Congrats on your first post here! And welcome to the desktop team.

...

Awesome! Can't wait to see what you come up with!
At the moment I would say that Opera doesn't feel native at all to Linux; the current theme is more geared towards Vista.
But I'll save the details for the survey

Well done Mr Hicks!

As for feedback, I use Opera on an Asus EEE 701 and MacBook Pro. I instantly change the Mac skin to the Opera Standard.

While the Standard isn't bad, I prefer the consistency across the two machines. That, and the Mac skin isn't that Mac like, which I find a real irritation.

Off to the survey I go!

For me I would like to see a autohide toolbar in full screen and also autohide panel bar too.

where can i see the whole table?

I use Opera mainly on XP and I prefer the "classic skin" in favour of the new vista-black theme.

The main reason I don't use Opera is because of the look and feel of the application - it's just not a Mac app, which is a shame.

I feel that a browser should integrate with the operating system, rather than have one unified look across multiple platforms.

My browser of choice is Safari, for two main reasons: speed and interface.

welcome hicks

Wish have Opera own skin(like classic skin), not the Vista skin or Windows 7 skin... Thanks.

Good luck, Jon!

Welcome Hics. I will gladly participate in the feedback.

"where can i see the whole table?"

You can't, sorry! That was a deliberate move to make sure that your comments weren't influenced by anyone elses! I will publish the statistics of the results though!

I have used Opera on and off for years and have always used the default Opera theme on all platforms. I prefer one well designed clean UI rather than trying to emulate the style of an OS that may not actually have any style (Windows 2000 *cough*).

Good luck with the UI I look forward to seeing the changes

I'm using Opera on XP only, and I liked the new default (black) skin so much that I changed the Windows' theme to match it!
Generally, I'm unmoved by skin changes, but this one just hit the spot.
For those who are curious, I'm using Microsoft's Zune Theme.

I'm on WinXP and I prefer the Opera "classic" skin, as well. "Native" was never attractive, because XP simply isn't.

I'm using a windows theme, so one might expect I'd like "native" more, but that theme uses crappy colors for tabs, so this doesn't work for me.

The new, black vista-like theme of Opera I dislike because it's now more difficult to distinguish UI features (i.e. "bookmark", "note", "history" icons and others).

The one thing I dislike about the classic Opera skin (and maybe that's just my eyes being bad and playing tricks on me), is that imho it uses a slight gradient as background for all toolbars (grey->bright grey/white).

Welcome!

I am glad you are interested in such feedback! and hope that it will come more and more inthe future.

As for me, a Linux user, am fairly used to not having a 'consistent' native look and feel. Qt and KDE are the nicest look and feel around, but I rarely use the Opera Look and Feel to match KDE's. I changed it to a minimalistic skin because I am more interested in the content of a webpage than the looks of the browser.

However, when I install the KDE-HiCristal skin, it feels just a tiny little bit different than other KDE windows like Konqueror, but it is a very nice look and feel.

I think you should match the platform for generic things like buttons, dialogues, menus, panels and how those things look/behave.

When Safari on the PC came out I found it very frustrating that they made default buttons and skin look like the Mac-OS instead of PCesque buttons and skin. It felt like I had a mac emulator running or something.

I think its correct and a good thing for the the layout or structure of the interface to be the same from platform to the next unless it flies in the face of what's native to the platform.

Welcome to opera Mr hicks.
I have been following your work via your rss feeds for about a year or so. I started following your rss feed after you did something opera browser related. I am looking forward to see the changes you will come up with for opera.

Hi,

I am not sure if you are also looking for a feedback in general (if so), here's a link: http://www.favbrowser.com/opera-95-new-skin-review/

For a better look in Mac OSX you can have this skin
http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=7983

Hi John, congratulations on the new position

To answer your questions:

The number one pet hate I have for Safari on Windows is the fact it does not respect the Windows application Chrome. Safari's close/maximise buttons are the wrong size and in the wrong place - and that's annoying as can be when you're hammering away minimising windows and then get stuck on safari because the button isn't sitting under your cursor. Opera doesn't suffer from that and I'm OK with the non-native feel of the UI itself. Just please don't ever mess with the Chrome.

For me, you can go nuts on the program UI itself (as can any application developer - create a UI that suits the application workflow and goals!), that's fine - and I'd quite like it to be the same across platforms. But never mess with the Chrome - that's a system thing, not an application thing.

I tink the classic menu bar should be reconsidered.
A single button that opens a vertical context menu seams to be the most space efficient solution.
Also to have in mind is that the new rtend on wide screens makes the vertical space much more valuable than the horizontal one; something that you already exploit with the Panels.

So, kill the menu bar, and consider lateral tabs and status bars.

Marjancek

On my blog you have something constructive!

http://my.opera.com/Filip007/blog/2008/02/16/more-than-one-personal-bar-for-opera-developers

@DjiXas - your post highlights some things I've noticed too - like the camera icon looking more like a screenshot utility.

Thanks for all the feedback so far!

I think that for linux at least the biggest problem is that 2 toolkits are used (opera's quick(?)->everything except for top menu bar and qt->top menu bar and sometimes the file selector, depending on desktop) and this makes it very hard to make opera even internally consisten let alone the rest of the desktop;

The native qt4 skin was a good solution but the qt4 version of opera is a bit buggy, could the top menu bar also be drawn by quick? This way in linux both options would be available: a internally consistent and cross platform consistent look or a desktop consistent look without the need to look for particular skins(when they are even available).

The current default theme steals too much attention, so I'm using the Breeze Simplified Micro skin on all my box's(Mac, Linux, Win)

Using all these three plattforms using the native skin would just mess things up.

I cant see why ppl would want Opera to look like their OS. I guess thats more of a OSX issue.

I'm using Opera with Windows Native on XP with classic look (9x) and I'm happy with it.
I hope Opera will never drop 9x look.

See comments.

There's a typo in your announcement. It reads "to inform it's future direction" while it should read "to inform its future direction". OK.

When I select the native OS look and feel option in Opera's appearance settings, Opera looks great, be it on Vista or XP. To be honnest, I have always disliked the default Opera look and feel and I always select the native OS look and feel instead. It integrates better with the OS.

The black icons don't fit that well with Windows native look and feel. I would use Microsoft applications for some time and take a look at icons of Internet Explorer and MS Outlook. There are also a few details such as the background of menu items. When you go through menus in Opera or in IE, the highlighted menu item is plain blue in Opera vs. a light-blue gradient background in IE, with rounded corners.

Tabs background should be the same gradient in Opera as in IE, in my opinion.

That's it.

The standard skin is pretty good on Windows, but it doesn't look native (This is not a big deal, but I personally didn't like the non-native look when I first tried Opera. I got used to it since then.). On the other hand the Windows native skin leaves a lot to be desired. It is a lot less polished than the standard skin.

Just a quick look at a single example, the panels: the icon of the Panels button is barely visible; when hovering it, the button borders overlap other elements of the UI; and when the panel bar is shown on the left, the strong gradient that it has looks totally out of place, together with the black icons and their non-toolbar-style hover states.

I think that it is hardly possible not to notice these inconsistencies and ugly bits, even if you don't use Windows much.

I must note though that I use WinXP with the Media Centre Style. The Windows Xp Style (Luna), the Windows Classic Style, or Vista might look different, and possibly less inconsistent/ugly. The Media Centre style is probably the least used visual style among those styles that are default in some Windows versions, and Opera is not the only program that gets the details wrong with it. (Qt-based programs are easier to recognise in Media Centre style than in Luna, too.)

Good luck, you'll never be able to make everybody happy.

That being said, I'm a Linux user and I don't really mind that Opera looks different than native applications.

Native GNOME look please! Not everyone is using Qt/KDE and Opera really looks out of place on my GNOME Desktop. (Also a better linux integration is welcome)

hicksdesign I look forward to the the work that you do to help with Opera's look. Also congrats on the first post. I have submitted feedback for the Mac Native skin on the survey.

@cncminustv:
It doesn't look like native KDE4 application too...
I want to see Opera using Oxygen theme and with native KDE4 file dialogs...

I use KDE3, and Opera doesn't look at all like a native application, but I like it that way, probably because I have been using Opera far longer than KDE or Linux.

I'm a little bit of a freak, but I almost allways use only applications looking consistently with the system and appz which only offer skining are often thrown away (with few exeptions, Opera included)

I cant see why ppl would want Opera to look like their OS. I guess thats more of a OSX issue.

Couldn't agree more.

I would have to read the Apple user Interface Guidelines book to see why is it this way...

I think the new design of Opera that was introduced in 9.5(?) is quite nice and different, but I personally don't like it. I would very much appreciate it if it looked more "Vista-ish". Especially the new panel icons that are only black are really ugly and don't fit in the hole system.
But, as much as I would like a nice Windows fitting theme, I think it would be best if Opera has ONE consistent skin on all platform, to make it more distinguishing. But a NEW native skin for each platform would be nice, too.

For me I would like to see:
-Autohide tabbar/address bar in full screen
-Panel bar should be autohide too.
-Able to show/hide title bar
-new default theme (I don't like the new Opera 9.5 theme)

I find the skin too dull, though better with crimson or jungle colours. All those black folders for my various bookmarks - very dull. Would be nice to choose our own colour. The 'print' and 'print preview' icon
look identicle...

Welcome to Opera once again!

Now that Google Chrome has emerged I am quite confident that a non-native but clean and unobtrusive (I would say "mild" too) interface could be well accepted by most users.

So I believe the following is actually the best way to go:

- having a default consistent look across platforms + including an option for native look (actually, this is what Opera currently does)
- making all configuration/modal dialogs have native look - I think this will ease the configuration of the browser as most users are used to native looks when they need to configure something in their OS (and I believe Google Chrome has proven this)

But this is just in case the default look is completely redesigned (as the current skin is really of quite low quality IMHO) and the option for native look is further improved.

This is, of course, just my point of view.

I use Windows XP with a custom dark theme. I don't particularly care for the new default Opera theme and generally prefer all my programs to use the same style anyway (despise programs with hard-coded colour schemes that clash with mine), but what really bugs me about the new default Opera scheme is that the icons simply don't fit as well as the old ones when using the Windows Native skin, to the point where the first thing I do whenever I test a new Opera build is to put the old skin back in soley to get the old-style buttons back on my Native skin. The new buttons may fit with the new Opera "Vista style" skin, but I feel that they generally don't work very well in the Windows Native theme. For example, the large square borders around the Back and Forward buttons seem clunky and square compared to the sleek arrows-with-no-border that the old theme had.

FoxM I think the why ppl would want Opera to look like their OS is so that it feels like they are runing the program on there app and it matches a theme

Here is my 5 cents.

In general I believe Opera should look and behave like a native application -- despite the fact that recently we see many non-native looking web browsers appearing on the market (Chrome, Safari for Windows). But the whole native vs not-native dilemma could be detailed as three issues:

* technical-side aspects and behaviour
* UI widgets
* icons

[*] The technical aspect is easy to be defined: Opera must behave like a native application. For example a huge flaw of Opera is that it doesn't adhere to DPI setting on Linux, and from time to time I see a system (Windows/Linux) on which national (accented) characters in menus look different than the rest of them (usually they are also shifted up or down). These need to be sorted out.

[*] As far as UI widgets are concerned, Opera installed under different OS-es, and their different versions should adhere to what a desktop looks like. So not only adhere to an OS type, but also to it's version and current settings. It is very important that the coloring matches (avoid the situation with Chrome in Windows XP with olive setting -- those two look absolutely ugly together).

[*] With icons it's not so easy, to say which is better. We all get used to icons, and it's important that we have no problems recognizing them. Therefore I'd outline a few rules:
- change icons as rarely as possible and do so in an evolutional way
- try to adhere to rules of a certain environment (like tango in gnome)
- if due to a look of an environment, the default icons can't be used (like, when they wouldn't be legible or so), then a custom set of icons should be used -- but they still should resemble of the original ones.

On XP it should have an interface resembling of the skin "Windows Native" and have 9.27 icons (for the sake of consistency with the past and plus they are really nice) or tango icons (consistency with some of the other environments). On Vista -- the current default black interface is nice (but it should take different coloring versions, depending on the desktop settings). On Mac it should look whatever looks native on that (from what I've seen, it seems that would be custom widgets and custom icons). On Gnome it should be consistent with the rest of the desktop and probably have tango or 9.27 icons.

And one more tip -- it's realy interesting what Google did in chrome -- that you have tabs on title bar. This may be a way to go!

I absolutely agree with those guys who said that they want more 'Vista-ish' interface. Black icons look nice but not very stylish, they are too dark.

So, my 'wish-list': a browser that looks really cool, great, amazing, tremendous that is the only way to make Opera the most usable and popular browser on the Earth. Please, make the interface really smart. 9,5's interface is quite good and fresh, but it doesn't take my breath away. I want the WOW interface. I want the colours to be brighter, buttons more notable, some Web 2.0 gradients, shadows (optionally), effects (optionally).
One more: make close buttons larger. They look really ugly.

Thank you!

P.S. Have you seen what Microsoft is going to do with IE. It sounds great. I mean these tabs in different colours it is very usable. By the way FireFox has such an addon that makes tabs seem more notable, remarkable.

You are the guy that made the OS X skin for Google Reader a few years ago, aren't you? I really love to see and now I'm even more eager to see some new stuff from Opera .

I like the google chrome approach: the browser UI is less important than the content itself.

"I'd always thought that the Mac was the only platform where where Opera looked like it didn't quite 'fit', but I need to be sure"

That is very much the case. I am glad to see some news about the changes. Keep the news flowing.

I use Opera on Windows Vista and Mac OS Leopard and I feel they both look out of place. With that said, I think "consistency" comes from similar layouts of controls. I would prefer more native skins for each platform.

As you see, each user has own favourite settings ;-)
I like simple interface without any efects.
I know that user interface is important for bussiness, but each efect in user interface slow down application speed.