There's a problem with the "Toolbar" in Opera 11.60 Build 11.85 An "ampersand" is showing up.

About Opera
Version information
Version
11.60
Build
1185
Platform
Win32
System
Windows XP
XHTML+Voice
Plug-in not loaded
Browser identification

Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Presto/2.10.229 Version/11.60
============================================================
On the toolbar at the top, the following categories have an "ampersand" showing over the capital letters:
View
Bookmarks
Tools
Help

Below is a snapshot of what I mean:
The capital letter V in View has an ampersand written over it
The capital letter B in Bookmarks has an ampersand written over it
The capital letter T in Tools has an ampersand written over it
and, lastly, the capital letter H in Help has an ampersand written over it

All of this happened when I updated Opera earlier today.

Yup! And when I try to download an updated skin to avoid this problem, the Download button on Opera's skins page doesn't respond. >_<

Same problem here. With mine, all menu bar headings are corrupted, all initial letters are showing superimposed ampersands and the words are not displayed in full.

Win xp.

Seems to be a problem with old skins. Try another skin.

First time I've heard about skins...

My skin seems to be "Opera Standard" - is this an old skin? Someone else I know doesn't have this problem despite of his "Opera Standard" skin setting.

Originally posted by mrsw:

My skin seems to be "Opera Standard" - is this an old skin?

Not unless its from an earlier version of Opera.

Standard Skin.zip for Opera 11.60 is 876,851 bytes
Standard Skin.zip for Opera 11.52 is 978,315 bytes

Your skin file is here

If its not a skin issue, then I don't know what the cause is. I am using a Windows XP theme. Are you guys using the Classic Theme?

Pesala and ALL,

Before we start, please read and heed the following, as it contains some Terms that will used and their Abbreviations:
1) Opera 11.60.1185 Proper Version Number will be abbreviated as "Opera 11.60" or just "Opera".
2) Main Menu Bar, which is located just below the Title Bar, may be abbreviated as "Menu Bar" or "MB".
**NOTE: The Main Menu Bar is that bar that contains the Menu Items -- Going Left to Right -- such as File, Edit, View, Bookmarks, etc.
**NOTE: In the INI file that defines the menus will also term this, per the Declaration Section Header as "Browser Menu Bar".
3) There will be two INI files referenced:
3a) The "operaprefs.ini" will be abbreviated as "Prefs INI"
3b) The "standard_menu.ini" will be abbreviated as "Std Menu INI"

This is a problem with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP, all flavors in both 64 and 32-bit versions. The problem is showing with the CORRECT Standard skin supplied with 11.60. Trying to install ANY skin on 11.60, including some of the very latest offered for download, does NOT solve the problem. The ampersand is still embedded in the first letter of all items of the Main Menu Bar.

Pesala, your question, QUOTING:"Are you guys using the Classic Theme?"
RESPONSE: Yes. I am and most of my colleagues are using the Classic Theme in XP. For Windows Vista and 7, we are using Aero themes and Classic Menu and Toolbars. Changing those back to Vista and 7 defaults does not correct the problem.

My colleagues and myself have been able to replicate this problem on over 37 systems, all of which are unique. Uninstalling 11.60 while saving personal settings, re-installing 11.52 in the same folder and then putting whatever skin the user wishes has 11.52 functioning perfectly.

Therefore, the problem is REPRODUCIBLE. It should NOT be limited to any one skin.

My colleagues and myself have tried every trick and solution we know to find and/or correct this problem.

The first thing done was to check the Configuration Settings, or INI, files for any errors and review the declaration of the Menu Bar. The reference to which INI file is used to declare the MB is in the User's "profile" folder, which is installed in the Program File installation location for Opera. The INI file is named "operaprefs.ini". Within this Configuration Settings file, it will reference the Menu Bar Configuration Settings file. This file is found in the Opera folder "ui" and is the Configuration Settings file named "standard_menu.ini".

Since I had Opera retain my User Settings during the UN-Installation, the profile folder was left intact. Therefore the "operaprefs.ini" had not changed and was verified as such. The clean installation of Opera installs the "ui" folder, so the Std Menu INI was installed by the Opera setup. It was checked against a backup from the previous version of 11.52 and appears to be O.K.

The last thing we tried was just installing Opera and building it from scratch. The problem with the MB is still there.

Got any more solutions??

Mine was solved by changing from using a modified Windows theme to the Classic theme, which I since actually have modified slightly. This, however, didn't seem to disturb the Opera menu bar, it's still showing fine.

Thanks Pesala for your suggestion to check the themes.

Originally posted by mrsw:

Mine was solved by changing from using a modified Windows theme to the Classic theme, which I since actually have modified slightly.

We wish it would work for us. It is not working in XP Pro SP3.

Any ideas for Windows Vista or Windows 7 ??

O.K., I have just stumbled onto something. I do NOT think it is the skin, per se, rather in the setup for the skin itself and any buttons/icons included in that skin.

I have downloaded some new skins, designed especially for 11.60, and they work fine. Downloaded a few of the highest ranked, in the Top-Rated and Popular categories, that were for versions 9.x and 10.x of Opera and they have the Text Distortion (ampersand embedding) Issue in the Main Menu Bar.

Still do NOT know why the Standard Skin included in 11.60 has the Ampersand Embedding Issue in the Main Menu Bar.

Downloaded a skin modified for 11.60, with the Skin Name of "New Classic for 11.60". That skin and some others work without distorting the text (ampersand embedding) in the Main Menu Bar. Going to use these as a guide to find out exactly what causes the problem.

I concur with some other users, posting in a related topic, that it is B.S. that users have to jump through hoops because Opera changes things in the programming that affect the skin. If that is the case, then they need to UPDATE THE SKIN SPECS Before the publish the new version AND tell all potential users about Possible Skin Problems.

That would have saved a lot of pain.

Originally posted by Journey1956:

About Opera
Version information
Version
11.60
Build
1185
Platform
Win32
System
Windows XP
XHTML+Voice
Plug-in not loaded
Browser identification

Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Presto/2.10.229 Version/11.60
============================================================
On the toolbar at the top, the following categories have an "ampersand" showing over the capital letters:
View
Bookmarks
Tools
Help

Below is a snapshot of what I mean:
The capital letter V in View has an ampersand written over it
The capital letter B in Bookmarks has an ampersand written over it
The capital letter T in Tools has an ampersand written over it
and, lastly, the capital letter H in Help has an ampersand written over it

All of this happened when I updated Opera earlier today.

Same problem here. I'm back to 11.52 "More Better"

Just a follow-up: I'm using the Standard skin. I've never installed anything extra with this browser. Although the aforementioned superimposed ampersands are showing up, it will not deter me to reverting back to the older 11.52. This is just a minor bug so I can live with that until it gets fixed.

Originally posted by DotNET Pro:

Downloaded a skin modified for 11.60, with the Skin Name of "New Classic for 11.60". That skin and some others work without distorting the text (ampersand embedding) in the Main Menu Bar. Going to use these as a guide to find out exactly what causes the problem.

I just tried "New Classic for 11.60" on my Windows 7 and it did not change the distortion at all. Every menu item still has an ampersand overlaying the first letter.

Hello
using Xp-sp3. I solved the ampersand problem. Tools --> preferences --> Advanced --> Font. In "Font" I changed font type and size (increase) and ampersand is gone.
Hope this works for you too.
Best Regards
Albert

Originally posted by albert-one:

Hello
using Xp-sp3. I solved the ampersand problem. Tools --> preferences --> Advanced --> Font. In "Font" I changed font type and size (increase) and ampersand is gone.
Hope this works for you too.
Best Regards
Albert

Yep!! That worked for me. Thanks albert-one I clicked on Tools --> preferences --> Advanced --> Fonts --> double click on "Browser menus" from the list and changed from the "[Default] - Tahoma" to the "MS Sans Serif" font. There's no need to change the font size or weight. Actually choosing anything other than the default font works. That was a great tip.

Now we all know there's a coding problem with the "[Default] - Tahoma" font.

Originally posted by albert-one:

Hello
using Xp-sp3. I solved the ampersand problem. Tools --> preferences --> Advanced --> Font. In "Font" I changed font type and size (increase) and ampersand is gone.
Hope this works for you too.
Best Regards
Albert

Thanks Albert. Followed your advice and ampersands are gone

Originally posted by Journey1956:

.changed from the "[Default] - Tahoma" to the "MS Sans Serif" font. There's no need to change the font size or weight..

Well, changing to MS Sans Serif did not work for me, but changing to explicitly selecting Tahoma and then a font size of at least 20 worked. For me the font size was the key thing. 20 worked. 18 did not. Thanks to all who found this out.

Font size 20 did it for me (under Win7), too. Thanks!

P.S.: I do think that such a general error doesn't reflect too well on Opera release procedures, though. Perhaps Opera needs to revise its pre-release testing cycles?

My default font (for some reason) is Segoe UI. Specifically selecting this + increasing font size from 12 to 14pt fixed it for me. Opera Classic skin.

I think I have this problem. I have the Menu bar BOLDED so I just see a black smear for the capital letter for "View", "Bookmarks", "Mail" and "Help". I had to get a magnifying glass to try and see if the black blur is actually an ampersand and I can barely make out the ampersand with magnification. "Tools" displays perfectly the capital letter "T" so my problem might be different from what is reported in this thread but I think it is the same problem. I use Opera Standard theme for many years.

I don't think the problem, for me at least, is controlled by Opera font and font size for browser toolbars. Many years ago, I changed ALL Opera fonts to Verdana with 13pt font size as minimum. But for browser toolbars, Opera is set to Verdana 10pt. I tried changing the font size in Opera preferences/advanced/fonts/browser toolbars. This had NO effect. The font size did NOT change. I also tried changing to a different font for browser toolbars. This had NO effect. The font did NOT change (even after a restart of Opera -whereupon all text was lost for this post...can't believe that is still NOT fixed in Opera).

I use XP Pro with Windows Classic Style for Windows and Buttons. Opera appears to still mostly honor these Windows settings for the Menu bar. I have "Selected Items" (which controls the menu bar on all browsers I have) under Items list set to Verdana 8 point font bolded. I can't change the font or font size there to fix this problem because that will change the font and font size on ALL my browsers and I have no problems on other browsers. Plus, if I change this, as suggested in this thread, then all right click menus, drop down menus, and many other items will also change from Verdana 8 point font bolded to whatever I change to in order to fix Opera's Menu bar problem. I do not want other Windows "Selected items" to be in larger font or in any font other than Verdana nor do I want them unbolded.

Seems to me that Opera should simply honor Classic Windows and Buttons settings if the user is using those on any version of Windows. Whenever i get a new computer with Win 7, I will still use Classic Windows and Buttons (and turn off Aero). If Opera was still fully honoring Classic Style Windows and Buttons settings, I would still have Opera as my default browser because it would be bolding the full address bar (as Mozilla browsers still do for me because this is how I have the address bar in Advanced Display/Items/message box) set. It seems Opera devs have forgotten that many folks still use Classic Windows and Buttons in ALL versions of Windows and Opera should not mess with that but simply honor the user's settings in these cases.

EVERYONE,

I have recently found THE Solution to this problem. The Solution is NOT related to the Font or the Font Size. Yes, monkeying around with those can work for SOME skins on SOME systems. The solution will allow you to use ANY font or size you wish.

The solution was found in another Topic, which is titled "Upgraded to 11.6 and "File, Edit, View" bar is messed up" and is found at this URL = http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1185232.
The solution was in a post from user "alex-shpak", a Product Tester on Opera's Desktop Team. It was his post timestamped "22. December 2011, 11:22:53", where he explained how to edit the "skin.ini" file in the skin ZIP file to solve the problem.

I will save all from having to go to the Topic Referenced Above, by quoting the post here:

Originally posted by alex-shpak:

Back to topic: to those of you experiencing issues with ampersands only when using non-standard themes - there's a workaround: you just need to open the skin .zip file, open skin.ini file in it, and in [Menu Button Skin] section change values "Padding Left" and "Padding Right" both to value 8. Then pack the modified skin.ini file back to .zip, and reload the skin.

And yes, we're working on it.

I have found that Alex's advice on changing the Padding values works for BOTH Standard and Non-Standard skins. SO FAR: ANY skin with which I have had problems or those I am in the process of creating, changing the Padding values in the [Menu Button Skin] section fixes a lot of problems.

One does NOT NEED TO CHANGE THE FONTS or Font Size. There could be other variables from the "skins.ini" declarations involved. ANY font or font size I wish to use is available to any skin.

REMEMBER:You must Re-Pack the EDITED "skin.ini" file back into the Skin ZIP file in order for it to work.

Thanks, Alex!!

In the newest Opera version, the problem appears again, and changing fonts or their sizes doesn't help this time. Frustrating that Opera still hasn't fixed this!! (I've told less technically inclined friends of mine not to update the version - as they are constantly being asked to do by the browser - due to this...)

For dummies (like me, at first): The "skin.zip" solution described in the previous post (thankyou for that!) needs to be applied to your currently active skin archive file (which probably has a different name)! To help identify that, use the link in the 6th post of this thread, counting from the top! Thanks, all! Let's hope Opera makes this a priority on the NEXT version!

Yup, back in 12 -- I've spent my spare time the past few days playing with it... the 8 padding does nothing... in fact the more padding you add the worse it got because it appears menu items now use the IE box model The width is set by the text, but the padding is then added inside that width erasing content.

-- AHA I thought! I set it to zero, and added margin-right instead.

Poof, fixed it for me. While in there I got rid of the transparency on the new 'transparent menu' option, since that makes the black text 100% illegible.

from my skin.ini

[Menu Transparent Skin]
Native              = 1
ClearBackground     = 1
Fallback version    = 3
Color               = #EEEEEE

[Menu Transparent Button Skin]
Native              = 1
ClearBackground     = 1
Color               = #EEEEEE
Text Color          = #000000
Padding Left        = 0
Padding Right       = 0
Padding Bottom      = 4
Padding Top         = 4
Margin Left         = 0
Margin Right        = 8
Margin Top          = 0
Margin Bottom       = 0
Spacing             = 0

[Menu Transparent Button Skin.hover]
Native              = 1
Color               = #46A9FF
Text Color          = #FFFFFF

[Menu Transparent Button Skin.selected]
Native              = 1
Color               = #46A9FF
Text Color          = #FFFFFF

Fixed it right up, tweaking it to be actually USEFUL again. Drove me nuts for a few minutes wondering why my changes weren't doing anything -- I was putting them in [menu button skin] like old Opera instead of [menu transparent skin] -- DOH!

Does bring me back to that wonderful question: Why the **** would you want a transparent or semi-transparent background behind TEXT?!? Just TRYING to make it illegible?

Though the same thing could be said for building websites (like this one) with px metric fonts forcing users to either dive for the zoom (160% or more needed here) or come up with their own user.css to fix it.

Now to adjust the tabs in portrait mode so they aren't so blasted massive with wasted space of that extra border nonsense between them; sure is pretty, but from a functionality standpoint it's junk... likewise for the idiotically massive spacing between the forward/back/refresh buttons and all the favicons I put up there --- but that's something I've had to fix on every release since 10 dropped.

Deathshadow: I was going to take a look at the "skin.ini" file but after doing a search for *.ini it doesn't appear to be on my PC.

There is a section that has the skins but no ini file.

I just turned Menu Bar off so I don't see the mess.

Version 12.00 has more issues that this minor one. Inserting an image into email is a big concern that should be fixed as soon as possible. I never had a problem inserting images into an email before version 12.00.

The skins are *.zip archives. To find skin.ini you have to extract the zip archive. Edit the skin.ini, zip the folder up again, then close Opera or select a different skin, before overwriting the old zip in \skin\ with the one from \skin\myskinfolder\

Hi, we are up to version 12.01 final already and still there is no classic skin (like Opera 9) that has a working "Show Menu Bar" (The "File, Edit, View" bar is messed up) when selected. Does anyone know where I can find a working one by chance? Cheers

Is this the one you mean?

Originally posted by Pesala:

Is this the one you mean?

Hmmm, thanks for trying to help. That skin is close but still doesn't quite emulate Classic 9. The top menu bars are a different color from Classic 9 and the File, Edit, View Menu Bar is a tad off center plus a different color....

@beakm
please try last version of
https://addons.opera.com/de/themes/details/opera_skin_9_for_12
or
https://addons.opera.com/de/themes/details/opera_skin_9_for_12trans
and there read my message to you
karly63

Hi Karl, thanks for taking an interest in the problem I am having finding a working Classic9 skin for Opera 12. Ya, it seems 99% of the classic9 skins for Opera 12 have a problem with the "Show Menu Bar" but seems to only effect Windows7 since you say it works on your XP system? When I say "Show Menu Bar" I mean the option you select when you click the Big Opera O up top and then select "Show Menu Bar" and then you get File, Edit, View, Bookmarks etc

I really like your " Opera_skin_9_for_12 " skin but ya, unfortunately it also will not properly display the "Show Menu Bar". It is all the right colors except for that pesky Menu Bar problem which displays as a solid black bar. If it's possible to fix can you make it the same color as the address bar & tab bar?

Your " Opera_skin_9_for_12TRANS " skin for some reason does not have the "Show Menu Bar " problem and is actually the correct color for the " Opera_skin_9_for_12 " skin. So perhaps if you can substitute the " Show Menu Bar " from the 12TRANS skin into the Opera_skin_9_for_12 skin then the Opera_skin_9_for_12 skin will then work fine, all the colors will match, and then be a great match for the Opera9 classic skin. I hope you will be able to do this...

Cheers

@beakm
I have done already what you suggested, but win7 seems to handle things different than XP. I need to get a win7-System to test what is happening. Because of this, it will last a while, till solution is comming. I'm sorry for that. But I'm interested in spreading classic theme to the world, so I will do my best. Be patient, please, solution will come.

Soon come
karly
ps: i have done a fast shot to both of this skins. If versionnumber increases, give it a try and tell me what happens, please.
karly

Hi beakm,
new versions are published. Please test and tell. I hope it will do what expected.

regards
karly

Wow, Karl, after about 5 minutes I see nothing blatantly wrong with your "Opera_skin_9_for_12" skin. Very awesome! Am in the process of moving all my bookmarks over to Opera 12 from 11.60 and will start using it. If I run into any problems I will let you know.

Thanks so much for being the first to finally make a working Classic9 skin for Opera 12 :-)

Hey beakm,
you are wellcome. Finaly i like it, if things are working well.
would you be so kind to give them skins a new score. Other people want to know if things are allright.
Thank you and have a nice time

Karly