Slightly ajar

We've finally announced that Opera Dragonfly is our web developer tools. It will launch as an alpha release on the 6^th 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.

We've just released a public build of our testing and development build that shows Opera passing 100/100 in the DOM tests. It also has pixel perfect rendering. The final test which has to be passed is the performance test. This puts Safari and Opera neck and neck in the race to be the first browser to pass Acid 3. I'd like to congratulate the Core Opera team for all the work they've done to pass the first two tests so quickly, and the WebKit team for making this a fun race so far. Both engines getting this far means that we both support important CSS3 properties like HSLA color model and Web Fonts, and pushes support for SVG forward. I'm looking forward to when Gecko and the new IE engine get this far.

I'm now back from an exhausting but fun two weeks at SxSW. I'm not back home yet, as I'm hanging out at our new Mountain View office, before heading off to San Diego (where we also have an office) for Jared Spool's Web App Summit.

There has some confusion that we were going to launch Opera Dragonfly at SxSW, but this was never the plan. We did come armed with Dragonflyer 2 though, with a quite succulent hint on the back. I don't have a copy with me right now, but you can see the same image and text on the newly updated Opera Dragonfly teaser page. You can now sign up for the Opera products mailing list to find out information as we release it, on Dragonfly and other Opera products. I had a good laugh at the blog post that thought Opera Dragonfly was a mailing list. If you were at Barcamp in Austin (which we helped sponsor), you may have seen Chris Mills talk briefly about Opera Dragonfly in his presentation. We also talked to a few people in the target market while at the booth, in the corridors and at Rock Opera.

The words great distanceson the Dragonflyer and website are interesting to me, as this hints at something that potentially can make Opera Dragonfly very useful and unique.

You may have also seen some fan art by the very talented Oleg Melnychuk on Dragonfly at SxSW, which was drawn without knowing what Dragonfly is. It is very different style to the official teaser artwork, but a cool interpretation. I'm also a fan of his Mustang wallpaper. The first Dragonfly related thing I actually saw was on the plane over to Newark. In the flight magazine was an advert for Ralph Lauren Rocks perfume. As well as the name tying in with Rock Opera, the model was wearing a Pueblo dragonfly necklace. The Puebloan people stylise the dragonfly as a double bared cross, as can be seen in the photo in the previous link. For some Native American tribes, the dragonfly symbolises pure water. The tag line for the perfume is Rebellious, independent, free spirited, which isn't so far off Opera if you ask me.

Sign up to the mailing list to get information as it comes out. It is Easter break right now, so our small group of talented engineers are taking a short break from hatching Dragonfly, but we'll hopefully have some more information about the beta launch in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Swedish fashion labels have been hot recently, but Norwegian label, Moods of Norway are now joining them on the global scene. It was Oslo Fashion Week recently, and I was lucky enough to be invited to the VIP section of their fashion show at Bislett Stadium (venue of the 1952 Winter Olympics). There was reportedly around three thousand people there. It was certainly packed in the VIP section, and the whose who of Norwegian celebrities were there. Unfortunately, I didn't recognise any of them, so sorry if I stood on anyone famous' toe.

Moods and Opera have been up to a few things together recently. If you look around the Opera web site, you'll find one of the Moods founders in some of the photos. They're also doing a fashion show at our Rock Opera event at SxSW on the 10^th March. In one of the most enthusiastic display of blogging I've ever seen, they are like a rabbit out of the hatch with their blogging on My Opera. Their posts are as humorous as their advertising copy, and they seem to travel around the globe even more than I do. My favourite quote being I dont' know! The pink boat is almost so gay that it scares the gay dudes. Their pink boat is certainly very pink! The girls are less scary though.

It is a quite good fit that they are attending our Rock Opera event. While their normal clothes are popular over here, for some of their designs you'd have to be a rock star to get away with wearing it. Either that, or like to attract attention. It is probably no secret why then, that throughout their My Opera blog, you can see such stars as Dave Navarro (Red Hot Chilipeppers), Justin Timberlake (no accounting for musical taste), Tommy Lee, Perry Farrell (Jane's Addiction), some guy from the Black Eyed Peas, and Frank Zappa's so, wearing Moods of Norway gear. I'm looking forward to Jon Von Tetzchner sporting one of their nice floral numbers.

Astute readers noticed that in the interview with Digi.no, one of the photos of my office contained what we affectionally call the Dragonflyer. The photo is a bit blurry to see the URL, but it is pretty easy to guess.

So what exactly is Opera Dragonfly? I wont say quite yet, but I do think that, in my opinion, it is the most important project we have on going at the moment, and probably since I've been at the company. It wont directly affect everybody, but will hopefully become invaluable for those that it does. We'll likely have more to say about it at SxSW in Austin Texas.

Dragonflys inspire a number of things. It is the name of a US reconnaissance aircraft - the A-37 Dragonfly and a superheroine in AC comics. It is also a song by Swedish rocker Yngwie Malmsteen, and a Blondie song on the album The Hunter.

Dragonflies are predators that are capable of hovering, followed by rapid acceleration, that is similar to the speed of some birds. Wikipedia says that It is said in some Native American beliefs that dragonflies are a symbol of renewal after a time of great hardship. They are used in traditional medicine in both China and Japan.

In Japan dragonflies are symbols of courage, strength, and happiness, and they often appear in art and literature, especially haiku. In ancient mythology, Japan was known as Akitsushima, which means "Land of the Dragonflies". The love for dragonflies is reflected by the fact that there are traditional names for almost all of the 200 species of dragonflies found in and around Japan. - Wikipedia