Slashdot Mirror
Opera Seeks Developer Input For Opera 10
taskforce writes "Opera Watch is reporting that the folks Opera Software are asking web developers for input on what they think the most important features are which could be added into the next version of the Opera desktop browser. Considering what has been added in Opera 9, what do you think would be most important for the browser from both a developer and a user standpoint?"
Probably it's not the answer to the question, but I'd love to see a native 64 bit version of Opera. As for the argument "there's no 64bit flash", screw adobe/macromedia/$proprietary_technology_owner. The web is a nice place also without Flash. Maybe even better!
1. Under Windows: Get rid of the stupid default whereby the main scrollbar on the righthandside turns nearly-white (thus "disappearing") whenever a person goes to use it. That's a really dumb default. Also, make it easier to change because I never found a way (without choosing a different theme entirely). Note: no problem on OS X.
2. Under any OS: When opening a link into a new tab, it automagically pops the new tab up. I like the new tab under because I'm often going to A Page whereupon I click several links, like when I'm scanning the Slashdot homepage and want to open 3 or 4 stories to see what the lunatics are raving about. Allow me to control that behavior. And, if you already do, make it easier to find.
3. Please revisit a number of your configration/preferences/options menus. I don't find them to be well organized or comprehensive. Take a note from FireFox was does do a fairly decent job in this area whether its Win, Mac, or even Ubuntu. I'd even go so far as to say IE is easier to configure.
Other than basic usability which prevents me from using it as my primary, I'd like to love it.
While it's certainly kickarse to see a browser implement BitTorrent downloads, it would be even more impressive if they could combine this facet of the program with HTTP downloads. While I can see a number of difficulties with this (technical challenge, lack of standards, etc) these can be minimised in a number of ways. It would certainly mean much faster speeds for end-users, lower bandwidth costs for hosts and resulting increased user numbers of a standards-compliant browser. 2. ??? 3. Profit!
I'd have to second the request for XUL support. With Microsoft producing its XUL clone XAML for use with Vista software, it's only a question of when, not if these technologies take off. Is this an area out of which Opera truly wishes to stay?
The parent's request for better AJAX debugging is another possibility certain to turn a number of web-dev heads. Few doubt AJAX's destiny. I for one would love to see this.
Additionally, I'd also like to request an option to specify how the middle-button responds to clicks for scrolling. Presently, and for prior versions, pressing the middle button to begin the hands-free scrolling feature snaps the cursor to the middle of the page. This becomes an issue when trying to open a page in a background tab with a middle click and, if the click is off by a little, the cursor shoots away, causing the user to move their cursor back to the link. A minor nuisance but one I've heard complained about for years.
No, with firefox adblock I just need to download the adblock filter lst and never worry about ads.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Browsers bend over backwards to be compatible with lots of pages, and by so doing promote worse behaviors.
The mess that passes for HTML is a direct result of the permissive approaches of browsers. It is understandable that browser vendors want to make the browser work on as many pages as possible, but it is a horrible tool to use in the hands of web developers because the bottom line is if it works, it is OK.
Browsers need modes that can be enabled for developers that raise exceptions when exercising behaviors that were inserted for compatability but which violate standards and/or are likely to break other browsers/versions. They need to do this to make it easy for developers to use the browser to test their web pages while not promoting worse-formed content. Whichever browser does this first, will be my choice of main browser to use when testing my web pages.
The same CSS behavior of form elements that Firefox and IE support. Whenever I style an input textfield, defining fixed widths and then add padding to that, it works great in Firefox and IE, but Opera ignores the padding so the fields are shorter. This makes it difficult to create a clean, aligned form so we usually just ignore it and leave Opera unsupported in this aspect.
parasight.de
-Adblock. I just can't stand flash, animated gifs
-Enable cookie tracking on a per site basis ON THE ALLOW COOKIE DIALOG
-Fix the mail client so it separates by REAL folders. The "view filter" idea is great but doesn't work with 5000+ messages.
-Integrate the error window as a sidebar
-XUL support would be a bonus (and one less reason to use mozilla)
-Proper theme integration with KDE
I'd like to see XForms support. It's a great technology for Ajax-ish websites which has tremendous capabilities and allows to drastically reduce the amount JS required for many types of web applications.
Mozilla is already at an advanced stage in working on an implementation. The current progress is available via an extension.
Every Javascript that executes, style that is interpreeted, etc. has to carefully segregate favored behaviors from poor behaviors done for compatibility.
There needs to be several levels. In some cases, there are standards-compliant behaviors that have traditionally been so poorly implemented by browsers that these should also be flagged as non-portable.
I think there are a sizable chunk of people that would like to see a NetBSD/i386 version. (Personally I'd like to see a NetBSD/mac68k version just for kicks, but I'm probably in the minority there.)
Constitutionally Correct
It's worth pointing out that the person publishing those benchmarks is an Opera employee. Not that I think they are fabricated, but it's always good to know potential biases.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I don't know, I use Opera 99.9% of the time and only fall back to Firefox in extreme emergencies, but, I must say that I'm not entirely certain they really listen all that well to suggestions and such. For example, people have been calling for extentions (let's not get into an argument here, whether you think it's good or bad, the fact is, a huge number of people want extentions so they should at least make it more clear why they haven't made any efforts they've shown to us in this direction) for years and there isn't even an official response as far as I know. Then they do these "widgets" that are just pointless (hey, I tried. I downloaded several things that should be useful and tried to get the hang of using them, but, in the end they just get in the way and have no real use. I searched every widget on their site and didn't find one that I didn't end up finding to be in the way once the neatness factor wore off. Anything a widget can do, you can do better with an actual program in Java or some other easily portable language.) If you look at their forums you can find some long running feature request threads that a lot of people have "+1"ed that just never happen. (Not to mention that more than a few of those are probably requests for extentions. It gets posted a lot.)
We can hope though I guess. All browsers have a lot of room for improvement (though I personally feel Opera mainly just needs extentions and to remove the extra pointless overhead that widget support has added) and if they actually stop and listen maybe we could get a browser that's truly as close to perfect as any peice of software can be? (Ok, that's going too far I guess, but wouldn't it be nice?)
Personally, I think it's a publicity stunt though. Get the web designers to look at Opera and get it mentioned enough that more users hear about it. To make suggestions on improvements, web designers would have to actually get it and try it (actually, I like the sound of that since a lot of them would have no choice but to admit that it's a good browser and maybe should get the occasional support instead of an "only IE and Firefox supported" page.) The truth is though, it seems to me that most of the suggestions are basically going to be things that should be ignored, such as a designer asking that they support a proprietary extention that works only in IE (I still don't know why they do that sort of thing since it's actually more work in the long run.) The fact is, unlike the big two (IE and Mozilla/Firefox) Opera is among the very few that correctly implements enough of the actual standards to pass the ACID2 test, so it seems to me like there isn't going to be a lot of requests that they support this or that standard.
So what's left from a designer's perspective besides asking them to fully support whatever little bit of the standards they don't already? Most changes need to come from the customer's perspective I think. Extentions, a better download manager, etc. It's easy to think of suggestions a user can make. Actually, what worries me is that generally what it comes down to is a developer wants as much control over your browser as they can. For example, one might want the ability to change the skin and menu layout of your browser specifically for their site. That's great for the developer, but, the end user would go bonkers in a hurry. Besides asking for proprietary extentions and more control over the user's screen, there's really so little that a developer can do that I can only conclude this is really ultimately just meant to get people's attention (hey, they got it on slashdot even, that's a good start, though the problem is that most slashdot users are intelligent enough to know about browser alternatives and most here who don't use Opera are just using it because for whatever reason they don't like it.)
Anyway, I'm not saying boycott Opera or something, just I'm wondering if this is just a publicity stunt or if they really do have a point for
Actually I maintain a web site of an institution using HTML 4.01 strict and CSS 2.1. All my new pages pass the W3C validation for the HTML and the CSS.
:)
:/
I get very good results with IE 6, NS 8.1, FF 1.5 and Lynx (for a pure text version) and that with and without javascript. But I have dropped the gauntlet with Opera. When something work with all the others browsers it doesn't work correctly in Opera and when I correct it in Opera, the display in all the others browser is broken...
I work for an institution who have set IE as his standard for their website. I try to have something working in a maximum of browsers. I try my best to make it work in a maximum of browsers but if it doesn't work correctly in opera, too bad for the Opera users. The next time, they will browse with a free browser
I don't consider myself a bad webmaster, but not as a top webmaster too. I think I am not too bad, but making web page display correctly in Opera and other browsers is for me out of my capabilities
Yes, I know I'm at the wrong place to suggest this, and I'm aware it's not the greatest idea (good old security), but it's handy.
One of the extensions I have on Firefox on my Windows desktop is IE Tab, that allows a link or blank tab to be rendered with IE rather than Gecko. While the Identify As Internet Explorer and Mask As Internet Explorer are good enough for most sites, some of them still use horrible JavaScript that won't work in Opera. I'm looking at you MSDN!
It gets annoying at work (software development for a major scoreboard and electronic sign manufacturer) to be using Opera and find a search result for MSDN, open it, and have about a 50% chance of it working. It's not the fact that opening IE and viewing the article is an annoyance, it's being so used to just clicking on Opera for an open web site and then wondering where the article went -- the reason I first used Opera, aside from it being the only web browser I knew of for Windows 3 way back when, was that it supported tabs. That advantage is a bit lost when I have 5 IE windows open along with Opera.
And, yes, I'm aware that I'm complaining from a user point of view as well. This, however, would be useful to web developers (who are testing under Windows) to have pages in one window for comparison rather than many.
I just wish Opera would use the correct file-chooser when running in Gnome or KDE.
I use Opera every day, and have for years. I love it all - except the bookmark manager. IMO, it's in need of a serious overhaul. It's counter-intuitive, cumbersome, and really just makes my day a tiny bit worse. Thankfully, I don't really use my bookmarks much... Or maybe I don't use my bookmarks much because of the manager. Hmmm.
At the very least, I'd like the bookmarks menu to have drag-and-drop functionality like the entire rest of the Opera interface does.
Otherwise, thanks for an excellent browser, Opera Software!
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Mass selfishness could bring many popular free sites to an end.
That's some chutzpah you've got there, claiming that somebody not looking at an ad is somehow selfish.
It's actually almost the reverse; doing pretty much anything that makes life hard for the marketing industry at the moment is performing a social service.
Oh, and your sky-is-falling scenario of free sites disappearing is so silly it's hardly worth talking about. They're not free, you're paying for them twice over; once in time/attention to watch/avoid the ad and secondly in the increased price of the product to pay for it. Not to mention all the associated transaction overheads.
All that would happen is that people would pay for what's worthwhile to them directly, including classified advertising directories. True market value would emerge and with luck the value shell game that is modern unsolicited advertising would go the way of the dodos.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".