Winstripe

Firefox is getting a new default theme: Winstripe, a pun on Pinstripe, a Mac Firefox theme that’s been shipping by default for some time now.

Today, one of the developers of the new theme, Kevin Gerich, presented the Mozilla community with a preview.

Overall, I think it’s a change for the better. The previous default theme, Qute, just didn’t look serious enough for me. I suppose my tastes for an application’s L&F are “consistent ∴ plain ∴ utilitarian.” So I guess that explains why I have been using Chris Cook’s Luna and Luna Blue themes for a long time now. And I suppose that’s why I like what I’ve seen of Winstripe so far.

But the decision to develop a new default theme has been very controversial. Arvid Axelsson has been working on Qute, tweaking it meticulously for a long time. There seems to have been a breakdown in communication recently; Chris Gonyea seems to have a much better idea of what’s going on than I do.