Opera 7.10 Released (First Opera 7.x For Linux)

joshieck writes "The much awaited (at least I know I've been waiting for it) Opera 7.10 has been released. This marks the first release of Opera 7.x for linux, and is a cause for rejoicing. Even if it is a 'beta,' it's opera, so you know it's gonna be good. Go get it at Opera.com, or go right to the download page. From the Press Release: 'Opera Software today released Opera 7.10 for Windows and Opera 7.10 for Linux Beta with features that are not only new to Opera, but also completely new to the world of browsing. Right from the beginning, users can see the two new buttons FastForward and Rewind in the toolbar, accelerating Opera users' Web navigation. Users can also speed up researching with the completely new Notes features or view photo files with SlideShow.'"

Comments

'Completely new' web notes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, NCSA Mosaic had an 'annotate' function.

'Completely new' my ass.

Works Great

[xtremex]

on Suse 8.0!
Have more testing to do however.

Re:horribly misleading headline

[fobbman]

Straight from the posting:

"From the Press Release: 'Opera Software today released Opera 7.10 for Windows and Opera 7.10 for Linux Beta [emphasis mine]...'"

I can forgive you for not following the links in the posting (it's vogue around here), but try to at least read the posting ITSELF...

Just downloaded it...

[TWX]

...and it's fairly pretty. I've been using Mozilla for quite a long time, mainly due to cross-platform compatibility, but this is definitely going to be worth looking into.

Though I can already see a couple of things that will cause problems. I'm running triple-head xinerama and gnome/sawfish, and when maximizing Opera, it fills one screen, but thinks that it has the realestate of all three, so stuff ends up being rendered off of the viewable area. I don't know if this is an Opera problem, a Gnome problem, or a Sawfish problem, but I won't be able to do much to fix it until I get around to installing a newer version of Gnome anyway. Hopefully this'll correct at that point.

Definitely pretty though.

Re:This is not 1990!

[LPetrazickis]

Why the hell would I pay for a browser?

Because Opera is worth the money.

Or why should I settle for an ad-supported browser?

Because the ad does not report your surfing habits and is generally innocuous.

And especially since I have so many free and open source choices.

It's a free planet. If you prefer them, use them.;)

Why would I not use Phoenix, Mozilla or Konqueror?

I use the Windows version of 7.10 and it is simply amazing. The interface is extremely smooth and has loads of little touches that are simply missing from Phoenix 0.5 and Mozilla 1.4.

I'll paste in a pro-Opera 7.10 rant that I posted in elsewhere:

http://www.opera.com/windows/changelogs/710/ http://www.opera.com/download/

I am really impressed with this release.

0. Mouse gestures (you know, the things that Mozilla and Phoenix ripped off from Opera) are now customizable. In other words, there will be no more accidental window closures.

1. There is now a good interface for saving toolbar layouts so that you will not have to recustomize after every upgrade.

2. The Notes feature is a multiple item clipboard (independent of the usual thing) done right. The storage is permanent, it doesn't throw itself at you, and you can misuse it for something goofy like a personal quotation database.

3. The nature of 7.0 MDI/SDI is even more obvious now. Context menus allow you to open links in the current child window, in a new child window, in a background child window, in a new parent window, and in a new background parent window.

4. Fast Forward has become even better. To quote the changelog, "FastForward can now be used as a "slide show" on galleries, like http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asi a/".

5. All dialogue boxes are now skinned. You won't believe how much skinned javascript prompts imrove the user experience.

6. All the great features from 7.0x are back. I can go through those if anyone wants. The include universal interface dragndrop, Links sidebar/CTRL+ALT+J, pervasiveness of text files, etc.


Unfortunately, the Active Bookmark Folder concept from 5.x/6.x is still not back, but I am managing without it. It's likely to reappear in 7.20, no one in the Mozilla/Phoenix crowd has used Opera enough to learn the full splendour Insane Greatness, and Microsoft has stopped shovelling features into MSIE after it killed off Netscape 4.x.

P.S. Do remember to set Opera to Always Check Documents in the History and Cache preferences panel.

P.P.S. I've just discovered skin scaling. Wow. Not quite as cool as skin colour schemes, but still very wow.

To illustrate the customizable interface, check out this pic of my personalized Opera.

I hope that helped.;)

Opera IS revolutionary

[ogewo]

I've been using Opera since 7.0 came out for windows. Though yes the occasional web page has minor compatibility issues with Opera, i will never go back to IE. The main reason that EVERYONE should switch to Opera is Mouse Gestures. A quick flick of the wrist now gives me features like back, forward, close page, new page, minimize, refresh, and more. Until you get used to it you'll never know just how much sense mouse gestures make. Pr0n browsing productivity is through the roof! Just Like netscape and Mozilla, Opera has tabbed browsing. I thought I wouldn't like that at first but it keep my desktop really organized. Will never go back to multiple windows, but Opera has the option if I wanted to. Another nifty little feature is when you start, you have the option of opening all the pages that were open when you last closed Opera. This is always handy, but especially so after your browser freezes while you had 10 pages open...annoying to go back to them one by one. No longer an issue. I've also switched to Opera's brand new mail client, M2. Not as mature as Outlook but I would still say it's nicer overall. Try it out. Factor in the Skinning feature, 3D effects on buttons, and the truely useful fast forward, fast back features, and you've got to wonder how long until either MS steals these features or Opera becomes the new standard.

Re:Adware ...?

[AlexMax2742]

You are sadly misinformed. The 'adware' in Opera doesn't track your viewing habits, and if you try hard enough you can actually disable the banner.

And you pay money because you like the product. Sure there are free alternatives, but they aren't Opera. I personally have both Opera and Phoenix on my computer, but Opera runs faster for me, so I just use Phoenix when a page won't display correctly (pretty rare for me nowadays)

Speed, size

[someguy456]

It is really great. I had been using Phoenix 0.5 for a week now, but I have now fallen in love with Opera. I'm still too poor to dish out $40 for a web browser, but I would if I could. The rendering is great. Pages load very fast. I haven't run into any pages that don't look right (I haven't been to that many sites either). I could also liked that I had a greater choice of page fonts, as opposed to Phoenix (configuration issues?) The eyecandy is fascinating. Smooth effects all over, from forms (buttons, scrollbars) to toolbars and page tabs. Plus, I've got my qt settings really sweet now with transparency, great anti-aliased fonts and such, so the menus also look great. One of the things that took me by surprise was the size, only 4 megs (3986283). This was linked with qt, but nonetheless, this is pretty small for a full fledged browser with e-mail client. I haven't set any custom mouse gestures or keyboard shortcuts, but I looked at the interface, and it was pretty simple to do. I think I'm staying with Opera for a while.

Opera 7.10 should work

[Compact Dick]

Up to version 6.x, Opera's DOM support was next to non-existent, which meant Javascript and other dynamic stuff wouldn't work properly, if it all. Remember NS 4.x's CSS usability? Yeah...

With 7.x, Opera has finally fixed this wanting need. Every site I visit that uses dynamic HTML etc works very well [as long as there is no proprietary crap code. Even 7.10 has many improvements and bugfixes over 7.

Give it a go and let us know if things have changed for the better. If not, tell us which sites give you troubles.

- CD

You can save screen estate

[Compact Dick]

Simple - upgrade to 7.10, then go to PREFERENCES -> SKINS and select your toolbar magnification scale. I've set mine to a perfectly usable 40%. Additionally, you can use more skins that may suit your needs better.

That's your main complaint solved. Let's optimise things a bit, shall we?

Turn off the navigation bar: VIEW -> NAVIGATION BAR -> OFF.

Right-click on the main toolbar and press "I" [or "Images only".]

Finally, if you've registered Opera you can do this to good effect - remove all the toolbar buttons that you don't use by right-clicking on them and selecting "REMOVE". Then click on the status bar [if it is visible] and drag it on to the main toolbar. Select VIEW -> STATUS BAR -> OFF.

Have fun.

P.S.: To get to www.cnn.com from "cnn" faster, turn off local computer searching by going to PREFERENCES -> NETWORK -> SERVER NAME COMPLETION... and un-check "Look for local network machine".