New Kestrel snapshot: 4669

By blaabjerg. Friday, 22. February 2008, 16:00:00

First of all, welcome to the Mac Team blog!

We figured it would be nice to have a place where we can share a little more in-depth information about Opera for Mac in particular, and gather feedback from you guys and gals. You're getting a snapshot with lots of Mac-specific changes today, so we have an excellent occasion to kick off the blog. Consider this an experiment for now, and don't expect a new post here for every Kestrel snapshot we release. If you have any particular wishes for this blog, please let us know in the comments

Highlights

Fixed quadruple mouse click
Two clicks selects the word, three clicks selects the sentence, four clicks selects the paragraph. The latter now works again.
Fixed Event.ctrlKey and Event.metaKey with onkeydown
This fixes a few cases where web applications check for metaKey and ctrlKey on onkeydown events, particularly Cmd+Left/Right on Facebook.
Fixed plugins
Yes, QuickTime and friends are finally back! There have been a lot of changes to the plugin code lately, so please test them extensively. Report all bugs
Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts are back
Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E, Ctrl-D, Ctrl-K, Ctrl-Y, etc. should now finally work again in text fields
Reactivated the asynchronous draw timer
We've had a long-standing issue with Opera's rendering "freezing" when opening context menus and drop-downs. This is now fixed. Please play around with it and see if it breaks anything.
Fixed "Activate the next tab" preference
This preference, described in the previous snapshot post, should now work on Mac as well. "Activate first tab opened from current tab" still doesn't work.
Fixed an issue with Java disabling minimization and quitting
There's been a long-standing issue where Java applets have prevented you from minimizing and/or quitting Opera, this is now fixed.
Fixed a very common crash related to plugins and links with anchors
This is one of the Mac-specific general stability fixes that went into 9.26. The symptom was seemingly random crashes when you clicked links on pages with plugins on them, and it caused a lot of crashes. This is now fixed
Fixed fscommand Flash/JavaScript interface
This was actually fixed in the previous build, but it didn't make it to the changelog. This should fix the MySpace profile editor, VectorMagic, the menus at CSTV and several other Flash sites.

New known issues

Opera does not currently work on Mac OS X 10.3
Keyboard input is buggy (Unicode, function keys)
Print dialog no longer shows up

Download build 4669

New Kestrel snapshot: 4716

Comments

Ill be first if u dont mind :-)
So how about smooth scrolling?
I'm was used opera since 1999 and when i switched on the Mac i found no smooth scrolling in mac version.
i was shocked. So now Im forced to use safari, but i want use Opera.
Do smthn please :-)

From Russia with love.

By el_rocie, # 22. February 2008, 18:13:30

Go to address "opera:config" and filter on "smooth". I see Smooth Scrolling option there, and checking it does make scrolling smoother.

By ddrum, # 22. February 2008, 18:19:51

Nice fixes, but...

It seems like the "Dvorak - Qwerty(command)" keyboard layout no longer accepts the Qwerty command-key shortcuts. Instead it's just acting like the norman Dvorak layout.

This worked fine in previous builds.

Combined with the disapperance of the Print dialog box, this means that I print every time I use the reload shortcut key! Have since disabled my print shortcut key.

By Fyrd, # 22. February 2008, 18:21:25

I can't write accent : ﾎﾍﾈ .... chinese letter ? accents are important for me because I am french ^^"... please

By supersphinx64, # 22. February 2008, 18:36:55

Great idea for a Mac Opera blog!

I'm finding that F8 key for address field focus broke in Build 4669 (OSX v10.5.2). F4 works to open side-bar, tho.

By kamalesh, # 22. February 2008, 19:35:43

I agree with supersphinx64, keyboard layout is broken with some special characters. Reported as bug #314440.

By Romain Vigier, # 22. February 2008, 19:38:42

Some problems with bookmark folders in sidebar:
left click on a folder name and it opens up. Left click again and ... nothing. I've to hover in the browser area, go back to the folder name again and click: it works again, now.

Furthermore, when i try to import bookmark opera look for an "adr" file, while the file name is simply "Bookmarks"

By GianluigiA, # 22. February 2008, 20:06:41

Huh, no more F5 to reload? [edit:] And F2 to open a URL? =(

There are three issues I have since my switch to Mac. 1st is that tabs (i use to have them at the bottom and most of the time about one or two dozen opened at once) disappear at a certain window width. If you drag the edge of the window slowly towards the left, at first the tabs to the right disappear. Dragging it a few pixels further they finally wrap into the next row.

The 2nd issue is that Opera sometimes disappears if I switch between Spaces. Even switching Spaces off and on again doesn't make it reappear.

3rd is that starting Opera as the first app directly after booting up I regularly get to see no text but only funny little boxes.

Thx and keep up the good work!

By rbqph, # 22. February 2008, 20:20:46

Looks like Shift+space to move page up is a bit broken as well in this build?

By ddrum, # 22. February 2008, 21:02:35

Yeah, macteam blog !!! About time, I 'd say

By gorg, # 22. February 2008, 22:44:44

Ooh ooh ooh ooh. My new fav place on My Opera.

Go Mac Team!

By Khadgar, # 23. February 2008, 00:09:00

I was hoping the timer fix would correct the terrible performance of Google Maps on the Mac. Just going to the home page of http://maps.google.com/ freezes me up and pegs my dual core Mac Mini CPU at over 50% for 30 seconds minimum. I run a Windows machine as well and it doesn't seem to have any performance issues with Google Maps. I'd appreciate it if anyone could confirm that this is a Mac specific performance issue. A while back and probably pre-9.5 snapshot builds this wasn't the case and performance was great.

Update: Windows users are seeing same behaviour on maps - http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/show.dml/1748490?startidx=50#comment4740030. I don't see the severe degradation on Windows that I see on Mac.

Michael

By hartley231, # 23. February 2008, 00:36:20

@hartley231

Gmaps performance is fine for me. I'm still getting tiling problems in this build, so there's a couple "squares" that aren't rendered...and fill in when I drag the map a bit.

On the positive side, this build fixes keyboard controls on Google Maps very nicely! Arrow keys slide the map smoothly, and "+", "-", zoom in & out well.

The cursor doesn't change to a grab-hand while dragging though...and right-click Maps menu doesn't appear yet, just the browser context menu.

(OSX v10.5.2, 2.33 mhz MBP.)

By kamalesh, # 23. February 2008, 02:21:54

Wish i could use this but i can't live without inline find working!

By screen, # 23. February 2008, 04:18:58

ABC.com full episode plugin does not work. Mask as Firefox opera will crash.

By Vitis, # 23. February 2008, 06:42:54

Yes, I didn't realise inline find still doesn't work:( That's a huge miss for me. What's the latest snapshot with a woking inline find AND plugin support ?

By gorg, # 23. February 2008, 09:18:20

And wow, the new style of focussed element when using spatial navigation is nice! I hope find in page will also get similar outlining for matching text, maybe even a bit of animation eyecandy on active hit like Safari 3 has?

By ddrum, # 23. February 2008, 09:43:35

Ok, well, the asynchronous draw timer is a step in the right direction, but it's still not as good as the Windows version. I'm noticing a good 3-4 seconds between redraws with bookmark menus open.

Also, will there be support for outside feed readers? I use Mail.app for my RSS and right now, the simplest way to setup a feed that I've found is to add to opera, copy the address then add to mail.app and delete the Opera one. It's a bit of a pita right now, and I'd love to see this fixed.

By CASAO, # 23. February 2008, 09:50:34

About what I'd like to read on the Mac blog.. It would be nice if you'd explain how you see window handling in 10.4 and 10.5 as I often think Opera has its own rules there..

By cowsAndPassingTrains, # 23. February 2008, 11:31:44

Are there any plans to integrate color management eventually? I don't want to use Safari for photography/images/galeries related stuff forever. :)

[edit:] And another issue concerning os integratione: I'd like Opera to use the default RSS reader when clicking on a feed icon. Looking into a pages source code and copy/paste the URL into Vienna is a pain. ;(

By rbqph, # 23. February 2008, 17:46:05

Very Cool on the new mac Blog! Keep up the great work on the macintosh version.

By intelimac20inch, # 23. February 2008, 19:24:24

The only thing stopping me from trying a Weekly is that my Opera M2 has my job emails and I need that Sent folder. Once you go to a 9.5 build and convert the mail you can't go back.

And

for the new Mac blog. I'll be stopping often.

By tigas, # 24. February 2008, 01:17:44

Um, please add to the disclaimer about 9.5 not working on Mac OS X 10.3 , that it also doesn't work on 10.2.8 (Jaguar). The thing is, the previous builds of 9.5 beta DID work. So why not this one...?

[btw, 9.26 works, but I see this error in my Console:
2008-02-24 13:50:55.404 Opera[609] CFLog (21): Error loading /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib: error code 0, error number 2 (dyld: /Applications/Opera.app/Contents/MacOS/Opera can't open library: /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib (No such file or directory, errno = 2))
]

My crash log for 4669 (9.5 beta) always looks like this; the crash happens on startup, after a few bounces of the icon in the dock:

**********

Date/Time: 2008-02-24 13:48:05 -0600
OS Version: 10.2.8 (Build 6R73)
Host: x

Command: Opera
PID: 606

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000

Thread 0 Crashed:
#0 0x00000000 in 0x0
#1 0x8fe160e4 in call_module_initializers
#2 0x8fe106f0 in link_in_need_modules
#3 0x8fe13d68 in _dyld_NSLookupSymbolInImage
#4 0x90014c84 in NSLookupSymbolInImage
#5 0x9068a3fc in _objc_bindModuleContainingList
#6 0x9068a618 in _objc_bindModuleContainingClass
#7 0x9068a664 in _objc_bindClassIfNeeded
#8 0x906871f8 in _destroyInitializingClassList
#9 0x9068717c in _destroyInitializingClassList
#10 0x906873bc in _class_lookupMethodAndLoadCache
#11 0x9068bb28 in objc_msgSend
#12 0x9068a30c in objc_pendClassInstallation
#13 0x9068a30c in objc_pendClassInstallation
#14 0x9068ab4c in _objcInit
#15 0x8fe0901c in call_image_init_routines
#16 0x8fe106e4 in link_in_need_modules
#17 0x8fe13d68 in _dyld_NSLookupSymbolInImage
#18 0x90014c84 in NSLookupSymbolInImage
#19 0x901948b8 in _CFBundleDYLDGetSymbolByNameWithSearch
#20 0x00003198 in 0x3198
#21 0x00002c64 in 0x2c64
#22 0x00002240 in 0x2240
#23 0x000020c0 in 0x20c0

PPC Thread State:
srr0: 0x00000000 srr1: 0x4000d030 vrsave: 0x00000000
xer: 0x00000000 lr: 0x8fe16350 ctr: 0x00000000 mq: 0x00000000
r0: 0x8fe16344 r1: 0xbfffe960 r2: 0x0000ffff r3: 0x8fe483c0
r4: 0x00000000 r5: 0x00000000 r6: 0x00000000 r7: 0x03250a8c
r8: 0x00000004 r9: 0x8fe48720 r10: 0x8fe16350 r11: 0x00000000
r12: 0x00000000 r13: 0x00000000 r14: 0xbfffeaa0 r15: 0xbfffea30
r16: 0x00000000 r17: 0x8fe48a44 r18: 0x00000001 r19: 0x032f1718
r20: 0xbfffebc0 r21: 0x00000000 r22: 0xbfffebc4 r23: 0x8fe4872c
r24: 0x8fe4844c r25: 0x0286c054 r26: 0x0000001f r27: 0x8fe4de08
r28: 0x033f62cc r29: 0x00000000 r30: 0x00000000 r31: 0x8fe16184

By mareklug, # 24. February 2008, 20:06:05

Thanks for the feedback folks, I've added a few known issues. As for future plans regarding color management, external feed reader support etc., I can't say. I can tell you that both issues are frequently requested and duly noted.

@mareklug: it's a regression, it happens. Don't worry

By blaabjerg, # 24. February 2008, 21:17:36

Hi, I'm running Mac OS 10.2.8 on a PowerPC G3. I haven't been able to load 9.5 since 4634. Starts loading and then stops. The Opera icon doesn't get on the dock. It was starting to work quite nicely for me up till then. Alan (Ooops, looks like I'm repeating the one above. Good to know I'm not alone with Jaguar.)

By alanrich, # 24. February 2008, 22:05:09

"Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts are back."

Awesome. Goodbye bug #284262!

By quaternion, # 25. February 2008, 02:02:39

Opera is becoming an excellent Mac software! Thanks!

By porneL, # 25. February 2008, 10:06:26

How about fixing the keyboard shortcut configuration panel. I would like to set command-click to open links in background tabs instead of having them open up immediately. That seems to be impossible at this point, the mouse shortcuts control only gestures and the keyboard preferences simply won't "take".

Otherwise, the kestrel is one solid piece of software, rocking along on both my linux box and my macbook. Thanks!

Ps. How about a new beta release at some point?

By nikanj, # 25. February 2008, 23:10:01

Hello, I have a couple thoughts I would like to share on the Mac version of Opera.

First off, I am really happy that the Mac support is growing! I love Opera and would love to see it integrate better into Mac OS.

The new UI is a step in the right direction, but when you compare it to the likes of Safari or Camino, it falls vastly short. It feels very unrefined and unfinished and I hope that development is still progressing in that area? (Although I kind of doubt it as very little has changed in the last major series of desktop team releases). I actually prefer the old Opera look and feel because I feel it works better as a cohesive whole, of course the downside is, the old theme crashes Opera. I would love to see Opera integrate elements similar to Safari and have it fit right in. Firefox 3 is making tremendous strides in this direction and I feel Opera's Mac team could take some serious notes. If Firefox 3 comes out with great Mac support, Opera may be screwed in this environment, which would be very sad!

Another point, while Opera is amazing on a Windows PC; it's smooth as butter, fast, low resources, etc; The Mac version is very different. It's slow to load, smooth scroll isn't very 'smooth' and resources seem to be a bit higher.

I'll be frank, I love Opera and I desperately want it to become my main browser on Mac, but I am stuck with using Safari because I just don't feel Opera fits here. Before I switched to Mac, Opera was my default browser in Windows; hands down, no questions asked. Now that I have Mac, I am really trying to keep Opera around, but because of the lackluster Mac support, I really can't use it as my default browser. I also feel that if Opera wants to target a larger Mac market share, their support needs to be vastly improved because all the Mac users I know, actually get turned off due to Opera being so 'unfitting' with the entire user experience.

By Amadeus003, # 26. February 2008, 18:21:45

I'm getting blank pages at FT in this build...no problem in Windows build apparently. Is this Mac-specific maybe or is it me?

Update: I deleted all my FT.com cookies and displaying normally again. Is there some way to report this problem to avoid in the future? Any idea on the cause?

By kamalesh, # 27. February 2008, 00:13:15

I recently downloaded Opera 9.26 on my PPC G4 1.25ghz running 10.4.11. I am pretty satisfied with the performance of this browser and it's capabilities (and potential to be one of the best browsers available at least for the Mac). However Camino still continues to be my primary browser due to the persistent problems of installed plug ins not being recognized properly and certain sites don't fuction at all. Primary areas of problems are sites that use Quicktime and Adobe Flash, Shockwave, Windows Media Player plug ins eg. Certain aspects of CNN especially in video do not work. Little things like that. This is a pretty zippy browser (I usually view hi graphic/animation sites since I am an artist) and some of the sites I visit load in an instant, much faster than Camino sometimes. The Speed Dial feature is another great feature in Opera that I get good use out of; and the overall community feel of the browser and that it is being developed by a bunch of cross platform users makes it one of those really revolutionary browsers that is a major player in open source browser development area. The good news is between Camino & Opera I haven't had to use Safari (Safari being my default browser still opens when I access hyperlinks in documents). I hope to continue using Opera and I wish the best for the development team that has been working on 9.5 which I hope will one day become my default browser!

By sandworm, # 27. February 2008, 02:52:52

Using an external mouse, I notice that when you use the back button, Opera will crash. It's not 100% everytime, but say you go back once, click a link then back again, crash. Frustrating when you're looking at pictures. Makes it almost unusable

I had to downgrade back to 4594 which is very stable and plugins works. Keep up the great work guys, I love this browser.

By Ishimaru, # 27. February 2008, 19:41:50

Amadeus003: There's definitely still work to be done, there's no question about that. Keep checking back, I promise we'll do our best to slowly but surely improve.

@kamalesh: Please report a bug if you figure out a way to reproduce the problem. I can't say I can remember seeing any similar known issues.

@sandworm: Opera 9.50 is already much better with regards to both site compatibility and performance, and there's still a way to go before we're done. Keep checking back as 9.50 matures, hopefully you'll be able to ditch Camino completely when it's done

@Ishimaru: I believe that's a known issue in the latest snapshot. Just in case, please report a bug with a URL to the site on which you can reproduce the crash, and send your zipped crash logs to the mail address you get back

By blaabjerg, # 27. February 2008, 22:42:38

Shift-SPACE no longer scrolls back up - instead it does the same as just pressing SPACE. Can this please be fixed? Really annoying as it forces you to use the mouse. Thanks.

By jill12, # 27. February 2008, 23:02:35

@Blaabjerg: Well it's definitely approved loads since the first alpha that's for sure

By Khadgar, # 28. February 2008, 17:04:04

Could Opera for mac respect the system wide setting for clicking on scrollbar. Currently Opera always jumps to next page even if the system setting is set to jump there.

Please? Pretty please with cherry and sugar on top?

By hinuturso, # 29. February 2008, 01:08:54

is anybody at opera aware of this: http://blog.vlad1.com/2008/02/28/finding-the-os-x-turbo-button/

can it affect opera?

By nunop, # 1. March 2008, 14:41:12

@nunop

Thx for posting that about the FF OSX graphics component issue. I just read it and was going to ask the Mac Opera team.

By kamalesh, # 1. March 2008, 18:38:47

@Blaabjerg:

Should we post Build 4681 issues on this thread or will you add a new post for it? Thx.

By kamalesh, # 1. March 2008, 18:39:56

Hi, 4681 is working again for me under 10.2.8. And quite fast considering my old machine! Thanks, Alan

By alanrich, # 2. March 2008, 20:47:59

Any way to configure Build 4681 to trigger a Dashboard Install when downloading a Widget from Apple's site? Currently, it just downloads the ZIP file.

By kamalesh, # 8. March 2008, 06:28:01

kamalesh: Safari does the same except it automatically opens the zip file. If you turn that feature off it just downloads the zip file like Opera does. IMO that feature is a blatent security hole. If you want this feature you can follow these steps:

Go into preferences -> advanced tab -> downloads.
Uncheck "hide filetypes opened with Opera".
Search for zip in the quick find search box.
There will be two that turn up as zip. Double-click one of them to open its dialog box.
If the default application for zip files is Archive Utility check the radio box next to "Open with default application"; if not click the next box next to "Open with other application" and go to "/System/Library/CoreServices/" and choose "Archive Utility.app" in the dialog box.
Repeat #4 & #5 for the other zip file.

Sounds like a lot, but Opera has better control over what it opens and doesn't than other browsers.

By Khadgar, # 10. March 2008, 16:59:13

Does Opera 9.26 for mac Send Link button for sending web links via E-mail?

By colemon, # 14. March 2008, 22:56:26

Have just downloaded 9.50 Beta 4784. Still no sign of a spelling checker.
Regards, Alan

By alanrich, # 18. April 2008, 12:07:38

The next build is out

Build 4814

By Chas4, # 9. May 2008, 18:05:43

Works well, even on an older Mac - G3 with OS 10.2.8. BUT still no spelling checker in M2. Also a continuing problem with how the date is shown in M2 for e-mails receives during the last week. Example:

Today is Saturday. E-mails are dated correctly in the Sent column of the Inbox and show as "Today + time"
Yesterdays' e-mails are shown as "Saturday + time". should read "Friday +time"
The day before reads Saturday instead of Thursday ...
And so on for the whole of the previous week until more than seven days have elapsed. It then shows "3 May 2008" which is the system setting.

I think I reported this as a bug a long time ago. I don't have this problem with Thunderbird or Apples' Mail.

Otherwise I don't have any problems and it's fast and smooth. I'm sticking with it but it would be good to have these two fairly basic problems fixed. I have 4814 and these problems are still present.

Regards, Alan

By alanrich, # 10. May 2008, 12:22:53