RetroBar VS CustomCSSforFx

Whenever I set up a new computer for older family members, despite it being windows 11, I always install open shell[1] and retro bar[2]. Between the two, I've made the operating system look very close to Windows XP visually, and they always appreciate it.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

[2] https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar

https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar replicates all old taskbar and I have been using it for a long time now. Works perfectly on Windows 10.

I wanted that toolbar for a very long time, didn't know it now exists. Thanks for recommending. I have switched to https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar/ for a very a while now but this is very intriguing.

Classic taskbar

Gibt's auch in OpenSource: https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar

not sure if this is the right place to post but windows 11 was restricted and the description says that anything that has the microsoft windows xp look and feel is welcome here so here i go. this here is a guide on how to make windows 11 (and maybe 10, didnt test it on that) look like windows xp, but slightly more modern. first get retrobar, from here. then once youve done that run the setup (it might ask you to install dotnet, so do that.) then run it. now right click your taskbar and click on properties. then youre gonna leave everything the same except for the theme, wich youll set to windows xp royale. once youve done that click ok. now you need openshell. you can get it right here. then install that and go launch "open shell menu settings." now in start menu style set it to classic with 2 collumns then click select skin (right under the option i just told you to click) and set it to windows aero, and have the options like this. no icons in second column on, show user picture on, show username on, center usernname optional but i reccoment off, small icons on, large font off, reduce glass color off, and finally, white sub menu's on. then click ok. now get the dark theme bliss from my google drive over here, and set it as your wallpaper, you dont have to, but it makes it look better. then get the recycle bin icon somewhere on the interwebs and go to settings>personalisation>themes>desktop icon settings. then set the empty bin to an empty windows xp bin ico file. and set the full one to the same one, or if you have time (and disk space) to waste, set it to a full version of it. now youre done! ill try to figure out how to change the windows 11 logo in about windows and give an update once i get that done. thats it for now, bye!

It's a bit complicated, but I mainly used some 3rd-party tools like Winaero Tweaker, WinClassic's SimpleThemeTray, RetroBar, and OpenShell to achieve this effect. As for the icons, I used a fresh Windows XP install for this, which someone extracted all the icons from said fresh install and put them on the Internet Archive. :)

RetroBar (Windows 9x/XP like status bar)

As noted, there are quite a few of these, I use this project:

https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx.

It's actively maintained and lets me put the tab bar directly above the content but you can set it up to fully return you to the days of Firefox 4 if you want...

Just in case you do not know or you are interested, the Firefox's UI is mere CSS, one can customize it through "chrome/userChrome.css" in the profile folder of the user. I put my tabs under the bookmarks for example, just above the page content, with the template from the CustomCSSforFx[1] project, and modified some colors and icons.

Firefox have also the "Browser Toolbox"[2] -and is homologous to the web development tools- that you can use for to explore the CSS of the UI, select elements, the CSS code, and modify them for to see how would work the modifications before to put them within the userChrome.css

The tabs are under the id=TabsToolbar, so an #TabsToolbar{ display: none !important; } or similar should work, in addition to correct the space that it leaves modifying other params css.

[1] https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx

[2] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/browse...

Years ago, a strange trend began in which browsers removed by default all the classic menu bars, bookmarks, etc., sacrificing usability for aesthetics.

But fortunately with Firefox it is possible to restore that usability through its options, and custom stylesheets allows us to change the interface under our needs. In my case I use as base [0]customcssforfx for to put the tabs under the url bar (by default is shown over the url bar), and from there I add a couple of lines with custom padding, sizes and icons. [0] https://github.com/aris-t2/customcssforfx

The matter is, when I open the browser I see the following rows:

1. Menu bar (file, edit, view, history, bookmarks, tools, help).

2. history buttons |[ URL BAR ]| reload | home | addons (... | Decentral eyes | CookieAutoDelete | uMatrix | uBlockOrigin | Multi-Acount containers ) | Addons icon | Menu bar icon |.

3. Toolbar bookmarks row | Button for unfolding the bookmarks that don't fit in such row.

4. Pinned tabs (they are only icons) | < | Tab_1, Tab_2, Tab_3, ... | > | + | unfold vertical list of the opened tabs |.

5. The page for the selected Tab.

This allows us to use two bookmarks visual groups, the ones that are unfolded through Menubar's bookmarks, and the ones from Toolbar's folder -what in reality is a subfolder from menubar's bookmarks- that it's shown as 3rd row in the interface. Also the easy access to CookieAutoDelete, uMatrix, uBlockOrigin current page options are essential.

In the Toolbar bookmarks, for being able to visually have more folders as "quick access" row line, I use acronyms as folder names (just for the first ones until fill that space). This between separators, and also mere url icons bookmarks (by removing the bookmark title name its just showed the page icon).

When one push one those folders are unfold all the related sub-folders and sub-bookmarks.

Also, equally important, the folders and bookmarks that don't fit in such row are easily accessible by pushing an icon at the right corner, what unfolds a vertical list with the rest the bookmarks. This is important because in such toolbar one usually have several hundreds of independent bookmarks and folders by topics, with infinite sub-folders and their respective bookmarks, etc.

This let us in Firefox with:

Pinned tabs (that I usually have linked to multi containers), the current session opened tabs, the usability of to have all those topics by clicking the folder or icon, a second different visual group of tabs through Menubar's bookmarks. If one want to add to those folders/topics the page is being read, it's just needed to drag and drop the url there. Also all those folders have the option "open it all in tabs".

I can not think in browsing comfortable without such interface and tools as a starting.

I guess you need to use whatever version of the Aris CSS is meant to be used with a specific version of Fx; it's detailed here.

I am using tyhe most recent https://github.com/aris-t2/customcssforfx code but I can't get my previous adds for Bookmark sizing and padding to work.

Yes Aris: https://github.com/aris-t2/customcssforfx

I am using the userchrome CSS here and I've tried adding height, margin, and padding variations to a lot of different ids and cannot find which of them controls the total tab height. (My current CSS state is that of the code I linked)

I'm trying to use the userchrome CSS here to put the tabs below the navigation bar, and it does indeed move the tabs below the navigation bar but then leaves the vertical space for the tabs on top of the navigation bar as inactive dead space. What do I need to do to fix this? I also tried the alt version of the CSS code and got the same thing.