This build demonstrates the plugin work that has been done recently. Most of this work is not visible and is only testable through regression testing: compare with an older build and see if something broke. A lot of this work is cross-platform, so we would appreciate feedback on plugins on all platforms. Note, however, that a lot of the bugs around plugin detection are still unresolved, so this work is only testable on the plugins that you can actually see.

On *nix these changes are combined with a bunch of bug fixes and redesigns. First of all, libnpp.so is now built into Opera and all known plugin bugs that result in Opera crashing are resolved (including using 64-bit Opera with 32-bit plugins). We added a work-around for the Flash player crashes with r48 and a lot of other fixes. Please retest any issues you have had with plugins and report back on the relevant bug reports what you find. If you find any new bugs: report, report, report! We really do want to make Kestrel the best release for plugins ever on *nix. Note that although most of the work has been focused on Linux, the work so far is *nix platform independent: more work on FreeBSD and Solaris is planned. Please also note that because of the fix for the 64 vs. 32-bit issue, this release is incompatible with previous pluginwrappers. There are also some fixes that will affect Java, so we are interested in feedback on that as well.

Have fun and enjoy!

Known issues

• Cut'n'paste and drag and drop a bookmark folder will make it disappear
  
• "Save to download folder" is broken
  
• Format selector when saving pages is broken.
  
• Inline find stops working after entering one letter (using Ctrl/Cmd+F still works as expected).
  

Changelog

• Fixed text selection when selecting from bottom left to top right
  
• Crashing plugins should no longer crash Opera on Mac and Windows. Please test.
  
• Fixed crash when opening certain files (especially PDF files)
  
• Fixed crash when changing interface language
  
• Some changes have been made to the tab mode "Activate first tab opened from current tab" (whose name might change in the future): If you open several tabs in the background from one page, Opera will remember that they are related and will switch focus between them when you close one of them. In the previous weekly you had to close the parent tab before this occured.
  
• "Activate tab to the right" preference now works on UNIX and Mac. The mode described above still doesn't work.
  
• Windows: Tray icon is now gone if you don't have mail enabled
  
• UNIX: Made Flash 7 work again
  
• UNIX: When closing a tab, flash animations in other tabs will not be killed anymore
  
• UNIX: And a lot of other plugin fixes
  

Mail

• Really delete associated messages when deleting accounts
  
• Fixed crash when downloading IMAP mail sent from Outlook
  
• Attempt to clean up ghost messages on start-up
  
• Fetch more than 50 messages at a time from IMAP accounts
  
• Fixed unread count inconsistencies
  
• Fixed problem with subscriptions for nested IMAP mailboxes
  
• Fixed problem getting all new messages for IMAP accounts
  
• Fixed problem with stuck IMAP connections when fetching headers/messages
  
• Better synchronization handling after waking computers on Windows and OS X
  
• Decode body parts before indexing them
  
• Fixed overzealous IMAP expunging
  

Mac

• Fixed quadruple mouse click
  
• Fixed Event.ctrlKey and Event.metaKey with onkeydown
  
• Fixed plugins
  
• Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts are back
  
• Reactivated the asynchronous draw timer
  
• Fixed an issue with Java disabling minimization and quitting
  
• Fixed a very common crash related to plugins and links with anchors
  

More details about the Mac-specific fixes are available in the new Mac Team blog.

Download

• Windows
  
• Windows Classic
  
• Macintosh
  
• UNIX
  

It's Easter time - but we are busy…

Yesterday we issued a hotfix for a crash on startup caused by a recent update on several Linux distros of libX11, to patch CVE-2007-1667. A few users reported some sideeffects - we have a better fix for you now.

Thanks for all the quick feedback - enjoy the new build, and Happy Easter!

Download:

• Unix
  

Two important things have happend this last week on the UNIX front of our desktop team:

It started on monday with PC-BSD announcing that it will deliver Opera in the next version of PC-BSD. Opera will be "one less thing you need to download after installation", as Matt Olander, CTO of iXsystems puts it, to get "a more usable system" out of your PC-BSD box.

And today we had our second big announcement:

Baobab and Opera have joined forces in an innovative project to provide the technology to combat HIV.

The solution is based on using a stripped-down Linux distribution on low-end hardware with a touchscreen. One of the main concerns is of course performance and footprint: but even just the plain desktop version is an ideal solution on low-end hardware.

It is a significant step for us: it is "a first step towards using Opera to power the projects that promote progress in the developing world", as Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera, puts it. There are more steps to do…


P.S. Some community members have already asked how they can help the Baobab project: you can help them out with a charitable donation - they have a button on their site.