Tweak

Using T for Tab makes it possible for switchers coming from Firefox, Safari, Camino, iCab, Konqueror, and IE 7 to feel right at home from the start.

What about those coming from Opera 6, 7, 8? Yeah, I know: they are familiar with changing shortcuts...

Well, what about clicking on the "Eight" link above then?

Please tell me that they will finally have an option for the next tab to get focus when one is closed. As it is now, the last one used gets focus.

i realy dont like Ctrl+T for a new tab, i vote for Ctrl+N again. I know I can change it but i think lots of early Opera users don't like that. Maybe there should be an option at startup. Or an extra shortcut Option. I want my Ctrl+N back.

best regards
--
Osman Yüksel

What about 'Paste and go in new window in background'?
Does that still remain Ctrl-Shift-D?
This is also a bit confusing... foreground Ctrl-Shift-V and background D...

Interesting. In some ways this reminds me of Apple's move to OS X, though less drastic. They made a lot of changes to the user interface to make it easier for new users and switchers, even though long-time Mac users might be annoyed with the changes.

Given that every other browser on the planet refers to tabs rather than pages and uses Ctrl/Cmd+T for "new tab" and Ctrl/Cmd+N for "new window," I think this is a good change in the long run. This is a case where being different from the rest of the world isn't better, it's just different -- and it's been a barrier to adoption.

If people switch over to opera then they should be prepared for some differences. When I use firefox (I very rarely do) I know that the shortcuts will be different and adapt to take that into account. Anyone who has 10% of a brain can do it.

What you're basically saying by changing from what the majority of users are used, to to something that a small minority will like, is that people coming over to opera are too stupid to adapt to a new browser environment when the made the decision to change.

@Rijk:
I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. With 8.5 Ctrl-D opens the link in the clipboard in the current tab. Ctrl-Shift-D opens a new page in background.
In 9, Ctrl-D got changed, but did Ctrl-Shift-D stay? (Note: I haven't tried the new version yet).

Well, what about clicking on the "Eight" link above then?

Nah, I'm more flexible than that.

I don't care if you call it tabs, pages, mdi-windows or whatsoever, maybe it's good to use common terminology. (However, I'm not sure, because this move can prevent new users from discovering the fact, that Opera's pages are _not_ tabs, they are more powerful.)

By the way, if someone is switching from Firefox to Opera and wants it to look and feel exactly as Firefox did, won't it be simpler for him to find some changeWindowTitleToOpera 1.0 FF extension? :)

...

But what I do care is Ctrl+N/Ctrl+T. Make it an installer option, really

(*) I'm an old Opera user and I prefer good shortcuts
( ) I'm a newcomer and I can't learn your shortcuts

:-)

No doubt I will change it to old behaviour asap, but I would prefer Opera being more respectful to it's older users. I, personally, have participated in your affiliate program to get the serial number, many have paid money for the great browser.

You can respect you old users and be very welcoming to the new ones at the same time, you don't have to choose!

Originally posted by Rijk:

That's a bug with the current shortcut. Ctrl+Shift+V should open in the current page.

Should it be reported? It currently opens new pages (I mean, tabs) in the background.

I'm not sure I like this -- in fact I'm pretty sure I don't. In every other application, Ctrl+N is the shortcut to open a new document -- so I always found it quite logical that in Opera it does exactly that: new tab or window, depending on your preferences.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to change Ctrl+T to open a new tab, to ease transition for people coming from other browsers, but at the same time keep the behaviour of Ctrl+N? That way all the /existing/ Opera users (note: taking care of your existing users is a good thing to do) won't have to suffer through relearning them...

So apparently I was right all along.

I would have preferred that ctrl-N be kept even with adding ctrl-T, at least for a while. And, yes, I too have opened a few windows with the change. But even though I have been using the single-window-multi-tab configuration for a long time, opening those windows was not a totally unwelcome change.

I started using those other windows to group related links together in tabs. I hadn't done that before and can see some advantages to it. But I will be going back to the single-window format, because I can learn how to type ctrl-T.

And if it helps to convert any Firefox users, I'm all for it.

One question from an old-time Opera user/fan who hates the change. What does the N in Ctrl-N then stand for?

PS: Ctrl-T hurts my fingers if I use Firefox for too long...

Personally, I have no problems with setups that mimic other browsers. But I don't think Opera should try and become like other browsers.

I think all these issues could be largely mitigated by making it clearer that Opera is MDI. Suddenly - all sorts of niggling behavior that makes no logical sense in a tabbed browser fits perfectly if viewed as a MDI application - like any other one on Windows at least. Ctrl-N is the standard for new document. Closing a window would reveal the one underneath it. etc...

I hope when the final comes out, it just keeps my keyboard setup automatically.

Overall this whole thing feels like Americans complaining about British English being "wrong".

I put my vote in for keeping Ctrl-n. Ctrl-t can also be used but personally I hate the Ctrl-t and immeditely removed it from my short cuts. Ctrl-t is not natural or easy to type, Ctrl-n is natural and makes more sense.

agree with lotrgamemast

When CTRL+N was completely logic; in each soft, you create a new document within the program (window) with this shortcut; opera is adapting it to CTRL+ T, the firefox way.... Why? Opera is Opera, and this shortcut was just cool and 100% naturally correct..

The firefox user trying opera, will ever notice the shortcuts by a right click on the tabs bar.

By all means, the average firefox (or any other browser) user will not see this difference, and ctrl+n will not be a difficult shortcut to remember as it is NORMAL,while ctrl+T is just weird.

The advanced firefox user, who likes to customize his browser to the max, will ever notice that the shortcuts can be changed, following his wills. He will change the shortcut if he wants, but i am really not sure that he would change ctrl+n for ctrl+t ....

The Opera is really nice.

In defence of bewildered new user expectation on how a browser should behave.

Complaining = caring

It's only worth posting an idea if your interested in seeing it happen.

-G de Wilde

I'm not satisfied with this ctrl+n -> ctrl+t. It's plain stupid. In iExplorer new page shoots up when you press ctrl+n, not ctrl+t. I can live with that new paste and go shortcut but this new page / new tab shortcut isn't good. You can _add_ ctrl+t for opening new windows or so on but please don't punish old users by ripping old way off!

Kelson said:
<quote>Interesting. In some ways this reminds me of Apple's move to OS X, though less drastic. They made a lot of changes to the user interface to make it easier for new users and switchers, even though long-time Mac users might be annoyed with the changes.</quote>

I felt the same feeling when switching to Opera 8. For me, the switch from 7.5x to 8 was the most annoying and painful of all Opera versions. (although I keep using old 7.x shortcuts, some new bugs were introduced - and I hope fixed in 9 - and some silly changes were made)

I suggest Opera includes those eight and sevenfive INI files in the main download package. This won't bloat anything, and will allow old users use those familiar old shortcuts.

This is annoying in that it's another example of having things made so easy that people don't have to think so they get progressively less able to cope with change or with things that require active thought, and so on and so forth. I'm not saying that easy is bad but people shouldn't be afraid to encourage other people to use their brains every once in awhile.

I do have what I think is a decent solution, though. Since the core of this argument seems to stem from the differences between a tabbed environment and a proper MDI one, then have the keystrokes changed based on which mode is selected. If people can cope with the 'little red x' being either on the tab or in its rightful location in the upper right-hand corner, then they can cope with the fact that certain keystrokes will be different to best reflect the way the browser has been configured for use. If Opera is terrified of confusing new users who apparently have no idea that there is help documentation available and will just continue to press the same Firefox key over and over again while complaining loudly that it still doesn't work, then, when switching to MDI mode for the first time, pop up a dialogue box with copy detailing the differences, the new keystrokes for opening windows, and so forth along with how to change it back to 'Firefox mode'.

It doesn't matter anyway because the kind of people who can't be bothered to understand that different apps behave in different ways is usually the type of person who just clicks OK without reading whatever the dialogue box was trying to explain in the first place.

So all is lost. We're all doomed. Etc.

Opera is my favourite browser since 6.0 or 6.5 (I forgot) but recently I got more and more uncomfortable with Ctrl-N opening a new Window and Ctrl-T opening the bookmark dialog.

I need Mozilla as a fallback browser, because there are some boards where I cannot login with opera (while the guys on the board told me that others can while they cannot with mozilla *shrug*) and I like the password/form handling in mozilla better. But most important to me is "saving page as..." -> "Webpage, complete". 1st, I don't like opera's "flat style" and 2nd, opera does not save all elements of a page, e.g. flash - Mozilla does.

That leads to the state where I'm using Opera for 80-90% of surfing (all usual/normal surfing) and 10-20% using Mozilla.

Doing so, I got used to Ctrl-T opening a new Tab in Mozilla and when I came back to opera, I almost everytime hit Ctrl-T when I want to open a new page - because these "things" (whether they might be called "page" or "tab" or whatnot) just LOOK LIKE tabs to me, as I know them from other applications.

Recently I tried to change the keyboard shortcut configuration in Opera so that Ctrl-T would open a new page but without really knowing what I did, I managed to trash it, so neither Ctrl-T nor Ctrl-N worked until I resetted it all.

So I welcome the change very much from my selfish personal point of view. On the other hand I can understand that other long-term opera users don't like it and I really wish that there will be an easy way to switch between the old and the new keyboard setup.

At least the info on top of this page enabled me to set up the Opera 8.5 keyboard setup to have Ctrl-T = New Page and Ctrl-N = New Browser Window - Thanks a lot

I'm going to wait for second preview of Opera 9 before installing it, but wondered if they'd also changed F8 to F6, for 'focus address field' on Windows. Again, this would make the default config consistent with Firefox and IE.

Rijk,

I didn't realise IE had more than one shortcut for the address field, but if you're going to count Ctrl+L, you should also count Ctrl+O, as both 'Open File' and 'Open Location' do the same thing in IE6 (on XP)

But a change from F6 to F8 doesn't seem to conflict with anything, so might be an idea. As for IE's F4 behaviour, you can get that with (currently) F8, Alt+Down

Well, how about this? When Opera installs, it automatically retains / overwrites shortcuts depending on whether or not it finds previous installation files.

Wouldn't that be a simple solution?

Currently I find undo (Ctrl-z) very useful for re-opening a tab within a window that I closed by accident.

I was wondering if undo (Ctrl-Z) could be implemented for the closed of a window (and all its tabs) by accident....I have done this once or twice and even though the history is there...it's a pain remembering which tabs I had open. The autosave file gets written as soon as you close a window...so no luck there either...

Cheers...and by the way...major major fan of opera...amazing work...

Mike

For those of you who hadn't noticed...PDF files now open within Opera...major coolness :-)

Unless there was a way to get it to do this in previous versions? :-S

I'm sorry having to say that but: You are really very stubborn in this case, Opera staff ...

A actualy can accept the fact, that you want to be more mainstream (i.e. "friendly to switchers"). What I cannot accept is giving an old (and new) Operian ( ) no chance of changing it "back" standalone.

If Opera 9 is installed and it starts for the first time ... why not asking what kind of User looks at the screen?
e.g.

----------------------------------
Comfortability for switchers

Opera offers users switching from other kinds of web browsers, such as Microsofts' Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox to adapt its interface to the user's habits.

So from now on, there's no need of relearning when switching to Opera, simultaneously offering previous Opera users the option of keeping the old interface.

Opera beginners and switchers should rely on the compatibility option, whilst we encourage frequent and common Opera users to take the second option. This settings can, however, be changed later on at

tools\quick preferences\compatibility mode\

and may be adjusted at

tools\preferences\shortcuts\

(  ) Compatibility mode - for converts from other browsers
(  ) Common mode - for people common with Opera standard behaviour

----------------------------------

Do we demand too much by implement this little thing? I mean, this is just an example and every word in this message might be changed and the paths also. I just think there has to be the option of doing so.

And if you don't like the popup - make it an option at

file\...\

or

tools\...\

I really think you can be that kind to us senior users ...

Just think of old school users that have successfully converted their friends and such to Opera. Now they would have to relearn everything again. Don't do the mistake to offend the fellows you had until you got "famous" (although I think Opera is already famous ) or "mainstream".

Just my opinion which I think many users share.

//edit: enhanced readability (hopefully)

Sorry, my post was mis-leading. I thought of the ones converted by old users. I myself ... well, I'm suited with that ini file, actualy.

Just I think of how difficult it is to convert an IE-fav to an Opera-fav. And how difficult it has been for those who where converted. And now "stick to the roots" again, with IE/FF shortcuts?

Ah well, you get a point there if you say that this will make it quite difficult to keep track on. But, as I suggested ... if it is just *somewhere* in the programm, it's easier for users to find it. Otherwise they had to go to this blog and download the ini or modify it themselves.

More radical changes in UI are clearly impossible to keep track on, but as long as it's only an ini-file, that'd be easy

Ok ... I'll stop rpotesting here, I can live with that quite good, as long as I can change it back. Keep up the good work (and the tweaking potential ).

So, now ... let's see what we can do with the language file in order to ban "tabs" ...

I know its not good to repeat yourself but I ll repost my opinion about all these changes in opera.

ok Ctrl+N to Ctrl+T for me isnt a big deal, and i can easily accept it and understand that is (maybe)better this way. BUT from the versions 8+ opera continues dissapoint more and more.(i happily use it from 3.6)

You screwed up the menus. In the name of simpicity you removed menus like navigation. And for sure its far more logical the new "Tools(!)/Advanced(!)/Reload from cache" from the olde "Navigation/Refresh display" .And I can find many,many menu examples

You made so many changes just to be easier for Firefox user switch to Opera forgetting us! I dont think any opera friend keep enabled close buttons on tabs after his first run!! You removed shortcuts like Ctrl+F10,11,12 etc just to dont scare some zombies! Where will this paranoia stop?

I was dissapointed seeing that the version 9 of Opera, the browser of innovation, continues this way of abalienation! Finaly, I really dont understand, why you dont add some preinstalled advanced menus/shortcuts configurations in order to the familiar with opera users, be able just to choose 'em from preferences menu!

And you are taking so fast decisions. Ctrl+Shift+V it doesnt even works!

An angry opera friend

Why not provide a links to different keyboard setups on first startup screen and keyboard help page?

natalia, you said what I want to.
Opera should go her own way. We wanna Opera, not other FF or otherthings.
Now, it is the menus and shortcuts. what would be the following?

Clicking "seven five" because I don't use tabs, I use pages.

Opera's power and speed is getting more and more smothered/hidden by importing the bad UI that it once excelled over. More than once I've shown someone the convenience of one of the "old methods" and they say something like "wow - so why isn't it like that by default?"

Thanks for the Merlin keyboard tweak, Rijk.

I may make a suggestion to consider an Opera dialogue prompt when modifying Opera paramaters like keyboard shortcuts when they conflict with other existing settings.

For example, I prefer cntl-D for "paste & go" so I changed this back to pre-Merlin setting, but it then conflicts with another change, so I had to make sure that was not set to "cntl-D" setting.

Cheers,
Kamalesh

(LA, Calif. US)

lee writes:

the change of ctrl+n to ctrl+t is not a wise idear for an older user though it ease the new ones.
i agree that opera set a changable choise of new/0ld users ,so everyone could get what they whant.
BTW, the 9th edition doesn't work well with my yahoo.com.cn mailbox when i attach files to the letter ,it says the java goes wrong ,well ,it confuses me

Thanke you for the introduction.I have partly switched to Opera from some IE-like web browser.I said "partly" because some websites can't be correctly displayed in Opera.I know it's not Opera's fault,but the MS'.

There is still something which I think could be improve:the display of Chinese can make some trouble,the ones with the same size as English seem to small and are hard to recognize.So I really hope you can fix this problem.Ziemlichen Dank!

I really don't think I would like that new way of doing things. I like the fact that CTRL + SHIFT + NKEY and CTRL + NKEY are grouped for similar functionality, and to me this makes more sense in general. I vote no.

Anonymous writes:

hi cool

Smartalex writes:

I'm sorry, but this CTRL+T/CTRL+N thing is just dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Did new users complain? I don't understand where the fire was. There wasn't even any smoke. Why should Opera succumb to peer pressure, especially since there isn't any peer pressure? How do you know that they won't find the old way better?

CTRL+N means 'new document inside the current window.' The other browsers are wrong, not Opera. The other browsers should change to the way Opera worked, not the other way around. Even if there are 6 or 7 or whatever number of browsers using the wrong shortcut. There are MILLIONS of programs that use CTRL+N properly. Why should a browser be different? Opera was right the old way.

New opera users wouldn't be as suprised at finding CTRL+N mean 'new document' as existing opera users will find CTRL+N meaning 'new window'. After all, the old keyboard shortcut is COMPUTER INDUSTRY standard.

Opera was right, the other browsers are wrong.

PLEASE conform to industry standard, not browser standard. Make the default keyboard shortcuts the way they were before and allow new installers to identify which method they prefer. And it's not enough to ask if they are a Firefox user. I suspect that most new opera users would find that the 8.5 way makes sense, and enjoy it better than CTRL+T. Especially since they are used to it with their other programs.

I have to say, I agree with _natalia, fantast_xue, & Smartalex.

I like how fantast_xue said it: "Opera should go her own way. We wanna Opera, not other FF or otherthings." If we want FF or otherthings, we can go & *have* FF or otherthings.

Coming from Opera, when I first used Firefox my reaction to the ^T shortcut was along the lines of "WTF? What kind of stupid shortcut is that?" In Opera, I used the MDI & so the default unit was the page - ^N naturally fit the page. The windows are containers for pages; witness how you can pull them out, move them about, etc. But in FF, the default unit is the window; tabs are just that, simple tabs, not a base unit but rather a subdivision. When I realised this, ^T made sense. ^N is reserved for the default unit, the window.

The arguments in a thread by opera118 about the ^N/T thing often came back to Word & other office applications, & they were considered to be different to browsers, somehow. But I think it's more to do with the default unit again: Word's ^N makes a new document, it's default unit. The window is just a container, the document exists somewhat independent of it. This is the same with pretty much every office application I've used, so I'll just ignore the rest & assume they're the same. It's also the same in other MDIs, like Photoshop, or even floating-pallate systems like the GIMP (only one I know by name). Also Opera - ^N make a new default unit, a page, or in the old (pre-8) SDI, a new window, because that's the default unit in that mode. Firefox & IE7, on the other hand, still have the window as the default unit, & the tabs within are just sub-divisions, not even vaguely independent. If anyone here uses Directory Opus, that's another one that has tabs as a sub-unit of the default unit (the window, called a Lister - though technically the tabs are a sub-unit of the displays (one or two) which are themselves sub-units of the Lister - yeah, don't worry unless you use DOpus, in which case you'll understand).

So, thinking about it, in Opera's default interface, the one with the Xs on the tabs, this change might be appropriate. The default unit basically becomes the window in that mode, though it doesn't really go that far. The pages are far less independent, & they actually act like tabs, so 'tab' is suitable labelling. However, in proper MDI mode (page bar notwithstanding; it may be unusual MDI, but it's still MDI), the default unit remains the page. ^N fits there, & the name 'tab' is incorrect. The only part which remains tab-like is the bar with the tabs, so it could really be called the 'tab' bar, because that's what it holds, but the pages can't. If I cascade or tile the child windows, how can you call them tabs? It's phoney. Opera's pages are fundamentally different to FF's tabs, more akin to a document in Word or Photoshop than a tab.

Opera has a fundamentally different page-handling system, despite the dumbed-down UI pretending otherwise. The ^N > ^T move is more of the same crippling* pretence. It's like a four-wheel drive altering it's gear system to match the standard for front-wheel drives. When considering the MDI, it's more like changing the four-wheeler's controls to match those of a motorcycle. I say crippling because it removes much of the power & ability of the page management system, which is pretty much crippling by definition; I'm not trying to flame it.

OK, one more point then I'm done. The dumbed-down MDI vs. the real MDI is just a matter of changing modes. The same can be said of the shortcuts. However, back to my lovely car analogy, the visual UI is easy to see. It's like actually visibly changing the four-wheeler into a front-wheeler, or more drastically into a motorbike. The shortcuts are like changing the gearbox & steering, in that they're hidden. You don't see the gearbox change, you just suddenly find it doesn't work right. Same with the shortcuts. The Xs on tabs, on the other hand, are patently obvious with little to no thought. That's why changing shortcuts as fundamental as ^N is so much more disruptive & important than changing the visual UI (presuming modes like you have for the UI now).

My points are probably a little disjointed - sorry about that - but I feel I've explained what I mean about default units of operation. You're different, don't try to hide it. It's what makes you worth mentioning.

SirPavlova

Edit: Whoa, long post. Eeek!

Anonymous writes:

Just adapt, exactly. I only use Opera because its an English browser on a Chinese Windows Machine, Tweakin Firefox is a pain in the but when wanting to change settings for extensions. Opera is taking more market share of browsers because they took the ads out, I never use ad software personally. Take IcQ for example, you can crack the ads out of it, with a browser i wouldnt even go through the trouble of it, just use it for what it is by default. They want to compete so they well make the transition using this software easier, its about the users, but hey Opera is still a Software company too.