In installing some extensions to Mozilla Firebird, I’ve been given a perfect example of why buttons in dialog boxes should always be verbs:

Link Toolbar: “Do you wish to install Link Toolbar to you (sic) profile? This will mean it does not need reinstalling when you update your browser. (Click cancel if you want Link Toolbar installing to the main browser directory)”

Popup ALT Attribute: “Do you want this package to be installed for all users? (Administrator permissions required)”

Both dialogs displayed “OK” and “Cancel” buttons, and both were asking the exact same question (did I want the extension installed to my user profile or the application directory). The answers, however, were different. Suffice it to say, I installed at least one of them to the wrong place.

Mozilla Firebird 0.6 was released today. One of the new features is an official Mac OS X version (there have been unofficial builds of Phoenix floating around for a while). The release notes promise that “it’s still quite rough around the edges,” and this is definitely true. So I will avoid commenting on problems or glitches in the Mac OS X version for another few releases (and I will continue to use Safari and/or Camino).

One thing amuses me, though: The context menu for the Firebird toolbar icons give you an option to customize the toolbars, with a dialog very similar to Mac OS X’s native toolbar support (e.g., Cocoa’s NSToolbar). In fact, Firebird even goes to some trouble to simulate a sheet. Except on Mac OS X, where the toolbar customization window appears just like any other document window, complete with title bar. Mac OS X, of course, is the only OS that has native sheet support, and what no doubt inspired the dialog’s appearance on other platforms. I find this a little ironic.