Øyvind Østlund - Blog tag: 5 things I’d like to see in Opera

Blog tag: 5 things I’d like to see in Opera

Sunday, 5. August 2007, 18:38:36

In the passed two or three weeks many have had the possibility to raise their voice about what they would like to see changed or added to the Opera browser. I share many of the views out there, but I also have some opinions I have not seen people been asking before as of yet.

A little late, but I got my list up in the end afterAgony tagged me. He was tagged by Geoff who was tagged by, BAMAToNE, who was tagged by Lawmune, who was tagged by Daniel G. Now that was a long list, and if you want to follow all the tagging, I suggest you have a look at Remcolantings tagging tree which grew pretty huge in no time. Well, enough chit chat already, here we go with my 5 wishes.

1) Microformats integration:
A while ago, I added a small hack to my blog to get my About box marked up as a hCard. Now MyOpera supports quite a few Microformats, and it is about time to take the next step. Integration with my contact list would be the most essential part of it, but I can see endless other possibilities here.

2) Online synchronization of bookmarks and setting:
I use Opera on multiple machines at home, as well as some computers at work and on my phone. It is a hassle with all these settings and bookmarks. At opera I already have 300Mb of storage, why can't some of this be used for my settings. Synchronizing of settings between platforms would be great. It would mean I didn't have to have a tab with del.icio.us up at all times.

3) UserJs integration with chrome:
Opera has custom buttons, opera has UserJs files, why can't they work together. Maybe Opera doesn't need a full blown extension system, but at least some integration with the chrome is a wish I know I share with a lot of people. It is true that Opera support lots of the extensions in other browsers, but some are so special or proprietary that we will never see them as a future in Opera. I am mainly thinking about extensions that ads integration in your web browser for your chosen web services like del.icio.us, your web mail and the like. I can never see features like that pop up in Opera, but I can see them as a great potentially "extension" to Opera. Widgets is not a replacement here, sorry. If this could all be topped off with a UserJs/Button manager for updates, and turning the futures on and off, then that would be great.

4) Better development tools:
This topic I have already been diving into once before over at David Storeys blog. So head over there if you are interested in details.

5) Page search in Opera Mini:
When I click a link after a search or at for example Wikipedia, it is a hassle to find exactly what I am looking for. Reading the whole document should not be the fastest way. In my desktop I find my self constantly pressing "." before doing a fast search on the word I am looking for to find what I want. Why can't something similar be done in OM. It would save me immensely amount of time surfing on my phone.

The "Notification area syndrome" in todays browsers:Running Python as CGI in Apache in Windows:

Comments

ResearchWizard # 5. August 2007, 20:39

Nice list. I'd suppose #1 will be already available with Kestrel, #2 was announced by Jon for sync with Opera Mobile and I expect it to be available with Peregrine, maybe earlier, #3 probably already works, but it should be much easier to develop according extensions (see for example Shoust's automatic session saving) - my #4 goes even further (while I think your idea already would be really nice), your #4 is already worked on with WebDevConsole which is thought of to become the most capable WebDevTool out in the wild and finally I'd wish to have your #5 also in Opera Mobile.

NoteMe # 5. August 2007, 21:59

Thanks for the input.

#1
Though we can never be sure, I don't think we will have Microformats support before Peregrine. Tossing in a calendar there too to support hCalendar would be great, but Opera devs have already told us calendar is out of the question for Kestrel. Even a simple one with virtualy no functionality would still be great.

#2
In the interview on Operawatch, he said "Opera on the mobile". I had hoped to see something in Opera Mini 4 that could reveal that it is about to begin already with Opera Mini 4 and Kestrel. But again, not all futures are implemented in the beta Opera Mini 4, so maybe it is still to come. But my bet again (/me pessemist

) is for Peregrine since Kestrel is mostly speed stability fixes and not a complete new version.

#3
To be honest, HTML/CSS/JS is not really what I am hoping for, but still better than nothing. I read a great blog post from one of the XULRunner programmers, on why they don't use HTML on designing their apps (ie in Firefox), but XULRunner instead. I can't find that one right now. On Linux Opera use QT, so I guess the same goes for Windows, and I can't see how HTML/CSS/JS could keep up with the speed of QT rendering, and it's signal/slots.

#4
Yes, it is comming, but my wish list for it's improvements is long

#5
I really thought it was just Opera Mini that didn't have it. I have never tried Opera Mobile. But if it is not there, then I completly concur.

- ØØ -

LorenzoCelsi # 17. August 2007, 11:32

You can make it short saying Opera need to take all the good features from Firefox.
Two obvious examples are the missing auto-update and the widgets vs. extensions.
I've just updated Opera after downloading the full installer and it created a second Opera item in the applications list, plus a backup of all the changed files in case I wanted to roll-back.
This was the standard idea of "update" years ago when there were only major releases.
The widgets... besides being annoying, they are only gadgets that don't add anything to Opera. Compare them to some of the FF extensions like FireBug or AllPeers. Besides, extensions are dangerous in general because a bad coded extension can break the browser. There are many FF extensions with security flaws, bugs, memleaks, etc.

Edit: little corrections, english is not my mother language.
On a side note: more I look into MyOpera and less I understand it. I mean, the philosophy behind. If there is one.

NoteMe # 17. August 2007, 23:31

Extensions is a very complicated topic. It can bring so much good stuff with it, but with it so much negative. I have been thinking a lot about it lately. Maybe extensions for web services could be standardized in a way so browsers could implement a common API which web pages could make services according to these standards. RSS, Widgetize, del.icio.us, and all these icons on web pages could then be hidden on the web page, and only pop up in the address bar as now or in some other panel. Clicking the icon could bring up a menu. And so on and so on.

I am not sure if it would be flexible enough though to become popular. And security would probably become a big issue, but it would at least calm the need for proper extensions in a browser like Opera quite a lot.

Widgets on the other hand I can't see really compare to extensions in any way though. Since they are really just web pages with their own chrome. Firefox extensions are more easily compared to UserJs, Buttons and Panels in Opera. What I am missing in Opera is the link between the 3. A button can't access a UserJs, and the other way around which makes them useless or too slow for most things a Firefox extension can pull off.

No worries about your English. I understand you quite well. Your English is much better than my Italian anyway

Ciao, e buona notte.
- ØØ -

LorenzoCelsi # 8. September 2007, 09:41

There is another thing I would like in Opera. You may think it is silly but I would like the ability to drag ANYTHING in the bars to EVERYWHERE in the bars. Instead of having separate bars for separate functions I would prefer "generic" bars that you build depending on your own needs. An many as you need. In my case, less.
I know it is probably good only for "power users" but the others can simply stay with the default settings and the "block bars" selected so they don't risk to screw things up by accident.
Then there could be the option to import pre-made bars.

FYI, I repoted an high memory usage on my Win2K PC using the alpha.

Anonymous # 23. November 2007, 08:41

Paul writes:

Has anybody noticed that OPERA (even the newest 9.24 version) doesn't support rich text format in Windows Live Hotmail? You can't change your email fonts or font size. I love most other features of Opera, but there's no good reason why OPERA shouldn't support rich text format.
Come on, OPERA developers....you can do better than that.

JilleeBean # 4. March 2008, 16:45

#6 I'd like to see the gentleman wearing the white headband and visiting on an hourly basis...GO AWAY!!!!

Irritating, in the middle of writing a post, getting knocked off and suggesting once again, that I 'come back later'!!

What's up with that? Would love to hear your input!!!

Thanks...Jillee:)

NoteMe # 4. March 2008, 17:25

You lost me somewhere after white headband? Do you have an image of this? Do you mean Opera the browser, or MyOpera the community site?

I hope you don't mean me though, because I tend to use one during the winter

[img]http://files.myopera.com/NoteMe/albums/290324/thumbs/1image_thumb.jpg

- ØØ -