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Peregrine takes flight... Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 is here!

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It seems like yesterday we released Opera 9.6 and now you can all get your hands on Opera 10.0. Rather than ramble on, here's a quick list of what's new:

  • Presto 2.2 Engine
  • Performance boost
  • 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
  • Auto-update
  • Inline spelling checker
  • Opera Mail improvements, including rich text composition and delete after X days
  • Widget Improvements on Linux

Can't wait to get your hands on Opera 10.0 Alpha 1, then get it now! party

Download
Download
Windows
Windows Classic
Macintosh
Macintosh (Intel-only)
UNIX


What's New
Below is an overview of the new functionality in Opera 10.0 Alpha 1.

Presto 2.2 Engine

Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 includes Presto 2.2 (Kestrel includes Presto 2.1.1), an updated version of Opera's Core. Presto 2.2 features numerous new features and loads of bug fixes, such as:

  • 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
  • New regular expression engine, which greatly improves performance
  • Improved CSS performance
  • Pretty-printing of unstyled XML
  • Web font support
  • RGBA and HSLA support
  • Selectors API support

Auto-update
The long awaited auto-update functionality is here! That's right, Opera will now update itself as new versions are released. And for those of you who want every single snapshot release just enable the "Download All Snapshots" setting (opera:config#AutoUpdate). Please be aware that if you do so, you will be upgrading to all snapshots - and as you know: snapshots contain the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations. In fact, they may not work at all. You have been warned smile


Inline Spelling Checker
Opera now checks your spelling as you write! The inline spelling checker is enabled by default for multi-line edit fields and this Alpha comes with a US English dictionary. Use the context menu of input fields to change the settings, and to correct spelling errors. See the detailed changelog for information about using other dictionaries.

Opera Mail Improvements
Rich Text Composition
Opera Mail can now send rich text messages! You can insert inlined images, styled text, links, custom HTML, and more! You can also forward and redirect rich text messages or reply to them with styled text.
In the account settings select "Prefer HTML formatting" in the outgoing tab so that you can start writing rich text mails by default in our WYSIWYG editor!

Remove from server after X days (POP-only)
This new feature is for our POP users with limited server space. Opera Mail can now remove messages from the server that have been there for X days. Of course you can limit Opera Mail to only remove read messages from the server, and/or only fully downloaded messages, which works great in combination with low-bandwith mode.

Other Changes
When viewing a message, the message subjects are now a text field again instead of a button. We have added also a "Thread" button to the message list toolbar to make some features more visible.

Widget Improvements on Linux/UNIX
We have added experimental support for true transparency for widgets on Linux/UNIX. For this to work you have to have an X Server that provides a 32-bit visual device and a running composite manager. If you start Opera from a terminal it will print this message if it detects a suitable 32-bit visual device: "(experimental) ARGB visual detected: Use '-visual 0x6f' to activate it".

If you have a composite manager running you can then try it out by starting Opera with: "opera -visual 0x6f" (0x6f may be another number on your machine).

Detailed Changelogs

Enjoy! beer

The baby falcon is preparing for flight9.63

Comments

JoonasPrimos Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:01:16 PM

Wohoo!

João EirasxErath Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:01:51 PM

yay ! I have it p

Robert Jacobsenrobertj Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:05:01 PM

On its way down -- to my computer. smile

Irontiger Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:08:53 PM

WOW smile

The YeOKYeOK Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:08:56 PM

bigsmile and sad

No Linux x86_64 build?

Should we expect one, or will we have to wait for another build?

// Edit: I see your still uploading, guess I'll wait smile

Khaled KhalilKhaled-Khalil Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:09:03 PM

thanks party

that's exactly what i waited for lol

Presto 2.2 Engine
Performance boost
100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
Auto-update
Inline spelling checker
Opera Mail improvements, including rich text composition and delete after X days
Widget Improvements on Linux



but isn't there .deb ?
ok they are here now

ColKilkenny Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:09:17 PM

yes
Can't wait to give it a spin.

Cyro Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:11:56 PM

Morphinomenal!!!!

vilmarnnnikolay Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:14:51 PM

уря! bigsmile

Claudio Santambrogiocsant Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:14:57 PM

Khaled Khalil, fixed now.

Jeroen HoekxJeroenH Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:16:08 PM

Great! SVG webfonts are really cool.

Scrollmarker is enabled by default it seems, I like it.
(And, stating the obvious: it feels much smoother on linux for me!)

Serpher Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:16:45 PM

Yay! bigsmile

Harlekin Mondharlekinmond Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:18:48 PM

Doesn't work on Tiger sad

iMac G5 PPC - 10.4.11

Morphdreamer Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:21:15 PM

YEAH!!! Awesome!yes

FreeBrain Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:21:18 PM

DOWNLOADING

HanShenghansheng Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:22:05 PM

thanks~` jester

cousin333 Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:22:12 PM

YESSS!!!

Finally smile

V@s3Kvas3k Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:24:13 PM

YES! I'm lovin' it! Speed so slooow))) I want two bigsmile

Шуйский Николай [krigstask, Ŝtérkrìg]Sterkrig Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:25:41 PM

I see qt4 and qt4-bundled builds! Woo-ha!

Waiting for amd64 ones

Released the same day as Python 3.0, by the way.

Sami Olmariolmari Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:26:24 PM

Waiting too for Linux amd64 / x86_64 builds...

Alenddead Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:29:15 PM

Should the Universal Mac build be compatible with PPC? cry

hurug Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:31:09 PM

Many thxs to developpers for their hard work. Excellent !

Thomas Scholztoscho Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:31:12 PM

"Removed UTF-32 encoding support."

Why?

barnesdmd Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:33:42 PM

Oh my god its so nice and fast, well done guys, fantastic work! cheers

tgabill Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:33:49 PM

yes yes yes.

Ermirermir Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:36:36 PM

Wohoo! Thanks!!!

ixuzus Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:38:10 PM

cheers To the Opera crew!

Szőts Ákosszotsaki2 Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:38:39 PM

Yeeah bigsmile
Downloading smile

Martin RauscherHades32 Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:41:31 PM

Anne van Kesterenanne Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:42:28 PM

toscho, requirement of HTML5. UTF-32 is just useless bloat not really needed.

jeanhabib2005 Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:44:28 PM

www.yahoo.com is not rendering well.
the site report that the browser is unsupported

Ravindran NavaneethanRavindran Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:44:41 PM

Thanks.

Kondratev Artemv1nx Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:46:46 PM

Chrome(also firefox, safari....)


Opera(9.62, 10)



WHEN?!

Mistrio_xp Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:47:57 PM

In Facebook when you open any profile you can't use the "chat bar" at all, clicking on it doesn't do anything.

Jeremiah LaRoccojlarocco Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:49:46 PM

Where are the AMD64 builds?

Kondratev Artemv1nx Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:50:40 PM

http://animepaper.net - crashes Opera

Haavardhaavard Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:51:37 PM

v1nx: Please be more specific. Always include as many details as possible and don't assume that people can read your mind. And remember that "when" is something which can't normally be answered anyway.

Originally posted by jeanhabib2005:

www.yahoo.com is not rendering well.
the site report that the browser is unsupported


"Not rendering well" means that the site is not displaying correctly. What you are describing is something completely different - a message telling you to use a different browser. Opera 10 never even gets a chance to render anything.

Hans Bendiksenhansbendiksen Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:52:22 PM

Wow! The speed on gmail, google calendar and google docs is mighty improved. up

Auto update is superb news!!!!!!!
Inline spell checker? Fantastic!!!!!
Acid3 completed in a snap with 100% score. Great!!

After my first test browsing I discovered a couple of glitches.
The smooth scrolling is jagged and slow. Turned that off, and everything is better, but not smooth.

Secondly, the zoom box is marked after i open a website, so when I press the down arrow key to scroll down, it chooses different zooming percentages instead. This does not happen every time as it seems...

Still no google gears support...

But all in all, a great alpha!!

(Win Vista SP1 x86)

Scottn1 Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:54:01 PM

NICE! Lets kick some Chrome butt!

As promised, already a very big JS performance boost at this test:
http://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/speed_test/index4.html . I was never able to get any Opera to perform below about .74 seconds, this build scored .27 seconds! (Safari nightlies hit about .165 seconds)

But not so good results at Dromaeo. A few tests were faster than 9.62, but there was a big hit in two tests that actually caused this build to be SLOWER? http://dromaeo.com/?id=53923,47066

And at Sunspider I get this vs Opera 9.5 (first number):
1.22x as fast 5759.4ms +/- 1.5% 4726.0ms +/- 4.1% significant

So a good jump there as well but Chrome/SafariNightlies still well ahead. sad

At Acid3 I get 100/100 but diagnostics show:
Failed 0 tests.
Test 26 passed, but took 70ms (less than 30fps)
Test 69 passed, but took 1 attempts (less than perfect).
Total elapsed time: 0.48s


Overall I am happy as a clam this being only an Alpha. I wonder though if Chromes V8 or Webkits JS can be touched at this point since they are so far ahead?

Congrats guys and thanks for the public Alpha.

Dale MacDougallthecdn Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:54:22 PM

The panel that displays Mail, Bookmarks, Notes, etc is blacked out for every colour scheme but "None".

Morphdreamer Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:54:36 PM

There is small issue with simple progress bar - when you restart browser, it stays visible even if page is fully loaded. When you click on address bar it disappear, but rss button stay where it was:
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/2606/dsgdfgdfgtg3.png

Götz Bürklegoetz Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:54:41 PM

Thank You for the new build!

Unfortunately Google Calendar still looks strange ... but anyway this build feels very fast!

Bartek GarbiakLukinPl Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:55:27 PM

It is faster. Acid3 passed. In-line spell checking works. Good work people.

Three annoyances:
1) Typed text is not shown in "quick search" panel with Windows Native skin enabled.
2) Selecting item in the main menu doesn't change the font color, only the item's background. That's Windows Native bug too.
3) Scroll maker should not be enabled by default or it's purpose should be explained to the user.

HelleneAtheist Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:56:05 PM

Downloading... party
Thanks Opera Team! cheers

RafałRdswdn Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:57:09 PM

Rendering websites is really much faster, but Opera works much slower. Google services loading fast... very fast, like thunder. wink

ikarigend Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:57:44 PM

You mixed the OS X versions:

The Intel-Only ~13MB is the Universal
The normal version ~8MB is the true Intel-Only!

Please fix this!

Justin Forestumonkey Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:57:54 PM

Flash hangs in Linux i386. :(

Kondratev Artemv1nx Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:57:55 PM

haavard,
I mean - when you try openning animepaper.net it is loading for several seconds, and then you see this:



Guess that is all I can add)

Maurits Korsemauritskorse Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:58:41 PM

Awesome!
Everythings seems to work very smoothly up til now.
The only thing I can comment on is that the red spellingscheck marks in the compose tab increase in size too when the font is increased (looks a little ugly)
Another mail feature that would be great is a rich text option on the signature field.

Efekanefekan258 Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:59:17 PM

Heeey Perfect thanks bigsmile

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