Slightly ajar

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Schalk Neethling for DZone recently. The topic of the interview was Opera Dragonfly - The Next Level of Debugging For Web Developers. Things covered include Opera Dragonfly, the Scope protocol and remote debugging. Go check it out when you have a free five minutes.

We have just released the Release Candidate for Opera Dragonfly alpha 2. New features added since the initial alpha include auto-complete for the Command Line (including object inspection), docked window mode, CSS editing including auto-complete, and a downloadable debug menu. There has also been many bug fixes and stability improvements.

Support for editing and a single window mode have been two of the three most requested features for Opera Dragonfly. The third was HTTP inspection, but this requires Core support to expose the required information through Scope, and will require the next version of our Core rendering engine. Alpha 2 will debut experimental support for the first two features.

Currently only CSS editing is supported, but much of the code can be reused for DOM editing for alpha 3. CSS can currently be edited by clicking on a property or value in the styles sidebar. User defined values are editable, but not the browser default values. Pressing tab will move to the next token (and shift-tab for the previous token). Pressing the up or down arrows on the keyboard activates auto-complete, that will cycle through the valid values. Typing co then the down arrow when a property is highlighted will suggest color for example. Pressing the up or down arrow on a value will increase or decrease the value. All changes are live and instant, so it is incredibly useful for testing tweaks and colour or size changes. I find it very useful when using HSL colour values for example, to get the exact shade I want to use. When at the end of a line or when the value is highlighted, pressing return will create a new property.

The docked window mode is now default, but can be changed to a separate window by pressing the icon next to the close button in the top right corner of the Opera Dragonfly UI. The UI for the docked mode is still very experimental as the support came at the end of the Opera 9.5 development phase. The UI will be improved to make it less confusing in alpha 3.

Command Line auto-complete has also been added. This can be activated by pressing the tab key. If an object is returned it is highlighted and can be clicked on. Doing this will allow the object to be inspected in the Inspection sidebar. A debug menu has also been released to complement Opera Dragonfly, which currently packages existing Opera features that are useful to developers, along with links to reference materials and validators. This will be improved upon in the future to add new functionality. It can be downloaded on the Opera Dragonfly web site.

Once alpha 2 is released there will be a break while the lead developer takes a much deserved holiday, then work will resume on Opera Dragonfly alpha 3. This should include more bug fixes, DOM editing, support for localisation, UI work and more.

You can test out the release candidate of alpha 2 by entering https://dragonfly.opera.com/app/weekly into the Developer Tools URL of opera:config and pressing the save button. Please give us feedback in the usual places.

Opera Dragonfly is finally released. This is an initial alpha, so beware that there will still be bugs, missing features and performance optimisations that need to be done. Never fear, as we can now use Opera Dragonfly to debug itself.

If you run Mac OS X, there is a bug which Opera Dragonfly managed to hit (it is an expert bug hunter), where OS X's video memory gets corrupted on exit. Due to this we blocked access to Opera 9.5 beta 2. A new build which works around this problem can be found here.

This was my first project as Product Manager, so it was an interesting experience, but everything fell into place, and we seem to have had a smooth launch so far, even hitting Techcrunch.

Being an alpha, the main reason for this release is to gather developer feedback, so if you have time to test it out, we've very much appreciate it if you could send us your feedback and feature requests. You can do this on the feedback page. We also have a new Team Dragonfly blog.

Happy bug hunting.

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