Customising the New Speed Dial

Customising the New Speed Dial

There are ways to solve most of these problems in the new speed dial system to revert to something more like the old speed dial. I have already done all of these.

1. Use opera:blank for blank slots (instead of deleting them)
2. Set Thumbnail Logo Score Banner to 1000
3. Set Thumbnail Icon Min Height to 1000
4. Reload any thumbnail that still shows a logo
5. Set the number of columns to whatever you want] in the Config dialogue more
6. Set zoom to automatic
7. Hide the [+] Button
8. Edit the speed dial title to include the number.
9. Hiding speed dial completely by setting Speed Dial State to 3

Before replying, please consider whether your post is relevant to this thread. Don't hijack it with rants and get it closed like this one. Start a new thread in the wish-list if you want any new features.

If you have questions or suggestions how to customise the new speed dial, then please comment by all means.

Use opera:blank for blank slots (instead of deleting them)
Set Thumbnail Logo Score Banner to 1000
Set Thumbnail Icon Min Height to 1000
Reload any thumbnail that still shows a logo

At that point, reloading still shows the banner only.
I'd like zoom to banner completely turned off, and thumbnail as exactly it was before this new feature introduced, because all my intranet speed dials are now looking exactly all the same.
Any hints?
TIA, Andrea

Originally posted by Pizzapops:

Originally posted by hundredorzero:

ok this is my thumbnail snapshot with zoom set to manual. and zoom level 100%. My screen resolution is 1280x1024. i calculated its size to be 256x185. ratio 256:185

The graphics should be 16:10 ratio, thus your graphic should be 256:160. The area below the graphic where the title and close button are is not part of the graphic. Use a graphic with a background of a contrasting color (bright green) to see the true deminsions. PNG files of 24bbp seem to work best. My CNN logo is also 256 px wide but in not scrunched down like yours. I looks like you just need to switch dimensions.
note: the original CNN logo I used was an 800px wide JPG and it lost a little bit of quality in resizing. The first was resized with Irfan and the second with Paint Shop Pro X2. Software does make a difference!

Working but only when zoom level is 100%, and that's too large for me. Whenever zoom level is changed the thumbnail gets cropped. What I want to use on long run is either
"6 coulumns / zoom : automatic"
or
"5 rows 5 coulumns / zoom : automatic".
The whole problem is that opera now crops thumbnails instead of resizing them according to zoom level.
I must also mention that, so far Opera swordfish is working just perfectly in all the settings.

Originally posted by hundredorzero:

Whenever zoom level is changed the thumbnail gets cropped.

Try one of these:
1. Use ForceSpeedDialLogos extension https://addons.opera.com/addons/extensions/details/forcespeeddiallogos/
2.1. Apply points 2 and 3 from Pesala's suggestions and reload all thumbnails before changing them
2.2 From Polish karolkuich's blog: http://my.opera.com/karolkuich/blog/2011/03/27/przerabiamy-speeddial-w-operze :
- Set a thumbnail to reload every XX minutes and reload it manually
- Turn off Opera; switch the thumbnail to yours own; open Opera
- Set the thumbnail to Never reload

Originally posted by Saskatchewan:

1. Use ForceSpeedDialLogos extension https://addons.opera.com/addons/extensions/details/forcespeeddiallogos/

Already using it.

Originally posted by Saskatchewan:

2.1. Apply points 2 and 3 from Pesala's suggestions and reload all thumbnails before changing them

Already done.

Originally posted by Saskatchewan:

2.2 From Polish karolkuich's blog: http://my.opera.com/karolkuich/blog/2011/03/27/przerabiamy-speeddial-w-operze :
- Set a thumbnail to reload every XX minutes and reload it manually

Let me see.

Originally posted by Saskatchewan:

Turn off Opera; switch the thumbnail to yours own; open Opera
- Set the thumbnail to Never reload

Already done.



However i have restored my previous thumbnails from opera 10.10 and for the time being they are working fine. I will repost here if the problem re-occurs.

Getting Rid of the Speed Dial Configuration Button

If you want to save some more space, and are happy using the right-click menu to configure the speed dial, you can remove the configure button and still use the speed dial search engine if you wish. Just use a large negative padding in the skin for the speed dial button skin:

[Speed Dial Button Skin]
Padding Top = 0
Padding Bottom = -35

I have learned another aspect of Speed Dial 2.0 that complicates getting it set right: that is Opera Synch.

From trial and error, you need to:
(1) Close all running instances of Opera on all machines but one.
(2) Follow the steps to restore your Speed Dial to the way you like as much as you can.
(3) Then CLOSE Opera and relaunch it.
(4) If the Speed Dial still looks right, proceed, if not, repeat from step (1).

Then, proceed to another machine and start the process over again. Notice this includes stopping Opera on the machine you have just left.

With enough cycles of this, I have finally gotten Speed Dial 2.0 -- including the "copy" stored in my Opera Sync page -- back to close to where I wanted it. Maybe this is obvious, but it did not occur to me: using the Opera Link button to browse to one's own Opera Sync page and inspecting the layout there may speed up the process some. I didn't do this at first but after I started regularly checking the Opera Sync page it seems to have moved the process along a little faster. Also, I am not certain but I think Opera does not always synch with the remote settings except on shut down. That's why you need to keep closing Opera in step (3).

I am almost all finished. I followed Pesala's advice but I do not yet have the titles displaying in the copies of Opera 11.10 with Speed Dial 2.0. When I try to edit them, the titles are correct. The titles do display in the one remaining old copy of Opera 11 I am running (before Speed Dial 2.0) and on the Opera Sync page they display correctly. However, the title area of the thumbs is complete blank on the copies of Opera 11.10 with Speed Dial 2.0 that I am running. This is happening on both Linux (Fedora 14) and Microsoft (Windows 7) machines.

Does anybody have any ideas I can try to restore the titles so that they display?

Originally posted by Pesala:

Getting Rid of the Speed Dial Configuration Button
[Speed Dial Button Skin]
Padding Top = 0
Padding Bottom = -35

+1
Thanks, Pesala.

Originally posted by bcupp:

Does anybody have any ideas I can try to restore the titles so that they display?

From other posts there seems to be some problems with Opera Link at the moment. I suggest disabling the option to synchronise speed dials in Opera Link and editing the titles manually for now.

Is it possible to stick a jpg,etc. somewhere and have it show up as the image for a certain speed dial?

Originally posted by mlabrake:

Is it possible to stick a jpg,etc. somewhere and have it show up as the image for a certain speed dial?

See this earlier post. Use PNG instead of JPG if you want transparency.

Originally posted by Pesala:

There are ways to solve most of these problems in the new speed dial system to revert to something more like the old speed dial. I have already done all of these.

1. Use opera:blank for blank slots (instead of deleting them)
2. Set Thumbnail Logo Score Banner to 1000
3. Set Thumbnail Icon Min Height to 1000
4. Reload any thumbnail that still shows a logo
5. Set the number of columns to whatever you want] in the Config dialogue more
6. Set zoom to automatic
7. Hide the [+] Button
8. Edit the speed dial title to include the number.
9. Hiding speed dial completely by setting Speed Dial State to 3

Before replying, please consider whether your post is relevant to this thread. Don't hijack it with rants and get it closed like this one. Start a new thread in the wish-list if you want any new features.

If you have questions or suggestions how to customise the new speed dial, then please comment by all means.

Thank you so much - I'm a bit relieved now - done with your hints.
Any idea to turn the boxes transparent?
And how to zoom out to actually SEE the ninth or 10th column within my desktop?
Good day.

Originally posted by jay-hill:

Any idea to turn the boxes transparent?

See this earlier post

Originally posted by jay-hill:

how to zoom out to actually SEE the ninth or 10th column within my desktop?

See this earlier post

Originally posted by jay-hill:

And how to zoom out to actually SEE the ninth or 10th column within my desktop?

You would have to use a different skin or modify the one you're using now. You can use this skin: Sask_SlimSDThumbnails* which completely removes frames around SD thumbnails (you can also remove site's titles and center thumbs vertically, if you're not using SD search field, by commenting two lines in the skin.ini file).

You can also modify your current skin, to reduce margins on SD thumbnails:
- Open opera:about and find Opera Directory
- Close Opera
- Open the Opera directory, open skins subfolder, then open your skin file. Most zip packers (i.e. WinRAR, 7-Zip) allow you to update files without unpacking the archive
- in the skin file: open skin.ini and in section [Speed Dial Thumbnail Widget Skin] add/change

Margin Top = -16
Margin Bottom = -16
Margin Left = -16
Margin Right = -16

(Tested on a default skin)
- Save and close the file. In zipping application, agree to update the file.
- Open Opera and if something is wrong, do all steps from the beginning but e.g. set lower margins.


* http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=9349872

I am running Opera 11.10 skinned with Crystal Onyx Bull3 and I would like to know if there is any way to remove the numbers from the speed dial tiles.

Thanks, Maxx

Originally posted by Maxxwire:

I am running Opera 11.10 skinned with Crystal Onyx Bull3 and I would like to know if there is any way to remove the numbers from the speed dial tiles.

The easiest way is to use a transparent text color. I also relocate the numbers under the thumbnail. Try these changes to skin.ini.

[Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin]  
Text Color      = #0xFF0004  ;change color to see number  
Padding Left	= 0  
Padding Right	= 0  
Padding Top	= -16  
Padding Bottom	= 16  

[Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin.hover]  
Text Color      = #0xFF0004

Thanks for the reply Pizzapops! I was able to locate the [Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin] within the Skin.ini, but so far I have not yet been able to find the location of the [Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin.hover] in order to change color but I will continue searching for it.

~Maxx~

Originally posted by Maxxwire:

so far I have not yet been able to find the location of the [Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin.hover]

Ctrl+F

I have a problem with the thumbnails in my speeddial. If I change the zoom level of speed dial to something different than 110% some of the icons look terrible because their size does not change. And I do not have any idea why. Here you can see it:
<a href="http://db.tt/FwuquwP">70%</a>
<a href="http://db.tt/bf2cOqI">120%</a>

And yes, I did all the steps posted <a href="http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=960172&t=1304196556&page=1#comment9136762">here</a>.

I wonder why this only affects the icons for deviantart, studiVZ, abduzeedo and engadget. I created all the icons on my own and did nothing different. Here is <a href="http://db.tt/ybVheZU">a working one (lifehacker)</a> and here <a href="http://db.tt/fWB7BOE">a not working one (deviantart)</a>.

Originally posted by Maxxwire:

I have not yet been able to find the location of the [Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin.hover]

I just looked at the version of Crystal Onyx Bull 3 on the Opera Skins site and it should be just below [Speed Dial Thumbnail Number Label Skin]. If the search function of your editor can't find it, just add the two lines from my previous post.

Originally posted by Pesala:

The thumbnail aspect ratio is 16:10 so your images need to be 292 x 192 or 265 x 149 pixels or 320 x 180.

Check the ratios on you examples! 1.52:1.00, 1.78:1.00 and 1.78:1.00. If the height is not a multiple of 5, you do not have a true 16:10 ratio (ie: 292 x182) and distortions may happen in some zoom levels. If you are using a zoom of 100% or less, I found 256 x 160 is best. For zoom of 110% to 200%, I would use 512 x 320. If I am using logos, I have found no reason to go above 100% zoom. The 100% zoom may be confusing to some. It is not the actual size of the graphic but the display size standard determined by Opera.

Originally posted by manzel:

And yes, I did all the steps posted here.

Try those steps again on the four problem icons (at 100%). Once you have reloaded them and set them to reload never, close Opera. After restarting Opera they should show correctly. You may want to consider cropping your icons from 292 x 182 to 288 x 180. Your current size is not a true 16:10 ratio (291.2 x 182) and may cause fuzzies at some zoom levels.

Note:I am presuming that you followed Pesala instructions in the first posting of this thread.

Reloading the thumbs and restarting Opera made it. Then I also cropped them to 288x180 but this did not result in any difference. Anyway, I am pleased now.

I used a simple . (= dot) instead of opera:blank as URL and name to get an empty slot.

Advantages:
- It shows an empty slot.
- If the skin supports transparent speed dials the slot is transparent without the need of hacking the skin.
- I can type . faster than opera:blank

Disadvantage:
- If you click on it, the resulting page shows an internal error - but I can live with that

Originally posted by QuHno:

I used a simple . (= dot) instead of opera:blank as URL and name to get an empty slot.
(...)
Disadvantage:
- If you click on it, the resulting page shows an internal error - but I can live with that

I wrote about it in my text about the new Speed Dial :

Originally posted by Saskatchewan:

typing "opera:" as the address gives us exactly what we want (it can be any different, invalid address as well, i.e. "."). The only issue is that after clicking it, we get "Invalid address" page, but it's not about clicking it, it's about good looking .

http://my.opera.com/Saskatchewan/blog/2011/04/15/full-page-thumbnails-and-empty-cells-in-new-speed-dial

Originally posted by QuHno:

Advantages:

There's another advantage too: it doesn't change the existing name of the slot. I include a number as part of the slot name for my own convenience.

I use 8000x600 res, even I set %50 zoom and more columns my 24 dial doesn't fit like it was in 10. Any way to achive this like %25 zoom?

@cooltango: Opera 10.50 will allow you to set 30% zoom. For now, the only way is to squeeze thumbnails by editing the skin and reducing padding in the "[Speed Dial Thumbnail Widget Skin]" section.

As far as I can tell, 6x4 will fit on 800x600 in Opera 11.50.

does anyone know if it is possible to disable or remove the search from the speed dial page?

Yes. Preferences, Search, and edit the Speed Dial search engine details. Clear the checkbox that says "Use as Speed Dial search engine." That won't save any space though. If you want to reclaim that space, see this post.

Originally posted by Pesala:

Yes. Preferences, Search, and edit the Speed Dial search engine details. Clear the checkbox that says "Use as Speed Dial search engine." That won't save any space though. If you want to reclaim that space, see this post.

thank you.

Opera Next add a couple new challenges to speeddial. If you use speeddial: to enable empty spaces, you can end up with a large star or the large animated loading icon showing up. You will have to edit the skin.ini of your preferred skins and possibly of the standard skin. The line: Thumbnail Busy Image = anims/busy_anim.png should be changed to Thumbnail Busy Image = with no assigned graphic file.

I have also resolved the problem of losing my custom icons after doing an update. After doing an update, Opera automatically starts and the icons would show properly. After closing Opera and restarting it, ALL thumbnails would start to reload (50 takes a while) and I would then have to reinstall my preferred icons. I found an easier way by backing up opthumb.dat in the profile folder before the update and then overwriting the post update opthumb.dat with the backup. Speeddial icons stay the way they were before the update.

great thread, thanks to all of you sharing these useful informations

Originally posted by Pesala:

I am still unable to stop my speed dials reloading if I open the panel or change the skin.

The only solution I found for this so far is to change the speed dial zoom from automatic to manual. The panels then open without resizing the speed dial window.

Question to aestheticians/skinners:



How to minimize the ugly empty space between addressbar und speed dial thumbnails.
Changing the values of [Speed Dial Button Skin] Padding Top = 0, Padding Bottom = -35 doesn't work anymore in 11.50.

Originally posted by Krake:

How to minimize the ugly empty space between addressbar and speed dial thumbnails.
Changing the values of [Speed Dial Button Skin] Padding Top = 0, Padding Bottom = -35 doesn't work anymore in 11.50.

Tracking this down has been frustrating. You now have to adjust [Speed Dial Button Skin] and [Speed Dial Search Widget Skin]. They both occupy space at the top of speeddial even if they do not show. The settings below were quick and dirty and work for me but definitely need some polish. My 7 col by 8 row grid with manual zoom at 57% has an 8 pixel margin at both the top and bottom.

[Speed Dial Search Widget Skin]
Padding Top         = -60
Margin Bottom       = -60
Margin Left         = 8
Margin Right        = 8

[Speed Dial Button Skin]
Padding Top         = -30
Padding Bottom      = -4
Padding Left        = -4
Padding Right       = -4

Please don't ask for logic for the number settings. It was just plugging in numbers, trial and error. It would be nice if Opera would add a toggle in preferences to accomplish this.

Here is a reduced view of my speeddial after the above mods to skin.ini.

Originally posted by Krake:

Changing the values of [Speed Dial Button Skin] Padding Top = 0, Padding Bottom = -35 doesn't work anymore in 11.50.

I wasn't entirely correct. The configure button gets still removed but the saved place seems to be less than it was in 11.11.

Maybe I shoud have asked how to remove speed dial search for more space.
What I basically want to achieve:



Unfortunately your hint didn't help. After tinkering with different values I gave up.

Originally posted by Krake:

Maybe I shoud have asked how to remove speed dial search for more space.
Unfortunately your hint didn't help. After tinkering with different values I gave up.

I have modified the default Standard_skin in Opera/skin (USB version) on a secondary drive on my computer. I realize that Opera says that you shouldn't tinker with the default but it is the only way to get certain customizations to show up in all skins.

What skin are you trying to modify? Is your speeddial search turned off? Because of the changes to the 11.50 skin defaults, I have found using older skins can be quirky. Your best bet may be to modify your 11.50 standard_skin (backup the original ) with all your preferences. It may not look like my mod works but try changing your speeddial settings automatic/automatic and see what happens. My top and bottom margins were the same but it didn't seem like I had released the search space until I did this. If it works, set your column preference and change to manual. If you would like to try my modified skin, email me at mr.rubot aatt gmail.com. (change the " aatt " to @).

Originally posted by Pizzapops:

I realize that Opera says that you shouldn't tinker with the default

One of the reasons I never use custom skins except I do myself minor modification to the default skin. In this case I know exactly what I have modified.

Originally posted by Pizzapops:

What skin are you trying to modify?

The default one, the standard skin. The only modifications I made was editing some PNGs (speeddial.png, startbar.png, button.png and button-selected.png)

Originally posted by Pizzapops:

Is your speeddial search turned off?

Always, I never use it.

Originally posted by Pizzapops:

Your best bet may be to modify your 11.50 standard_skin (backup the original ) with all your preferences. It may not look like my mod works but try changing your speeddial settings automatic/automatic and see what happens. My top and bottom margins were the same but it didn't seem like I had released the search space until I did this. If it works, set your column preference and change to manual.

It is ok if I set it to automatic because of the bigger thumbnails. It would also be ok with manual settings if I would use 20 instead of 12 thumbnails. Well after all it's not a big issue but I thought there is an easy workaround.
Sooner or later with ongoing modifications of Opera's speed dial I will end up turning it off and using my own HTML page instead of it.

Originally posted by Krake:

Sooner or later with ongoing modifications of Opera's speed dial I will end up turning it off and using my own HTML page instead of it.

I use speeddial more for mental exercise than functionality. I have been using a tabbed html file for my favorite links for some time. See my Opera BLOG and scroll down.

Originally posted by Pizzapops:

See my Opera BLOG and scroll down.

Originally posted by Pesala:

Getting Rid of the Speed Dial Configuration Button

If you want to save some more space, and are happy using the right-click menu to configure the speed dial, you can remove the configure button and still use the speed dial search engine if you wish. Just use a large negative padding in the skin for the speed dial button skin:

[Speed Dial Button Skin]
Padding Top = 0
Padding Bottom = -35

Could you guide me to the page to make this change please Pesala?

Originally posted by rafiki:

Could you guide me to the page to make this change please Pesala?

Opera Skinning Guide

Google Search Guide

I decided to give it another go the new speed dial since Opera 11.00 has some problems on some websites. So I made a screenshot of the old speed dial and I'm trying to match the new one.
For now everything is ok except 2 things. How can I fix these ?

- Blank dials are white. And they look bad on a dark background. In Opera 11.00 they were transparent.
- closing a dial gets all the remaining ones to rearrange. I think that's bad for everyone. People in general have spatial memory.

And also when I add a new dial, in the previous version you get a useful complex list with your history and other links to choose. In this version I only get 6 places + writing field..

EDIT : seems even when rearranging - all the dials tend to switch position and run away all over the place. Is there a pin function or something ?

Transparent blank dials:
If you use the standard skin you could use my differential skin that changes the speedials to semi transparent (almost clear, just a hint that they are there):
standard_skin_trans.zip, about 7kB size
Just throw it into your (...)\profile\skin\ folder and select it from the available skins in Opera.
Alternatively you can edit the skin file (duplicate it to your (...)\profile\skin\ folder, unzip it, edit it, zip it) according to the linked example skin.

Instead of deleting dials, you could set the URL to . (just a dot) - this will leave an empty placeholder and the other dials stay where they are.

No, there is no pin function.

Thank you for your answer.
I couldn't find my skin on the hardisk. In fact I couldn't find any of my installed skins. I use Opera Mironix X skin
I found this : C:\Program Files\Opera 10\skin but inside were only standard_skin.zip and windows_skin.zip .
I also have : C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera 10
but skin folder there.

Using a dot instead of about:blank leaves an eternal spinning wheel of death SWOD ? So maybe it's not a good idea, maybe it takes some CPU always trying to find that mysterious http://./

And about other workarounds like "instead of deleting you could do that..." or "if your dials moves when you re-arrange them a good advice is to stop moving your dials ..." - I thought this Speed Dial 2.0 was supposed to be the more advanced one.

Go to opera:config and look for "Button Set" (just type that into the Quick find box), that will tell you the exact path to your current skin. You can copy it and then paste it into the Location bar of any file browser window. Note that by defualt your profile is located in a hidden folder, unless you've set Windows to show hidden folders you'd never find it without knowing the name beforehand.

Thank you, I found the skins folder. I edited the Mironix X skin, but the dials remained white. After that I tried QuHno standard_skin_trans.zip skin, but the dials remained white, even after restart, I don't know why. I think I'll leave them like that for now, hoping the speed dial will improve in the future.

I wanna create a skin with a background image. How I incluse that?