Opera Dragonfly arriving soon
Thursday, April 24, 2008 11:48:42 AM
We've finally announced that Opera Dragonfly is our web developer tools. It will launch as an alpha release on the 6th of May (fingers crossed). It is the first product where I've been acting as the lead of the launch, so it was quite exciting to announce it. The second beta of Kestrel leaked early, and included very major hints that Opera Dragonfly was indeed the developer tools, so there was a mad rush to get the web page up, and the server set up correctly, but everything worked out eventually.
Opera has been lacking real developer tools far too long, so it fantastic that Opera Dragonfly is ready to launch soon. It won't be feature complete by the first alpha, but we are actively working to improve the tools and adding more functionality as time goes on. We're committed to making Opera Dragonfly the best application in its class.
With this, and the improvements in standards support in Core-2.1 our offerings to web developers looks like they are shaping up nicely.


Sami Serolaserola # Thursday, April 24, 2008 11:52:55 AM
DavidSchalandra # Thursday, April 24, 2008 12:27:39 PM
Can't wait to get my hands on it! Gimme! GIMMEEE!!
Steve DarkenDarken # Thursday, April 24, 2008 12:42:08 PM
Øyvind ØstlundNoteMe # Thursday, April 24, 2008 2:06:26 PM
"In 'Opera' we trust"
- ØØ -
Robin_reala # Thursday, April 24, 2008 2:48:29 PM
GuillermoGuille # Thursday, April 24, 2008 2:59:38 PM
Mmm, the Tools > Advanced > Developer tools menu item on Opera 9.5b2 leads you to the dragonfly site. I wanted to see a sneak peek!
FavDjiXas # Thursday, April 24, 2008 4:15:28 PM
David Storeydstorey # Thursday, April 24, 2008 4:37:46 PM
Anonymous # Thursday, April 24, 2008 5:03:08 PM
DavidSchalandra # Thursday, April 24, 2008 6:16:53 PM
There are webdevs that do not care about anything else but ONE Browser (not even different version), and still think they are true heroes. Graphic artists create their screendesigns with MacOS and wonder why some things look so "different". Customers ask for browser support down to Netscape 3 and don't give a s**t about CSS, the next one wants to forward all IE users to Firefox no matter what, another one wants you to turn off the whole web until his website is ready. Server admins ask you to send files only on CD, as encrypted email isn't secure enough...
Reality in webdev business is just freakin' strange. Every day. I'm glad for any useful tool that helps me to survive (preventing me from hitting a wall with my forehead). Furthermore: I use Firebug too. It is good, but still far away from perfect. According to your logic Firebug should have already failed months ago.
Your arguments aren't all wrong, but a good webdev-kit wouldn't have changed anything in the "critical phase". FF didn't needed it to grow, the word about FF wasn't spread any faster because of it and no newspaper article was ever written about it.
Instead see it that way: If Dragonfly becomes a great tool (which I do not doubt), it will also inspire Firebug vice versa. Webdevs get more power to improve websites and webbased tools. There are still so many places for tools like that. Not just because of Opera.
Anonymous # Thursday, April 24, 2008 7:16:29 PM
David Storeydstorey # Thursday, April 24, 2008 7:18:07 PM
It is certainly not strictly true that Firebug was developed in 13 months by one guy. It relies on infrastructure that was developed over years in Firefox. We've had to build all that, which is a large amount of the work. If you compare the first Firebug to the latest ones, you'll also note it is far better than it first was after the initial development.
Cyro # Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:15:15 PM
DavidSchalandra # Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:07:46 PM
The company I'm working at creates CSS-compliant code, so that any CSS-compliant browser can display it correctly. Right now I'm working on a medium sized project and my CSS works well on all current browsers, without any hacks or ugly layer stuff. For this project the page has to be optimized for MacSafari for example. It costs no time to optimize a page for Firefox, Safari and Opera. You do it for one and just check the others. If it doesn't look the same, you should hit the books again.
To me the most displeasing point of Firebug is its stability... or more the lack of it. If I really need to debug some JS/Ajax it crashes every now and then. That goes for both my work- and my home-PC.
Firebug IS not perfect. So according to your own rules, Firebug would fail.
And now I get back to my real life. I've got better things to do than arguing.
Anonymous # Friday, April 25, 2008 5:26:24 AM
Øyvind ØstlundNoteMe # Friday, April 25, 2008 7:14:01 AM
Why would that be so bad? Although I have a feeling DragonFly isn't JS based, Firebug is after all a Fx extension, hence using JS (and XUL).
- ØØ -
Anonymous # Friday, April 25, 2008 7:35:24 AM
DavidSchalandra # Friday, April 25, 2008 7:39:50 AM
not true = trolling
not true = trolling
Opera doesn't fail on any of them. In fact deviantART even fixed several CSS bugs of their layout in v5 to make the site available for opera too. See suggestion #690092.
Ergo: not true = trolling
I made different experiences. At least you're adding "mostly", as it prevents you from trolling again.
I know it's friday (troll day) again, but if you really have nothing to do, go home and relax. You take all of this far too personal.
Let's just wait and see...
Simon Houstonshoust # Saturday, April 26, 2008 11:34:30 PM
Also will dragonfly be able to debug other things apart from webpages(irc client is dynamically html based, for example)? Or is the general consensus only on web sites itself?
Hallvord R. M. Steenhallvors # Sunday, April 27, 2008 8:30:24 PM
Might be troll fodder, but.. as David pointed out, this is a completely misleading comparison. Ever heard of the Venkman debugger? Mozilla already had APIs and core support for a JavaScript debugger since they had developed Venkman many years before Firebug was made. Firebug simply had to hook into that existing work, which is one of the reasons it could be written so quickly. (Besides.. tried using an *early* version of Firebug for heavy lifting JS debugging? I have. Neither stability nor functionality was good enough for real work - for me, YMMV of course..)
shoust: I think creative minds will find there is some hacking potential in the Dragonfly architecture
Anonymous # Monday, April 28, 2008 10:36:49 AM
kurt duyckiland # Friday, May 2, 2008 11:30:59 PM
DavidSchalandra # Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:04:06 AM
Captain ZeroCaptainZero # Saturday, May 3, 2008 3:14:41 AM
With the addition on a devkit, we may see an increase in Opera users which would be very nice - not because I'm partial to it but because the net is more fun without the monopolies.
Anyone complaining about the lack of a devkit should read an ebook about the early/mid 90's; The old Netscape/IE 3.2 wars, those were good times. Devkits? We had to make our own with Notepad.
Soumitrasoumitram4u # Saturday, May 3, 2008 8:49:47 AM
joe buddcodebyjoe # Saturday, May 3, 2008 3:21:38 PM
As far as im concerned opera is already an important tool for web site user interface development. I'm very pleased with the opera dev tools and i look forward to using dragonfly and watching it develop.
Lead the way!
ЌίИΦ VίРΣЯΘ(KingVipero)VIPERO # Sunday, May 4, 2008 5:23:53 AM
DavidSchalandra # Sunday, May 4, 2008 11:19:35 AM
ЌίИΦ VίРΣЯΘ(KingVipero)VIPERO # Sunday, May 4, 2008 4:37:35 PM
Pierrera-mon # Sunday, May 4, 2008 5:15:35 PM
it's possible: see option
opera:config#DeveloperTools|DeveloperToolsURL
joe buddcodebyjoe # Sunday, May 4, 2008 8:12:03 PM
i use opera to test and debug my xhtml+voice and javascript code.
Yeni Setiawansandalian # Monday, May 5, 2008 3:14:33 AM
Shaunak DeShaunak # Monday, May 5, 2008 5:37:01 AM
Imm so excited...
Alex Mwangiheon # Monday, May 5, 2008 8:37:13 PM
LeiaOrgana # Monday, May 5, 2008 11:43:46 PM
Not foundluKanium # Tuesday, May 6, 2008 4:44:30 AM
Anonymous # Tuesday, May 6, 2008 2:47:27 PM
DavidSchalandra # Tuesday, May 6, 2008 3:17:47 PM
Anonymous # Tuesday, May 6, 2008 5:55:11 PM
Anonymous # Tuesday, May 6, 2008 5:56:29 PM
Haavardhaavard # Wednesday, May 7, 2008 7:24:59 AM