Touch screen support

Touch screen support

Hi Opera,

are you already working on improving touch screen support in Opera 10.5x?

I groan every time I use Opera on my windows 7 tablet, so much so I thinks it's actually easier to use IE8
but i don't want t move away from my beloved Opera!

As detailed in other threads, ( http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=456371
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=411421)

... the area's letting Opera down in comparison to other browsers are:

No integration with the built in floating keyboard / touch input panel(TIP)
and
poor handling of scrolling vs text selection. - I have a custom button to enable pan is scroll but IE8 and firefox both have much better integration.


please let us know if this is somewhere on your to do list - the last time Opera worked well with the TIP was 9.6

+10

This should be a top priority now that the market is filling up with touch enabled devices.

Originally posted by sevenred:

+10



This should be a top priority now that the market is filling up with touch enabled devices.

Agree with wat u said

I would also like to see that opera imporve there touchscreen/tablet support.
I tried to use alt+ctrl or change the config of opera ( opera:config#scroll is pan) but it is not the same as in IE or Firefox

Just installed opera 10.5.3 on my windows 7 tablet (Asus t91MT) - it's still not panning or selecting like other browsers and still no floating touch input panel (TIP) -

I'm sticking with firefox until opera add these features - firefox is just so much more user friendly and the benefits of easy panning / selection of text and floating TIP far outweigh not having integrated torrent /operasync / speed dial as the panning and floating TIP is something in continuous use on a tablet whilst browsing - whereas the other great features of Opera are not continuously required.

10.6 and touch screen support still not in the works

you'd think with the tablet revolution Apple are stirring up this year with the ipad - that Opera would be working on touch screen integration?

I agree. Please support touch, or I will continue to work more and more with IE8 and less with my beloved Opera on my touch-tablet.
Thank you!!

+1 although I prefer keyboard and mouse (but hey, maybe some day I get crazy and buy something iPad-like ... but with a decent OS that can run Opera for Desktops )

There are a couple of threads about this, but I agree completely.

Opera is from the stoneage with touch support, particularly scrolling and gestures.

I agree with the missing features in this thread and would like to bump it too.

+1

Opera is lagging defenitely on touch support. I have a Acer Aspire One A150 + custom touch screen. Before installing the touchscreen opera was my browser of choice. Now i'm hanging onto Firefox, due to the custimazations, but i want to go back to opera.....

+10 ima gona get a touch screen monitor soon , and that be a great feature! i dont want to use IE with touch >_>

Ok so this is just another bump, i check the thread every so often to see if there has been any progress... no progress with touch integration in 10.62 and nothing in the 10.70 beta.
still disappointed
opera do touch support so well on mobile devices - it's a real shame the desktop browser cant do the same for tablets

+1 too, I would really love touch, now that I have a tablet pc.

This should be added to 10.70

This is more important now than ever (which might not be saying much ).

I just got a new tablet with multitouch AND stylus, and I would love to pan with my left hand, zoom with two fingers, and select links and highlight text with my stylus.

It would sort of unify my desktOpera experience with my Opera Mobile experience.

At least support tip like ie and firefox. Even chrome support it in the address bar.

Originally posted by bobman:

At least support like ie and firefox. Even chrome support it in the address bar.

What is "it"?

An on screen keyboard icon when you touch a text field like the one you typed your post into.

So a friend showed me that I could add a button to my toolbars to scroll with click-and-drag, instead of selecting text.

This is great, except when you turn it on, it only turns it on for that tab, and any new tabs (even if those new tabs are created from the current drag-to-scroll tab) will revert to drag-to-select-text.

Having to constantly re-enable the feature is my biggest pain point right now. The toolbar button should cover all tabs in the current window, or at least be inherited from tab to tab.

You should be able to set drag-to-scroll-by-default as an option.

Originally posted by dertbox:

An on screen keyboard icon when you touch a text field like the one you typed your post into.

Your OS should be responsible for that.

Originally posted by bartkusa:

Your OS should be responsible for that.

Perhaps, but Opera has disabled whatever it is that allows it in every other app.

[Desperate bump to get this implemented in Opera 11!]

IMHO this is the #1 priority as touch screen laptops/tablets are just around the mainstream corner. Currently Opera is just horrible to use with a touch screen.

- Scrolling is naturally the most important thing about touch controls. Simple thing like vertical touch starts scrolling the page and horizontal starts selecting text. Inertia scrolling is a must!
- Smooth smartphone-like pinch zoom would also be excellent (after zooming, the zoom level locks to the nearest 10% step like it currently does).
- Some easy-to-touch feature options would be nice. For example: (configurable) touch gestures and larger click area for tiny links on websites.

Originally posted by jamesiecoll:

you'd think with the tablet revolution Apple are stirring up this year with the ipad - that Opera would be working on touch screen integration?

Tablet revolution by Apple? Ha its merely a passing fad and the hype has reached saturation. Besides Apps look horrible in the iPad its a huge mess. My Guess it Opera can slowly move in that direction they do not need to follow a company who just knows how to market its products well to a young population. Most likely Opera Knows about tablet adoption numbers, which is bound to increase when the release of Android Gingerbread comes out. So I guess a gradually development is more pragmatic till the launch in march 2011.

Originally posted by Senverni:

Currently Opera is just horrible to use with a touch screen.

I beg to differ , i have a HP touchsmart computer and the touch gestures are pretty compatible with the browser.

I've got an HP touchsmart as well, can you tell me exactly how gestures are possible with it?

I lolled at the "Apple tablet revolution" line as well, it's hyperbole directly from the TV ad!

As it currently goes, I can see touch functions being covered by an extension at this point, just as they are with Chrome, which is crap for touch.

ya the up and down swiping to scroll up and down the page works pretty good. I don't think my model has the pinch and zoom feature. I believe its in the newer models..

You mean drag to pan or windows built in page up/down flicks thing? Neither is an opera gesture, that's just scrolling or using a really nasty built in touch implementation that's part of the OS. It's not kinetic scrolling either, it's incredibly primitive.

And pinch to zoom isn't an opera gesture either and it's laggy as hell, but then that seems to go for all browsers.

Start IE, or even download Safari and play around with those for a while and you'll see how far behind Opera is in the touch screen scrolling department. Really that's all they need do - fix the scrolling so it's not as useless, but the ability to perform proper gestures like swipes for back and forward would be great.

Or try the IE9 beta, i have a tm2 tablet and its night and day between opera. Again, as mentioned in other threads the TIP has been gone for over a year. Even a free program like locate32 has tip

Opera's Scroll is Pan feature feels unnatural, is slow to use and also its buggy when scrolling by touching images. Win7 flicks are the only convenient way of using Opera with a touch screen.

Currently there is no place for Opera in a touch enabled computer. (Except for an extreme fan of Opera. Like me.)

please dont mis- interpret me for an apple fanboy, i'm not i was just trying to appeal to any consumer aware opera developpers.
i've got an asus T91MT, and love opera, I use Opera on my desktop, my phone, and my laptop, i just wish it was user friendly enough to use on my tablet.

i've just tried the opera 11 alpha and there's still no access to the floating touch input panel or auto switching between horizontal text selection and vertical scrolling as there is with all versions of IE, firefox, safari, and chrome.

can the functions be added via an extension for opera 11.0 as they are in chrome?

They're going to have to be. Someone mentioned they were creating an extension to do this, so it seems it all rests in that direction from now on.

I looked at the extensions available I nothing there. With TipPopper you can assign a pen\touch flick to open the TIP. http://www.skarv.net/tablet/index.php

+30

Multi touch

I had a topic in this forum but they keep deleting it.

had loads of good ideas in it but and was properly worded but i guess the moderators on this site aint got a clue what theyre doing so i'll just type big

MULTI TOUCH GUESTURES
+ save as single click.
+ Max
+ Min
+ Windows
+ Tab
+ Tabs Screen
+ Hide Opera

GUESTURES TO BRING UP SPECIFIC TOOLBARS
Like Lionhead Black and White

+ Use to bring up Downloads Window
+ Preferences
+ Unite
+ Show/Hide Tab Bar
+ Other Useful Functions
- Start Specific / Custom Apps


TOUCH SCREEN CUSTOMISED LAYOUT WITH BIG BUTTONS.
Because you dont want to take up scree

For Now IE is the best for Multi Touch Support + see NTrig software App...

Without any details about how you'd go about doing any of those things, it's hard to envisage working, and most of them are perfectly fine the way they already work.

As for the size of the buttons, you can already change that in the appearance menu.

only hard to envisage for those who have no imagination. i could draw you a diagram of geustures i could think of and the rest would be up to the pattern matching/ shape mapping algorithms. but alas i do not have the time.

And when i say big buttons i mean a new redesigned touch interface because using current drag handles and stuff like in a normal windows gui isn't really the most ergonomic thing you know. the iPhone redisigned the phone menu system for good reason you know... and android has big buttons for that reason too... with Opera being the fastest, i can only say that making this app touch would really make a good touchscreen experience. ie Responsive. which is obvoiusly one of the most important aspects of good UI Design imo

Do you know If opera 11 has got a touch panel suport finally ? I really want only a one gesture - kinetic scrolling with a finger. I have tm2 tablet, and currently I have to switch to IE when in tablet mode, which is really inconvienient

No Nothing, Nada, Zilch, Zip. No TIP support as other browsers.

You can create a button with scroll pan that you have to activate if you want to scroll, but then selecting text does not work.

No answer from opera ever why they don`t support tablet\touch screens as other major browsers.

On the tm2 i recommend ie9 beta or firefox with tablet\touch addons.

it's a pity ... I don`t want to select text or even zoom or something. I just want to scroll the page and click links, but as I understand, there is even no scrolling yet the only way I found is using windows7 flicks, but they are barely usable

You can deconstruct Chrome plugins and convert them for use with Opera if you have a will to, I can't find the info to do it, but it's out there.

A good one to do it with would be this https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ncegfehgjifmmpnjaihnjpbpddjjebme

there is no forward backward button to traverse in opera keypad for touch screen mobile so to edit text we have to erase all the text

I hate touch devices , I love keyboard and mouse. BUT Opera team must make Opera super easy for Touch devices because touch is going to be everywhere. For the best of our browser this must be done!

Sorry for bumping this, but this has to be a priority feature in Opera 12. Firefox has had basic touch support since version 3. The Scroll is Pan option isn't enough, or a pretty lazy 'hack'. Smart ways of figuring out whether the user is intending to pan or select text should be made, like in Firefox. Firefox (urgh..) is now the browser of choice on my tablet..till Opera has basic touch support such as

Basic
Smart Panning with momentum
Able to select text using touch.
Pinch to zoom in/out.
Selecting text boxes will have TIP popups in Windows.

Advance
Some touch gestures that allow one to go back/forward, go to top/bottom of page, open link in background tab with some fixed gestures. Simple things like drawing an O (for Opera) and swipe left for "Back". O-Up for top of page.
These can be extended to be customizable in future releases.

With Wahoo coming out I'd really like to bump this thread. Opera has amazing touchscreen support on Opera Mobile - please bring this to the desktop.

Hello community. It is 1st of November and still no big progress on touch support in Opera, so I am bumping this topic.
I use Opera for about 8-9 years already. It is a brilliant browser and I suggest it to everybody. As an IT I install it in companies i work for.
Recently i found myself using Acer Iconia Tab W501 all the time, I basically do not move anywhere without it. It is great thing for me as I need to spend on programming as much time as I can.
What an unpleasant surprise for me it was, when I discovered that my beloved browser lacks basic support for touch on tablet PC's with Windows installed (gonna check it on Linux too later). Pinch to zoom works rather good (although not smooth enough), but using the "Text selection off" for simple panning the page is a pain. To browse a web I have to turn off text selection and each time I want to select a text I have to turn it on for a moment and back off again. I also sincerely miss the floating TIP icon.
I cannot say that I will change a browser until it is dealt with, because I am too used to Opera. It is just sad that people who used Opera for ages have lowest available support for new technology...

+1. tragic touch support is not opera-worthy. writing this from an exopc with chrome.

Totaly agreed with others. opera need to support touch fast... it's sad to use it with all benefits in desktop and need to change to firefox on my iconia w500...dial would be great to use in touchscreens...as someone said, just a better scroll, marking text and virtual floating keyboard is enough to make it usable. There's no reason for opera stay losing to IE (in this point, only)...

Opera needs new GUI, I said it lot of times but very few understand why.
1) The Opera GUI is not so nice as Chrome.
2) Opera must follow Microsoft and Metro UI philosophy because is the future of next generation most popular operating system, also xbox, windows phone, and soon other companies will copy it.
So Opera must move to this UI design soon as possible and rethink the user experience to kick google chrome ass.
3) Opera must move to Metro UI to support the touch interface (which I personally hate) and also keep the mouse and keyboard excellent support (because keyboard& mouse will stay in used at lease the next 5-10 years.)
I'm using Windows 8 DP and I have to say that Metro UI is amazing, I'm using it from the first day Microsoft released the DP build of 8. I wouldn't like to go back to the old Start menu etc. And lets face it, Microsoft has the experience and the money to pay lot of people to work for what does better than all other companies, best GUI.

Sure, Opera can use GUI like metro... but will you pay MS for licence? You cannot simply use it or use anything similar unless you pay...

Originally posted by Dracco:

Sure, Opera can use GUI like metro... but will you pay MS for licence? You cannot simply use it or use anything similar unless you pay...

Are you sure about this?

I'm 100% positive about that. Licences are pain in the ass for programmers. MS very often put own licence on anything that doesn't have it. Although not only MS is so kind. Google has to pay Apple for using slider unlock in Android (everybody could make it, but Apple has a licence). There are many other licences Google pay for both Apple and Microsoft and could be possible that some others too.
Only MS has over 60 000 licences of all types, and if you don't want to pay for licence for very simple things, you have to check all of them + other companies.
As someone once said: after year 2000, developers group will contain 10 programmers and 1 lawyer.

Metro is just a design philosophy. Implementing a Metro interface doesn't require license fees. Microsoft was pushing for developers to write Metro apps at the PDC (when Windows 8 Developer Preview was released). No fees whatsoever.

However, if Metro were every implemented, it should be done like IE10, a fullblown browser version (what we have now with the touch capabilities), and a Metro style browser. I don't really see the point if Metro is implemented.

The ‘ United States Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) has, in fact, approved the patent Microsoft UI “IU Metro” , launched withZune , which is currently used in Windows Phone 7 and will feature in future operating system Windows 8 and other products of the company in Redmond.

Microsoft never played fair. If they invite somebody to use their Metro, they probably will make him sign a paper, which obligates them to share income or to pay a monthly fee for example.

If by writing metro apps you mean writing apps to work in their metro UI, than it is not even a little close to using their design yourself.

Unlock slider is also just a "design philosophy", altho Apple has a licence and takes cash for using it.

No MS had provided all the resources required to write native Metro programs for free.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211386.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh694058.aspx :

1) WINDOWS STORE ACCOUNT. To submit apps to the Windows Store, you must open a Windows Store developer account through the developer website. Microsoft may verify information you submit when you set up your Store account. There is no obligation to pay an account fee in the pre-release timeframe. Your Store account is only for your use, and you are responsible for all activity that takes place with your Store account. If you fail to keep your account in good standing (for example, by failing to pay fees, if any, associated with the account, by giving Microsoft incorrect or outdated information, or by repeatedly submitting apps that violate this agreement) Microsoft may revoke your Store account, remove your apps from the Windows Store, delete app ratings and reviews, and retain associated account fees (if any) and pursue any other remedies available to Microsoft.

Notice the "There is no obligation to pay an account fee in the pre-release timeframe." and "for example, by failing to pay fees". That means that everybody putting their apps will HAVE to pay fee after they finish with everything.

Sure they allow you to write metro apps, but they will not let you put it anywhere without paying...

That's if you want to list your Metro app on the Appstore. You can always distribute your program for free on the Internet (like how things are now in the Windows software world), or sell it on your own website. You just don't get the support, reliability and exposure like an Appstore.
Opera can easily post a Metro app on their own website without needing to pay Microsoft.

Anyway, we are going offtopic..

You might be right, although I still wont believe MS in matter of money, they've stolen way too much and never played fair, what makes them do it now...

They are creating a new ecosystem in Windows 8, and they need to entice developers to create Metro apps for it (or else Windows 8 will fail as a tablet OS). Making developers pay for the license to write a Metro app + taking a cut from sales would deter many developers. Microsoft has been playing relatively fair in the past decade, and is actually playing catch up in certain areas

No, even recently MS is NOT fair, that's a fact (although my bad is that I could not give any example).
As to their recent policy. My lecturer works for MS (not hired by MS, just cooperating). Last time he said that he doesn't understand recent MS policy and their actions, and he didn't mean that they are getting friendlier.

opera doesn't need to use metro UI to offer touch support... in a 10.1 inch tablet, actual opera buttons are pretty fine...it lacks only in gestures support.

I approve this topic.
- Scroll is Pan should be accessible through the Settings-Window. I discovered it by accident in opera:config.
- There should be an Option that provides bigger hitboxes for Links (like on mobile browsers).
- Opera is missing kinetic scrolling. This could be done by changing the algorithm for Smooth Scrolling by making it kinetic. Scrolling with the Mouse Wheel would now set the kinetic energy to a specific amount instead of scrolling directly. What would happen when scrolling with my finger should be clear.
- Please, devs, try closing a tab by hitting the Close Tab Button with your fingers. This wouldn't be so painful if this buttons could get scaled by the option in the appearance settings.
- other graphics (SVG) in the standard skin would also be nice. Scaling them up doesn't look good.

I agree. Almoust all of most popular browsers supports scroll with touch-sensors. Please, develop for Opera touch support!

+1

I'm using Opera 11.60 and I have to say that the most important than all is to improve dramatically Opera performance, I can't use it anymore, is the slowest browser! I'm using google chrome in order to use facebook. Opera is going to kill it self if continue like this.

even in 1 alpha there is no touchscreen support.
I have downloaded once the special touchscreen version, but i have uninstalled it again.it misses a lot of features

Moderator edit: This comment has been removed for breaching our terms of use.

One good way to speak to the devs about the missing functionality is to make a bug report from here https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/ about what is missing in Opera. And i don't believe that devs don't care about what users want but sometimes they have other priorities first like bug fixing.

Touch support got worse in build 1351 (12.00).
Dragging of images or links now opens them, even with "Scroll is Pan" enabled. This sucks really hard because it's nearly impossible to scroll a page this way and to not accidentally browse to another location. Filed a bug report on this issue.

I am wondering what is so hard about good touch support. Why is there no switch that allows turning Opera into Mobile mode that behaves like Opera Mobile? Using Opera Mobile instead of Opera is not an option because of many missing features.

Devs,
would you please consider making touch support better than making it worse (see post above)? At least allow us to disable dragging on web pages, if you don't want to automatically disable it with "Scroll is Pan".
(Tried setting "Panning Mode" to 0, but it seems like this didn't have any effect.)

Moderator edit: This comment has been removed for breaching our terms of use.

+1 for penabled devices pretty please, it would make the experience much smoother for pen + touch users - and surely this will be required for browsers on windows 8...

Originally posted by kerridge:

+1 for penabled devices pretty please, it would make the experience much smoother for pen + touch users - and surely this will be required for browsers on windows 8...

Well, as the average user doesn't care about useful features there's still Opera Mobile... :/

I looked for this before, but I couldn't find out how to install Opera mobile on Windows 7.... Is it a stupid idea or just hidden somewhere..... I am assuming the former...

ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/Win7/1100/
Edit: Or try the mobile emulator -> http://www.opera.com/developer/tools/mobile/

Opera 12.01 is now out and still no support for us "Touchers"

Originally posted by Eric Cartman:

You're breaking my balls here man...

Great news!

Opera 12.10 beta finally has touch support!

We have added basic touch support for Opera in Windows 8 Classic, so you will be able to scroll, zoom and browse pages and elements easily. As an extra bonus, touch support also works on Windows 7.

from http://www.opera.com/browser/next/