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Slightly ajar

My Opera Wishlist

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Everybody seems to be posting their Opera Wish-lists, so without further ado, here is the list from my point of view, with focus on developer relations/web standards issues, and a couple of pet peeves. No internal knowledge was used or is inferred by this post. No kittens or fluffy animals were also harmed.

  1. Replace the toilet seat. Please…I mean really.
  2. Improve and simplify the user interface, with special focus on platform integration, especially on a Mac where platform consistency is expected. I'd especially like the tab bar move to the correct position. Correct in that it is the place I think is correct, maybe not everybody (I know the reasons why it is where it is), and it is where most (none-Opera) users expect it to be. As more apps in Mac OS X are getting tabs (terminal for instance) and the move to unified toolbars, the current position of the tab bar looks out of place. I'd love to see the Mac version get the unified toolbar look sported by iTunes and Leopard, and to follow the Apple HIG (spacing between elements in the interface for instance). I'd also like to see integration with AddressBook, Keychain and such. I like my passwords to be in one place, same with contacts.
  3. Microformats integration across the board, from Opera Kestrel to Opera Mini. Imagine how much typing or cut 'n' paste that would save, for contacts and events alone, especially on Mobile where input takes longer. I'm sure there is some amazing things that can be done with XFN and xFolk. The challenge is how to present the presence of Microformats to the user without adjusting the layout of the page (changing how the designer intended the page to look can't be a goof thing) or add yet another icon to the URL field to go with the RSS, Widget, and Security/phising icons. There is enough already. Add OpenID into the mix and there are some great possibilities. There'd have to be some work with integrating OpenID into the wand and anti-phishing technologies to find a way to solve the phishing concerns though. Again, on mobile this would be a godsend.
  4. Developer tools. We have some basic tools available on Dev Opera but we need professional quality tools, especially a JavaScript debugger, which not only matches what the competition offers, but blows them away. They should also be useful across our range of products. Web Developers have said time and again that they want better tools, and we are listening. Please let me know if there are any specific features you'd like to see, whether they exist in another tool or not. We are building tools for developers, so it only goes to say that we need input most from those that will use the tools. Otherwise we are just guessing what developers need.
  5. Improved standards support. Specifically more CSS3, such as box-shadow, multiple background images, border-radius, border-image, RGB/HSLA and multi column layout. CSS2.1 is close to feature complete, but it can always improve and have bugs to squash. Our SVG implementation is the best in the industry, so it would be nice to improve it further, but I don't think it is in need of a high priority. Our DOM2 and DOM3 support is also up there or even beyond best of breed currently. It would be nice to get persistent storage from HTML5. We already have Web Forms 2 (the only browser so far) so we are currently ahead of the pack with HTML5 at present. We also have experimental support for the video element. Beyond CSS3 the main issues for me are squashing bugs and adding essential things that are not yet standard like JavaScript getters and setters (these may be part of a standard now?) that are used by a lot of major sites.

I guess I can't have a number six, but I'd like all that added and still make our engine faster (maybe a new logo or interface can have go faster stripes or Steve Jobs benchmark distortion field :wink:). It's already been stated that we are working on performance in Kestrel, and further in Peregrine, so there is no secret it'll be a fast bird.

Bugs, site issues and developing a browserOpera on top of Africa

Comments

Khadgar 24. July 2007, 04:15

I couldn't have said it better, mate.

Fyrd 24. July 2007, 12:21

OMG, it is a toilet seat! Now I can't lose the image when looking at the icon. Argh. I suspect Opera 10 will be picked as the right moment to start using a new logo. Would seem a logical thing to do.

Anyway, as a Mac user and a web developer, this is the best Opera wishlist I've seen yet!

FraZor 24. July 2007, 13:17

I see your point with #2, but thats an issue that annoys me about Apple software on Windows. Take Safari for Windows - from a standard windows interface point of view its a bit of a mess, lacking several standard window components like the status bar for one.

Of course the Mac fans out there will undoubtedly quickly agree that platform agnostic or non native Mac apps have unnessecary or incorrect window elements, as you've stated. But I doubt many of that same group see that the same applies to Windows users of Apple software (and software converted or made in that style).

So basically are you saying that Opera should have a totally platform independant interface, or that it should have a platform dependant interface? Personally I'd favour the latter, so that Opera could then play to the strengths and style of each OS independantly, but then that would undoubtedly incurr a significant development overhead.

Khadgar 24. July 2007, 13:51

Originally posted by FraZor:

Of course the Mac fans out there will undoubtedly quickly agree that platform agnostic or non native Mac apps have unnessecary or incorrect window elements, as you've stated. But I doubt many of that same group see that the same applies to Windows users of Apple software (and software converted or made in that style).


Applications should at the very least cater to the necessities the users of the particular platform needs. Safari is a pile of trash on Windows, mostly because it violates everything that makes a Windows program. Opera didn't go that far when porting Opera to Mac OS X, but it has the feel of a ported application. It's slow, unresponsive at times, and does not cater to the needs of a Macintosh user. Many of the same problems Macintosh users experience can be said for Linux users.

Originally posted by FraZor:

So basically are you saying that Opera should have a totally platform independant interface, or that it should have a platform dependant interface? Personally I'd favour the latter, so that Opera could then play to the strengths and style of each OS independantly, but then that would undoubtedly incurr a significant development overhead.


The browser engine itself is cross-platform, not its interface. They have to program the interface almost from scratch for each platform Opera Software develops their browser for. Making the interfaces cater to each platform's necessities and expectations would actually in the end make their production speed up (along with the browser itself). Opera is already headed into this direction, many of the Desktop Team's latest news posts have involved describing improvements coming in the first Kestrel build for the Macintosh, many of the improvements stemming off into other platforms.

FataL 24. July 2007, 15:49

Great wishlist.
But I disagree with "correct" position of tabs bar. Also look at wish #4 from Eddie Lopez:

"I prefer ergonomics over being a populist platform." (non-troppo) Do not conform to "browser standards" (meaning browser client, not web standards- *do* conform to those please!) unless it makes sense to do so. You're an innovative company- I use your product because it's different than the others. Truth be told, I don't care about Javascript or rendering speed, I like your interface better than others. Its not for everyone, and maybe Opera won't be for me in the future, but I want you to keep innovating.

Anonymous 24. July 2007, 17:05

Anonymous writes:

I'd like to see Opera working on the user interface. Apart from the lack of platform integration it is generally hard to get used to its complex interface. Most things are just not where you expect them. Having "only" a fast and feature rich engine isn't enough.

Anonymous 24. July 2007, 23:19

Daniel Luz writes:

I have to agree with the other comments. While I really like Opera's rendering engine, its interface completely throws me off. Sometimes it feels like Opera does things differently just for the sake of doing it, just for being incompatible with your environment (I'm on Windows, btw).

Now for standards support, I think Opera (as well as pretty much any other browser except Gecko ones) lacks in MathML and JavaScript, especially the latter: AFAIK Firefox is quite alone on JS 1.6 onwards, and the new features, while not strictly necessary, are quite cool. Improving CSS3 is certainly nice, but unfortunately it won't be of much help if at least Mozilla doesn't do it also. My wish (when speaking only of Opera) would then be that Opera covered everything that Mozilla/Firefox/Gecko covered, because those features are the closest to being actually usable in the wild (waiting for IE support feels almost like a complete waste of time).

NoteMe 25. July 2007, 15:37

#3,4,5 I can agree on. A lot. Especially number 3.



Please let me know if there are any specific features you'd like to see, whether they exist in another tool or not. We are building tools for developers, so it only goes to say that we need input most from those that will use the tools. Otherwise we are just guessing what developers need.



Really? Well, I am no professional web programmer, but I do it as a hobby, and sometimes help out friends and co workers, and I do have some wishes.


- Show pretty source:
Often I deal with pages I didn't write my self. And reading the source is a hassle most of the time, because it is not formatted with indention. (Just look at how pretty Python code look). Collapsing tags, would also be nice. Firefox has an extension for this (screenshot).

Even finding the css file for a page you are redesigning, is a tiresome job. Do you really need to read the HTML, just to find the bugger? Why can't the dev tools provide you with links to all assets?

- What div is that?:
Again you have to read through the source to find out what tag you really want to style. Is that really necessary? If you see some blue line on a page, how easy is it to guess where it is coming from? Is it just a border? Is it a glitch between two divs? Why can't you just point the mouse to it click it and get all the info about what you are looking for? A similar Firefox Extension (screenshot).

When it comes to JS, I guess a similar solution could have been applied. Click a button, and take me to the source of the event. That would be awesome.


- Opera menu:
In the opera menu there are already a few views you can use to see what the page look like in other circumstances. It has nothing to do there. Add it to the dev tools, and expand. “What does my page look like on the Wii, click, ahh, nice”. Adding views for colour blind people, people with smaller screen resolution and so on, would all be nice to add.


- Last but not least:
Isn’t it possible to get that dev tool out of my browser window. Looks like it is an MDI child at the moment. I have two monitors. I want my browser in one of them, and the dev tools in the other one. You can do that in both IE and Firefox, but I can’t seem to do that in Opera at the moment, which is quite an annoyance.


If you could bring at least one of them forward, I would be more than pleased. Please tell me if you want me to elaborate on anyone of them.


- ØØ -

Khadgar 26. July 2007, 02:35

I think personally in the realm of Web Inspectors and Web Development tools Safari's new web inspector is going to be the thing to beat. I've been playing with a weekly of WebKit for some time now and have used it quite extensively since then, especially when working on markup I'm unfamiliar with recently (such as Fred's My Opera templates). I'd personally love something similar to it.

Anonymous 29. July 2007, 07:32

Gérard Talbot writes:

Dear sir,

You said: "CSS2.1 is close to feature complete, but it can always improve and have bugs to squash."

I would personally like to see *many* CSS 2.1 bugs fixed in the next Opera 9. It is now evident that many bug-reports have been filed, confirmed, along with reduced, correct testcases.

o 33 bugs in Opera 9 for Windows
http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/Opera9Bugs/
o Opera 9 CSS bugs by George Chavchanidze
http://geocities.com/csssite/operabugs/bugs.xml
o Opera 8 CSS bugs by George Chavchanidze
http://geocities.com/csssite/operabugs/oldbugs.xml
o 16 bugs in Opera 9 by Robert Blaut
http://bugs.blaut.biz/
o Opera 8+ CSS bugs by Andrew Gregory
http://www.scss.com.au/family/andrew/opera/bugs/
o Bugs in Opera 8+ by Martin Rejda
http://stargate.gamca.sk/~rejdi/
o Bugs reported regarding Opera 8+ at Peter-Paul Koch site
http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/archives/opera/
o Opera 7+ bugs by Lutz-Peter Hooge
http://www.lutz-peter.hoogi.de/extern/Opera/
o Bugs in Opera 8 at Opera Browser Wiki
http://operawiki.info/Opera7CSSIssues/
o Opera CSS 2.1 test failures by Robert Blaut
http://bugs.blaut.biz/css21-problem/css21-opera-failed/
o Object Element Test Case - Override Intrinsic size of the object by percentage by W3C QA
http://www.w3.org/QA/2004/02/object/test-case-003
o HTML 4.01 conformance tests by Robin Lionheart
http://www.robinlionheart.com/stds/html4/results

Gérard Talbot

Penge 5. August 2007, 09:16

I would like to see in Opera the opportunity to the page specific fit to width.

Anonymous 14. March 2008, 12:41

eternalko writes:

I would really like to see better RSS reader....
Now, its poor.

Really wait for improvement

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