Opera Add-ons

Turn your RSS into a live Opera Speed Dial extension

By Arnstein Teigenespirobind. Tuesday, June 21, 2011 11:17:00 PM

By installing extensions in Speed Dial (Opera's start page) you can get live information right at your fingertips, just a Ctrl-T (new tab) away.

The above screenshot shows the extension in 'image mode' (left) and 'text mode' (right)

I've created an extension template that makes it easy to convert any RSS feed into an Opera Speed Dial extension. So if you have, or know of, a website you want to turn into a Speed Dial extension, this is a good place to start!

Note: before you get going, make sure you have the latest version of Opera. Only Opera 11.50+ supports Speed Dial extensions.

Here's how you create your own extension from a RSS feed:

Extension template (.oex) Download this file and unzip it like a normal zip-file.
Open up the file background.js in your favourite text editor. Change _rssURL to point to the RSS you want to use
Open up the file config.xml and fill in wherever it says 'UPDATE' (the extension name, description etc).
Zip up the files and change the filename so it ends with .oex, e.g. 'myExtension.oex'. Note: make sure you don't include the root folder when zipping up - instead, select all the files (and images/ folder) and then zip!

Open up your extension in Opera by dragging it onto the Opera logo, or by using File > Open. When you're happy with the extension, make sure you upload it to http://addons.opera.com.

The files
Here are two versions of the template in action, using the RSS feed from BollywoodHungama.com:

newsTemplate-textMode-v1.4.oex (Text mode)
newsTemplate-imageMode-v1.4.oex (Image mode)

Extra options
When you're playing around with 'background.js' you might notice a few options. Here's a quick overview:

_imageMode - set this to 'true' if the RSS contains images and you want the images to fill the speed dial
_cycleTime - how long (in ms) one news item will be displayed
_useLogoFromFeed - if the RSS feed have a company logo, display it. This is turned off if _imageMode=true
_showTitleOnly - only show the heading of the news item, no content or images

tl;dr: easily convert a RSS into a live speed dial extension for Opera. Here's a template:
newsTemplate-textMode-v1.4.oex

Comments

Tamil # Tuesday, June 21, 2011 11:26:10 PM

http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/Cool2.gif -

d4rkn1ght # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 12:59:15 AM

Stefan Comanescufaqfaqfaq # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 5:05:47 AM

It looks nice, but the only problem is that people will start to fill the extension catalog with this kind of extensions (just changing the rss feed).

. So please add a preference page with an input for choosing the url.

Joel Julian Salas Lópezjjsl6 # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 5:19:39 AM

Let's try it !!!!!!

Vectronic # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 9:01:31 AM

Originally posted by faqfaqfaq:

people will start to fill the extension catalog

That could happen...

It's a good idea to promote extension development, but I think it might have been better to just make an extension where the pop-up/preference page allows you to set the Feed URL, possibly even cycling between a few automatically. (should also be possible to get the icon in most cases and use it as the extension button icon)

If it doesn't exist... someone do that...lol

Matthew Wilcoxsonmwilco # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 9:29:02 AM

What you really need is the ability to install a speed dial extension multiple times...

But more importantly, shouldn't a speed dial be restricted to showing information from the page it is linking too? (The RSS feed may or may not show this). Otherwise you just have extension, that doesn't have any kind of user interaction, that would be better implemented separately as widget.

And thirdly - I know I'm going on a bit - I think specificity in the speeddial really makes a good speeddial extension even if it's just showing an RSS feed. (And I've yet to see a "standard" RSS XML feed anyway)

PS, I really like speed dial extensions.

ChrisSlamdex # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 10:08:56 AM

Originally posted by mwilco:

What you really need is the ability to install a speed dial extension multiple times...

Can't you do that already?

Jarasmen # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 10:16:14 AM

Wouldn't it be a better idea to submit this as an extension, with the option for the user to add his RSS of choice? Hundreds of "different" extensions that differ only in one line of code is pretty much pointless.

Charles SchlossChas4 # Wednesday, June 22, 2011 1:36:20 PM

Pramod Ghugegeeneeyes # Thursday, June 23, 2011 8:28:16 AM

seriously we dont need the catalog to be swamped with hundreds of variants of this. Just a preference dialog box to input the rss would be so better.

Maybe you should remove this post/link and oh btw nice extension!

metude # Thursday, June 23, 2011 8:51:36 AM

Do you have any idea this dot on "x"? http://prntscr.com/24ikn

Stefan Comanescufaqfaqfaq # Thursday, June 23, 2011 10:01:14 AM

Originally posted by metude:

Do you have any idea this dot on "x"? http://prntscr.com/24ikn

it's a bullet from a list element I guess

HenryAOTEAROAnz # Thursday, June 23, 2011 10:41:51 AM

metude # Thursday, June 23, 2011 11:24:01 AM

Originally posted by faqfaqfaq:

it's a bullet from a list element I guess

Bullet from list element is staying there: http://prntscr.com/24jka

Tamil # Thursday, June 23, 2011 11:33:30 AM

Did you notice 1 in Extension template (.oex) text?

Vectronic # Thursday, June 23, 2011 11:58:48 AM

Maybe it's like Easter... and we have to collect all the little eggs floating around My.Opera.

Matthew Wilcoxsonmwilco # Thursday, June 23, 2011 4:39:10 PM

Originally posted by Slamdex:

Originally posted by mwilco:
What you really need is the ability to install a speed dial extension multiple times...
Can't you do that already?

Yep. Apparently you can now.

Stefan Comanescufaqfaqfaq # Friday, June 24, 2011 7:06:30 PM

Originally posted by faqfaqfaq:

It looks nice, but the only problem is that people will start to fill the extension catalog with this kind of extensions (just changing the rss feed). . So please add a preference page with an input for choosing the url.

I guess I was right

we're doomed !

Tobias WurmGeminias # Wednesday, June 29, 2011 8:27:48 AM

Very nice and clean template, but I have one question:

Is there a way to making the feed stop cycling through the feed-items, while still displaying the image of the newest one?

I am currently trying to make some SD-Extensions for the webcomics I read and it's very distracting and confusing if it displays the older comics.

There is hopefully a more elegant way then just adding 9s to the Cycling-Time

Much help appreciated.

Stephanzeussi # Sunday, July 10, 2011 11:27:22 AM

I'm using the text mode template with enabled Logo of the news website. Sometimes it doesn't load the logo and the picture which is in the text included. It's not just in mine news extension, it's sometimes on the other news extensions which use the same template, too.

Does someone know what the problem is? Or have i to bugfix it by myself (but that will be exhausting and unnerving I think ^^)?

Witold Barylukmovax # Friday, August 19, 2011 7:41:06 AM

Why not just add multiple speeddial entries from extension?

Vijay Agarwalvijayagarwal # Friday, September 30, 2011 5:55:18 AM

How do u extract it? I use winrar, will i need to use winzip to extract files from this? It is a file with .oex extension, is it correct or there should be an archive? Kindly reply.

Tamil # Friday, September 30, 2011 10:01:38 AM

Originally posted by vijayagarwal: