Opera Proposes Switching Browser Scrolling For 'Pages'

Barence writes "Opera has proposed a new browsing system that swaps scrolling on websites for flippable pages. The Norwegian browser maker is looking to remove the side scroll bar for documents or articles in favor of 'pages' of a set-size, similar to an ebook. Text can be reflowed into a column layout, and ads will be moved into the right spot in the text, with different ones displayed depending on the orientation of the device. Pages are flipped with gestures on tablets or with mouse clicks on the desktop. It's an 'opportunity to rethink the ads on the web and the user interface,' said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's CTO." Their main focus for this is browsing on tablets.

Comments

Sounds interesting

[rhyder128k]

The only problem with Opera innovating is that, if an new idea works out, the other browsers will add it. The only alternative is if Opera can patent the ideas. Not something that would prove very popular 'round here.

Re:Sounds interesting

[locopuyo]

Opera isn't that kind of company. If Opera patented all their ideas web browsers would be stuck in 1999.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Local ID10T]

The only problem with Opera innovating is that, if an new idea works out, the other browsers will add it..

That is not a problem, that is a GOOD THING.

Re:Sounds interesting

[jd]

There's prior art. Page-based documents created via a markup language which supports hypertext linking have been around for a while.

But, then, I like the hyperref package for LaTeX.

Frankly, I'd rather see LaTeX as a language extension. That way, you could have the page itself specify if it's to be paginated or scrolled, and if paginated how those pages should be constructed. The syntax already exists, the parser is nearly bullet-proof (more than could be said of most browsers) and those who actually want such a format (ie: people writing books, papers, etc) are likely the ones who already know the LaTeX language.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing to have everybody copying Opera even though we don't use Opera because we don't like it?

Firefox already suffers from an inferiority complex with regards to Chrome, and feels as though it must copy every annoying aspect of Chrome until there's nothing to differentiate the two. Once functionality of my favorite extensions is available in another browser I'm going to ditch FF like nobody's business. It's like IE vs. Netscape all over again, but now it's FF that's got people itching to leave.

Re:Sounds interesting

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Not necessarily. They'd either have to license it (bonus to the inventors, that'll get them to spend even more time on R&D ) or they'd have to come up with their own alternatives. Those alternatives are how innovation starts. Maybe Pages aren't good enough, maybe auto-scrolling is even better. In that effort to get around that patent, we'd find out, instead of becoming complacent and settling for poor carbon copies of features.

Nobody here is going to like what I'm saying, and I'm cool with that. All I can say to that is at least with the patent approach they'd have to detail every little aspect that makes it work. If software patents only lasted a year or so, that'd be pretty bad ass all around.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Rary]

Actually, what you're describing about Tom's or Wired is exactly why this would be a good idea.

A website can split a document across multiple pages if they want to. But to do that, they're actually creating multiple documents. What Opera seems to be proposing is the idea that a single document could be rendered as a multi-page document. In other words, it's up to the browser to render it as multiple pages.

So, why is that a good idea? Because, if it's up to the browser to render a single document in multiple pages, then the browser could also choose not to render that document in multiple pages. The decision of how to view the document lies on the client side, not the server side.

So, instead of complaining about not having a "view all" option, those commenters would simply select the "view as single page" option in their browser and be happy.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

bonus to the inventors, that'll get them to spend even more time on R&D

No, bonus to the middlemen (e.g. lawyers) and managers. The reality, not the fiction that you're spouting, is that inventors are rarely rewarded. Look it up. Not tp mention the enormous financial load to society that are patents.

In that effort to get around that patent, we'd find out, instead of becoming complacent and settling for poor carbon copies of features.

No, people still compete. Removing patents doesn't stop that. On the other hand patents do stop competition. By definition; they're a monopoly. Whose to say somebody else wouldn't have a much better implementation of the patent's ideas?

Those alternatives are how innovation starts.

No, completely arbitrary similarities and differences as defined by ivory towered PTO bureaucrats do not constitute innovation.

People copying, using, learning, improving and competing is what true innovation is all about. Almost always incremental.

All I can say to that is at least with the patent approach they'd have to detail every little aspect that makes it work.

With just the tiny little downside, hardly worth mentioning, of blocking billions from using an idea just so one person can have increased profit from an idea that was probably going to be independently rediscovered many times anyway.

Engineers are specifically advised not to read patents in case it increases damages. What's the point in reading a patent if it's almost all downside?

Re:Sounds interesting

[dgatwood]

Speaking as someone who has spent countless hours writing custom LaTeX macros, bulletproof is exactly the opposite of the word I'd use for LaTeX. As soon as you stray very far at all from academic papers, it suddenly becomes just about the most fragile piece of code I've ever worked with. It's great as long as you never have to do anything custom. As soon as you say the words, "I know. I'll write a custom macro to [...]," you've just crossed the line into despair territory.

To put it in perspective, my novel formatting code is 1545 lines, about half of which are insanely complex TeX macros, versus under 500 lines of CSS that does about 90% of the same stuff (minus the crop marks and page margin bits).

In fact, given what modern browsers are capable of in terms of typesetting, I'd imagine it would be just a few thousand lines of JavaScript to produce a much more fully capable typesetting engine than all of LaTeX put together, but with a lot fewer limitations. For example:

• It took 28 lines of LaTeX code to emulate the interaction between the CSS min-width and width properties on a div. (The min-height property, by contrast, took only one line of TeX, which may explain why I found a dozen sites that explained min-height, but no ready-made solutions for min-width.)
• LaTeX is really, really bad at math. You have to know how to write your own macros just to subtract one length from another. I'd estimate 75% of the macros I've written have required getting the floating point package involved, which is just a royal pain.
• There are three different ways to center. Not all of them ignore the first paragraph indent like you'd expect. So if you're wondering why your centered text is shifted off to the right....
• LaTeX mixes code (macros) with text freely (without any delimiters), which means it is often difficult to write macros that are easily readable without adding extraneous whitespace in the output.
• LaTeX doesn't have any real notion of floating content on its own, so if you add a drop cap and the paragraph in one chapter happens to be only a single line long, you get to fix it by hand or write some insane code using the FP package calculating the vertical distance between the drop cap marker and the first line of the next paragraph to see if it is greater than one line long. That's almost a hundred lines of code right there, versus something like three lines of CSS.
• LaTeX really doesn't have a very good way to say that the end-of-section marker must be on the same page as at least two lines of the previous paragraph, but that it need not be on the same page as the entire paragraph. In HTML, it's just style="page-break-before: never;" and you're done.
• There seem to be a thousand different ways to tweak page margins, none of which are universally compatible with various other packages (headers, footers, and other stuff done during the AddToShipoutPicture phase, in particular, if memory serves).
• The user community has all sorts of hacks to work around various aspects of LaTeX's design, but these often interact in strange and almost inexplicable ways when you combine them. What makes this particularly problematic is that most of the maintained macro packages aren't much better in this regard. This is actually fairly fundamental in the design; macros are inherently much harder to write than normal procedural code that operates on attributed data like the DOM.
• There's something fundamentally bizarre about a typesetter that doesn't know where it just put content, forcing you to add a bookmark and write it into a file, then find out the value on the next pass. Compared with the JavaScript DOM, that's amazingly clumsy.
• God help you if you want to do something simple like programmatically redefine boldface to a squiggly underline in a way that is actually robust. In particular, I had endless trouble with the interaction of uwave and/or textbf and other macros causing all sorts of errors whose explanations had absolutely nothi

Re:Sounds interesting

[dgatwood]

The book replaced the scroll because you could pack a lot more density into something when you have sheets stacked on top of one another instead of wrapped into a tube. That benefit outweighed the inconvenience of having to reset your brain every time you turned the page. However, the point still remains that when you are actually reading the content, it's much easier to read a continuous scroll because you never have to think, "Oh, crap, how did the last page end again?" and flip back.

With software, you don't get higher content density by dividing things up into pages (higher ad density notwithstanding). There are basically only two good reasons to have page-based content in browsers: to format content for printing, and to provide an easy way to mentally bookmark where you are in a book and/or provide citations (go look at paragraph 3 on page 212). Neither of these requires viewing the content a page at a time, however; you could insert a light horizontal rule with a small margin around it and a page number off at one edge, and this would provide the same benefit without interrupting the reading process.

Thus, in my mind, viewing content a page/screenful at a time seems like a tremendous step backwards. It's an unnecessary change that provides no benefit and makes reading clumsier.

Re:Sounds interesting

[NightWhistler]

I was a surprised to see this article, since I also dislike page flipping.

I read a lot of books on my tablet, but one of the first things I looked for was an e-book reader that would allow me to just seamlessly scroll through the book instead of emulating page-turns.

To me having to turn pages was an artifact of paper books... a useful one because it allowed for fast indexing, but since e-books are searchable and support links it's no longer needed. I find it's less straining to my eyes if I don't have to keep jumping from the bottom of the page back to the top, but can just move the text into the 'sweet spot'.

Re:Sounds interesting

[ultranova]

Frankly, I'd rather see LaTeX as a language extension. That way, you could have the page itself specify if it's to be paginated or scrolled, and if paginated how those pages should be constructed. The syntax already exists, the parser is nearly bullet-proof (more than could be said of most browsers) and those who actually want such a format (ie: people writing books, papers, etc) are likely the ones who already know the LaTeX language.

The problem with this is... Web is not paper. You are not printing out A4s, you are rendering to my display. I always want everything in a single scrolled page with no margins. If I see something that's broken into 20+ pages, I'll just close the browser window/tab.

Content and presentation both matter, but the user should always be the final arbiter in representation.

Re:Sounds interesting

[serviscope_minor]

I agree with what you say, but only uup to a point. TeX itself is a very low level system as you probablyu know having programmed it. I agree that the programming language is nasty and has some astonishing warts, and there are problems with package compatibility.

However, what you are claiming is not entirely fair. If it's built into CSS then it is almost certainly easier in CSS than in TeX. The point is that due to the capabilities of TeX, you can do things that the CSS designers never thought of (like those crop margins).

I (personally) make heavy use of custom macros. They tend to be rather simple things to eliminate common sub expressions, or set up things in various ways, often programatically, which is the real advantage of TeX.

Of course, my skills are limited and bodgy because I don't really understand the TeX system or macro language properly. I should really read the TeX book when I have time (ha ha).

Part of the interaction problem you describe is very much a LaTeX2e problem, rather than a TeX problem per-se. It's all supposed to be solved in LaTeX3, which indicates that it may be solvable, but given the gestation period of LaTeX 3, I am a bit suspicious. There are also other macro packages like ConText, but of course one already knows Latex.

Probably the most interesting development is LuaTex which embeds a Lua interpreter and gives it full access to the TeX internals. This will allow one to switch out to a non-escaped programming environment where one can use a sane environment without adding whitespace in weird places. Apparently CoNTeXt already uses this, but I don't believe that the pdflatex, XeTeX and LuaTex features have all been merged yet.

I know what you mean about whitespacer though. It's deeply annoying when your macro doesn't even have any whitespace in it, but it inserts an empty non-space box somehow, so TeX decides to put space around it anyway.

Btw: there is a macro package for LaTeX which allows you to do sane arithmetic in setlength commands, though I can't remember the name of it.

But anyway, the conclusion is that CSS is higher level and makes anything that fits its model easy. However, many htings are simply impossible in CSS.

Re:Sounds interesting

[xaxa]

Opera already supports a full-screen presentation/projection mode, as defined by CSS (2?). See this example, then press F11 to go full-screen. The content is split into screens/pages, use Page Down to go to the next one.

Except in demonstrations of CSS, I've only once seen this used.

(more details)

Re:Sounds interesting

[hvm2hvm]

Yep, what's wrong with page up/page down? If the text is properly formatted into paragraphs it should work just as a specially made page-centric site.

Re:Sounds interesting

[sorak]

Why would you break that by making the user repeatedly make a gesture?

Every time I have to use Safari, I repeatedly make a gesture.

Re:Sounds interesting

[kiwix]

In fact, given what modern browsers are capable of in terms of typesetting

What browser are you using?

My browser doesn't do hyphenation or ligatures, the kerning is probably rather bad, and I don't think that the line breaking algorithm is as good as the one in TeX. Moreover, there is no reasonable way to set the line length (half of the websites use a very small column, and the other half use the full window width which is generally too wide), and making a table of content is a pain in the ass.

And to answer a specific claims:

LaTeX really doesn't have a very good way to say that the end-of-section marker must be on the same page as at least two lines of the previous paragraph

I't called a widow, and you can prevent them with \widowpenalty=10000. By default, they are only discouraged because sometimes they look less ugly that the other alternatives.

Re:Sounds interesting

[BitZtream]

I should also point out, they haven't 'invented' page flipping on pages either. Several websites I've visited either do it now or have done it in the past.

The end result is that the website gets redesigned because while we had to do side scrolling with books, turns out people find it rather obnoxious when the other choice is vertical scrolling.

The smart websites that used horizontal scrolling ... did it in the past ... and not for very long till they switched back to something normal.

Re:Sounds interesting

[Lachlan Hunt]

Opera does hold patents and does sometimes patent new inventions. (As an employee, I am forbidden from discussing specifics and I don't know if a patent application was even filed for this particular feature). However, for specifications developed within or submitted to the W3C, Opera is subject to the W3C patent policy.

Re:Sounds interesting

[cgenman]

So that people know what they're talking about, Opera was the first (or one of the first) browsers to offer:

Tabbed interface (and MDI before tabs)
Saved Sessions
Previous windows re-opening when you launch the browser
Mouse Gestures
Virtual folders in Mail
RAM Cache
Zooming
Integrated search
Speed dial
Undo of closing tabs
Using the user's CSS and Javascript instead of the site's

A lot of others that failed because they were shots in the dark (integrated web server? voice control?)
Others that succeeded that I'm probably forgetting.

Really, if you follow the development of the browser for the past 10 years or so, Opera has basically been the experimental branch of the tree. Features are created by opera, then integrated into other browsers. Recently, Chrome has done some nice experimentations, and Firefox's extensions saw a burst of weird creativity. But for day-in, day-out browsing, Opera has really defined a lot of the features we now take for granted.

Crappy websites already do this

[LateArthurDent]

A lot of ad-supported sites will do this. They'll release an article and split it up into multiple pages so they can display more ads. What happens when an article like that gets posted to slashdot? Everyone understandably complains that it's harder to read the article, and somebody posts a link to the printer-friendly version.

Multiple pages are not easier to navigate. Not even on tablets.

Re:Crappy websites already do this

[TechLA]

Note that they aren't proposing replacing scroll bars, they're proposing adding "pages" as CSS element. They also say this lets user decide if they want to have pages (great for tablets) or the old style scroll bars.

Frankly, I think their idea is great, especially considering how many news sites have switched to using pages made with actual different pages. What Opera is proposing would fix that and would let you choose what style you want, directly in your browser. Personally I enjoy pages if the content is long, but I know many here on Slashdot like to read the print version just because it doesn't have paging.

As Opera's focus with this seems to be tablets, it also makes lots of sense. It actually sucks trying to scroll the web browser with your finger. It works better with a mouse and mousewheel, but tablets would be greatly improved if the browser could do the paging itself and show exactly the amount of content that fits the screen. With a single tap you could go to next "page".

This way everyone would be happy, but with tablets and computers, because it actually allows the user choose their preferred way.

Re:Crappy websites already do this

[EdZ]

Note that they aren't proposing replacing scroll bars, they're proposing adding "pages" as CSS element. They also say this lets user decide if they want to have pages (great for tablets) or the old style scroll bars.

I'm not sure how that differs from the current method of having a multi-page view and a 'print' view with everything on one page, other than renaming the 'print' view to a 'tablet' view.

Re:Crappy websites already do this

[rueger]

Category 3 is very small percentage. 1 & 2 make up 99.99% of all people on the planet.

Nonsense.

Category 4: people who have more important things to do with their lives than worry about ads in web pages probably comprise 98% of the population.

I could mess around with ad-blockers and flash blockers etc, but frankly it just ain't that big a deal to me.

Re:Crappy websites already do this

[IANAAC]

I could mess around with ad-blockers and flash blockers etc, but frankly it just ain't that big a deal to me.

I'll offer up my own experience with ads. I've used some form of Linux and Firefox to browse websites for a few years now almost exclusively. When My last netbook died, I went out and bought another with W7 installed. I decided to just try W7 and IE for a couple days as it was installed - no ad blockers.

I have to say, it was an absolutely horrible experience. The ads weren't flashy/blinky as I had remembered them from long ago, but they were really distracting, interspersed throughout any web page I was viewing. I probably wouldn't have had such a problem with the ads had they been either consistently at the top or bottom of the page, or along the side where they wouldn't get in the way. Unfortunately, that's not how most websites are designed.

Once you've gotten used to not seeing obnoxiousness on a web page, it's really hard to accept it again. I've shown a few people how to add an ad blocker to their web browser and I've never heard a single complaint from any of them regarding any missing ads. On the other hand, I have heard complaints from some of these people regarding ads on their work computers after experiencing no ads on their home computers.

Re:Crappy websites already do this

[artor3]

I'm with you up to the last sentence. There are three main reasons why scrolling is superior for PCs:

• Easy navigation - I can just use the arrow keys or mousewheel to scroll, instead of needing to click a tiny link at the end of each page.
• Condensed load times - By loading the entire page in one go, I can start reading while my computer loads the later sections. A paged article doesn't allow this, forcing a delay at the start of each page.
• Fewer ads - The reason websites do this right now is to get more ad impressions, causing you to have to spend time loading ads over and over (especially annoying with flyover or pop-up ads). Yes, they can be blocked, but you still have lots of wasted screen real estate.

On a tablet, these reasons are reduced or even reversed. Paging is easier than scrolling, since both are swiping gestures, but scrolling requires a controlled swipe. Condensed load times doesn't apply, since the idea here is to load the webpage all at once, and display it one page at a time using CSS elements. Ads would only be loaded once, and the really obnoxious types haven't yet infiltrated tablets (AFAIK).

Tablets have some fundamental differences from their keyboard-bearing cousins. Just because pages are an abomination on PCs doesn't necessarily mean they'd be bad on tablets. I'm glad at least one company is looking into making the browser fit the platform, instead of just porting their code over.

Re:Crappy websites already do this

[Baloroth]

Ah, you mean the same Opera that is the only browser maker that supports ad blocking out of the box and has since well before AdBlock for Firefox? In fact, since before Firefox existed, although it's hard to find an exact date (early support was a bit crude, I suppose).

My impression after skimming the articles was that Opera wanted to position the ads better and less obtrusively. Many sites have ads that completely destroy the flow of text around them (or so I remember: I like many /.'ers no longer see ads on the Internet), and Opera's system seems to am at formating it better.

Zoom

[exomondo]

So what happens when you want to zoom in? Do you scroll around that 'page'? If so what's the point of having it as a page? And if not then how do you manage the content that is to the left and right when you're zoomed in? I'm assuming the stuff below and above what you're looking at would be reflowed into next and previous pages.

Seriously?

[izomiac]

Reflowing text is the default. Open any plain HTML page and resize the window. Developers have been intentionally overriding this so their page looks the same on every device, whether it has a width of 200 px or 1920 px (methinks most didn't think that one through). I'm not quite sure why this is the favored approach, but I suppose it might be because people like to make webpages like magazine pages, where everything is statically positioned, rather than coming up with something that looks good on a variety of browsers, screens, font and color settings. It's lazy programming to design for a single machine, but apparently that's easier for novices and very widespread (e.g. Android VS iPhone apps).

jQuery Mobile

[bigsexyjoe]

Wium Lie noted it takes “enormous amounts of JavaScript to achieve what is a reasonable experience but we believe we can make it better with native support for pages”. -And that enormous amount of JavaScript is called jQueryMobile. In jQuery Mobile, pages are div's with the data-role=page. From there you, can use HTML5 media queries to calculate your page. To be fair, RC1 just came out like two weeks ago, so it's understandable if this info didn't come to them.

Re:No.

[jd]

Why? Pagination is a solved problem for most systems (desktop publishing, word processing, typesetting systems), there's no good reason why it should be any less solved for browsers. If worst comes to worst, develop a plugin for Opera (and other browsers) that supports one of the existing systems and therefore has known pagination rules.

I like it

[spermleader]

Web layout doesn't yet have a proper 2 column layout mode. Much needed. And Yes, the concept implies "pages". Opera has seen the light. Once again.

Re:Nobody even uses tablets. That's the problem.

[mattack2]

and most users don't end up using them beyond a week

You seriously believe that OVER 50% of users do not end up using their MULTI-HUNDRED DOLLAR devices for more than a week? Why aren't droves of people returning them then?

What color is the sky in your world?

Re:No.

[Zancarius]

Why? Pagination is a solved problem for most systems (desktop publishing, word processing, typesetting systems), there's no good reason why it should be any less solved for browsers. If worst comes to worst, develop a plugin for Opera (and other browsers) that supports one of the existing systems and therefore has known pagination rules.

This is a good point. I much prefer your plugin suggestion, because it circumvents the requirement that everyone adapt to paginated web sites. The plus side is that those who want pagination can go and get it, while the rest of us who feel that pagination is probably a tremendous step backward can continue doing what we're doing and finding ways to do it better, rather than having to work around yet another browser-specific oddity.

My argument is thus: Pagination is a somewhat archaic work-around for displaying content on a fixed-size media, like paper. It's no accident then that word processors and document exchange formats like PDFs are page-centric since they're typically designed to be printed. I don't have any comparative usability studies on hand, but I would argue that "flipping" a page on a screen-reading device rather than scrolling it is more likely to interrupt work flow--much like turning the page in a book.

Think about when you're reading a book before bed when you're quite tired. You flip the page, your mind wanders, then you have to turn back to reread the last three or four words on the previous page for the purpose of context, and then your entire mental flow is disrupted. Reading from the left page to the right page (in an LTR language) isn't as problematic as actively turning the page, because you're eyes can immediately scan to the top of the following text and continue reading. To this extent, I think scrolling is probably a reasonable compromise between active user actions and passive reading. With scrolling, it's feasible to keep the previous words on the screen for context, and you can continue reading from any point. The biggest disadvantage with scrolling, however, is that it's difficult with lengthy documents to flip back and forth between one section and another while keeping a finger propped between a few pages so you can compare material from an earlier chapter (hint: "flipping" pages on a screen-reading device doesn't have this specific advantage of a book).

I'd argue that flip gestures for turning pages on screen-based devices carries all of the disadvantages of a book while integrating few, if any, of the advantages. That said, Opera might surprise me and come up with an innovative solution that takes advantage of the screen, but the ultimate answer to this question shouldn't be solved by Opera but by a usability expert like Jakob Nielsen--someone who can do the studies to determine the relative advantages and disadvantages with real people.

Re:compromise

[tepples]

Using an ad blocker? Enjoy your paywall.

Re:Nobody even uses tablets. That's the problem.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Tablets are purely a hype-based phenomenon. While many have been sold, their novelty wears out quickly and most users don't end up using them beyond a week.

The Google Analytics data that allows me to specifically look at iPad usage only goes back to March - but from March to the present day, iPad traffic as a percentage of the unique site visits (on a gardening site I run) has gradually and consistently trended upward. For the past week (October 2-8, 2011) a bit more than 3% of the 5700-odd visitors were using iPads. The iPhone and Android phones were each at about 2.8%, and over that same period they appear to be similarly trending upward.

You're certainly welcome to your own opinion, but I see no evidence that anything you say is tied to reality.

Seeking to the next line

[tepples]

Open any plain HTML page and resize the window. Developers have been intentionally overriding this so their page looks the same on every device, whether it has a width of 200 px or 1920 px (methinks most didn't think that one through). I'm not quite sure why this is the favored approach

If lines are more than about 30 ems (60 to 70 characters) wide, it becomes harder for the eye to seek from the end of one line to the start of the next line without skipping a line or rereading a line. That's why so many sites put things like max-width: 30em on an article.

but I suppose it might be because people like to make webpages like magazine pages, where everything is statically positioned, rather than coming up with something that looks good on a variety of browsers, screens, font and color settings.

On a device with a very small screen and a slow, expensive connection, such as a smartphone using EDGE or 3G, your documents are more usable if you transmit and show smaller chunks of information at once. On a device with a very small screen and a slow, expensive connection, such as a desktop or laptop PC using a high-speed wired connection, your documents are more usable if you transmit and show larger chunks of information at once. CSS can help with the "show" but not with the "transmit".

Re:compromise

[AndrewNeo]

Enjoy not having your site visited.

Every browser already has this

[Solandri]

See the scrollbar on the right as you browse slashdot? Click above or below it, not on it. Will you look at that, it scrolls up or down a page at a time. You'll find that the aptly-named page-up and page-down keys do the same thing.

A dedicated gesture for this would be handy. But that really belongs in the OS, not the browser. We still need the scroll bar (whether it's visible, or hidden and you can scroll by dragging your finger up/down) so you can position text and pictures just the way you want on a page.

Re:Every browser already has this

[Shoe Puppet]

It can be used to scroll down or up (press the SHIFT key and then the space bar).

I had never heard about that, thanks.

Re:'Pages'

[Jonner]

You have to love how they specify 'pages' in quotes, like it's something new or has some overloaded meaning.

It is overloaded. An HTML document is called a page. What Opera is proposing would allow one HTML document (page) to be displayed as multiple "pages." But you were just being sarcastic, weren't you?

Re:lame

[c0d3g33k]

The fact that scrolls (content on a single scrolling medium) predate books (content in paginated format) suggests you might be wrong.

One Problem...

[multimediavt]

Define a "page". The whole point of a browser was to get us away from the confines of a page-based medium, like a book or magazine, so information could be presented without the interruption caused by the finite amount of space a "page" presents. Sure, we still call them web "pages", but that's an analogy used for cognitive purposes. If we go back to the finite page model, who's defining what a "page" is? Is it A4, U.S. letter, U.S. legal or what? Sounds like a step backwards to me rather than an innovation. I'm sorry, but in a digital world scrolling is better than flipping pages, IMHO. Don't get me wrong. I love real paper books for what they are (I own many books), but flipping pages digitally is annoying to me and trying to revert back to that model for digital content seems completely backwards-thinking and wrong.

standard resolution?

[Americium]

Considering the plethora of screen sizes and resolutions across smartphones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and pcs, this seems like an absurd idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I want the text I'm reading to be at a certain location on the screen. This location covers perhaps 1/4-1/2 of the vertical space depending on the screen. I scroll pdfs all the time, especially textbooks with mathematical equations.

I also enjoy the dynamic rendering of html that changes as I make the window wider or thinner on a wide screen monitor. Depending on the size and resolution I will find a perfect width and zoom level.

This standardization, at it's best, would render pages based on both the screen size and resolution which the browser is running on. However many problems would occur, the simplest would be merely sitting closer or further from a large 1080p screen. I'm assuming if this was implemented by someone other than apple with a new revolutionary device, the result would be chaotic where most pages wouldn't play across all devices well at all. Perhaps apple products would work well since they have a larger enough user base for those standards to work well.

However, this missed the already dynamic nature of the web. As in one of the other posts, badly designed and spammy type websites employ this already. The only site I came across that used it was the IFW, Maine's government agency overseeing fishing and hunting. They post their yearly informative newletter, magazine, which is printed, in a horrible flash 'book' where the page flips are animated. No high resolution pdf, which would be great, where I can control the zoom, think of it, you could just load pdfs if you wanted pages.

Pages that I can scroll down are nicer anyway, like high quality search engines and all the porn sites.

So clearly, if this was something useful, it would have taken off. Unless there are thousands of website developers, catering to tablets, that are begging for this feature, it seems like another mistake from Opera.

Re:lame

[k8to]

Not really, books are more convenient for:

  - mass production
  - structural integrity
  - a larger amount of surface area possible without becoming unweildy
  - comparatively fast access to any point in the text

None of these problems apply to continuous computer documents.

Ahemmmmmm....

[justforgetme]

You don't like it. We do like it very much. Sure if you are a web developer you need to work much on FF and CR but nonetheless a lot of power users are die hard Opera fans and you know what? They are rightfully so. Also most of the devs I know and respect use Opera and the ones that don't use it are GPL advocates so it's a religious thing...
Opera is the only browser I have been using the past decade that hasn't screwed up big at one point or another. and yes, all the other browsers are copying them because their ideas work(In comparison to FF and CR for example). I still cannot fathom why chrome hasn't copied their gesture suite btw...

I think that is a bad idea

[Snaller]

The whole point of the WWW was that it was supposed to be resolution independent - I know a lot of people have forgotten that, alas, since it makes the web more accessible for everybody if you can adjust font sizes.

My eyes aren't what they used to be and I would like a bigger font (and even if you can't imagine it YOU will also be in that situation sooner than you think) - if they lock down font size to get pages that would be bad for accessibility.

But you say, they could reflow and recalculate it. Yes, the could, but then what is the point of "pages" it would still be a long page with artificial breaks.

Plus there is nothing more annoying on the new 'generate as we fly using javascript' pages that you can't search for content.

This is a bad idea.