Extending Opera, the web 2.0 way
Friday, 10. August 2007, 20:43:15
I am on a break from my work at Opera. This gives me a lot of time to do whatever I feel like. Currently, I am spending time understanding how it is to be on the other side of the fence, using and building web applications.
I have two web 2.0-like applications that I use, Bloglines and Delicious. It is not that I like them very much, but they solve two of my needs, keeping bookmarks and reading blogs.
One of the problems with web applications is that they do not feel like a part of the browser. To make them better, integration is needed in the browser.
With Bloglines and Delicious as a starting point, I will try to find the requirements needed for making the two web applications better integrated.
Posting links: I would like it to be easier to bookmark things to Delicious.
Subscribe to feeds: I would like it to be easier to subscribe to a feed in Bloglines. Most of the posting links items are valid, but it would also be nice to connect directly to the subscribe to feed icon in Opera.
Start page: I would like to be able to use Delicious as my start page. I can select start with home page in Opera, but that is not what I want. I would like to get the Delicious page every time I click on "New tab". Of course I can add a bookmark for it and make sure "Reuse current tab" is not selected, but using "New tab" would be much cleaner and feel much better integrated.
Installing extensions: Installing things like skins in Opera is very simple. Installing the Delicious bookmarklet was also simple, but only because the Delicious team had been nice enough to provide a bookmarklet and an instruction how to install it in Opera. I would like to install of the things listed in this blog post as easily as I install a new skin.
That is it for now. I will probably go back to the subject of extending Opera soon.
I have two web 2.0-like applications that I use, Bloglines and Delicious. It is not that I like them very much, but they solve two of my needs, keeping bookmarks and reading blogs.
One of the problems with web applications is that they do not feel like a part of the browser. To make them better, integration is needed in the browser.
With Bloglines and Delicious as a starting point, I will try to find the requirements needed for making the two web applications better integrated.
Posting links: I would like it to be easier to bookmark things to Delicious.
- Get the url of the current document, and the title, and post them to Delicious. This is already possible with a bookmarklet.
- Post the url and the title of the current document quietly to Delicious, without leaving the current document, like the native version of bookmarks in Opera. This is not possible with a bookmarklet.
- Add post to Delicious in the context menu for the page.
- Add post to Delicious in the context menu for links. (we may know that a page is interesting before we go to it)
Subscribe to feeds: I would like it to be easier to subscribe to a feed in Bloglines. Most of the posting links items are valid, but it would also be nice to connect directly to the subscribe to feed icon in Opera.
Start page: I would like to be able to use Delicious as my start page. I can select start with home page in Opera, but that is not what I want. I would like to get the Delicious page every time I click on "New tab". Of course I can add a bookmark for it and make sure "Reuse current tab" is not selected, but using "New tab" would be much cleaner and feel much better integrated.
Installing extensions: Installing things like skins in Opera is very simple. Installing the Delicious bookmarklet was also simple, but only because the Delicious team had been nice enough to provide a bookmarklet and an instruction how to install it in Opera. I would like to install of the things listed in this blog post as easily as I install a new skin.
That is it for now. I will probably go back to the subject of extending Opera soon.
WIDGETIZE
Holger Dors # 10. August 2007, 22:20
(One of the other things was in-line spell-checking, which I'm still missing in my M2...)
Kyle Baker # 11. August 2007, 08:31
This is a bit tricky, but possible, but like you said..not with a bookmarklet. I did this just last night for a history database I made on my personal website. I used xEarth's xmlhttprequest work around and a bit of my own hand written javascript and threw them in my userjs folder. Works well. Although I would much rather see this as a built-in capability for custom/selectable sites.
As for the bookmarks. I'd love nothing more than to see Opera snyc our bookmarks with our Opera Community accounts. Those who don't have an account don't have to sync, but I mean..we already have a links page. I wouldn't mind syncing everything to that and having the option to resync back to Opera if I lose them. Same goes for notes. I'm tired of browsing folders to copy individual files..and my friends would never be able to update Opera (fresh install since upgrades sometimes produce instability) if it were not for me being there to help.
But anywho, you are the Opera dev..
Nicklas Larsson # 11. August 2007, 15:01
I am pretty new to doing things on the non-C++-side of Opera, mostly just done regular web surfing and simple web hacks. Well, it is time to change that. :-)
Kyle Baker # 12. August 2007, 02:51
Userjs has nearly endless limits. I find the challenges to be worth the while in writing code that benefits me in the slightest way. Some of the most useful reasons for using userjs involve "ajax" which is out of userjs' capabilities unless you take advantage of the work around that xEarth has developed (which is incredible in my opinion). I think this limitation should be lifted from userjs to allow more possibilities without the hassle of developing a work around and learning someone else's code so you can use it to benefit your own. Good luck!