lachblog

Last week both Opera and Firefox published new versions of their desktop browsers and now Jonathan Hicks said hello to both of them in a very nice review from the perspective of both a hardcore browser user and a hardcore mac user. I especially liked the following parts (from the perspective of a hardcore Opera user of course):

Opera’s new mac theme is a vast improvement too, although to be honest, any change to the previous theme would be an improvement.

First of all, Opera really wins on speed, hands down. It renders fast, and the interface is nimble.

Both are great, and the world is better off with them both of them around.

I agree with his comments about the current Opera Icon (especially when used in the dock). It would be great to see what he could do with it.

The latest snapshot release of Opera 9.50 for Mac has new tabs in the default Mac Native skin and I'm happy and overwhelmed -- as you can tell from this post -- because Opera included tabs that I made.

What I did was to take the original tabs of Opera, rotate the gradient and adjust it so that it runs smoothly into the toolbar background color used e.g. in the address bar. Then I added a border to the selected tab and the bottom of the Page Bar and adjusted the selected tab so that it "breaks" the bottom border of the Page Bar -- thus it visually connects the selected tab to the UI of the current page. So as you can tell I did not invent something radically new nor did I go far away from the Mac Native tabs that Opera used before and that I liked, I rather adjusted them.

Short before the release Opera contacted me and said they were considering to include the tabs but they needed versions for bottom and left/right placement of the Page Bar. So I made rotated versions of the tabs for bottom and totally new versions for the left/right placement. Now I hope you Mac fellows out there like the tabs so that Opera will not throw them out again too soon. Below you can see a preview of how they look like -- top / bottom / side.

The dusk of the evening before the Macworld 2008, somewhere in northern Germany

Yesterday Opera 9.50 Alpha 1 was released on all supported desktop platforms including the Mac. Overall the reactions are very positive including the Mac version. However the fellow Operatics in the Mac Forum preferred to bash this version and claim once more it's not mac'ish enough and that Opera does not show the devotion it shows for other platforms. So let's see.

- When Opera 7.50 came out on the Mac it was late and not on the same level as WinOpera. So everybody said, see it's late, Opera does not support the Mac. For some time the versions are in full sync now.

- Opera used to render slower on the Mac so people said Opera does not support the Mac port. Kestrel has significant speed improvements and MacKestrel even outperforms WinKestrel in some areas (I won't even comment on Safari performance). Do people realize that?

- Opera had a really non-native interface in 7.50. Now take Kestrel and compare it to 7.50, do you see any difference? I do! 2007_09_05 Edit: I made a Screenshot mockup to illustrate this.

Shall I make this list longer? Don't worry, I could but I won't. I'm known to be very balanced, you could also call me confident. When I answer in the Forums, I don't show those strong opinions everybody else seems to have. But enough is enough. I'd like all those who claim that Kestrel is worse than Merlin and uses mis-sized buttons or fake glow (which it isn't, it's native, I asked a Mac dev in chat) to ask themselves one question: Do you want Opera on the Mac?

We all know that Opera doesn't have the same market share like other desktop browsers. Take that market share and calculate the percentage of mac users, then you know how much of us there are. Still Opera hires developers to work on MacOpera. Those probably have to justify what they do every other day. Do you think being overly criticised will help them or make them feel better? Do you think whinig will make sure Opera's management will always decide to put as much effort in the Mac port it does now? I'm not so sure about that. Plus what everybody seems to just ignore: They do a very good job! From the list above and my experience I get the impression that the MacOpera developers are much more dedicated than MacOpera users, at least a certain group that manages to make even compliments taste bitter.

You want to see even more progress and more efforts? Well realize that Opera is a superb product (that's why you use it in the first place) and go tell others about it. Give us a bigger market share and thus Opera better possibilities to justify even more development efforts. Concentrate a bit more on what has improved and a bit less on what you don't like. A newbie who joins this thread must think that everything got worse on mac and nothing is being developed on. It's still the only thread about Kestrel in the Mac forum so the obvious place to go ...

Oh and don't get me wrong: I don't want to tell anybody to ignore issues or bugs. Everybody knows I'm an Opera fanboy, but everybody who diggs through the Mac forum will also see that I always confirmed bugs that I could reproduce. When it comes to enhancing the user interface I have some things to show aswell. If you don't like the default look of Opera, Opera itself gives you all the flexibility to adjust almost everything or use Khadgars great skin. If you find bugs or specification violations report them in the Forums and report them as bugs. But do so in a structured way without bashing so that others including me really want to join you and support your requests. And when a new version is discussed try to find the positive and negative aspects and give each of them room.

If macification means that they'd have to drop flexibility and integration I'd say no, though. Not following the HIG is not always bad, even Apple does so whenever they want to be ahead of the competition. Do you think that Finder, Safari, iTunes and Mail share the same design in Tiger? Is it bad to add your own to the list? Does Mail even fit anywhere with it's funny buttons? Does it make Mail or Firefox bad applications because they are non-standard or non-mac? Do I have to hate Opera because I love Apple (which I do, too)?

I see that Apple is superior to other operating system and hardware vendors because it has created a unique and great user experience. That's why I use Macs ecxlusively since 2003 (at home and now at work, too). Opera OTOH has created a unique and great Internet Experience on all supported platforms which is what I need. So as a conclusion I'd like to cite Little Big Town, this is from their song Boondocks :

I feel no shame
I'm proud of where I came from

Do you want Opera on the Mac? I do!

Per Arne Vollan has leaked some information about how the Opera developers are working on further macification of Opera for the upcoming Kestrel release. I really like that there is so much mac work going on lately. Read all about it here:

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2007/07/19/macification

This is a photo of a cappuccino that my sister got when we were in a restaurant in berlin last weekend. Call me an apple aficionado or just crazy but I see the apple logo