More On Bug 235277 And The Flex Hack

My patch for Bug 235277 was essentially my “flex hack” that i developed while working on LCD. It uses the -moz-flex style property to force an element to fill the available space in its container, and then flips that object’s orientation in its container using -moz-orient: vertical so that it expands vertically instead of horizontally. I’ve also used this for effects in other areas of my theme like the menubar. The main menuitems expand when toolbarbuttons or other objects expand the menubar instead of floating in the middle. This managed to find its way into Firefox’s menu bar via one of my patches.

The hack originated as a way to get the old Go button to match the other toolbarbuttons in my theme. I then began using it as a way to dynamically increase button sizes when space was available, according to Fitts’ Law of interaction design (bigger targets are easier/faster to hit).