Slightly ajar

Opera Dragonfly

Sunday, February 24, 2008 10:17:06 PM

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

Interview with Norwegian mediaKachi-mushi

Comments

Ryan McCabermccabe916 Sunday, February 24, 2008 10:49:01 PM

Ahh, so it's probably like a sort of search engine-thing-ama-jiggy that helps you find stuff where you are? Use Opera Mini to find something, then move on to where you need quickly?

Probably not, but just a bit of a guess. bigsmile

Michael Paynehartley231 Sunday, February 24, 2008 11:33:16 PM

It is the arrival of Google Gears support for Opera 9 months after the glorious press release - http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/gears_20070530.html

?

Dustin WilsonKhadgar Monday, February 25, 2008 12:25:17 AM

Tell me more about it or Community Girl gets it.

serious Monday, February 25, 2008 7:59:07 AM

hm, what can this be?
my guess:
1) offline webapps
2a) a project like Fedoras 1-second-x
2b) having an option to start opera at startup so you can use it without any loading delay (but 9.5 allready has blazing fast startup allready, so this is not too likely) or to have things as mail monitored in background.
3) a new download manager with some nice speed enhancements (but why should they make a flier for that?)

or an opera sattelite network, so you can just fire your computer/cellphone up everywhere and get blazing fast internet wink

capable of hovering, followed by rapid acceleration, that is similar to the speed of some birds

or translated: standby followed by rapid download speeds wink

David Storeydstorey Monday, February 25, 2008 1:04:02 PM

No one is even close yet.

Alexis DeveriaFyrd Monday, February 25, 2008 2:01:23 PM

Seems to me that it's Opera's Firebug. smile

"It wont directly affect everybody, but will hopefully become invaluable for those that it does"

Sounds like it's talking about web developers right there. Add to that the fact that you (David)'s been talking about this before, and Jon von Tetzchner's mentioning it being something specifically lacking in Opera in that recent interview, and it all adds up.

On the other hand, that might be a bit too obvious.

Mathieu 'p01' HENRIp01 Monday, February 25, 2008 2:06:39 PM

Just love the name and identity.

What a fresh breath of air from all the boring corporate-ish names and branding. Seriously thanks to each and everyone who was involved!

Brian HuismanGreyWyvern Monday, February 25, 2008 3:03:32 PM

I, too, think it is the dev toolset answer to Firebug. The name makes sense, too: [Fire][bug] and [Dragon][fly] are kind of analogous.

Simon Houstonshoust Monday, February 25, 2008 3:41:54 PM

I thought this post was about post peregrine lol

Lars AnderssonDaedalus Monday, February 25, 2008 3:53:25 PM

This is so obvious:

Opera + Dragonfly BSD = Opera Dragonfly

;-)

Anonymous Monday, February 25, 2008 5:35:15 PM

Omnomnom writes: Opera OS?

Anonymous Monday, February 25, 2008 7:20:56 PM

graste writes: +1 for the dev tools. yehaa :D

Anonymous Monday, February 25, 2008 7:31:11 PM

b3RnY writes: Dragonfly could be a new renderer, which will replace current Presto engine :) Opera 10? :)

Anonymous Monday, February 25, 2008 7:31:16 PM

b3RnY writes: Dragonfly could be a new renderer, which will replace current Presto engine :) Opera 10? :)

Lawrence EngLawmune Monday, February 25, 2008 7:38:18 PM

The GI Joe helicopter was also called the Dragonfly, piloted by Wild Bill (appropriately from Texas): http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/83/dragonfly/

Maulkin Monday, February 25, 2008 7:58:03 PM

We already know that Presto will be no more in Opera 10, there's Core2 now.(already used by Operamini 4 and the Wiibrowser)

I think it will be dev tools! bigsmile

Simon Houstonshoust Monday, February 25, 2008 8:00:10 PM

Opera's underlying engine is Presto, the codename for the latest version is Core2 (at least for wii browser or/and mini).

I've heard nothing about Presto being scrapped and a new engine being built.

Haavardhaavard Monday, February 25, 2008 8:28:05 PM

Core-2 is Presto, too. The engine used since 7.0, and which is still in use in 9.5 and likely in all versions in the foreseeable future, is Presto.

Maulkin Monday, February 25, 2008 9:27:03 PM

Ok thank you for the explanation! smile

WildEnte Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:21:13 AM

just in case noone noticed yet, the norwegian pop-band a-ha has made a song called dragonfly a couple of years ago. Probably not very opera related but I thought maybe opera's marketing people'd like to know (c;=

http://www.last.fm/music/a-ha/_/Dragonfly

victordecimal Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:48:37 AM

is dragonfly just a new browser that will replace opera? bigsmile

it sound to me like a name so very suited for a big open source project

David Anderssonliorean Tuesday, February 26, 2008 3:41:28 AM

I'm just trying to figure out if this is a to-be official name for what we volunteers have seen lately or if it's some additional new goodies that we haven't seen yet...

Rijk Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:03:47 AM

@WildEnte: I didn't want to know that. I'm allergic for A-ha smile

Morten HanssenEnhanced Tuesday, February 26, 2008 10:33:38 AM

Dragonfly was originally a solo effort by Magne Furholmen (made for the norwegian movie "Øyenstikker"), but it also became a song by A-ha eventually.

Beging allergic to A-ha is horrendous; one of the best bands there is. smile

Anonymous Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:34:00 PM

Anonymous writes: True plugins platform like in Firefox ?

Anonymous Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:34:05 PM

Anonymous writes: True plugins platform like in Firefox ?

WildEnte Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:38:03 PM

Rijk, I have to agree with Enhanced here. Apart from gravlaks A-ha is one of the best norwegian exports. They are definitely better than (swedish) ABBA!

Rijk Tuesday, February 26, 2008 4:21:27 PM

@WiltEnte: Give me Roxette anytime over both... I'm sorry, but I haven't heard much Norwegian and Swedish music and none of it appealed much to my taste smile The most played Scandinavian music in my playlist is from collegue Nicklas "Kilsmo" Larsson.

WildEnte Tuesday, February 26, 2008 4:48:58 PM

Roxette? Goodness. Plus, they never sang of dragonflies for all I know.

How about Lenny Kravitz with 'fly away' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAeYTC_uY54 ? The lyrics are not super-elaborate though:

"I wish that I could fly - into the sky - so very high - just like a dragonfly"

but it is a cool rock song and would sure be good marketing for Opera Dragonfly bigsmile

David Storeydstorey Tuesday, February 26, 2008 5:34:40 PM

You guys all guessed it - its a mini CD for Rock Opera, featuring A-Ha, Blondie, Lenny Kravitz, Magne Furholmen and Yngwie Malmsteen. We are shutting down operations and turning into a record label. Or maybe not.

Ryan McCabermccabe916 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 8:19:20 PM

Well, that would fit the name of the company pretty well...

You all going to be selling old recordings of Pavarotti too? p

Luchio Tuesday, February 26, 2008 10:12:06 PM

Yngwie Malmsteen! Me wants!

Arthur WilkinsonGT500 Wednesday, February 27, 2008 4:27:29 AM

You guys are all missing the important question here. Why does David Storey have and Internet Explorer 7 sticker on his computer? Or has this already been answered somewhere else? wink

Pfeleleppfelelep Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:02:17 AM

the new opera release?

David Storeydstorey Wednesday, February 27, 2008 12:39:25 PM

GT500: The more important question is why do I have a picture of a fluffy cat?

The computer is my second computer, and not used so much as it is Windows. My main computer is a Mac. As IE comes with eevery Windows computer, it gets to have its own IE sticker wink Plus the nice guys at IE gave it to me.

Anonymous Wednesday, February 27, 2008 5:26:43 PM

Anonymous writes: Is it a branded name for your next gen web browser? Dragon Fly = Fire Fox ?

Madiseestlane Wednesday, February 27, 2008 7:46:28 PM

I hoped the article had something to do with Dragonfly CMS I'm using and for what I have my community site, but saddenly not.

leomajko Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:28:08 PM

A new clue ?
The source of the page ( http://dragonfly.opera.com/ )have been changed.
These lines have been added at the end of the file :
-* Generated by mod-xslt 1.3.9; http://www.mod-xslt2.com/
-* Copyright (C) 2002,2003 Carlo Contavalli - <ccontavalli at masobit.net>
-* derived from work by Philipp Dunkel and others (http://www.mod-xslt2.com/main/credits.xml)
-* Thanks to http://www.masobit.net/ for paying me while working on mod-xslt
-* and for providing resources to the project.

Meaby someone could fine something with this.

David Storeydstorey Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:49:37 PM

Opera uses XSLT to transform the xml to html, so that is likely the reason. I'm not sure why that comment was injected though - it has appeared on all Opera web sites.

Arthur WilkinsonGT500 Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:06:08 AM

Someone mentioned dev tools, right? That's the #1 suggestion over at OperaWatch so far.

Personally, I don't care what it is. I'm excited. wink

Anonymous Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:01:20 PM

Lowel writes: I read that opera wants to make a substitute of Adobe flash, right ?

WildEnte Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:04:27 PM

lowel, they don't. They want to include native support of ogg theora (a video format) in the browser. Many sites like youtube use flash to show videos, maybe that's how you got that idea.

David Storeydstorey Friday, February 29, 2008 9:24:55 AM

Lowel: We already have a substitute for Flash. It is called SVG. It was also Adobe's substitute for Flash, until they bought Macromedia.

Dan Villiom Podlaski Christiansendanchr Saturday, March 1, 2008 2:43:00 PM

1) Opera releasing Presto as open source?
2) Opera releasing a browser for Mac OS X that doesn't suck?
3) Opera updating the Wii browser?
4) Opera answer to WebKit's Inspector & Firefox' 'bug?
5) Opera has fixed Internet Explorer?

Maulkin Saturday, March 1, 2008 5:23:40 PM

Number 5 pleased me greatly, what a soft dream!

Anonymous Sunday, March 2, 2008 11:44:50 AM

Anonymous writes: Who is the author of that page ( http://dragonfly.opera.com/ )? Nice joke, isn't? :D

Pavan Chanderpchander Monday, March 3, 2008 3:07:47 AM

Who is C S Starkweather, and whats the joke?

Brian HuismanGreyWyvern Monday, March 3, 2008 2:46:22 PM

A comment in the code now says:

...it surged forth with speed and grace, devouring all before it. The landscape left behind it was perfect, calm, free of defect. Such a gift with powers unfortold...



Sounds more and more like a debug tool suite to me smile

MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage Monday, March 3, 2008 3:47:34 PM

All i hope is that its not another speed dial or widgets. Nothing really wrong with them but I hope it is something that I can get some benefit out of. If that suffices, then I'll be happy.

Is it one of the secret projects that a milestone was made on in 2007?

Anonymous Monday, March 3, 2008 5:23:01 PM

DOOOMKULTUS writes: I found out that dragonfly is some multimedia registered company,so i hope this is not a cause for concern for the opera guys.Is it?

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