Opera Developer News

Opera 10.50 beta is out!

By Andreas Bovensandreasbovens. Thursday, February 11, 2010 1:36:40 AM

widgets, Opera 10.50, Opera Dragonfly, video, css3, HTML5, Standards

Since the Christmas release of a pre-alpha build of Opera 10.50, our developers have been working hard to get the Windows version in beta shape: check out the Opera 10.50 beta page for all the latest features and enhancements. Personally, I really dig the Aero Peek thumbnail previews that pop up when you hover over the Opera icon in the taskbar. And oh, Opera Unite has landed in the 10.50 branch as well :-)

Note that Opera 10.50 for Mac OS X and Linux haven't reached beta stage yet, but you can get alpha versions for these platforms from the Desktop Team blog.

Next up: standards support. If you haven't done so yet, have a look at Shwetank's blog post for the pre-alpha, all of which is still valid: super-fast JavaScript with Carakan, advanced graphics with Vega, and support for CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders, Transitions and 2D Transforms, Offline Storage and more.

This beta adds support for HTML5 <video>, and Patrick and Bruce have prepared a Dev.Opera article on this for your enjoyment: Introduction to HTML5 video — be sure to not miss out on the fine examples included throughout the article!

Another major feature in this beta is our new Opera Widgets implementation: widgets can now be run independently of the browser instance, and integrate nicely with the platform they're running on, effectively allowing developers to create standalone desktop applications with Web standards. Debugging can be done while the application is running, through Opera Dragonfly's remote debugging feature. Get started and build your own apps with our updated Widgets SDK documentation.

One caveat: I recently blogged about improved Web Fonts support in our pre-beta snapshots, but for the beta release, this has unfortunately regressed again. Web Fonts work under certain circumstances, but break in others. Don't let this spoil the fun though — our devs are working on a fix.

It's also worth mentioning that we've thoroughly reorganized the menus: if you open the Opera menu, choose Page Tools > Developer for options such as View Source, Validate, and Developer Tools. Speaking of which — Opera Dragonfly is now using a new version of the Scope API, which results in better performance and a couple of other enhancements, such as a handy pixel magnifier and color picker. Head over to the Opera Dragonfly blog for more details, and the announcement that Opera Dragonfly is now an Open Source project hosted on BitBucket.

That's all for now — let us know what you think!

Developing for Opera Unite HTML Experiments: Speak The Web, Sheffield

Comments

DavidSchalandra # Thursday, February 11, 2010 8:04:06 AM

Wrong link?
snapshot.opera.com/windows/Opera_1020_1895_in.exe ???

DavidSchalandra # Thursday, February 11, 2010 8:19:18 AM

Thank you, it's working correctly now.

thobi # Thursday, February 11, 2010 9:12:21 AM

*wohoo*

good work boys!

Artur „Jurgi” JurgawkaJurgi # Thursday, February 11, 2010 10:00:14 AM

I knew, that Opera will be the fastest again!

RoyiDrazick # Thursday, February 11, 2010 11:04:57 AM

What about supporting the File API?
Does it included in Opera 10.5?

Thanks.

Charles SchlossChas4 # Thursday, February 11, 2010 4:21:26 PM

Anonymous # Thursday, February 11, 2010 7:06:24 PM

Anonymous writes: just try to use border-radius on inputs nice bug gotta love the ghost inputs

DavidSchalandra # Thursday, February 11, 2010 7:41:50 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

Anonymous writes:

just try to use border-radius on inputs
nice bug
gotta love the ghost inputs

Just tried it myself... and it looks perfect.

Can you give more information about your issue?

Anonymous # Thursday, February 11, 2010 10:57:16 PM

Anonymous writes: i have sent a bug report the background colour disappear

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Friday, February 12, 2010 2:07:10 AM

What are they putting in the Friday Beers to make you work so hard all week? Still, many thanks. Will eagerly devour the new build.

Anonymous # Friday, February 12, 2010 3:56:48 PM

Jav writes: No linux release?? that's sad, I'm checking this website for a new linux release almost every day :(

Charles SchlossChas4 # Friday, February 12, 2010 8:32:17 PM

Note that Opera 10.50 for Mac OS X and Linux haven't reached beta stage yet, but you can get alpha versions for these platforms from the Desktop Team blog.

They will have new builds some time soon

You can subscribe to the RSS feed http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/xml/rss/blog/

Anonymous # Friday, February 12, 2010 10:12:01 PM

Glenn writes: I like the new appearance, but why on earth are you not exploiting Fitt's law? All you need to do is to extend the tabs a pixel or two up to make their target infinitely high and order of magnitudes easier to hit. If you are going to (try to) copy your competitors ideas, at least make sure you do it well and get the advantages.

Anonymous # Friday, February 12, 2010 10:17:40 PM

Den Exen writes: H.264!! Why is Opera not supporting the only scalable video codec that can deal with the present and future video requirements of the internet. Ogg is at best a niche playground, advocated by ideologues.

Andreas Bovensandreasbovens # Friday, February 12, 2010 10:46:50 PM

What exactly are you talking about, Glenn?

Anonymous # Saturday, February 13, 2010 5:13:40 AM

Glenn writes: It's a usability thing. Your UI designers should know what Fitt's law is (if not, they probably shouldn't work with UI at all), but a quick summary is that the time needed to move the mouse pointer to a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. In the new UI, you've put the tabs at the top, replacing the title bar, like Google Chrome. Unlike Chrome, however, when the window is maximized, there is a gap between the top of the screen and the top of the tab (on Windows, at least). So if you try to move the pointer to a tab, but overshoot (vertically), you'll end up clicking the gap. If there had not been a gap, however, the pointer would stop at the top of the screen, it would be impossible to overshoot, and you'd click the tab, as intended. Another way to look at it, is that the target is infinitely tall. You can throw your mouse pointer at the top edge of the screen, and you'd still hit the target. Try it with Chrome to experience the difference. I'm surprised that this seems to not have occurred to anyone. This is common knowledge for usability professionals. All it takes is to move the tabs a few pixels up, to close the gap and gain a huge advantage. I hope this was more helpful :)

DavidSchalandra # Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:46:32 AM

I think that is tightly connected to the Aero theme, where the title bar is "gone" and you indeed have a very small gap between the tabs and the top of the screen. I think that Glenn pointed out an excellent idea.

+1

RoyiDrazick # Saturday, February 13, 2010 1:12:27 PM

File API anyone?

Anonymous # Saturday, February 13, 2010 4:55:22 PM

Anonym writes: I recently tried the new Beta. From what I feel during a session, the Betas' Engine isn't that major improvement. I couldn't resist: When it comes to site loading speeds (compared with Firefox 3.6), the Beta still loses 1-5 secs until the site has finished loading. Other than that, Opera is still superb. It comes with tons of features the Firefox can't offer out-of-the-Box. Not to mention the Email Client. And unlike the Firefox -Opera doesn't freeze up on certain JS/AJAX scripts. I don't get one thing: Why is it possible to disable the Referer? Why not the whole Header (at least Referer plus Browser identity as well as display res)?

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Sunday, February 14, 2010 12:43:08 AM

@glenn: momentum+glide+bounce for your edge-of-the-screen; and many users rapidly adapt to [Ctrl-Tab] if they truly have more than a few tabs open.

Anonymous # Sunday, February 14, 2010 6:26:03 PM

Anonymous writes: ok iv just found the reason it's the way opera treats border:0 with border-radius i don't have a fix yet though

Anonymous # Sunday, February 14, 2010 6:36:50 PM

Anonymous writes: i dunno how to explain but using border-radius should reset the border:0 - this behaviour isn't occuring in safari or firefox

Anonymous # Sunday, February 14, 2010 6:44:18 PM

Anonymous writes: (talking about #11)

Richard FinkReadableRich # Monday, February 15, 2010 3:22:47 AM

As posted @Font-Face Worsens In Opera 10.5 Beta, But Honestly, It's OK, if the Opera team gets @font-face right in the next release, you, Andreas, will get a $100 Amazon gift card from Readable Web.
Please let the developers know that if they screw up again, you'll be out a $100 Gift Card. And they will be getting a set of steak knives to share as a consolation prize.
Please post on Readable Web so I know where to send either the gift card or the steak knives, depending.
And thanks for the honesty.
Opera Devs: Get Andreas His $100 Gift Card! Avoid the knives!

DavidSchalandra # Monday, February 15, 2010 1:57:38 PM

@Richard Fink
Very nice idea!

AstroturboAstroTurbo # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:48:46 AM

got it, looks nice, but wouldn't it be high time to get rid of that window bar (e.g. like in chrome or photshop)? that empty ribbon on top of the screen is a really stupid thing, i would love to see it gone..

Purdi # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 11:58:23 AM

Originally posted by anonymous:

Why is Opera not supporting the only scalable video codec that can deal with the present and future video requirements of the internet.

Ogg is at best a niche playground, advocated by ideologues.

Wrong. Theora is the only future-proof codec that won't lock you into an evil cabal of companies who want you to pay for basic web standards.

Purdi # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:00:07 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

In the new UI, you've put the tabs at the top, replacing the title bar, like Google Chrome. Unlike Chrome, however, when the window is maximized, there is a gap between the top of the screen and the top of the tab (on Windows, at least). So if you try to move the pointer to a tab, but overshoot (vertically), you'll end up clicking the gap. If there had not been a gap, however, the pointer would stop at the top of the screen, it would be impossible to overshoot, and you'd click the tab, as intended. Another way to look at it, is that the target is infinitely tall. You can throw your mouse pointer at the top edge of the screen, and you'd still hit the target. Try it with Chrome to experience the difference.

No, this is nonsense. As this post explains, you are ignorant of fitt's law, and are abusing it to make Opera do something completely retarded.

Opera SHOULD leave space at the top. It's what people expect. Not doing it will break basic windowing operations, especially in Windows 7.

Purdi # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:29:35 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

I recently tried the new Beta. From what I feel during a session, the Betas' Engine isn't that major improvement. I couldn't resist: When it comes to site loading speeds (compared with Firefox 3.6), the Beta still loses 1-5 secs until the site has finished loading.

Huh? Opera is much faster than any version of Firefox.

Anonymous # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:47:25 PM

Anonymous writes: Please fix the Divx Web Player Problem on Opera 10.5 . Used the beta for 3 days and loved it. But there is one problem that i hate. Like: If I stream a video using the Divx Web player, and than the episoide is done and want to watch another episoide so go back to the page where the list with episiodes and quit from the divx web player stream. The divx process is still swimming in opera so i need to kill the whole time the Opera process so i can watch another Episoide. Firefox did have the same. Only in IE it works normal. and that's why i still use the slow ie. But please FIX IT! !!!! :( Sorry for my bad english, i'm Dutch.

DavidSchalandra # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:54:13 PM

@Purdi
The way YOU turn down the idea of using the top pixels for the tabs is nothing but simple bashing. I cannot understand how this way of discussing should be helpful at all. Why don't you just quote the very good explanations that were given by xErath in the post you mentioned?

Originally posted by xErath:

Unfortunately for you, this is by design. Tabs already have enough real screen estate to be easily clickable. However, if that 1 pixel edge did not exist, there would be no way to access the title bar. That means no drag&drop of the window, no maximize/restore on double click.

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:24:13 PM

Or there's Ctr-Tab to switch tabs, or the mousewheel. If you have a laptop with touchpad, Ctrl-Tab is absurdly convenient. If you prefer to use a mouse, the mousewheel is even more absurdly convenient. I have disabled the tab bar on one system, and I often switch to fullscreen on the other. The distance from the tabs to the edge of the screen, is irrelevant to a guy who'll open a hundred tabs on a netbook.

Anonymous # Wednesday, February 17, 2010 10:53:19 AM

Glenn writes: @Purdi No, that post does not address whatever abuse you believe I'm doing, and the poster obviously isn't very knowledgeable on the matter. But that's not important, as I've explained why it would be a huge advantage in other terms. The fact that it would break user expectations is a good point, but is not a valid argument in and of itself. Breaking user expectations is not necessarily bad. Windows users expect many operations to trigger a series of annoying UAC confirmation dialogs, but breaking those expectations would not be bad. Consistency would be a better argument, but I'd argue that this would be worth breaking as well. There are other good ways of performing the operations that would be eliminated, and the question boils down to what you do more often. Does the typical user maximize or restore the window more often than he/she switches tabs? The answer should be obvious. In any case, thanks for pointing to the thread in the forums. If there is a user preference option that would remedy this, I might still switch to Opera. By the way, I hope you change your attitude if you decide to continue this discussion.

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Wednesday, February 17, 2010 6:41:55 PM

Actually, the killer feature of 7 is grabbing the window and dragging it to fill only half of the screen. Opera's "fit to width" makes this even better on most websites. There are other, better ways to switch tabs. For those with large, modern screens, they can use visual tabs and have positively gigantic targets to hit.

I see no need to change the current behavior.

Anonymous # Thursday, February 18, 2010 8:01:18 AM

Glenn writes: There's no reason why you can't keep that feature when the window is not maximimized, but it's pretty useless in Opera now, as you have to carefully move your pointer to the tiny strip of titlebar that's left. Chrome actually has a much larger titlebar area when the window is not maximized. I don't see what's so "killer" about this feature anyway, though. I almost never use it, and rarely have a reason to.

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Friday, February 19, 2010 7:44:10 PM

Whereas I use it all the time. And it even works maximized. You can drag a maximized window to restore it or snap to one half of the screen. I use it continually for research.

DavidSchalandra # Monday, February 22, 2010 8:40:23 AM

@Glenn
If you have multiple displays (like I do) you'll use that feature pretty often.

Anonymous # Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:17:40 PM

Andreas (DE) writes: @Purdi From what I experienced, it's not. I tested it with 16Mbit DSL and most of the sites were loaded almost instantly (except pictures/Flash Vids of course) where Opera rolls them down bit by bit. Settings: Both Browsers with 16 connections per Server and 64 in total, additional Opera "Instant load" (instead of the default 1sec wait time) and the rest was left at the Defaults. Connection used= 16Mbit max Download, 1Mbit Upload, Ping within Germany to heise.de ~28ms. I am recently using FF3.6 AND Opera 10.10 and many Websites look different with Opera (even my FritzBox Config!). Excluding PHP-based Sites (Forums) and simple HTML-only.

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Thursday, February 25, 2010 10:55:08 PM

Not easy to determine who is at fault in that. For one thing, Firefox has had persistent render errors of its own. Most glaring to me are the Firefox scrollbars on embedded images. There are also formatting differences between Gecko and Presto, which may be irreconcilable.

Per loading speeds, does Firefox now pre-cache the text of linked pages? (Opera does not) On the other hand,does Firefox create a searchable database of the body text in visited pages? (Opera does). Have you tried the newest 10.50b2? They have fixed a number of speed regressions that were present in the initial offering.

Richard FinkReadableRich # Sunday, February 28, 2010 12:00:01 AM

We're getting close on @font-face support!
Beta 10.5b has improved greatly. Improved enough to make it unfair for me to send you the steak knives.
I think waiting for one more revision is in order - a last chance for the gift card. Last chance to win Andreas his $100 gift card!
I'll report on the improvements in 5b on my blog.

I knew you could do it. Now bring it on home...

Anonymous # Monday, March 1, 2010 10:10:10 PM

Anonymous 10.3 writes: is there a mac os 10.3 opera 10.50 beta 2 ? and will the next version of opera still support mac os 10.3? can you post a direct download link? thanks.

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Tuesday, March 2, 2010 4:35:57 AM

They've re-added support for 10.4. . .so maybe? Wait for the Windows Final release, then Mac and Unix will be given rapid attention.

Anonymous # Sunday, April 4, 2010 1:35:56 PM

Richard writes: Hello, one thing that always puts me off Opera is that when I want to use the feature to pop-out a video or news stream out of the main browser window - Opera is the only web browser that cannot do that. Am I missing something? Other browsers on my Linux box like Firefox, Konqueror, Chromium can do the pop-out thing. Can someone suggest how this can be done? Opera does the pop-out within the main browser window.

Cutting Spoonhellspork # Monday, April 5, 2010 12:54:41 AM

You mean, removing a tab and placing it into its own window? This can be done in several ways, assuming that part of Linux support has been finished. Ask in the forums, or in a newer thread.