Change Mozilla's Throbbers
by Michael Coyle

Update 2: Tuesday January 20th, 2004
Caetck, from MozillaZine Forums, tossed another follow up to this article at us!

I found your site from a dogpile.com search (it's the best I think) for changing Mozilla's throbber. The code you have is missing the 2nd part for the F11/Fullscreen mode. So I'm enclosing the entire code for your readers.

/* Do not remove the @namespace line--its required for correct functioning */

/* Set default @namespace to XUL */
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

/* Change Mozilla Throbber to Navigator 7 */
/* http://mitglied.lycos.de/dandracom/images/ */

#navigator-throbber {
list-style-image : url("animthrob_single.gif") !important;
}

#navigator-throbber[busy="true"] {
list-style-image : url("animthrob.gif") !important;
}

#navigator-throbber[toolbarmode="small"] {
list-style-image : url("throbber16-single.gif") !important;
}

#navigator-throbber[busy="true"][toolbarmode="small"] {
list-style-image : url("throbber16-anim.gif") !important;
}

Thanks Caetck!

Update: Monday December 30th, 2002
A reader who goes by the name of WeSaySo sent a great tip for Mozilla!

"I was looking at the page that instructs how to change the Mozilla throbber. There is actually an easier way that allows users to modify their throbber without any unzipping or having to go into the main Mozilla folder and change application data. The following works flawlessly. It also has the benefit of surviving updates to the program and allowing non-admin users (in OS X) to change their own throbbers."

Mozilla ships with two skins that can be selected from the View-->Apply Theme menu: Classic and Modern. I prefer the latter, so we can start by making a copy of the theme file, located in the Chrome folder in the Mozilla application folder. Find modern.jar and make a copy of it. This file is a zip archive containing all the images used to render the look of the Mozilla skin.

If you need a Zip/UnZip utility, you can take your pick from a VersionTracker listing.

After unzipping the copy, you are left with a folder titled skin. Work you way down to the folder called brand as shown below.

There are two GIF images in the brand folder: the "At Rest" throbber and the animated throbber. Using your favorite graphics application you can create your own, or (lucky for Mozilla users) all of the preview images of the Explorer throbbers in the ResExcellence archive are animated gifs that will drop right into the brand folder! You just need to pick a frame and make a single gif of it.

If you are the adventurous type, browse the folders and images with in the Modern skin and you will learn you can customize any aspect of the browser's appearance. Mozilla provides a tool to make this easier, but unfortunately, given the rapid pace of Mozilla development, the theme tool has lagged behind.