Pizzapops Page

This is a custom css for Craigslist that uses Opera graphic elements. To show it a little better, I used a colorful background. Image has been resized by Opera forum.

The background can be changed to your choice by changing one line. If you come from the "dark side" and like a lot of black, more changes will be required. Click here for Craigslist - Opera10.css and save it in your profile/styles/user folder. Right click on the Craigslist web page. The name for Site Preferences/General/site should be changed to craigslist.org from www.craigslist.org. Go to Site Preferences/Display/My style sheet. Find and choose the Craigslist - Opera10.css file and click OK. Close the Craigslist tab. When you restart Craigslist, you should have the new look.

This my latest attempt at a visual bookmark system for Opera. Speeddial was OK for it's original intent but it is very limited and thumbnails have identity drawbacks. I prefer a system that uses icons, is locally hosted and portable. Although, if Opera built something similar into its browser, Opera-USB could be a viable option.

Gallery.html is html, css and javascript based. It has ten top tabs with 30 bookmarks each. The eyes icon at the bottom gives a choice of nine different themes. The selection is saved in a cookie. The color grid icon at the bottom allows a background selection from thirty choices. (Sorry, no cookie yet). The "R" in the bottom middle is my background and research on this project. The 4 color icon is a link to Kadaza. Kadaza was part of my inspiration and a source for icons. The Opera "O" is a page of Opera links.

Both the Simple Gallery and the default theme of Full Gallery use Opera skin elements is their design. It should match the skin that you are using. Older skins did not have the hover option that is used and may require some adjustments. The same goes for a few of the highly customized skins. Because skin elements are used, the Gallery is compatible with colorization.

Download Bookmark Gallery then unzip it keeping the folders intact. Click on index.html for the intro.

During my search for a replacement for Tidy Favorites, I started tinkering with a personal design approach.
The first was 13 page mock-up that I did for Dennis of Tidy Favorites. The intent was to use tabs or iPhone style icons for pages. The link title would only show as a hover effect. It did not fit with the direction that Dennis was going.

I looked at Quick Choice, an Ajax Speed Dial clone that was written for the Mac.

I figured I could use speed dial to link to local Quick Choice pages. This would give speed dial hundred links.

Quick Choices iframe method of thumbnails and converting to html5 was more that I wanted to tackle.
After finding the Kadaza site, I was inspired.

The search area was unnecessary, good icons could eliminate text and some skinning would be nice. Here is my current result:
Full Size

Two of the other skins are shown on the left. If you want to experiment with my work CLICK HERE to download the zip file. Unzip it and keep the directories intact. Using Opera, open the index.html file in the VisualBD directory. Javascript required. No tech support provided. No icons created upon demand. Before making comments please see my disclaimer! If you find a use for it, plan on buying me a beer.

Opera added Speed Dial in Version 9.20 in March of 2007. I tried it and was not thrilled. As it progressed to make the search bar optional and increases for the standard 3x3 grid, I tinkered with it. I also looked at the early alternatives; QuickChoice, 3x3 Links, Only 2 Clicks and Tidy Favorites.

Once I started using Tidy Favorites, I saw its merits. It had skins, a tabbed interface and folders. The best part was its ability to capture a link and it's full screen capture. You could use the standard thumbnail or zoom in on a portion of the screen and show what was pertanent. The interface was a little cluttered and the skins were not color co-ordinated with to match most browsers. I created several skins for Dennis Nazarenko of Ordinarysoft.com. Later I was able to convince Dennis to add toggles to the search bar and the catch bin, making a much cleaner look.

Windows 7 changed things. TF was not totally compatible and Dennis decided to do a total rewrite. It is now a server side app written in Silverlight. It is slow, all the clutter is back and he has been unable to do a site capture for Opera. The search starts again.

QuickChoice: This was a quicky app written in Ajax for the Mac. Iframe thumbnails do not work properly in Opera. No changes since 2008.

3x3 Links: This has improved and can store up to 729 links. Using HTML5 localCache and logos instead of thumbnails are pluses. Locked into 3x3 grid to facilitate keyboard shortcuts. (Not my style. My trackball is an extension of my right hand)

Only2Clicks: Server-side Can use thumbnail or user graphics/logos. Cluttered look and cannot do small screens well.

Pointpad: Single page of thumbnails. can be set to 3, 4 or 5 thumbnails wide. Nothing inovative.

Fav20: Server-side. Thumbnails only that seem to reload with each start. Limited to 20 sites (?).

Fast Dial: Firefox extension that is highly customizable. User icons, themes, multipages and adjustable grid. Good icon library. NOT for Opera.

Speed Dial: Firefox extension also very customizable. Tabs, adjustable grid and croppable thumbnails. NOT for Opera.

SpeedTile: Requires Firefox extension to work fully. NOT for Opera.

Speedy Marks: Stores settings in local cookie. Single page and thumbnails only that reload on start.

MySilkee: Server-side. I am registered but cannot get thumbnail to load. Cannot fully evaluate.

Thumblicio.us: No eye appeal and doesn't function well in smaller window.

Toobla: Visual bookmarking site for videos. Currently unavailable.

Transferr: Server-side. Thumbnail surrounded by bold color frames that can be distracting.

Weblist: A web shared site of categorized links with thumbnails.

Tizmos: Another thumbnail only. Not tabs or folders but tags. Can select by tag group.

Site Hoover: Uses thumbnails, tags and themes.

Start.io: Text Link with an appealing graphic layout. Just a start page aimed at Mac users.

Genieo: Personal Home page newspaper-style and some thumbnail links.

Fav4: Large logos with a maximum of 25 sites.

Symbaloo: Tabbed interface, icons, colored buttons and decent layout. Up to 52 links per page. Search wastes much screen space. Requires Firefox bookmarket. Opera should look at this for ideas.

Kadaza: A library of thousands of catagorized links. Allows personalized start page of 24 links uses icons only!. Personal page and backgrounds are saved as cookies. No need to log in. Like most, it has wasted search space. It claims to have a library of many thousand links with logos.

Conclusion: I am not happy with any of the above. Opera handles searches from the address bar (or the search panel). Don't waste screen real estate on it. I am not a fan of thumbnails. I replaced my Opera Speeddial ones with icons/logos. I turned the tab thumbnails off the first day. An icon/site logo should be used to allow the user to have instant, intuitive recognition of what it represents.

I have adapted Kadaza's layout for my own local Visual Bookmarking Directory. It allows me up to 750 links and 6 different skins. Next blog will have more info.

Yes, I know this from a posting from a year ago but I wanted it here also.

The color picker is updated for Opera 10 and handles dialog font changes. But be aware that drastic font changes may produce fuzzy images. Opera adjusts the size if the images as the size of the font changes.



Download There is a readme.txt in the zip with installation instructions.

Instead of adding a separate icon for each color.selected (another 264), I used an small (new) Opera logo for the selected color.

The appearance/toolbars tab also includes a toggle for the menu bar.

This is definitely not the Tomu's concise work but it accomplishes what was wanted. Still waiting for Opera's opinion.