefox load modern web pages properly. Therefore, I was wondering if I could mimic the Pale Moon effect of having the old Firefox 11.0 UI, but being able to properly browse the web and install addons. I'm not really interested in modding Pale Moon, and I do not want to base my browser on Pale Moon. In other words, how does Pale Moon have a modern browser core with the old Firefox UI?

Thanks in advance for any advice or help! Connor

[Moonchild]

I'm not really interested in modding Pale Moon, and I do not want to base my browser on Pale Moon.

Hence me moving the topic to "General Discussion"

I'm not sure what you want is possible. Firefox 11's front-end is hard-incompatible with current Gecko. if you want to have a Firefox 11 front-end with a modern Firefox "core" then you will have to do a lot of work on the front-end code to make it work, and I don't think it's going to be feasible to adapt it to electrolysis or servo. pretty much requiring a rewrite from the ground up -- and even then you won't get the customizability.

In other words, how does Pale Moon have a modern browser core with the old Firefox UI?

By being a fork (and not a rebuild) with over 10 years of independent development and updating front-end development in tandem with the platform/core.

[slendertechofficial]

By being a fork (and not a rebuild) with over 10 years of independent development and updating front-end development in tandem with the platform/core.

What's this thing about forking and rebuilding?

[Moonchild]

Fork: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(sof ... velopment)

a rebuild is making no real changes or not having independent development and always using the code of the software based on as-is from version to version (often with alternative branding/configuration)

[moonbat]

As an example - Librewolf, Iceraven etc are rebuilds of Firefox with the privacy invasive bits stripped out. They are entirely dependent on Mozilla for the codebase and have no development work of their own, which is why their releases closely follow Firefox's. Pale Moon only has an upstream dependency for security fixes, and even then not all of them are applicable due to the now huge differences between code bases. If you look at the release notes, you can find references to several Mozilla security fixes that are not applicable.

[slendertechofficial]

Firefox 11's front-end is hard-incompatible with current Gecko. if you want to have a Firefox 11 front-end with a modern Firefox "core" then you will have to do a lot of work on the front-end code to make it work, and I don't think it's going to be feasible to adapt it to electrolysis or servo. pretty much requiring a rewrite from the ground up -- and even then you won't get the customizability.

So, there are a couple of questions that arise from this.
1. What is a front-end? I know that in web development, the front-end of a website is mostly constructed of html, css, and javascript, and is used to present the user with a specific expirience. Of course, this does not sound applicable here, but may have a similar idea behind it.

2. Does rewriting/heavily modifying the front-end mean rewriting/heavily modifying the UI/UX?

3:

and even then you won't get the customizability.

What are you referring to?

Thanks
Connor

[moonbat]

What is a front-end?

In this context, the browser UI. Menus, tabs, buttons, toolbars, sidebars etc - distinct from the rendering engine that displays web pages and the CSS/JS that is used on them. In Pale Moon's case there is separate internal JS and XUL that extensions can use and that is firmly separated from that which runs on webpages (XUL doesn't, obviously). Either way, this has connections to the browser engine so that the UI can respond to changes in the web page (for example, the back/fwd buttons or the refresh button, the statusbar to show page loading progress and current URL being hovered over, etc)

Since Mozilla entirely rewrote Firefox using Rust and Servo after version 11, it can't work with the contemporary version of the engine.

2. Does rewriting/heavily modifying the front-end mean rewriting/heavily modifying the UI/UX?

Pretty much what Mozilla has done since 2011 to the detriment of UX.

What are you referring to?

Should've read this, right on the main website first before even registering a forum account. Notably the sections on features and differences from Mozilla products.

[slendertechofficial]

Since Mozilla entirely rewrote Firefox using Rust and Servo after version 11, it can't work with the contemporary version of the engine.

Well, then would it be possible to use Firefox 12 as a base (It has the exact same UI)? Or, do you mean that they rewrote Firefox in rust in later builds somewhere along the line?

[moonbat]

Yep, they rewrote it in Rust and what you're asking for essentially is the same, i.e. rewriting a browser from scratch. I don't see why you're so fixated on an obsolete version of Firefox given that you can achieve the same appearance as your screenshot in Pale Moon without writing a single line of code. If you hide the menubar, you'll get a similar button on the top left with all the functions in it. Of course if using Firefox is all you're interested in then this isn't the right place to begin with.

[Moonchild]

I don't see why you're so fixated on an obsolete version of Firefox given that you can achieve the same appearance as your screenshot in Pale Moon without writing a single line of code.

I'm not really interested in modding Pale Moon, and I do not want to base my browser on Pale Moon.

I'm not sure what you want is possible.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Yes ... I do not understand what is this "Pale Moon effect" and what is so special in FF 11. Just the pre-Australis look-and-feel ? I discovered Pale Moon long ago when FF went Australis (was it 28 or 29 ?) ... suddenly for me at an unexpected update, and I could not stand Australis and moved to Pale Moon just for that, at the time I was barely aware of extensions (except perhaps for restoring the status bar in FF) and fully of all other good reasons to go Pale Moon (no telemetry or tracking etc.). Since then Pale Moon is my primary browser. I get all of its goods, and the look-and-feel I like ... and I have nothing to do (rewriting/rebuilding) which would be beyond my capability and time, just install (eventually) a bunch of extensions.

[Sajadi]

I'm not really interested in modding Pale Moon, and I do not want to base my browser on Pale Moon. In other words, how does Pale Moon have a modern browser core with the old Firefox UI?

New Firefox code base is basically incompatible with almost everything customization, and the only customization option which remains - and additionally can NOT create new browser elements, but can ONLY modify existing ones is userchrome.css

And even that is marked by Mozilla now as "legacy" in about:config - which means they will sooner or later remove it and that is killing every remaining ability to customize Firefox in any reasonable way.

You could theoretically..... fork Waterfox, Pulse browser or Floorp - which are managing to add customization with the help of as already mentioned userchrome.css and perhaps a bit rewriting the UI code and bundling add-ons like Treestyle Tabs - all are Open Source and can be forked. Floorp even allows you to combine tabs and the url-bar - if you pick one of the existing skin options. What you could truly achieve with them.... it will still be highly limited in comparison to the abilities of Pale Moon.

https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp/
https://github.com/WaterfoxCo/Waterfox/
https://github.com/pulse-browser/

Off-topic:
Just to give you a simple example of how limited Firefox has become... You are even unable to hide/remove simple browser bars if you would write a web-extension - compared to XUL extentions, web-extentions are simply pathetic and inferior in every single way - install for example Treestyle tabs and without writing a specific userchrome.css modification you have to swallow to constantly endure the normal tab bar even if you have now side tabs - and once userchrome.css would be killed off, something like that basically becomes fully impossible - and with using userchrome.css modifications you have to expect it breaking at every single new Firefox release, as Mozilla is "mainstreaming" their UI elements right now, and it is basically not even sure if you would be able to achieve something with using this feature once Mozilla is done with what they want to do

Also keep in mind, that if you would hard-fork the browser, you would have to implement all ECMAScript/CSS drafts and features on your own... and that is an incredibly hard task - and impossible if you do not have the necessary knowledge for doing so and no contributors helping you out.

If you want to continue the path of mentioned Open Source projects above - aka getting always the latest available Firefox engine - you have to swallow what Mozilla serves you - and you run into the danger to sooner or later lose everything what you have created - as Mozilla wants to become the best Chrome possible without using Blink as engine.

Best way would still be forking Pale Moon - it is the most sane option in every possible way.

To bring it to the point:

- Firefox code with the ability to heavily customize the browser=
Firefox up to Version 28

- Firefox code with the limited ability to heavily customize the browser=
Firefox up to Version 56

- Firefox code with the highly limited ability to heavily customize the browser=
Firefox from Version 57 onwards

Choose your poison.

[moonbat]

Best way would still be forking Pale Moon

Going by his screenshot, there's no need to even do that since you can achieve the same appearance with two mouseclicks.

[FranklinDM]

... you can achieve the same appearance with two mouseclicks.

Stratum

[Sajadi]

Going by his screenshot, there's no need to even do that since you can achieve the same appearance with two mouseclicks.

I agree, but as it seems the topic opener does want maximized out web-compatibility - this already limits their options

So, I thought, maybe there could be a way to have this old version of Firefox load modern web pages properly.

I forgot to mention that there is also another option... if Firefox/Pale Moon achievement goals are too hard to reach and available options not acceptable... You could still start to use Vivaldi and rewrite the whole UI - as it is basically just a progressive Web app bundled with Chromium and written with the help of CSS/HTML/JS components.

Downside... closed source and (for me personally unacceptable higher) downside that it is Chromium (Got rid recently of Chromium variants as backup browsers and switched beside of having Pale Moon as main again for backup reasons also to Floorp)

[slendertechofficial]

... you can achieve the same appearance with two mouseclicks.

Stratum

Thanks! Before you posted this link I had discovered this and was very happy . But, there is one thing I still wish to accomplish: move the tabs to on top of the address bar like in Firefox 11.

Also, my ui did not change to that light blue color from the strata theme. How can I get it to do so?

[Lucio Chiappetti]

If you really want that: View->Toolbars-> tick Tabs on Top
(personally I hate tabs on top, for me the logical order is menu bar, navigation bar, bookmark bar, tabs bar )

[Sajadi]

(personally I hate tabs on top, for me the logical order is menu bar, navigation bar, bookmark bar, tabs bar )

I personally love either side-tabs/Tree styled tabs or the tabs in combination with the Url-bar elements

[FranklinDM]

Also, my ui did not change to that light blue color from the strata theme. How can I get it to do so?

Like what Lucio said, you have to enable Tabs on Top. Also, if you're not on Windows 7, the toolbar's background color defaults to a white-gray combination. You can customize this by installing Stylem and creating a new user style with the following style sheet as its contents:

Code: Select all

@namespace url(http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul);

:root {
  --toolbar-custom-color: hsl(214,44%,87%);
}

[slendertechofficial]

Do you know if there is any way to customize the blue "Pale Moon" block at the top left corner of the window's color through CSS?