Opera Desktop Team

New snapshot: Experimenting with document.all cloaking

By olli. Friday, January 25, 2008 11:31:30 AM

Hi
We are currently experimenting with cloaking document.all so we get sent more "alternative" code.

Too many sites check for support of document.all and assume that the browser is Internet Explorer. As a result, they often give Opera code that is designed only to work with Internet Explorer's bugs, which Opera does not have. If they fail to detect it, they use standards compliant code instead, which would work with Opera.

Occasionally, sites use document.all correctly without testing if it exists, and without providing a standards-based approach, which is why we added document.all support in the first place. Cloaking will cause the first case to use the standards approach, while allowing the second to continue to function.

This is something that might affect a lot of sites (positively and/or negatively) so we are relying on getting feedback if you see sites that either break or get fixed because of this.

More details on Hallvors blog

And yes we are working hard on fixing all the bugs:



Known issues:
  • MIME type for executables is set to be handled by some plugin - change the configuration in your preferences to get this to work correctly.
  • Sparc builds will crash when initializing anything related to mail.
  • CPU usage will grow to 100% on UNIX when generating tooltips.


Changelog
  • Even more Gmail2 fixes, getting closer to working
  • More presice rounding of HSL values in CSS
  • Playing video on CNN works again
  • Adding links to walls on Facebook now works
  • Login to Open-Xchange now works
  • Fixed various issues on Windows Live Mail
  • Saving playlists on YouTube should now function correctly
  • User style mode no longer applies to Mail or IRC tabs
  • Several favicon fixes
  • Fixed the line below dialog tabs in native skins
  • Tweaking and improvements to Windows native skins (both themed and classic) based on feedback and bug reports
  • Fixed a problem with wrong handling of some filetypes, including messed up display of MHTML. This was actually fixed in the last weekly, but we forgot to mention. If you upgrade from an older snapshot using the same installation directory, you must remove the [File Types] section in opera6.ini.
  • Mac: Fixed color corruption when copying images (and preserve the alpha channel)
  • Mac: Possibly fixed printing crashes on Leopard
  • UNIX: Plugins in symlinked directories should now not be listed twice


Download

New snapshot - Windows skin workNew snapshot

Comments

Tamil Friday, January 25, 2008 12:30:02 PM

Several favicon fixes

Hope you fixed bug-308729.

Cyro Friday, January 25, 2008 12:32:03 PM

That's pretty cool

zoquete Friday, January 25, 2008 12:32:29 PM

Olli, sorry for my may be stupid question, don't understand JavaScript. Is it necessary that opera supports this document.all? I am not sure, but I mean this is not js-standards-compliant. Would not be easier to remove / replace it with its standard equivalent?

Thanks for answer.

zoquete Friday, January 25, 2008 12:35:12 PM

Is this allready todays 5:00pm snapsnot?

olli Friday, January 25, 2008 12:35:45 PM

zoquete: Yes sadly too many sites could break if we remove it. Firefox and Safari also supports this

And yes this is todays snapshot. Won't be one later today :-)

goh choon yoongcygoh Friday, January 25, 2008 12:36:08 PM

Thanks.

agony Friday, January 25, 2008 12:39:14 PM

no problems so far \o/

Mark 'Tarquin' Wilton-Jonestarquinwj Friday, January 25, 2008 12:41:21 PM

@zoquete

There are a large number of pages on the Web that use document.all without providing any standards alternative (such as document.getElementById). It's not standardised, but the Web has plenty of pages that don't use fully standardised code, and we have to work with them, or you won't be able to use them. A long time ago, Opera was forced to add support for document.all because of this.

The way we are cloaking document.all is designed to avoid misidentification, while still allowing all those sites to work.

For what it's worth, we are not the first to do this. Two other popular browsers (Firefox and Safari) tried not supporting it, and found that broke too many pages, so they both now have cloaked support for it. We are hoping the time is right for us to do the same thing.

shadowKshadowk Friday, January 25, 2008 12:43:30 PM

@Oli, so what's the Deadline for the Opera Widget Arcade?

olli Friday, January 25, 2008 12:48:11 PM

shadowk: No idea, I just play on it ;-)

KurtChrisDavey Friday, January 25, 2008 12:49:48 PM

http://secunia.com/software_inspector/

This build also crashes on running above (app 2 mins after starting scan)

mrd Friday, January 25, 2008 12:51:15 PM

Cool. Was just thinking I'm a bit tired so might head of to bed but had a look just in case... even though it's way too early and lo and behold a new build. smile

tosbsas Friday, January 25, 2008 1:04:00 PM

hmm, I am frustrated.4 builds and still the problem with deleting private date and thumbnails in speeddial

This is a xphomesp2 fully patched system. When I use "deleted visited pages in history" on deleting private data I get a blank speeddialpage tryingto get the thumbnails bakc and blocking any other comunication from opera to the net.

Closing Opera and opening it shows the thumbnials inmediatly and all is fine again.(closing = shut down)

Plllllease

Ruben

tosbsas Friday, January 25, 2008 1:04:49 PM

Filetype handling - where are these settings now?? Not in Opera6.ini any more

Ruben

lamarca lamarca Friday, January 25, 2008 1:11:13 PM

thanks for the new build

Tim AltmanJunyor Friday, January 25, 2008 1:18:34 PM

@tosbsas and tsarhan: What are the bug numbers for the bug reports you've filed about those issues?

Tore Olavson BuarøyTLPM Friday, January 25, 2008 1:25:56 PM


Thank's for the new update or what you call it.

Mail: My mailbox is full of empty messages. And before I could delete them to Trash, but could'nt emty trash...

Now I cant even delete the empty fields in my mailbox...

When will this be changed?
I have å screen-clip that can show you my problem, but how to send it to you I don't know.

Best from
The Library PoliceMan
TLPM - No(r)Way cry

stranded Friday, January 25, 2008 1:27:07 PM

Transfers> Right clicking on itmes DOES NOT work if you don't have at least 1 other tab (with website) opened.

Tim AltmanJunyor Friday, January 25, 2008 1:30:20 PM

@TLPM: We're very interested in a reliable method of reproducing ghost messages. Neither myself (Opera Mail QA) or the lead Opera Mail developer can reproduce the problem, thus we cannot fix it. We'd really, really like to fix it.

Brian HuismanGreyWyvern Friday, January 25, 2008 1:30:35 PM

So... does this make Opera more like the Romulans, or Klingons? spock

tinezi Friday, January 25, 2008 1:31:17 PM

still unable to load http://fedoraforum.org/

hubert.roksor Friday, January 25, 2008 1:31:24 PM

Talking about bug numbers... any news about #239487? That would be nice if Opera had a bett^M^M^M^M "more complete" support for HTTP... Thx :]

Petter Nilsenmitchman2 Friday, January 25, 2008 1:38:49 PM

@hubert.roksor: How does other browsers do this?

Bill PBill_P Friday, January 25, 2008 1:40:06 PM

@junior - maybe the reason you can't reproduce ghost messages is that your instance of Opera doesn't constantly crash. FYI most of my ghost messages are in feeds (pre 9.5 they were, iirc, everywhere)

Bill PBill_P Friday, January 25, 2008 1:45:53 PM

Message bodies still missing - not all of them as before but about 1/2 dozen. "the server responded err mailbox locked". These all all from the same account. Why? Is this still being addressed or is the problem closed per resolved notice in last weeks changelog?

KurtChrisDavey Friday, January 25, 2008 1:48:28 PM

when i go to preferences and change language to British English [en-GB] opera crashes...

lamarca lamarca Friday, January 25, 2008 1:53:47 PM

secunia software inspector causes opera to crash. should i submit a bug report?

Bill PBill_P Friday, January 25, 2008 1:55:09 PM

crashes - javascript being enabled still causes crashes, after 6 weeks (or so) this still is an issue (and a pain). Could you focus on getting the weeklies stable again?

"save to download folder" still does nothing.

if I clear the cache "open in background tab", doesn't work - tab opens, address field gets filled but nothing gets loaded

zoquete Friday, January 25, 2008 1:55:27 PM

to: man of street

Crash confirmed

animeshaga Friday, January 25, 2008 1:56:03 PM

@Man on the street:
build 9745 crashes within 20 seconds. Will test with new build and update this post

Mindfield(firefox nightly build) works fine(still running)

Build 9755 crashes within seconds. spits outa vitual c++ "Runtime error! R6025 Pure virtutual funciton call"

iBM X61 running:
Vista ultimate 64 bit
Java 1.6


>>>

http://secunia.com/software_inspector/

This build also crashes on running above (app 2 mins after staring scan)

By man on the street, # 25. January 2008, 12:49:48

zoquete Friday, January 25, 2008 2:01:59 PM

changing language creshes opera, "randomly" not only with [en-GB] sad

Some lagnuages works, some not.

Alexis DeveriaFyrd Friday, January 25, 2008 2:01:59 PM

Looks like you fixed bug #308210. Thanks! smile

dieburnbot Friday, January 25, 2008 2:02:24 PM

The Secunia Software Inspector didn't crash for me.

Alexsalexs Friday, January 25, 2008 2:10:43 PM

• Playing video on CNN works again


but spiegel.de videos still broken – bug 305539

zombux Friday, January 25, 2008 2:22:36 PM

last.fm is broken in this build - the main menu (Overview, Charts, etc.) is incorrectly displayed, maybe this is due to the new cloaking feature.

toadbee Friday, January 25, 2008 2:25:59 PM

@Junyor-
I've got a ton of blank messages also, the last build I recreated my imap accounts - and poof, there were blank messages. I don't want to delete them because I can't tell if I'm actually deleting anything?

One real annoying thing with IMAP and M2 is that I can't delete a message until I've receive it. So when I get an annoying 5 meg video attached to an email - that I do not want, M2 insists on downloading the attachment before I can delete the message. Is there anyway around this? Of course, I haven't tried it yet with this build...

grogge Friday, January 25, 2008 2:28:13 PM

Fixed a problem with wrong handling of some filetypes, including messed up display of MHTML.

Well, "o950s_9755m.exe" from this blog page still saves as "o950s_9755m".


Several favicon fixes

Bug 309051 is not among them it seems. Still wrong fav icons for feeds from domains with multiple fav icons.

The bug is in the idx file. One of the entries points to the wrong fav icon. When opening a feed link to a page that has a sub-path fav icon, e.g. http://www.heise.de/security has its own one, then this fav icon is used as the default for the domain http://www.heise.de/. (How do I update a bug report, without using Email?)

As the feed description file for the heise newsticker is located at a path to which the default fav icon applies, manually fixing the first entry in the idx file, that defines the domains root fav icon, the icon used for the feed is finally changed to the correct default one.

animeshaga Friday, January 25, 2008 2:35:46 PM

after doing the Software Inspector thingy.... I had to restart opera and am getting this message:
"Error while initializing Mail
There was a problem initializing Opera Mail.
Engine init() Failed"

When i press the Close button, it continues into Opera.

I just installed this New(9755) weekly as a seperate installation. I havnt set up any mail accounts.

The error is persists after restarts. Build 9745 did not show this error.

I think i have seen this error and its solution before, just can't remember where/which build.

IBM X61
Vista Ultimate 64bit (up-to-date)

MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage Friday, January 25, 2008 2:41:23 PM

Occasionally, sites use document.all correctly without testing if it exists, and without providing a standards-based approach, which is why we added document.all support in the first place.

How does firefox handle this? Does it support doc.all in any way?

Saving playlists on YouTube should now function correctly

So #305382 is fixed?

@everyone: If you wouldn't mind, when you mention a bug number, could you possibly mention what the bug is about instead of a random number. Solely for my benefit. kthx. up In my case, I linked to the bug report. Either way would be appreciated.

On the same note, can anyone match any more of the fixes to bug numbers?

Even more Gmail2 fixes, getting closer to working
Fixed various issues on Windows Live Mail

Are these bug fixes or browser.js hacks?

I know I'm asking for a lot but can we get bug numbers added?

sebt Friday, January 25, 2008 2:45:12 PM

No mention of this in the changelogs for the last 2-3 weeklies, but I'm finding 9.5 to be crashing quite frequently, especially in Linux. Often this can happen just when hitting "back" on a page.

I was wondering whether stability issues were been addressed, and whether the problems are known by operasoft. I have made several bugreports, and plan to make a few more.

Thanks for the build!

Seb smile

adioni Friday, January 25, 2008 2:48:49 PM

This may be a bit too anal retentive on my part, but is there any way to get back the: --light blue (light red when selected) buttons with white 'X''s in the center-- on tabs when using the Windows Native skin?:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1410/buttongp9.png

When I use the Windows Native skin in these new builds they are replaced by solid black 'X''s that get a box when you roll over them. When I have multiple tabs open there are a lot of little black 'X''s (obviously) on the screen and I find them to be a lot more distracting than the prior white 'X''s

operic Friday, January 25, 2008 2:55:14 PM

http://www.leksikon-yu-mitologije.net/files/breakmystride37.gif

this animated GIF is broken in this build.
can you confirm?

try it in both firefox and O 9.5 b9755

sacharja Friday, January 25, 2008 2:58:51 PM

Nevertheless the "bad" bugs that affect all sites are still there and there is no development.

The worst one (Opera doesn't continue loading when going backwards):
http://files.myopera.com/sacharja/files/back.html
(Bug-207229 affects every internet site).

Still maximized pop-ups when using windows instead of tabs and "Allow script to hide address bar" is disabled:
http://files.myopera.com/sacharja/files/bug-290456%20window_open.htm
(Bug-290456 affects every internet site)

This one affects every site that uses relative values, because Opera can't handle them:
http://files.myopera.com/sacharja/files/Width.html
(it was not submitted by me; if someone knows the bug number or original forum post please post)

On this site: http://groups.google.com/group/opera.linux/browse_frm/thread/b7b76ee77f8bef0e/b5%20%207635a6bc1c7c35 Opera fixed the overlapping dates. However the content has the wrong size now, a regression. That's not as urgent as the bugs above, but painfully that Opera is not able to display its own google group.

Another regression: http://groups.yahoo.com/ (search button is not diplayed in the same line).

Paul SkinnerPaulSkinner Friday, January 25, 2008 3:01:15 PM

http://www.holdenf5.co.uk/

This site no longer works in this build (check it in IE). It did in the previous build. I have no idea if it's related to document.all but it would seem likely.

Yes, I know it's the worst coded site in the world but never mind.

Also, View Source doesn't seem to work in this build either.


@operic: Yes, I confirm the animated gif doesn't work as expected.
I am using Windows XP SP2 (x86) Fully Patched.

sebt Friday, January 25, 2008 3:02:14 PM

@operic: that image is animating fine for me, build 1772 (linux .6 shared)

Seb smile

sacharja Friday, January 25, 2008 3:04:42 PM

Cloaking regression http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=de-de&vid=be9075bb-df0a-41c9-8d86-7ded46627e26 ??

You might have to click continue to continue to the video.

MossMan Friday, January 25, 2008 3:05:50 PM

@animeshaga: that means one of three things:

1) your mail files are locked by another application (e.g. virus-scanner), the filesystem, etc.

2) you have another version of Opera running which has locked the files (check for dead Opera processes still running in the background in Windows)

3) your mail files are borked!


I have experienced all three at various times... wink

Arvid Severarvidsever Friday, January 25, 2008 3:05:58 PM

1) can't unsubscribe from IMAP folder - the subscription status resets to 'subscribed' after closing the preferences. it's very frustrating to get the contents of gmail's 'spam' folder.
2) can't make opera a default browser on vista - it doesn't appera in the list of default applications, and asks if i want to make it default each time i run it.

Davedfyfe Friday, January 25, 2008 3:11:08 PM

@operic:
gif works here too.
Mac OSX 10.4.11, PowerPC
Build 4622
Dave

1 2 3 4 5 6 Next »

Showing comments 1 - 50 of 271.

Write a comment

You must be logged in to write a comment. If you're not a registered member, please sign up.

Latest Snapshot

Got feedback?

  • Desktop Team FAQ

    We recommend that you read the FAQ before participating.

  • Report a bug

    If you've found a bug in Opera, find out how to report it.

  • Feature requests

    This is the place to post your feature requests. Opera employees monitor this forum