Firefox Demos Prototype Metro Interface 197
In order to provide an alternative to IE on Windows 8, Firefox needs a Metro UI. Luckily, development of a Metro interface for Firefox is well underway. The current build reuses the Android interface XUL (by virtue of being based on Fennec). The latest test release features lots of platform integration support: "We have Metro snap working, you can snap another Metro app to the right or left of Firefox and continue browsing.
We also have HTML file input controls tied up to the Metro file picker. ... implemented the Windows 8 search contract, you can use the Search Charm from any screen on Windows 8. If you enter a URL, it will be loaded. If you enter anything else, it will be searched in your default search engine. We also implemented the Windows 8 share contract, you can use the Share Charm from any Firefox page to share that page to another application. Once you select the Share Charm it will list the applications you can share to, for example: Mail, Twitter, or Facebook." If you're interested in following development, the team has made a Mercurial repository available.
Further background is provided by the first and second posts in the series.
Re:Sharing data between Metro and desktop versions (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah.. it's terrible.. it's like it's still in development or something.
Re:And the march continues (Score:5, Informative)
Well they won't on the ARM edition...
Re:And the march continues (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong. Windows 8 does allow any browser to become the default, same as before. The catch is that it has only one global (per-user) setting for "default browser" without separation into desktop and Metro. So, if you make some browser default, and that browser does not support Metro, then all URLs in Metro apps will open the desktop app, which is not very convenient - so if someone is heavily using Metro, they will likely only make browser default if it supports Metro.
Re:I wish they wouldn't (Score:5, Informative)
Desktop version of Firefox is not going away.
As for your question, it's answered right there in TFA:
If a browser is awesome on Metro, the only way to use this awesome browser in Metro is for it to become the default. If a browser is default on Metro, it will also be default on the Desktop.
If a browser does not support Metro, it is seriously at risk of losing the default browser status, and therefore significant market share. A browser without support for Metro, if default, would be taking away a Metro browser completely from the user's computer.
Even if a user spends most of their time in the Desktop interface, having a really good Metro browser may be enough for the user to change their default browser. A browser with great Metro support can gain significant browser market share for this reason.
It is extremely important that we deliver an awesome Firefox experience on Metro, one that is tightly integrated with the platform, fast, and feature rich. Windows is by far the platform with the most users and which has the biggest effect on market share.
Re:And the march continues (Score:5, Informative)
Don't they also need to be 'approved' by Microsoft? ( or is this no longer the case?) I was actually half expecting them to do what Apple does and block other browsers. The precedent seems to have been set.
Microsoft has actually been behaving themselves recently. They offered assistance to the Mozilla folks to make sure Firefox would be supported on Windows Vista, they moved Windows Update into the control panel so you no longer need to browse to a web site in IE to update your OS, and Windows 7 gives you the option to remove Internet Explorer (although the rendering engine is still there, since lots of apps rely on it). Each version of IE since IE7 has been less awful, and when they wanted to add an RSS reader (which Firefox already had), they actually flew down to Mozilla headquarters to discuss using Firefox's RSS icon in IE because they figured it would cause less confusion for users if they cooperated. Microsoft refused to participate in WHATWG while HTML5 was being developed, but once W3C officially adopted HTML5, Microsoft got on board.
Does IE still suck? Hell yes, but it sucks a lot less than it used to, and Microsoft is playing by the rules now.