Opera 11.0

[STiFU]

Oh boy, the new opera update really made my day. Finally, there is proper support for third party extensions and many Firefox extensions have already been adapted to the Opera API. NoScript for Opera (called "NotScript")!! This finally makes Opera the best browser on earth, in my opinion... I used to have Firefox for certain tasks, but these times are over.

 

There is also a really useful extension called "Go to imdb". Probably also exists for Firefox, but what it does is to automatically retrieve the rating of a movietitle matching a highlighted text and when you then click on the imdb symbol, the imdb-site of respective movie is opened.

 

Some other useful extensions are "Hypertranslate" (holding a configurable modifier button like ctrl and selecting text by mouse automatically translates it to your preferred language and shows the results in a small popup next to the text) and "Youtube AdsFree" (Self explanatory).

 

Another cool new feature in Opera is tab-grouping. I constantly have like 30+ tabs open, many youtube vids et cetera, so this feature is super awesome for me. You can group tabs by simple drag and drop. When you hover the group, a small popup shows up that lets you decide which tab to bring upfront. A doubleclick expands the group in the tab-bar. The only thing missing is a function "group all tabs from same domain", but I am sure someone will eventually write an extension for that.

[Serpentine]

Heh, I quickly disabled any form of auto-grouping and url/parameter hiding, but other than that the improvements have been good. Never really understood noscript or ad blocking, just disable scripts with site specific options and ads... well I like ads strangely enough tho I do have flash on 'on demand' and 'use placeholder' to avoid those. Since I use 'accept cookies' and 'delete new cookies on exit' I only keep cookies for sites which I allow, guess that helps a bit with getting more generic ads.

[STiFU]

Yeah, I disabled the url hiding too, but what do you mean by auto-grouping? As far as I know there is only manual grouping...

 

I used to do it like you, but noscript is just that more comfortable, mainly because the options are accessible very fast and because you can make the permissions temporary, whereas the sitespecific options of Opera are stored infinitely, unless you clean up.

 

The "plugins on demand" is also very useful, as you said, especially because of my huge amount of youtube tabs. This option has actually been existing quite some time in opera:config, but now they made it accessible through the configuration menu.

[jaxa]

I need Opera to support HTML5 columns. However it does handle localStorage just the way I want it and the javascript engine seems very fast. NotScript is probably going to be enough for me to switch, I haven't tested it yet.

Edited December 18, 2010 by jaxa

[Fidcal]

Wish it could let you rename websites in the speed dial. It's real useful for regular favourties but it shows a truncated web page title which often is obscure. For instance our wiki shows as "Main page the..."

[STiFU]

Fidcal, I just thought that what you want to achieve has to be possible in some way, so I experimented a little and found a solution: Add the desired URL as a bookmark, rename it, drag&drop it on the speeddial, done! I restarted Opera after this procedure and the proper name was still there. I didn't reboot though, but that shouldn't change anything.

 

One does wonder though why they didn't implement changing of the names on the background that different names are supported.

 

EDIT: Did some further digging in opera:config and noticed a referenced ini file in Users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/Opera/Opera called "speeddial.ini". There you can change titles while opera is not running.

 

EDIT2: That ini file is always being overwritten for some reason. So far only the bookmark-derail works.

[STiFU]

Alright, I just discovered a minor annoyance (still not the perfect browser, damn it!!). I frequently use the bookmark panel with that toggle-switch on the left side of the browser and when I start the browser it sometimes opens with the mail-panel although I don't use Opera Mail aside from its RSS-feed management. Apparently there does not seem to be any option to configure this behavior.

 

What I am also finding a little weird is that it takes quite some time until the bookmarks are actually displayed when opera is launched afresh with the bookmark panel active.

[Serpentine]

I don't use Opera Mail aside from its RSS-feed management. Apparently there does not seem to be any option to configure this behavior.

RSS is handled by the mail system, the side panel does make it really easy to navigate feeds quickly. It most likely changes to the mail tab if you have browsed an rss feed through the menubar indirectly.

 

What I am also finding a little weird is that it takes quite some time until the bookmarks are actually displayed when opera is launched afresh with the bookmark panel active.

Hmmm, I don't have any delays, I use the bookmark panel all the time but dont have any delay with about 300-400 folder organized bookmarks. I do however have an incredibly old profile that stretches back to around 2003-4, so it might be some setting you have.

[STiFU]

Alright, thanks. I might try a config reset then. Mine is also dating back quite some time.

 

But it's really only happening right after the start of opera, when all the tabs are still loading. The bookmark-panel is empty during startup and only after some time like 4 to 5 s, the bookmarks appear.

[Fidcal]

Fidcal, I just thought that what you want to achieve has to be possible in some way, so I experimented a little and found a solution: Add the desired URL as a bookmark, rename it, drag&drop it on the speeddial, done! I restarted Opera after this procedure and the proper name was still there. I didn't reboot though, but that shouldn't change anything.

Good idea but I can't get it to work. eg, bookmark http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Main_Page then change the bookmark name to Dark Mod Wiki then drag it to a speed dial. It just checks the page and changes it back to the title.

[STiFU]

Oh yeah, I must've quit opera before it resolved the URL. Sorry! What a shame...

[Fidcal]

Maybe I make a webpage on my own website with my own title and it immediately redirects to the website I actually want!

[Fidcal]

Confirmed for certain: Opera changes your setting for updates. I mentioned this in another thread that after setting Opera to only notify of updates it did so but the next time it updated without asking - right in the middle of while I was busy with something else.

 

This time I've been extra careful to check I've got it to notify only. Sure enough, it did not install automatically but only notified me of 11.

 

When it was convenient (this thread reminded me) I clicked the menu option check for updates and it found 11. But I see today that it has changed my setting to automatically install without asking.

 

So, if you want the choice you need to always reset it after every update.

[STiFU]

Hmn from my experience, opera only updates itself on a session start and not while you're in the middle of write a post or something like that, so I just kept that option on default.

[Serpentine]

They usually reset the setting if they change something related, i.e they might have added other options for the updater or whatever. Most stuff stays pretty static thankfully (I'm looking at you Thunderbird). The new installer offers a portable install which is pretty cool to see, since it's how I try keep everything.

[Fidcal]

Yes, it may be the start of the session but what I mean is, if I am busy with something and need info I open my browser to check on the net. My mind is focused on what I'm doing so I don't want something forcing in and sending I'm updating so you can't do that now. I see no point really in *not* having a 'y/n or later?'

 

Just found my setting for 'open sessions in same window' lost too but it might possibly be that I set it when it had previously opened another window. So possibly I closed the window I had set first then later closed the window with the old setting. Either way I definitely lost the setting.

[STiFU]

Ah ok, well I've got it opened all the time anyway, so again, I'll never have that problem... But I can see now, that it might be annoying to some people.

[Fidcal]

I see 11.10 now allows me to edit the names for speed dial and also get more in. It took me a while to configure because I'm used to where everything is, eg, I order groceries bottom left. wikipedia top right; news along second row, etc. With the new system there is no insertion and if you delete anything then the whole lot moves up so everything is now in a different place. The trick is to put in placeholders; I'm using Opera's own web page for now; maybe I'll create a local one. Never just delete but swap with a placeholder at the end then delete. Now all I want is to be able to choose the image. Some are big and bold but others are not.

 

[STiFU]

Check the speed dial configuration menu. You can specify the number of rows that are supposed to be shown and it'll look just like it used to then. By the way, that's a pretty huge speed dial you got there. Considering you have so many news pages there, maybe RSS feeds would also be an option for you.

 

I am fairly happy with the new update. Especially because they finally fixed a bug in the extension API, which fixes the issue of the NotScripts extension also displaying the inline frames of other tabs, which makes it now just as fast as the NoScript extension for Firefox. Very nice!

[Fidcal]

The only reason for all the news websites is because I have never found one that was comprehensive so have to visit several to build up a picture like a jigsaw. As I understand it RSS downloads itself when there is new news? It's a bit obscure whether you can just get the news when you want to read it or what format it would be in.

[STiFU]

Yeah, right, I forgot you've got a monthly traffic limit. With RSS it really depends on the news-provider. Some sites just send you the headlines with a link referencing the article and some send you the complete article. I've never seen any images in RSS-articles though (not sure if that's even possible), so traffic-wise you should basically be fine.