Submitted by Opera Software has released a preview version of their latest browser iteration, codename Merlin, Opera 9.0. Some of the changes include support for XSLT, Web Forms 2.0 and Canvas 2D; rich-text editing; site-specific preferences; find highlighting; default useragent ID as Opera; almost 100% Acid2 test compliance.
Well at least the Windows users are going to be happy.
Opera has always been better on Linux, especially with the text-to-speech thing. Does any Linux browser have such capabilities?
Anyway, looking forward to site-specific features! If implemented right, imagine being able to disable anything from images to CSS on any given site. Of coruse, you could do it with something like Proxomitron, but external apps are a pain
I meant better on Windows!
No surprises really. As a general rule, * on windows > * on Linux. But Linux will be ready for the desktop “realy soon now”, right? right?
It’s been ready for years. FOAD you lame troll.
text-to-speeck -> konqueror does that since a long time ago. But speech to control the browser (windows only), I can’t find another one.
Ooops, sorry.
Here’s the unix release:
http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/u90p1.html
And mac:
http://snapshot.opera.com/mac/m90p1.html
http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/9.0-Preview-1/
Some people tried to predict the guys at Opera wouldn’t pay much attention to their desktop browser after making it free (as it wouldn’t bring profit to the company any more). Well, this is what I call a good answer to those sceptics.
Amen. I definitely didn’t expect support for XSLT and Canvas 2D.
There’s almost nothing left I want in Opera.
Considering that all their products use the same core, why would stop developing their product when all their products rely on the same source.
Sweet!! Finally, a browser taking the “cool” new tech seriously (Acid 2, web forms 2.0 – I guess Safari counts, but I have no mac).
It’ll be nice to see Mozilla playing catch up (yeah, competition is good!)
Now all they need are atuo update (do they have?) and css3 web-fonts (could use svg font format)!!
Yes, Opera has auto-update.
> Yes, Opera has auto-update.
Mind telling me where it is?
What Opera does is check for new releases periodically (can’t tell you period). You can also force it to do so by going Help->Check for new release.
@abdavidson
Great! Thanks!
A few weeks ago I posted a report about a small javascript bug in version 8.5 Well, the bug still exists in this preview, but hopefully will be fixed in the final version.
Interesting: not only does Firefox take ideas from Opera (the improved browser cache, ignoring tabbed browsing in general for a sec), but Opera just introduced ‘about:config’.
Yep. Hopefully people will stop calling it “stealing” and realize it’s good for both sides.
Sometimes features aren’t introduced simply because another browser has it, but because it’s requested by the users.
Amen to that. I like the use of that term instead of ‘theft’… God forbid someone implement a feature found on something else because the users requested it. Usually if users request a feature from something else it means that something else falls short of their expectations.
Case in point: Gecko based browsers. I REALLY wanted to abandon IE as my primary browser, but Opera 7 costed money AND didn’t render sites well, so I was really hopeful on Mozilla/Firefox/other gecko’s to come up with SOMETHING useful.
But (in my experience at least) I came away with a sour taste in my mouth after dealing with the {expletives deleted} at bugzilla and that I basically had to kill ___fill in your favorite gecko based browser here___’s task every 20 minutes from a memory leak locking it up, five minutes if I was browsing particularly aggressively or god forbid downloading files (including “Save Image As” which seems to be the buggiest part of all).
So, Opera 8.5 has been a godsend. Finally free, renders most every site I visit in a useable (not always perfect, but close enough) fashion, none of the IE flaws and to be honest, a more polished, professional appearance… Best of all it’s available on the three platforms I hop between regularly.
Wow, I’m a convert. (nothing more zealous than a recent convert)
Opera 9 beta looks good so far, typing this up from it. Amazingly it retained ALL my settings from the previous version intact, something Firefox seems yet to have figured out… Even the installer is more polished from simple things like when I chose “don’t create a program group on the start menu” it doesn’t create a program group on the start menu… unlike Firefox which when you choose that option it still creates a folder in the start menu… mind you it’s an empty one (oh, that’s {censored} BRILLIANT!)
They keep this up, they will finally shed their “Also ran” status.
and that I basically had to kill ___fill in your favorite gecko based browser here___’s task every 20 minutes from a memory leak locking it up, five minutes if I was browsing particularly aggressively or god forbid downloading files (including “Save Image As” which seems to be the buggiest part of all).
You’ve been pretty unlucky. I’ve been using Firefox for a very long time, and haven’t had any of these issues. But I do know that some exists, but most of these stems from plugins and/or poorly written extensions.
I’ve never had problems with “Save Image As”.
But I know that some have had issues, but most of these stems (as earlier stated) from buggy plugins and extensions. And a few memory leaks are due to flaws in FF itself (all known memory leaks in FF have been fixed – but that’s probably because we haven’t found the unknown ones yet).
“Yep. Hopefully people will stop calling it “stealing” and realize it’s good for both sides. ”
Uh, huh. And who’s calling it “stealing”? The persons writing the code certainly aren’t. The only complaint that people have is when one “borrows” an idea, and then pretends that it’s somehow original.
Look around the web, a lot of people say “stealing”, even some users on this site.
But yeah, borrowing a feature than claiming its innovative is definitely annoying.
So what is it and why would i want it?
Anyone having problems getting to the snapshot? I was in the middle of downloading it when it just stopped. Tried the changelog page again and it seems to be down.
If you still can’t get it, let me know, and I can either host it or email it. If not, there might be mirrors up by now (try MajorGeek[s].com).
Do you, or anyone else, have the Mac file?
As title says, the servers are back up again. I’m looking forward to trying it, but I’m afraid that there’s still a few OS X problems left.
Honestly, I don’t like seeing Opera bumping whole versions like that, it’s less than a year that Opera 8 came out and they bumped into 8.50 out of the blue (from 8.0.2) only *a few weeks ago* (when the only new feature in it was that it had no… ads in it anymore). They are playing a marketing game and the version numbers are part of it. They should slow down a bit their radical versioning.
If they add the features and rewrite whole chunks of the code, why not bump the version number? Just because the rest of the computing industry is stuck in a rut doesn’t mean Opera has to be.
I agree with you about bumping to 8.50, but not about bumping to 9.0. I assume 8.50 was definitely a marketing thing to get it out there since it went free. 9.0 does a bunch of major changes though.
Firefox did the same thing, bumped 1.1 to 1.5 and 1.5 to 2.0. I don’t think either WANTS to, but with IE7 coming out soon, they do it to try and even the playing field a bit.
There are probably a good deal of internal builds to justify the number jumps.
“Honestly, I don’t like seeing Opera bumping whole versions like that, it’s less than a year that Opera 8 came out and they bumped into 8.50 out of the blue (from 8.0.2) only *a few weeks ago* (when the only new feature in it was that it had no… ads in it anymore).”
LOL. That has the be the best new feature they’ve ever come up with!
“They are playing a marketing game and the version numbers are part of it. They should slow down a bit their radical versioning.”
Too many people play that game, but it seems to me to be a minor thing. That isn’t saying that I disagree with you…
Opera team does good job, it is really rich in features application, though significant pitfalls due to numerous bugs; anyway Opera is a good soft.
To tell the truth MS should fire the majority of his IE team and hire Opera team.
Btw, Firefox team can retire too … 🙂
Damn, Opera’s whole website appears to be down. I’m in touch with several others and we all are getting server not found.
Watch it be a DoS attack by some script kiddies who cannot bear the though of someone putting out a product that rivals than their beloved Firefox in functionality and surpasses it in form.
There’s a torrent up for it on TorrentSpy (Windows version only).
Is it just me or is it an American habit that makes them think they invented everything and everyone else is stealing. I mention this because everytime I see the Slashdot crowd talk about Firefox versus Opera, it’s always the same routine of talk Firefox up,and never mention Opera unless it’s ‘stealing’ something off them.
Is the rich text editing that was mentioned something like Midas?
Finally!
Rich text editing, finally! This was the single flaw that kept me from being able to use opera full time.
An idea copied from Firefox, like Firefox copies many ideas from Opera.
Difference being I’m sure Opera isn’t going to claim “opera:config” as an innovation of theirs and I think it’s a crappy idea to use.
It’s just an interface hack that was done in Firefox because there wasn’t an easy way to get access to all the preferences and I’m pretty unimpressed Opera decided it was the way to go.
I guess given that most of the preferences there are geek only that is deemed to make it ok, but it’s a pretty offensive bit of UI… (even if the Opera implementation is a *tiny bit* nicer)
Please don’t turn this into an argument about who copies who and who says what.
The reason Opera added it is because of user requests. The reason users requested it is because there are advanced options in the INI files that aren’t accessible through the preferences dialog. Editing an ini then reloading Opera was annoying, so this was a good way for advanced users to change the more advanced settings.
Not turning into an argument of who copied what. In this case, Opera copied a Firefox feature, very plainly. I don’t mind that.
I just think it’s a poor feature to copy, user requests or not. It’s – as I said – a sign of having given up with coming up with decent UI for preferences.
Yes, it’s better than editing INI files (absolutely) but still it’s a miserable alternative to proper integrated preference choices.
No, I think it’s a good solution. Cramming EVERYTHING into the preferences dialog would be a nightmare and a mess. The way they simplified it now is very nice. They have to keep it as simple as they can (even the Advanced tab) to not scare away users.
I don’t see why it bothers you, since you probably never will use it, and probably will never have to. It provides an interface for those options only the geeks touch, and keeps the UI dialog more simplified.
“No, I think it’s a good solution. Cramming EVERYTHING into the preferences dialog would be a nightmare and a mess.”
Did I say that? No. There are more inventive ways of providing advanced preferences that Joe User isn’t going to touch rather than throwing them all in one big list.
“I don’t see why it bothers you, since you probably never will use it, and probably will never have to. It provides an interface for those options only the geeks touch, and keeps the UI dialog more simplified.”
How exactly are you characterising me to be able to say that I’ll probably never use it?
I’ve been using Opera pretty much solidly since v5 came out, think it is the best browser of the bunch, and do my own fair bit of customisation to my interface feel with it.
None of that alters the fact that a big long scrollable list of changeable parameters is a bad bit of HCI.
Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.
My point is, it’s abad idea to implement all those things into the preferences dialog. So what other solution is there?
You don’t integrate all those options into the standard preferences dialogue for a start; that *would* be nightmarish.
There is nothing however to prevent an *actual* advanced prerefences option that is hidden away from Joe User (maybe under the “specials” submenu) which categorises the options properly and – importantly – (and this is something I dislike about the current preferences window but understand given who all has to use that) – isn’t modal.
Allow the tinkerers to tinker in something that is a bit less chaotic and a bit more organised while still using the browser.
That aside, it’s always fun playing with a new release.
OK, I admit it. I have no loyalty when it comes to browsers. I’ll switch in a heartbeat if the benefits outweight the costs.
I’ve been using Firefox for about a year until a couple weeks ago when I decided to try Opera for the first time. After trying Opera 8.5 for a day, I was sold and no longer wondered why people were paying for a browser when there were free browsers.
Opera 9 sounds nice but I’m not sure I need the new features if it means it’ll cost more RAM, CPU, or introduces security holes. I hope they spend the effort to optimize it and make it as secure as 8.5. If so, I’ll probably switch to Opera 9 within a few weeks of release.
This version has Ctrl-T for new tabs!!
I love Opera (and Firefox AND the underrated Mozilla Suite (now SeaMonkey).
A few things I’d like to see in Opera (I haven’t tried version 9 yet):
*Integrated Help files (not online)
Oldskool Opera was great in that regard because when developing pages offline in the past I learned a LOT about Opera through their integrated Help files. Going online for them in Opera 8.5 is a pain and I think Opera are doing themselves a disservice with this.
*Cleaner default gui.
Much cleaner. Make it less busy. Remember, people new to your product should be made aware of your product’s features bit by bit and in an unobrusive way as possible, not overrun with “look at me!”. As we learn the program, we can grow into and appreciate the features more.
Far more third-party action for brilliant Firefox/Mozilla Suite Extensions like:
Adblock
http://aasted.org/adblock/viewtopic.php?t=2264
Scrapbook
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=427
Opera’s Notes are great, but still lacking for HTML and the ease of which whole pages and selections can be saved and edited with Scrapbook, with styling)
Web Developer
http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/webdeveloper/
Enough said!
HTML Validator
http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
(which, again, is a completely offline validator very good for developing pages offline.
And so on.
So I’d like to see more third-party stuff making the browser more flexible, basically.
Big fan of Opera for years, but some of Firefox’s Extensions are truly wonderful. Mozilla has a lot to learn about Opera’s responsiveness and lean coding, though
Though every browser (even Mozilla’s Firefox and Mozilla Suite/ Seamonkey) can learn from each other and integrate the best features and/or traits of the other, tho I doubt that’ll ever completely happen (or make everyone equally happy). So choice is great! They are all very much focused on standards compliance and new web technologies, so it’s a win for us all, either way.
Keep up the good work Opera.
All I want from the new Opera is:
1. An option to open pages from external apps in a new window.
– This would make Opera more usable with all external apps
2. Please remove skinning from the dialogs.
– native toolkit would do just fine for them and integrate better with the OS
– making consistent skins would become much easier
3. Use the default system fonts for the interface!
– Opera doesn’t seem to even respect the dpi setting, so I have to set fonts 12pt instead of 9pt used by the rest of the system…
3. Call pages tabs like any other app out there.
4. Option to use the default icons from the OS/OS theme.
5. Option to use native QT themes.
6. Remove MDI now! (and add an option for a single close_tab button)
I’d also very much like to see a version of Opera that isn’t anything more than a clean mean web browser. Just imagine how light weight that would be… BTW, is this bloat the reason for the amazingly long startup time in Linux?
>1. An option to open pages from external apps in a new window.
>- This would make Opera more usable with all external apps
That is already available:
opera -newpage ‘%s’
“5. Option to use native QT themes”
That exists. Kinda.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=78468
When it comes to looks the bottom line is that I don’t give a rat’s ass about skinning. I just want the app to blend into the environment.
I don’t even like skinned media players. Skinned apps are a bit childish actually.
Opera is in many ways like “a teenager who doesn’t care about anybody else”, begging for attention at the same time…
This applies to functionality as well.
Opera blends perfectly into my OS. I use the Native skin and it uses all the native widgets, and everything else works fine as well (clipboard, drag&drop, etc).
“Opera blends perfectly into my OS. I use the Native skin and it uses all the native widgets, and everything else works fine as well (clipboard, drag&drop, etc).”
You obviously don’t use Linux then. Oh… Linux users too have the *Windows native* skin available right there in the Appearance dialog. And it really makes Opera widgets look like win98! How nice…
Clipboard and drag&drop seems to works nicely though.
Yeah, I had a feeling you were talking about Linux. You’re right, the linux version doesn’t blend in nearly as well. I do hope they fix it, as it would be nice to see some more Linux users adopt Opera as well.
“Yeah, I had a feeling you were talking about Linux. You’re right, the linux version doesn’t blend in nearly as well. I do hope they fix it, as it would be nice to see some more Linux users adopt Opera as well.”
Well, it would be fairly easy to fix this to some extent: Opera devs could put this skinning feature into good use and provide high quality skins that mimic the default look of the most popular desktop environments, Gnome, Windows XP and Mac OS). It should be possible to make the skins to adapt to custom color schemes too.
Then, when a user first installs Opera he/she would be asked to choose between these skins and the original Opera look. This could be automatic too, of course.
“6. Remove MDI now!”
Why remove something that’s purely an option? You can use Opera like other tabbed browsers such as Firefox without ever seeing it’s MDI app history.
The MDI interface can be very useful, for example it allows you to tile or cascade web pages within one window. It’s one of the things that makes Opera so powerful and customisable compared with other browsers so they’d be mad to remove it.
Well, after reading how much work they’ve put into this release, I think the 9.0 designation is more that justified.
http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/w90p1.html
Some great work “behind the scenes” if you ask me. Perhaps 8.5 wasn’t justified, tho. But it did represent truly free
Look at IE and their 7 beta and get a new perspective on marketing hype
> That is already available:
> opera -newpage ‘%s’
Yes, I have set it like this in the KDE Control Center. But it is not the same and it seems to be buggy too: if Opera is not already loaded you get two windows, one with your homepage and one with the link you originally clicked.
>”5. Option to use native QT themes”
> That exists. Kinda.
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=78468
Yes, I’m using Gentoo and the ‘qt’ USE flag does this for me.
This only affects the menus and has a caveat too: it breaks some skins as they don’t apply to the menubar anymore.
Loads of people say that Opera’s default GUI should be “cleaner”, but hardly anyone is specific about this.
Here’s a screenshot of the default GUI from the Opera site: http://www.opera.com/img/screenshots/opera8-tabbed-browsing.jpg
What should be removed from the default GUI and hidden from the user? How would you make it any cleaner and simpler?
Bloat bloat bloat
I use Opera because its the only decent browser for Linux. Sorry, but for the kind of usage that I do, Firefox can’t handle it.
Its sad to see Opera now diverging so strongly from its initial raison d’etre: being lean, clean, and stable. Is it the inevitable end of all software to become bloatware, as the developers’ identities become ever-more intertwined with their coding from the app, and they just can’t stop and leave it alone?
wtf is with this bloat crap?
What have Opera added to 9? A new rendering engine that adds some extra web ‘stuff’.
Goddamn bloat rubbish comments…
for the final version!!!
————
Loads of people say that Opera’s default GUI should be “cleaner”, but hardly anyone is specific about this.
Here’s a screenshot of the default GUI from the Opera site: http://www.opera.com/img/screenshots/opera8-tabbed-browsing.jpg
What should be removed from the default GUI and hidden from the user? How would you make it any cleaner and simpler?
————
*There’s a persistent drop-down when you type an address in the URL bar. I think it’s very distracting. (Amazon, Price Comparison search, etc) I suspect many others find it distracting, too. I call it an ‘unexpected’ in interacting with the browser. And I really can’t get used to it without turning it off (I’d argue many new users wouldnt know how to turn it off easily, too). Opera probably gets revenue for doing some of this, though. But it feels (and looks) like a big flashy ad to me. Gives me similar (negative) vibes to a pop-up on a web page.
*All the while real strengths of the browser that were previously accomplished with 1-click (or easily seen) – like page zooming and image-toggling – are now more painful exercises in clicking (2 clicks, at least). In my opinion? A step backwards. The real strengths of the browser (that would be used most often) should be in the forefront; revealed in the default GUI, not hidden. They were in the past, but this time without all the added complexity of Opera’s past (multi-row, overly complex) default GUIs.
Right now the default gui LOOKS simpler, but really just hides (overly complex) functionality in more steps. Consider the glasses icon in the top right, for instance. To me, they offer the user too many choices for a single item (much like typing in an address bar does with that dropdown). It needs to be trimmed and:
*The most important stuff necessary to efficient and fun browsing being visible in the default gui/toolbar.
*Those important things (page zoom, image toggling and others) should be visible by default but not shared with other functions when clicking them.
*The one-click too-many-choices approach is bad, IMO.
I can come up with more details given enough time. But usability should be at the forefront. And it should be modelled on how most of their (new) users use the browser. So they should get fresh faces in their offices and monitor their behaviour when designing their GUI, I think. They would learn a lot about basic usability. With the right studies and right questions and answers, they could fine-tune and improve Opera’s usability considerably with the masses out there.
(IMO)
“*There’s a persistent drop-down when you type an address in the URL bar. I think it’s very distracting. (Amazon, Price Comparison search, etc) I suspect many others find it distracting, too.”
I kinda agree. The URL bar is not the right place for this. But when it is customized to users needs it can be handy as you can but there some of the most used things without cluttering the main interface.
Maybe the search box on the right would be a better place for this. Maybe I would then actually use this box sometimes…
Oh well, It wouldn’t matter much to me if they’d remove this “Start bar” for good.
“*All the while real strengths of the browser that were previously accomplished with 1-click (or easily seen) – like page zooming and image-toggling – are now more painful exercises in clicking (2 clicks, at least). In my opinion? A step backwards. The real strengths of the browser (that would be used most often) should be in the forefront; revealed in the default GUI, not hidden.”
I don’t think that page zooming is one of the most used features unless you happen to have very poor eye sight.
There could be an “Accessibility option” for visually impaired. Enabling this option should be made easy.
I also don’t believe that image-toggling is a very popular feature either.
The cleaner the browser interface the better. On the other hand it should be customizable for people who need special features. IMO, Opera is very good in this regard.