How to train your (user) agent

Opera extension: YouTube Downloader

By Dan Alexandrudantesoft. Friday, December 31, 2010 8:24:00 PM

Located in the Entertainment category, the YouTube Downloader allows direct downloading of YouTube video clips in all available formats and sizes.

Opera extension: Slim Scrollbar

By Dan Alexandrudantesoft. Friday, December 31, 2010 5:18:00 PM

extensions

Another web Appearance enhancing extension, the Slim Scrollbar provides a discreet, auto-show scrollbar for us users who disable the default scrollbars when browsing.

Ever since using Opera Mobile I wondered when the desktop version will introduce this feature. With extensions, the long wait may be over.

Opera extension: HTML Ruby

By Dan Alexandrudantesoft. Friday, December 31, 2010 2:18:13 PM

extensions

Located in the Appearance category, the HTML Ruby extension provides a niche service: it adds support to Opera for ruby annotation markup.

If you haven’t heard about ruby characters, then this extension is probably not for you. What it does, in a nutshell, is make Opera render HTML RUBY tags, which are mainly used for text annotation with furigana or pinyin, but can be (ab)used for other purposes:

Miscellaneous opera:config settings

By Dan Alexandrudantesoft. Thursday, December 30, 2010 2:20:00 PM

UI, opera:config, profile

I like to enable the placeholder for plug-ins as soon as installing:

If you set plug-ins to be enables globally (from Quick Preferences (F12) or in Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content > Enable plug-ins), then the placeholder can also be enabled in the Content UI.

I also the mouse gesture UI as soon as possible:

Uncheck opera:config#UserPrefs|ShowGestureUI or Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Shortcuts > Enable visual hints

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My UI customisations

By Dan Alexandrudantesoft. Thursday, December 30, 2010 11:41:00 AM

UI, profile

Place the Find bar at the bottom

Customize > Appearance > Placement: Bottom
Customize > Appearance > Placement: Off

Then the Find bar appears at the bottom of the webpage when invoked with CTRL+F or / , . as expected, and does not push the page down, as it does by default, when placed at the top.

Edit the info panel

From Customize > Appearance > Buttons > Spacers add Wrapper.
From Customize > Appearance > Buttons > Status add Total, Elapsed, Speed

Edit the status bar

From Customize > Appearance > Placement: Top¹
From Customize > Appearance > Buttons > Status add Clock

¹ When the OS taskbar is also placed at the top of the screen, webpages stretch all the way to the bottom.

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My custom menu / keyboard / mouse

By Dan Alexandrudantesoft. Wednesday, December 29, 2010 4:43:00 PM

profile

Edit the keyboard setup

Add a custom keyboard setup. The corresponding file will be placed in your profile folder, e.g. "\opera\keyboard\standard_keyboard (1).ini". With Opera closed, edit it to change a few settings:

To disable the Notes dropdown on Arrow down: Under [Advanced] then [Edit Widget] replace the action for Platform Windows-Unix-MCE, Down from Next line | Show edit dropdown to Next line
To map . to the Access keys menu (by default Shift+ESC): Under [Application] replace the action for . from Find Inline, 1 to Enter access key mode | Leave access key mode
To map F1 to the Go to bookmark prompt (by default Shift+F2): Under [Application] replace the action for F1 from Open URL in new page, "opera:/help/index.html" to Go to nickname

Edit the mouse setup

Add a custom mouse setup. The corresponding file will be placed in your profile folder, e.g. "\opera\keyboard\standard_mouse (1).ini". With Opera closed, edit it to change a few settings:

To add a mouse action for reopening recently closed tabs: Under [Application] add GestureUp, GestureLeft, GestureDown=Reopen page
To add a mouse action for toggling no-/cached- images: Under [Application] add GestureDown, FlipBack=Disable display images > Display cached images only¹
To add a mouse action for jumping to the top & bottom of the page: Under [Application] change GestureUp from Stop to Stop | Go to start | Go to end

¹ It’s buggy in Opera 11.0; the gesture must be performed as GestureDown, GestureLeft to be executed.

Edit the menu setup

Add a custom menu setup. The corresponding file will be placed in your profile folder, e.g. "\opera\keyboard\standard_menu (1).ini". With Opera closed, edit it to change a few settings:

To replace the terrible default Dictionary entry: Under Hotclick Popup Menu change Item, MI_IDM_SELDICTIONARY from Hotclick search, 50 to Go to page, "http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/%t"

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