As I’m sure all of you know by now, Windows 8 has two very different interfaces. One of them is the traditional Windows desktop which we all know and then there’s the new Metro UI which is predominantly based around touch. The Metro UI is likely to be very popular amongst tablet users and people with touchscreens on their PC’s. Today Mozilla outlined in the 2012 road map plan that they hope to get Firefox working with the Metro UI as soon as possible.

Mozilla has quite a large amount of the browser market share so it 0nly makes sense that they’re looking to be ready to go on the Windows 8 Metro platform as well.

“The feature goal here is a new Gecko-based browser built for and integrated with the Metro environment, Firefox on Metro, like all other Metro apps will be full screen, focused on touch interactions, and connected to the rest of the Metro environment through Windows 8 contracts,”

If integrated properly with the Metro UI, Firefox will be paused and suspended in the background when not in use, but also able to interact with other aspects of Windows.The Firefox Metro browser will be a new Gecko-based browser focused on touch interactions. It  will have both full-screen and partial-screen modes to take advantage of the Snap feature. We might even see a live tile so users can see updates of the Start Screen.

The company wants to have a proof of concept ready for the second half of this year which will then be followed by Alpha and Beta builds. Mozilla say that a simple evolution of it’s existing code will mean that Firefox will work fine with the Windows 8 desktop, but the Metro UI requires a lot more work.

So it sure sounds like Mozilla’s coders will be very busy, but I’m sure that the Firefox community will be more than appreciative of their efforts when they get it done and dusted.

You can read more about this at Mozilla’s Windows 8 page