Petition to bring back the venerable "Opera Classic" to the default install!!!

Petition to bring back the venerable "Opera Classic" to the default install!!!

yes, I really want it back this much (I do think the new "Opera Standard" skin looks nice and sharp, but I personally still prefer the "Opera Classic" more).

please sign if you also think so

*bump*

anyone?

Where's your petition?

You can download the old skin here:
http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=8085

I think a better idea, like what Winamp does is to give the option during the install of what skin you want, classic or new. There is a devide on who likes what. I myself love the new look as do many others. This one fits in well with Vista.
I think the way to please all is to have both in the install and the option to pic during the install process and of course have it in the skins in case you want to change at a later date.

Originally posted by iliiad:

Petition to bring back the venerable "Opera Classic" to the default install

Singed: My signature

I believe, at least for upgrade-install from 9.2x, the default should be to keep the classic look, with information in the first run page to let the user know the new skin is also available. It can be achieved if the installation process copies the old standard_skin.zip from the old installtion over to the new installtion and rename either the old to Classic or the new to Contemporary (or similar). This way there's no need to include two skins in an installer.

The reason why I dislike the new skin:

I like having custom buttons on tab bar. Hardly anything is visible on tab bar in the new skin

Originally posted by DaComboMan:

Where's your petition?

well, right here

Originally posted by trygveaa:

You can download the old skin here:
http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=8085

thanks for the link albeit I still think it should be included as part of the default install

EDIT : Errr... somehow I got this when I tried to download that skin :

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /mitchman2/skins/opera_9_classic_skin-2.zip on this server.

Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:

I like having custom buttons on tab bar. Hardly anything is visible on tab bar in the new skin

I feel your pain... That's were I keep my custom buttons. After using Opera for the last two years I finally found a skin that I like besides the Classic.

This one: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=7967

-1

Would be useless bloat to most people. If you want a skin, you can easily download it yourself.

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

-1

Would be useless bloat to most people. If you want a skin, you can easily download it yourself.

lol, thanks for speaking for "most people", whatever that is

and thanks for signing

I'm not speaking for most people. I'm referring to the fact that most people will use the standard skin.

No thanks, I LOVE the new skin. It goes great with Vista.

new skin > old skin

tango CL skin > *

I'd be more interested in a petition to have an option for bigger panel buttons. I liked the older size. You can't have text underneath the new ones, annoying

I "getting" the new skin too

Dava

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

I'm not speaking for most people. I'm referring to the fact that most people will use the standard skin.

lol, of course most people will use it because it's the "default", considering the idea of "most widely used" you have

however apparently in this poll it shows most people don't consider it "useless bloat" to be included in the default install :
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=235840
so you are wrong anyway but thanks for signing again here

uh i *can* download skin which i like - but !!! i have tryed few ones and that "old" skins are not fully compatible with Opera 9.5 - i like Opera 7 skin the best, so i used it - icons was bit disintegrated, close button on tab was little bit ugly and moved to top of the tab and such details... so - i *can* download skin, but it wont be fine for 100%...

and - i like that new skin... excepts that ICONS !!! i wrote it many times on this forum - don't understand why there is small so colored boxes with non-sense pictogram X-( - and contrast is another thing i do not like... it is shame - that design should be fine and userfriendly, but i think, it is little bit radical. also missing "classic" skin with installation...

signing petition 8) ... but i'm affrait, nobody would care about yelling of few guys. this is not opensource

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

-1

Would be useless bloat to most people. If you want a skin, you can easily download it yourself.

Well I'm most people & I don't like it! It is Bad Bad Bad! The tab colour is the worst anyone could think of, and it's not as though I can find out where to change it either so this makes it a really bad problem.

@iliiad: exactly, it's the default, and most people will simply keep using it. It doesn't matter if people who prefer a different skin want it included in the installer. They can easily download skins from my.opera.com. There's no need to bloat the installer with a skin which most people will ever use (because it isn't the default). In fact, I have no idea why they bother including the native skin. Might have something to do with the fact that it's just 679 bytes.


@wdolek: the classic skin works fine in 9.5, and other skins just need to be updated to work in 9.5 as well.


@Jolliffee: Good for you! Download the classic skin from my.opera.com and be on your merry way. Lots of people like the new skin, not that it's really relevant as long as you can download the skin you personally prefer any time.

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@iliiad: exactly, it's the default, and most people will simply keep using it. It doesn't matter if people who prefer a different skin want it included in the installer. They can easily download skins from my.opera.com. There's no need to bloat the installer with a skin which most people will ever use (because it isn't the default). In fact, I have no idea why they bother including the native skin. Might have something to do with the fact that it's just 679 bytes.

Oh, by your logic, then you have no idea why they bother to include the "Opera Standard" skin, since the native skin is much smaller, so the "Opera Standard" must be "useless bloat" that people can download from the net, while you just keep the native skin in the default install... or NOT

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@Jolliffee: Good for you! Download the classic skin from my.opera.com and be on your merry way. Lots of people like the new skin, not that it's really relevant as long as you can download the skin you personally prefer any time.

Again,

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

Don't pretend to speak on behalf of everyone else

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

Would be useless bloat to most people.

Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:

at least for upgrade-install from 9.2x, the default should be to keep the classic look, ... It can be achieved if the installation process copies the old standard_skin.zip from the old installtion over to the new installtion and rename ... This way there's no need to include two skins in an installer.

Joe, I have had my nearly 80 old years father using Opera for two & a half years. He had his cataract surgery less than a year ago. I can just see how this new look would distress him and strain his eyesight. Just look at my example picture above. OK, he definitely does not belong to your "most" people. But he is nonetheless an Opera user and his need, which I expressed for him on his behalf, should not be less important than that of "most" people.

I love both the old minialistic looking skin and the new sharp looking skin (after the new skin is tweaked to take less vertical screen estate), but I have no problem in having an extra mere 300k or less skin in the installer.

PS: my eyes do feel less comfortable after continued surfing (6+ hours, yes I need to take a break, but it was not a problem with the old skin) with the new skin...

@mimi_s_mum: his need can be satisfied by downloading some other skin from my.opera.com.

@iliiad: the standard skin is included because Opera needs a skin for the user interface. They have decided to not use a native skin by default, so that's why the standard skin is there. I prefer native skins personally. But I don't pretend to speak on behalf of everyone else. I merely point out the fact that most people will go with the default skin, and when it's easy to get other skins it's useless to include the classic skin in the installer.

+1

Old skin is better..especially for smaller displays.

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@iliiad: the standard skin is included because Opera needs a skin for the user interface. They have decided to not use a native skin by default, so that's why the standard skin is there. I prefer native skins personally. But I don't pretend to speak on behalf of everyone else. I merely point out the fact that most people will go with the default skin, and when it's easy to get other skins it's useless to include the classic skin in the installer.

you are free to express your own opinion of thinking "it's useless", just like you are free to vote in that poll selecting "no I don't want it", and everyone else are free to express their own opinons of thinking it's better to include the old skin in the default install. and those who prefer the native skin can express their opinion of getting rid of the standard skin from the default install to rid it of "useless bloat". Opera have decided on a standard skin, users can agree or disagree and voice their opinions. Isn't there a saying goes like "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your RIGHT to say it"? And this is a petition thread for bringing back the venerable "Opera Claissic" skin to the default install, and I'll leave it at that

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@mimi_s_mum: his need can be satisfied by downloading some other skin from my.opera.com.

Joe. He has no idea what skin is or how to find, download and install a new skin. I had set up Opera on his PC, imported bookmarks, etc, while I was visiting him and my mother. But we actually live a long way away. He will have to wait for me to visit them next time later this year. (I could try to talk him through it over phone. But when I tried to explain to him how to subscribe an RSS feed, it took me 20 minutes to explain what the feed icon looked like and where to find it. So it would not be easy.)

Also I still fail to see why one has to download it again when the actual skin package is already in you Program Files/Opera folder of the old version. (With the case with upgrade-installation)

Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:

at least for upgrade-install from 9.2x, the default should be to keep the classic look, ... It can be achieved if the installation process copies the old standard_skin.zip from the old installtion over to the new installtion and rename

@iliiad: I have just explained how it's useless to include it in the installer when it's extremely easy to download it from my.opera.com. It's also useless to request the classic skin as the default since it's so easy to download. And lots of people hated the old skin, so why should Opera listen to you rather than them? Obviously, it's ut to Opera how it looks by default. Thankfully. If Opera was to listen to some of the crazy arguments in this forum...

You are of course free to express your opinion, but I'm explaining to you why it's illogical and irrational, which is also my right.


@mimi_s_mum: what about the people who hated the old skin and had no idea what a skin is or how to find and download one? And whether the old look should be kept for old installations is up for debate.

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@iliiad: I have just explained how it's useless to include it in the installer when it's extremely easy to download it from my.opera.com. It's also useless to request the classic skin as the default since it's so easy to download. And lots of people hated the old skin, so why should Opera listen to you rather than them? Obviously, it's ut to Opera how it looks by default. Thankfully. If Opera was to listen to some of the crazy arguments in this forum...

Again,

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

Don't pretend to speak on behalf of everyone else

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

You are of course free to express your opinion, but I'm explaining to you why it's illogical and irrational, which is also my right.

And I'm explaining to you why you are illogical and irrational to talk against 34 people's decision of voting in a poll, and against other people's decision to sign in this petition, and that's my right

I notice that all you can do is to resort to red herrings, so I think I've made my point, and your red herrings and excuses have proven me to be right

I know for a fact that lots of people hated the new skin. How? Because lots of people wrote about it in many different forums. I'm not speaking on behalf of them, I'm telling you what they wrote themselves.

Also, your poll doesn't get more relevant by you pretending that the numbers represent something other than what they really do

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@mimi_s_mum: what about the people who hated the old skin and had no idea what a skin is or how to find and download one?

Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:

the default should be to keep the classic look, with information in the first run page to let the user know the new skin is also available

I never said the new skin should be removed from the installer. Quite the opposite, I assumed the new skin was going to be available in all (upgrade, clean and seperate) installations. My suggestion would achieve the upgrade installtion having three skins in Program Files/Opera/Skin folder: standard (new) and native having come with the installer; and classic copied from the old installation, without need for any extra download. All the user had to do would be, if he hated the old look, to go Appearance and he would see other skins available.

+1
I don't think putting in a Classic Skin would be a bloat, especially when you consider how many things that almost no one uses are included by default. I like the new skin though, it made me change my WinXP theme so it could fit, but ok.

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

I notice that all you can do is to resort to red herrings, so I think I've made my point, and your red herrings and excuses have proven me to be right

I notice that all you can do is to trying to pull out nonsensical assertions on other forum members, and blatantly stating yourself to be right has indeed proven how wrong you are. Sure you have made a point of showing your illigical and irrational assertions about imagined "red herrings" and "excuses" out of nowhere.

I know for a fact that lots of people hated the new skin. How? Because lots of people wrote about it in many different forums. I'm not speaking on behalf of them, I'm telling you what they wrote themselves.

of course. I also see many people writing about hating the new skin in many different forums, and I actually don't hate the new skin, I like it. I just prefer the old skin in the default install, like some others here.

Also, your poll doesn't get more relevant by you pretending that the numbers represent something other than what they really do

And your argument doesn't get more relevant by you pretending that you respresent anything more than you actually do, or you worth more than the poll, which (thankfully) you are not

@veggen: you can easily download the classic skin from my.opera.com, so there's no reason to include it in the installer.


@iliiad: the poll is actually useless because it is not a statistically representative sample which is biased towards people who feel strongly against the new skin. Or are you saying that Opera should use that poll as a basis for a decision? If so, you clearly haven't ben paying attention in statistics 101

And you have yet to come up with one single good reason for including the classic skin in the installer.

Originally posted by olli:

Tools/appearance/Skin and select "find more skins".. It's right there..

Thanks, olli, I already know. But this is per user isn't it? So if you have mutiple user accounts (work/hobby or for each family member), you'd have to do this multiple times. (5 times in my case.) Not quite as same as having the classic skin in the program folder, available for all users.

I do understand the new skin is important in marketting the new Opera release. I have no issue at all to have the new skin the default look in a new installation. But I have a rather strong feeling that a mere upgrade should not immediately change overall appearance of the interface, which is my primary motivation in participating this debate.

/signed

Personally I'd rather see the light-weight, space efficient 9.27 skin reinstated as the default skin and provide the 9.5 skin as an optional download. I'd also like to see the Views button back on the default UI and the Panels button-bar (down the left hand side in 9.27) too.

Most importantly I'd like the option to virus scan individual downloads direct from the transfers window reinstated - quite why it was removed from a browser that prides itself on security is quite beyond me.

@Urpgore: Opera never had the option to virus scan anything. Maybe that was part of the Windows menu, but Opera most certainly did not offer that. So Opera did not remove any kind of scan option. And besides, the malware protection makes up for it.

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@iliiad: the poll is actually useless because it is not a statistically representative sample which is biased towards people who feel strongly against the new skin. Or are you saying that Opera should use that poll as a basis for a decision? If so, you clearly haven't ben paying attention in statistics 101

And you have yet to come up with one single good reason for including the classic skin in the installer.

who talked about statistics? if you want statistics, you can go conduct some statistics research yourself. You really like to put words in other's mouth, don't you?

the poll is for people to express their opinions, nothing more, nothing less, I said nothing about Opera basing decisions on it. Heck, My Opera has all those "poll of the week" polls, and Opera doesn't use them as basis for decisions, so are you implying My Opera and all those voters should not be doing those polls? You clearly needs to pay attention in common sense 101 instead of dwelling in your imagined non-existent "statistics 101"

the reason is simply that there are people who want it in the installer, that's good enough reason, as good as the reason of including the "standard" and/or "native" skins in the installer. And that's why here is a petition for it. So whether your posts here are right or wrong (which is clearly wrong in this case), they are all just red herrings, or simply off-topic spams here in this petition thread, albeit I guess I should be thankful as they are helping to keep this petition up high thus attracting more people to come and sign Now as I think more about it, despite whatever (nonsense or something) you have said here, you are actually actively helping me with this petition, so you are actually my supporter in denial!!! wow, thanks for your support

On another note, here is my blog of this petition, so everyone can come and sign there too :
http://my.opera.com/iliiad/blog/2008/06/12/petition-to-bring-back-the-venerable-opera-classic-to-the-default-installation

Instead of bringing back the old skin (which I don't mind btw), I think the main thing about the new skin is its not as easy on the eyes as the old one, despite what color scheme it uses. I think it's mainly because of the color contrast of the icons on tabs, and the general color saturation of the skin. And I'm a browser-holic. Maybe there can be some new color schemes to make it easier on the eyes... or I need to take a break more often...

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

And besides, the malware protection makes up for it.

Orly? So the ability to block browser exploits (while very welcome) is going to stop people downloading stuff like troj/Mdrop-BOZ (link to Sophos details)? Yeah right...

Fair enough if Opera removed the option to open files in the Transfer window but they haven't. They've provided a way to open files without a way to scan them. And, before you start on about background scanning, most anti-virus programs don't deep-scan in the background. Further more, there's an awful lot of people out there who use freeware scanners that don't do background scanning at all well (in some cases they don't do it at all).

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

Maybe that was part of the Windows menu

Opera devs removed the hook to it and failed to provide an alternative. Why they didnt spend a bit of time adding a *basic* configurable alternative is beyond me. We're talking about single line text box for scanner command line with %f as a token, menu item to select the file, replace %f with filename, execute completed command line. Not difficult to do, and not time consuming. The good ship Opera, spoiled for a hapeth of tar.

Anyway, nuff said re virus scanning.

Getting back on topic, I read here that there is a classic installation of 9.5 over at:

http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?opsys=Windows&lng=en&ver=9.50&platform=Windows&local=y

Worth reading the thread as theres some notes about it breaking stuff.

The new skin is good to some people, but may be a big problem in my region.

When I tried to get use to this new skin these few days, my family members asked me what made me so sad to use the skin. It gives a feeling of someone is passed away. Not the problem of I like it or not, it's an existing point of view of a society to the color combination (black grey white) and simple lines. Opera is providing service to people over the whole world. While this is beautiful to some people, the skin makes some other groups of people think the opposition.

Almost all machines will be forced to use the default skin during installation. Someone familiar with Opera suit knows they can change the skin of it. If the user is new to Opera, he may have to work in a not-very-good-feeling environment rather than a neutral feeling Firefox, IE and Safari.

So, I think it's necessary to include a more neutral skin like the classic skin. May be adding a skin selection like winamp is a good choice as 4eva said.

I've used Opera for several years. I also hope the web page creators have a sense of testing their pages in Opera. But I think using a more neutral can surely attract people from various culture.

I didn't like the new skin or it wasn't my taste but easy enough I am just using my favorite minitango skin

As I said above this skin is really nice, and has gaining a lot of recognition. http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=7967

I am kind of glad that this new skin came out. It seems that users new to Opera like this skin better. I don't use it, but hey if it draws people in then cool! Also, on a positive note. It is drawing an increased amount of people to the skins gallery which should make the developers who put a lot of hard work into their skins some credit that they deserve!

@Urpgore: Opera never provided a way to scan files, so it's dishonest to insinuate that they removed a scan option they had added earlier. Opera can't possibly guess all the nonsense people add to their Windows context menu.


@iliiad: so why did you bring up the poll? I am not saying that you can't or shouldn't set up polls either. I'm saying that it doesn't support your argument.

That there are people who want it in the installer is not reason enough to do it. You need to come up with reasons for including it in the installer, and those reasons must negate the fact that it's available for download. Even from the appearance dialog ("find more skins").

If you think I'm supporting you by showing to the world why this petition is irrelevant, you are free to do so of course

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@iliiad: so why did you bring up the poll? I am not saying that you can't or shouldn't set up polls either. I'm saying that it doesn't support your argument.

That there are people who want it in the installer is not reason enough to do it. You need to come up with reasons for including it in the installer, and those reasons must negate the fact that it's available for download. Even from the appearance dialog ("find more skins").

If you think I'm supporting you by showing to the world why this petition is irrelevant, you are free to do so of course

lol, whatever, because the poll is not "useless" just like My Opera's "poll of the week" is not useless, it's to show others opinions, unlike what you have (clearly incorrectly) said before Oh and keep up the good work of supporting this petition by keeping it more active than ever When I first posted it I never thought it would be shown so actively and widely to the WORLD like right now, oh my greatest supporter in denial

Again thanks for supporting this petition by "showing to the WORLD why this petition is irrelevant" thus bringing it up to attract more attention and people to sign, which is what a petition is REALLY about anyway Albeit saying a petition is "irrelevant" in the petition itself is indeed truly irrelevant and self-contradictory, except bumping it up So yup, thanks for supporting my petition by showing it to the WORLD. Not only have you helped me greatly to keep this petition alive and active, you have also helped greatly in reviving a poll posted by me in a currently half-dead forum. Maybe your continued supportive efforts in this thread can even help me in reviving my half-dormant blog!!!

So keep on the support to this petition, thus great support to ME, by showing it to the WORLD more and more, so despite whatever (nonsense or something) you may say yourself, your action speaks for itself. It has nothing to do with what "I think", it's the FACTS, the activity of this petition speaks for itself You really don't need to mention it, I'm of course very free and very happy to compliment you on your great work in supporting my petition (and me) here, oh my great great supporter in denial

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@Urpgore: Opera never provided a way to scan files, so it's dishonest to insinuate that they removed a scan option they had added earlier. Opera can't possibly guess all the nonsense people add to their Windows context menu.

There's absolutely nothing dishonest about it: The Transfers context sensitive menu had Scan on it right up until and including 9.27. It is completely irrelevant how the right-click menu was hooked and whether the actual code was a hooked from a microsoft lib or from an operasoft one. The fact was Opera used to hook it and as of 9.50 it doesn't. See the menu in all its glory courtesy of Opera 9.27 here.

You can argue until you're blue in the face about it, but it doesn't change the fact that many end-users are missing the old transfers menu, which suggests (fairly strongly) that Opera Devs were wrong for removing it. I expect it will resurface in 9.51 or 9.52. If it doesn't I'll find another browser, simply because the ability to rapidly scan downloads was a key factor in choosing Opera.

Originally posted by Urpgore:

You can argue until you're blue in the face about it, but it doesn't change the fact that many end-users are missing the old transfers menu, which suggests (fairly strongly) that Opera Devs were wrong for removing it.

+1

Originally posted by Urpgore:

You can argue until you're blue in the face about it, but it doesn't change the fact that many end-users are missing the old transfers menu, which suggests (fairly strongly) that Opera Devs were wrong for removing it.

+1

Originally posted by trygveaa:

You can download the old skin here:
http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=8085

Thanks. Opera 9.51 running the Jungle scheme immediately looks 100% better.

imho I don't like the 9.51 skin and as it's not possible to go to my clear favorite - windows native - without having that ugly icons (black bookmarks! Who the heck built that?) I decided to not use it, but go back to 9.22.

The standard 9.5 skin is UGLY. The 9.27 skin is BEAUTIFUL. Bring it back now! Actually I don't give a damn because I've downgraded to 9.27 for other reasons.