This came up in another topic, somebody did make a Firefox persona for PortableApps.com, but IMHO it doesn't look right.
Looking through the gallery, I found this one. I don't think the artist even had PA.c in mind, but if you like that red gradient look, I think this is about perfect. It's just a shame PortableApps.com can't bundle a default one when the new Firefox (3.6?) comes out that supports Personas right out of the box, because to have this come up with the menu (assuming the menu is still red and not changed) would be kinda classy.
(I'll stick with Black Tapestry though... been "wearing" it for a couple months and it's still the best I've seen.)
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http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/36721
I'm actually working on making my own persona with the logo and everything, I just haven't worked on it in a awhile. Maybe I should work on it again this week
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Yeah, that's EspaNaks' Persona. I don't know if it's just me, but it just looks bad. A lot of them do. Judging by how a lot of Personas look, it leads me to two possible conclusions: One, my resolution is too low (1024x768 at work and I can't change it) and they only look good at 1600x1200 or better. Two, the software and/or documentation used in making them is weak and people just can't do anything worthwhile with it, with rare exception.
I wish there was a way I could share my Favorites gallery up there. I think I've got the best Personas has to offer, but there are so many. I've been through Abstract and TV/Film a few times. My requirements are actually simple. They have to make a bold statement (subtly is OK) and they have to flow well with what's up there. I have my bookmarks toolbar above my address bar, to the right of the toolbar, and to the right of that, above my search bar, I have Home, Bookmarks, History, Downloads, Adblock Plus, and the Throbber (don't know when they took it out, but it looks cool up there). Real professional look. And if the graphics/CSS in a persona make my text or icons hard to see, it fails immediately. So maybe my standards are a little high? But I have 31 favorites so far, so there's no shortage of good ones, just a very low signal:noise ratio.
Specifically speaking, EspaNaks' theme uses green text, which, I'm sorry to say, is ugly as sin against red. Red... the only red is on the status bar. There is no red on the top. It's all the gradient fading to red. It's got this white bar across the top which kinda bleeds down into something that isn't really black, it's just... some ugly darkish color, and then a little bit of maroon on the bottom bleeds upward, so it's almost like a sunset on the bottom. It's the white strip with the green lettering that kills it, it's just an eyesore.
I've gone and taken screenshots of four personas in the same region of the screen. The first is the PortableApps persona you linked. The second is my current persona. Third is the Black Tapestry one I linked above. Fourth is a Star Trek one to show how a persona can have visual details like an image or a logo and still jive with the rest of Firefox. I can't upload images from here but I will post them when I get home. But if you put the PortableApps.com logo about where the Enterprise is and the "Your digital life, ANYWHERE!" slogan where "STAR TREK" is, it'll be really cool. (Now to actually remember...)
The problem with EspaÑaks' one is a vertical size issue. If you add a dozen empty toolbars, you'll see it does actually get somewhere... sometime. Not sure why it's wonky, but that's the problem. 1px has turned into 10px or something like that.
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You're talking about scaling... that could explain my issues with so many of them. They're scaled for a larger desktop, perhaps. The ones I have with small repeating patterns look about the same on my desktop at home (1600x1200 rez, Win7 does that by default), maybe I should try the others.
I guess the CSS or whatever that draws the persona is incapable of looking for how much space actually is there and scaling to it. It's made by one person with a certain setup and it looks good on his computer, but it doesn't look so good on others.
It's a shame personas are not saved locally. It would be nice to fine tune them or use them as a basis to make a new one. Not sure about Personas itself, but AnyColor looked pretty bad if you couldn't connect to the Internet (the Persona wouldn't load). Maybe the Personas app/extension caches them somehow, haven't tried it yet.
I thought about trying to do a PA.c one...but the problem is, like the star trek one, there isn't really a good place to put it without it being ruined by the other stuff above it...
I use this one at the moment: http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/65947
The problem is, the thumbnail doesn't show it properly, it makes it look crap...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3105891/Pics/Capture.GIF
That is what it looks like on mine...
Hey, just had an idea...what about the PA logo, with a red flare behind it, would that work?
“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman
You have some nice Personas up there, thanks for sharing. The one you linked (FirefoxFlare2) is okay, but the logo sits behind my Downloads and History links. But this is my home computer with the purty 1600x1200 rez, so anything's gonna look better.
Your other one, FirefoxFlare, looks better on my computer, because the Firefox logo sits right between my address bar and search bar. It's got a good balance.
The banners annoy me. Here's why. My favorite two colors of the bunch are the grey and light blue, but the contrast with the text throw them way off. Red and pink look the best, style-wise, but I don't like either color. Blue is a good compromise, the contrast is OK and the color is great.
As promised, here are the three screenshot highlights. They're not full screenshots, they just show off the gradient in one area.
Firefox Theme
MercuryLink
Black Tapestry
Star Trek
PortableApps.com theme? Logo with red flare behind it sounds good, maybe if it's rotating around the logo somehow. I don't mean animated, but twist the flare somehow so it looks like a whirlpool, then put the logo over it. Just an idea. Or... something like that.
I'd recommend getting John's blessing before using his logo, though... it is copyrighted and all. Chances are good he'll be OK with it, but it's always good to ask first.
I should also make note that I will probably not use it, in any case. Don't much care for the color red. Now if you did the same theme in multiple colors, that would be awesome, and I might be inclined to use a green one or a blue one.
Thanks :),I don't particularly like the banners much...I did one, and then went a bit mad with the other colours
Looking at the screenshots you have, I see that it is similar from vista - xp...
The thing that annoys me, is you get a PSD file (which shows where the toolbars are), and it sorta renders most of the actual image file that you make useless because it focuses most of the actual content on the top right of the banner size they make, so you just get a lot of wasted space...seems pointless.
Another thing I don't like, is there is no real way of making a persona that will allow for one text colour, so it messes it up...
And what is the accent colour? anyone? I have no idea...
As for the PA logo with a flare, I was just using the default GIMP ones, which all make it have a white streak in it, which messes with the black and red theme of PA...I don't think that would work...
“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman