Marko said
Anyone knows why exactly this change was made?
The Mozilla Wiki page I linked above has background information, including this from the Intro section:
*The Preferences window is moved into the content area. This move provides several benefits for users. First, it removes yet another easy-to-lose window. It means that changing preferences in Firefox can be an identical and easy experience an consistency across operating systems.
The Firefox's redesigned Preferences link in the References section is broken but this is from google's cache:
Why is it important that Preferences are in the content space rather than a separate window?
1. Consistency across devices. By using the content space, we no longer have to rely on the ability of a device to draw separate windows and dialogs. This is particularly important on tablets and phones, where window management is more difficult. Now, users of mobile Firefox will see a familiar interface when move to desktop Firefox, and vice versa.
2. Consistency across operating systems. Windows, OSX, and Linux all create windows and dialogs differently, which means the user’s experience with Preferences was different depending on the OS. Now, as we draw this interface within Firefox, we can make it look and feel identical across systems.
3. Consistency with the web. Ultimately, the browser is a doorway to the rest of the web. For the browser to behave like a dialog-heavy desktop application rather than the web itself was jarringly anachronistic. Beneficially, rendering like a website also means users won’t need to find and manage a separate window in addition to their open tabs.
4. Space to grow. Not being bounded by a small, floating window means we can create richer customization experiences. The Add-ons manager has already moved to content space, and we’ve been able to explore richer use cases as a result. Similarly, expect to see innovative customization experiments as well as the usual Firefox settings.
''Marko [[#post-63907|said]]''
<blockquote>
Anyone knows why exactly this change was made?
</blockquote>
The [https://wiki.mozilla.org/QA/Desktop_Firefox/in-content-preferences Mozilla Wiki page] I linked above has background information, including this from the Intro section:
-----
*The Preferences window is moved into the content area. This move provides several benefits for users. First, it removes yet another easy-to-lose window. It means that changing preferences in Firefox can be an identical and easy experience an consistency across operating systems.
----
The [https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2014/05/firefoxs-redesigned-preferences-feel-more-like-the-web/ Firefox's redesigned Preferences] link in the References section is broken but this is from [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_R8bk0eWPLMJ:https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2014/05/firefoxs-redesigned-preferences-feel-more-like-the-web/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us google's cache]:
Why is it important that Preferences are in the content space rather than a separate window?
1. '''Consistency across devices.''' By using the content space, we no longer have to rely on the ability of a device to draw separate windows and dialogs. This is particularly important on tablets and phones, where window management is more difficult. Now, users of mobile Firefox will see a familiar interface when move to desktop Firefox, and vice versa.
2. '''Consistency across operating systems'''. Windows, OSX, and Linux all create windows and dialogs differently, which means the user’s experience with Preferences was different depending on the OS. Now, as we draw this interface within Firefox, we can make it look and feel identical across systems.
3. '''Consistency with the web'''. Ultimately, the browser is a doorway to the rest of the web. For the browser to behave like a dialog-heavy desktop application rather than the web itself was jarringly anachronistic. Beneficially, rendering like a website also means users won’t need to find and manage a separate window in addition to their open tabs.
4. '''Space to grow'''. Not being bounded by a small, floating window means we can create richer customization experiences. The Add-ons manager has already moved to content space, and we’ve been able to explore richer use cases as a result. Similarly, expect to see innovative customization experiments as well as the usual Firefox settings.
