Hey Guys
In a time when many companies are cutting down on their hiring budget, we are still out there in the market looking for talented people to hire.

How do I write this without sounding like a lame commercial? Well D'oh..

Is your code cleaner than your flat? Do you ping websites if they don't respond in 10 seconds? Do you ever look at a movie trailer and think "I have that font". Watched all episodes of Star Trek 4 times? Refer to MythBusters to prove a point?

Do you do all of the above and still have time to fix bugs and implement exciting new features that are always copied by some other browser?

Then you are the kind of developer we are looking for!

Please head over here if interested and submit your application:
http://www.opera.com/company/jobs/opening/49/

Hi all,

This is my first release message for about four years I believe. Needless to say it is
the first on the blog. In the good (bad?) old days mail lists and usenet ruled but it
has to be a bit more fancy nowadays.

A new snapshot is available for you to try out. As usual it includes a lot of fixes and
improved features.

WARNING: This is a development snapshot: it contains the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations. In fact, it may not work at all.


PS: For those of you who want to use autoupdate in every single snapshot release just enable the "Download All Snapshots" setting (opera:config#AutoUpdate).


Update 2008-12-23: The builds haves not been added to the autoupdate server yet due to people going on vacation. Sorry for the false start, but we'll get back to you with automatic updates as soon as possible (depending on when people return from vacation).


Changelog

• Several backend improvements to autoupdate
  
• Made content filter rules with a whitespace at the end work
  
• All languages are now included but not all are completed. Please do not file bugs on English text in the UI when using another language for your interface.
  
• Made spellchecking work on contenteditable elements
  
• Switching between html and plain text mail composition works better now
  
• Added option to doubleclick a tab to close it opera:config#UserPrefs|DoubleclicktoCloseTab
  
• Fixed crash when undeleting and running a widget
  
• Improved stability in the search engine which indexes webpages and mail
  
• Plus tons of behind the scenes changes, the low level changelog is more than 1000 lines.
  
• Mac: Fixed startup crash on Mac OS X 10.3/Panther
  
• Mac: Fixed the mail/chat counter background
  
• Mac: Fixed low framerate on fullscreen YouTube videos
  

Happy holidays from everybody in the desktop team

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

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!

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


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

• Windows
  
• Mac
  
• Linux/UNIX
  

Enjoy!

Hi folks, I've now started as Lead Designer at Opera, and this is my inaugural post on the Desktop Team Blog! I'm looking forward to blogging here about the process as much as I can.

I'm currently working on a strategy on how to take the Opera User Interface forward, and I'm eager to get your opinions on a particular subject: Native look and feel.

How much does Opera feel like native application on your operating system? How much does it matter to you? Those using Opera on just one platform may want it look utterly native, whereas those using it on multiple platforms might appreciate a consistent 'family' look. This is one of the things I'll be looking at, and striving to find the right balance and approach.

I'm predominantly a OS X user, so I'm particularly looking for (constructive!) feedback from users on other platforms. In the past, 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!

Please let me your thoughts via this simple survey form. Thanks for all your help!

Hot on the heels of 9.60, we had to release Opera 9.61 to address problems in Opera Link. Alone, each issue we discovered was miniscule and shouldn't have caused any problems, but together, and coupled with some server issues, it turned out to be more serious than we thought.

If you've been using Opera Link and has had problems with Opera freezing, getting duplicate bookmarks from nowhere, eternal syncing or other problems, you should upgrade to 9.61, especially since it also has some security fixes.