When Opera IDs itself as IE or Firefox, it still contains the word 'Opera' somewhere in the UA string. That way, if webmasters are checking the stats, they should see that it was really Opera that time. Yeah.
As browser sniffers got even sniffier and started excluding any browser that said 'Opera'/anywhere/ in the UA string, Opera had to add the Mask As option. When Opera Masks As IE or Firefox, all reference to Opera vanishes from the UA and also from any JS sniffing that's done for Opera-specific items or omissions.
"As soon as it becomes worth the while of bosses everywhere to have their web monkeys spend however much extra time it takes to have their sites work on Firefox they'll do it"
They don't care now because the issues just aren't phrased correctly.
Easiest way to put it is: "Okay, so do you mind the company taking a 5% drop in turnover? Every 20th customer walking through that door there, we're gonna kick them in the ass and tell them to go somewhere else. That's okay, right?"
Yes, I must confess that I don't like 'Wrap' either, but the extender bar simply pops a menu down, so what's cluttered about that?
And, I have to say, any system of tabs that doesn't (a) automatically shrink the tabs to the minimum size needed to display the Title and (b) reduce their width even further by takling the 'x' off inactive tabs, isn't really a decent tab system.
It's a little surprizing (and ridiculous) that an app that relies heavily upon text entry uses an upper-case letter as a shortcut.
Opera uses Shift + Z, X, I, G, P, J, U, K & R
As you say, though, they don't work as commands when you're in text-entry mode. Note also that none of them are 'destructive' -- they never make irretrievable changes -- because the devs at Opera Software have already anticipated that people occasionally make mistakes.:)
I just had one of those experiences with Opera, humorously - I was trying to paste some text, but hit some unknown keyboard shortcut and suddenly it switched to "User Style" mode, with an abhorrent layout.
Shift-G switches to User Mode.
That said, why would that work when you were trying to paste text? Pasting text implies that you were typing and, naturally, Shift-G doesn't activate User Mode when you're typing -- otherwise you'd never be able to type a 'G' would you?
This is the method used in the RAF to make it easy for downed airmen to flash mirrors at search and rescue aircraft to attract their attention.
The airman's survival kit contains a square 2" mirror with a cross etched across it and a hole in the centre. A 12" piece of cord stretches between the bottom of the mirror and a plastic 'coffee-stirrer' with a small hole at one end.
Hold coffee stirrer in front of you so that you can see target through small hole in centre. Pull back mirror towards your eye so that string is taut. Look through hole and slowly move the mirror about until you can see the reflection of the crosshairs are centred over the hole in the coffee-stirrer.
The reflected light from the mirror is now exactly on the target.
The cross-hairs simply make it easier to guide the reflected beam onto the hole in the coffee-stirrer.
What you as the aimer see is the back of the mirror with the hole in it, then the hole in the coffee-stirrer (surrounded by crosshairs) and then the target in the distance through the hole.
I can attest that it is quick and easy to aim, and works well.
Design-wise we can create themes for modern handhelds.
The current stylesheet (as you're no doubt aware) replicates the indented style of 'full' stylesheet. In a handheld, that's bad because it means the content will almost always have to be scrolled sideways.
Maybe better to use bullets instead of regular, increasing indents? Or possibly a few pixels indent first and then numbered bullets thereafter?
As I'm sure you're aware, a simple way of testing handheld rendering is to use Opera and set it into Small-screen Rendering mode using Shift-F11.
The presence of media="handheld" stylesheet tells Opera (and the browser on a fair number of phones) to relinquish styling to that stylesheet, but, actually, (looks over shoulder) if you don't present a stylesheet, Opera will handle the rendering itself and gives a much more readable display of indented comments. Something to think about.
I have to move the pointer over to the scroll bar. Works fine on real mouse scroll wheels, but not the touch pad.
Could it be that your mouse pointer isn't over the window that you want to scroll? Remember, Opera always scrolls whatever is underneath the mouse pointer.
And let me say that that's a feature that I really miss in other windowed apps.
"Anyone care to explain it to a long-time-ago astrology student?"
Astrology?
Hmmm.
Okay, this may suit you...
For an explanation of how neutron stars achieve such high speeds, read the first chapter of Robert L Forward's _Dragon's Egg_. It fills in all the actual details missing from TFA.
The viewable areas of Firefox and Opera are pretty much the same now.
Way back when, Opera seemed to want to show users every single thing that it could do -- all at the same time. It left a mail-slot-sized hole for you to do your browsing through.:(
As I say, that's all changed now, and if it's been a few years since you tried Opera, you should take a quick look at the latest version. The default installation is much cleaner than that of days gone by, and some functions (mail, RSS feeds etc) only appear when first start to use them.
Plus, of course, like Firefox now, all the toolbars are configurable with a rt-click. Also, skins can be installed and widget sizes altered without restarting the browser.
If you use ad-version of Opera, it's best if you opt for Google text ads. That becomes a single line 'toolbar'. If you choose graphical ads, you can lose up to 2 lines if you're not careful with how you arrange your buttons and suchlike.
Oh, and the pay version just closes up the space where the ads would go, so you don't waste viewable real-estate.
Slashdot Mirror
When Opera IDs itself as IE or Firefox, it still contains the word 'Opera' somewhere in the UA string. That way, if webmasters are checking the stats, they should see that it was really Opera that time. Yeah.
/anywhere/ in the UA string, Opera had to add the Mask As option. When Opera Masks As IE or Firefox, all reference to Opera vanishes from the UA and also from any JS sniffing that's done for Opera-specific items or omissions.
As browser sniffers got even sniffier and started excluding any browser that said 'Opera'
"As soon as it becomes worth the while of bosses everywhere to have their web monkeys spend however much extra time it takes to have their sites work on Firefox they'll do it"
They don't care now because the issues just aren't phrased correctly.
Easiest way to put it is: "Okay, so do you mind the company taking a 5% drop in turnover? Every 20th customer walking through that door there, we're gonna kick them in the ass and tell them to go somewhere else. That's okay, right?"
Yes, I must confess that I don't like 'Wrap' either, but the extender bar simply pops a menu down, so what's cluttered about that?
And, I have to say, any system of tabs that doesn't (a) automatically shrink the tabs to the minimum size needed to display the Title and (b) reduce their width even further by takling the 'x' off inactive tabs, isn't really a decent tab system.
Tell me... does IE do that?
"Opera (my current choice of browser) isnt so leniant. Itll shrink tabs down ad infinitum."
Take a look at Tools|Appearance^Toolbars-Wrapping. In there, you'll find:
No wrapping
Wrap to multiple lines
Show extender bar
HTH
Please remember that Opera is years behind the times when it comes to CSS and DOM compliance
Wrong.
Completely and utterly wrong.
A simple Google for web+browser+standards+support shows this at the top of the list http://nanobox.chipx86.com/browser_support.php
See? Opera is marginally ahead of Firefox 1.5 in compliance. Miles ahead of IE6 of course, but that's a given.
It's a little surprizing (and ridiculous) that an app that relies heavily upon text entry uses an upper-case letter as a shortcut.
:)
Opera uses Shift + Z, X, I, G, P, J, U, K & R
As you say, though, they don't work as commands when you're in text-entry mode. Note also that none of them are 'destructive' -- they never make irretrievable changes -- because the devs at Opera Software have already anticipated that people occasionally make mistakes.
I just had one of those experiences with Opera, humorously - I was trying to paste some text, but hit some unknown keyboard shortcut and suddenly it switched to "User Style" mode, with an abhorrent layout.
Shift-G switches to User Mode.
That said, why would that work when you were trying to paste text? Pasting text implies that you were typing and, naturally, Shift-G doesn't activate User Mode when you're typing -- otherwise you'd never be able to type a 'G' would you?
Any possible shortcuts didn't revert it back,
Would you believe that Shift-G is a toggle?
Ain't the web cool. Googling for reolving python gives 337 pages.
I wrote to Anne several times. Got a boilerplate reply each time.
This is the method used in the RAF to make it easy for downed airmen to flash mirrors at search and rescue aircraft to attract their attention.
;)
The airman's survival kit contains a square 2" mirror with a cross etched across it and a hole in the centre. A 12" piece of cord stretches between the bottom of the mirror and a plastic 'coffee-stirrer' with a small hole at one end.
Hold coffee stirrer in front of you so that you can see target through small hole in centre. Pull back mirror towards your eye so that string is taut. Look through hole and slowly move the mirror about until you can see the reflection of the crosshairs are centred over the hole in the coffee-stirrer.
The reflected light from the mirror is now exactly on the target.
The cross-hairs simply make it easier to guide the reflected beam onto the hole in the coffee-stirrer.
What you as the aimer see is the back of the mirror with the hole in it, then the hole in the coffee-stirrer (surrounded by crosshairs) and then the target in the distance through the hole.
I can attest that it is quick and easy to aim, and works well.
Well, as long as the sun is shining.
"The only secure web browser is less..."
The Secunia website lists open security issues for:
http://secunia.com/product/4932/ Opera (0 issues),
http://secunia.com/product/4227/ Mozilla 1.x (3 issues) and
http://secunia.com/product/11/ IE (19 issues).
It's also interesting to look at the past history of issues and maybe take a peek at those pie charts near the bottom of the page.
Mmmm... Pie!
The current stylesheet (as you're no doubt aware) replicates the indented style of 'full' stylesheet. In a handheld, that's bad because it means the content will almost always have to be scrolled sideways.
Maybe better to use bullets instead of regular, increasing indents? Or possibly a few pixels indent first and then numbered bullets thereafter?
As I'm sure you're aware, a simple way of testing handheld rendering is to use Opera and set it into Small-screen Rendering mode using Shift-F11.
The presence of media="handheld" stylesheet tells Opera (and the browser on a fair number of phones) to relinquish styling to that stylesheet, but, actually, (looks over shoulder) if you don't present a stylesheet, Opera will handle the rendering itself and gives a much more readable display of indented comments. Something to think about.
No, not any longer. That was removed a while ago. Opera's default ID is for Opera.
Could it be that your mouse pointer isn't over the window that you want to scroll? Remember, Opera always scrolls whatever is underneath the mouse pointer.
And let me say that that's a feature that I really miss in other windowed apps.
"Anyone care to explain it to a long-time-ago astrology student?"
Astrology?
Hmmm.
Okay, this may suit you...
For an explanation of how neutron stars achieve such high speeds, read the first chapter of Robert L Forward's _Dragon's Egg_. It fills in all the actual details missing from TFA.
Go on... look in Wiki. You know you want to!
Ooh! You devil you!
The viewable areas of Firefox and Opera are pretty much the same now.
:(
Way back when, Opera seemed to want to show users every single thing that it could do -- all at the same time. It left a mail-slot-sized hole for you to do your browsing through.
As I say, that's all changed now, and if it's been a few years since you tried Opera, you should take a quick look at the latest version. The default installation is much cleaner than that of days gone by, and some functions (mail, RSS feeds etc) only appear when first start to use them.
Plus, of course, like Firefox now, all the toolbars are configurable with a rt-click. Also, skins can be installed and widget sizes altered without restarting the browser.
If you use ad-version of Opera, it's best if you opt for Google text ads. That becomes a single line 'toolbar'. If you choose graphical ads, you can lose up to 2 lines if you're not careful with how you arrange your buttons and suchlike.
Oh, and the pay version just closes up the space where the ads would go, so you don't waste viewable real-estate.