csant/log

A while ago I published a guide through our jungle of UNIX package names - numbering packages based on gcc and qt versions simply wasn't too intuitive...

Today things changed: we have moved to a more self-explanatory naming scheme. The old scheme is now discontinued - in the new scheme those obscure numbers have been replaced by gcc and qt versions.

As an example, here is the mapping for intel-linux packages:

intel-linux

• .1 = gcc295-static-qt3
  
• .5 = gcc3-shared-qt3
  
• .6 = gcc4-shared-qt3
  
• .9 = gcc4-qt4
  

You got the spin?

Adobe released a new version of Flash Player - and triumphantly announces that "this new XEmbed-enabled plugin should work with Opera now."

We achieved great things in tight work with the Flash team - but here they seem to have mixed something up

The new Flash version, as mentioned already earlier, does not require XEmbed to run, but a GTK browser - there unfortunately still seems to be confusion about XEmbed and the XEmbed Mozilla extension "spec", which actually has little to do with XEmbed. So much about "standards"…

Obviously, a plugin expecting to run in a GTK browser does not work out-of-the-box in non-GTK browsers… The new Flash plugin is not compatible with the current Opera and Konqueror versions. This means, to put it in simple terms, that Adobe leaves at least 26% of the Linux users (just summing up Konqueror and Opera users) in the dark, forcing them to stick to the old version.

We just released a UNIX plugin milestone snapshot of the upcoming Opera version, allowing not only to run a GTK plugin in a Qt browser, but even going as far as using GTK "to draw directly on the webpage of a Qt browser": Opera and Mozilla are now ready for windowless plugins. Only the plugins are missing now

The new GTK Flash Plugin does run out-of-the-box in the latest 9.50 snapshot.

I see repeatedly comments that people run 32-bit plugins in 64-bit Opera by using the nspluginwrapper. This wrapper "enables you to use plugins on platforms they were not built for".

However in Opera, as opposed to other browsers, there is no need to go through the hassel of installing an extra plugin wrapper to do that - the operapluginwrapper handles it just fine!

The only issue is that you need to be using the 32-bit operapluginwrapper in a 64-bit Opera to run 32-bit plugins. Currently the only way to do so is to download a 32-bit Opera (I'd reccomend downloading a tarball), extract it, and replace the installed (64-bit) wrapper with the operapluginwrapper from the 32-bit package - and voilà, all 32-bit plugins should work out-of-the-box.

Currently this is manual work (sorry for that), but we are looking into having this handled at installation time - and have a way of seamlessly dealing with both 32-bit and 64-bit plugins (since you'll need the 64-bit wrapper for the 64-bit plugins…).

Opera 9.5 now offers also experimental static Qt4 builds on intel-linux - you do not need Qt4 to be installed in order to use them. Just fetch the intel-linux .9 package, select the Qt Native skin in Tools > appearance > skin and then try

$ opera -style plastique

to see Opera using the Qt plastique style. If you have more nostalgic inclinations, try either of

$ opera -style motif
$ opera -style cde
$ opera -style windows

Looking for GTK integration instead? Try

$ opera -style cleanlooks

But be warned - there are several known issues: cleanlooks for one takes ages to startup! there are a few crashers here and there, and the speeddial configuration dialog has some *cough* issues…

Have fun - and as always, feedback is welcome!

Right - so they waited until I was back from vacation to start a new meme and tag me. But first of all and of little interest to anybody reading this - yes, I had great fun on vacation up north.

And now about the top 5 things I would like to see in Opera. There are many wishes I have, and every single thing I would like to see in my browser of choice I do always discuss internally at Opera - so this list will not be too new to people knowing me and working with me.

One more note: these are the top five things I would like to see - I am aware that these are not things everybody would like to see. And since I am working on UNIX, my wishes are extremely UNIX centric. You have been warned.

The wishes:

1. a query interface
   
2. better integration with the available UI "toolkits"
   
3. true multi-window support
   
4. tagging
   
5. dynamic session management
   

And now with some more details:

1. a query interface
Today there is a gap between GUI and CLI that I simply do not understand: the two interaction methods do not exclude each other, and recently there are several attempts at rediscovering the powers of CLI in graphical UIs. Query interfaces are in use in several desktop environments and in specialized applications. Time to see them available in Opera too.

2. better integration with the available UI "toolkits"
I often think that besides the Qt UI we have today, I would like to see a GTK UI, "pure" X and… why not? ncurses and CLI… depending on the context you are using your browser in. (For those that have some doubt understanding a CLI for a browser, give a look at edbrowse).

3. true multi-window support
Today you can open windows of a session only on one display - but I might be wanting to check my mail at home without quitting the running session when I ssh into my machine, or I would like to quickly write a mail while working on another DISPLAY, just by opening a new compose window on :1 in the session running on :0, write, send - done, without needing to switch to the other DISPLAY, or worse even, without having to quit Opera on :0.

4. tagging
…of mails, of bookmarks, of pages, of tabs, of windows - I want to tag (and have Opera automatically tagging) everything, and I want to be able to access the information I'd thus be able to link together.

5. dynamic session management
Session management in Opera is extremely primitive. Kestrel sees some neat improvements, but a true dynamic management of open tabs and windows is still on my wishlist. I want to be able to access tabs, windows and groups thereof (tags) as simply as I am viewing access points in Opera Mail - and I want management of this as transparent and "automatic" as accesspoints work today.


I'll also keep the game going and tag in turn
jax
ResearchWizard
Rijk
Moose
howcome