Enter Merlin

Tuesday, 20. September 2005, 09:59:12

The release of Opera without ads means that we are stepping up our efforts
on the desktop platform. We are currently working on the next major
release - codenamed Merlin - with significant improvements under the hood.
Major parts of the layout engine have been rewritten for this release.. We
have also improved our standards support significantly by adding XSLT, a selected selection of CSS 3 selectors, WebForms 2 and more.

Another frequently requested feature we have added is Rich Text Editing
for Web pages. The e-mail client is also receiving attention, with a new IMAP backend and some stability work.

Back to workInteresting reading

Comments

If this isn't a joke.... then the best browser will become EVEN MUCH better.

WOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations!

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By robodesign, # 20. September 2005, 10:07:23

What about BiDi fixes? Oh, I just had to ask!

By YtseJam, # 20. September 2005, 10:18:15

"selected selection of CSS 3 selectors", right...

By Rijk, # 20. September 2005, 10:29:11

Select your selection from the selectable selections with the select button!

All jokes aside, Merlin is going to kick buttocks!

By spz, # 20. September 2005, 11:13:31

What's the future of BT? You didn't mention that...

By scipio, # 20. September 2005, 11:14:39

Awesome :-) Can't wait for RTF support

By zeroK, # 20. September 2005, 11:23:20

Merlin? But I love Presto. We have spent so much time together :'(

By White Lynx, # 20. September 2005, 11:27:20

White Lynx: Merlin is code name for Opera 9 not for the rendering engine. We still call that one Presto :-)

scipio: I don't have any updates on BT

By olli, # 20. September 2005, 11:34:47

I can't wait.

By d3bruts1d, # 20. September 2005, 14:01:44

I remember someone at opera saying that they wont add an AdBlock Extension type functionality because they themselves had Ads but its different now so can we expect AdBlock in future versions now ?

Also how about GUI for the commonly edited INI files ? As Opera is going through a major change will it be possible to edit files without the need of having to close opera ?

I know Opera has some AdBlocking options but they just arent as good at the FireFox extension or third party programs like AdMuncher

And before i get the FX Fanboy label stamped on me i'd just like to say that i dont even use FireFox, i tried it a couple of time but opera felt better.

By Rapier, # 20. September 2005, 14:16:42

Rapier
The future will tell

By olli, # 20. September 2005, 16:02:20

I still hope that Opera will be able to support MathML, or anything displays maths in HTML.

By wangjiaji, # 20. September 2005, 16:05:16

If you introducedeich text editing, then why not release beat to play around

By chesss, # 20. September 2005, 16:39:02

oh well, that would be the greatest day in browsers history

if only you guys could add something to block ads,

but i am sure this feature is on your list

By MohsinNaqi, # 20. September 2005, 17:03:27

Give us Merlin, now!

By dan1el, # 20. September 2005, 20:18:36

dan1el WIR ;-)

By olli, # 20. September 2005, 20:46:59

nice

By Sushubh, # 20. September 2005, 21:24:31

Adblocking can be done better with an external program. Privoxy, at privoxy.org, is both free and excellent. Just install that, set Opera (or any other browser) up to use it as a web proxy and you have lots of nice privacy features implemented - and most ads are blocked.

I must admit that from what is said here, Merlin looks like a great project. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

By kimmoj, # 20. September 2005, 21:56:45

when will opera 9 be released?

By desertfoxbeta, # 20. September 2005, 23:16:08

I don't think there is any need for Opera to have ad blocking ability out of the box. I think the only thing Opera needs for someone to be able to implement adblocking, or other extensions similar to Firefox, is to let user javascript read and write local files (under some pre-defined directory).

By wheany, # 21. September 2005, 05:24:27

blocking ads is going to kill the internet. that is how tons of websites make money and survive. opera earns from google which in turn earns from ads. by blocking ads, u are telling opera to kill itself. duh... give some thought mate!

By Sushubh, # 21. September 2005, 05:55:33

I've never had any problems using the filter.ini file. It works exactly the same way as FF's adblock extension, except that you have to edit the text file yourself.

By svivian, # 21. September 2005, 14:54:38

I'm great fan of Web Forms 2. I just can't wait to get these!

My cruciate for abandoning client-side XSLT is lost... but at least I'll be able to redesign mail view and info panel

@Sushubh: I have nothing against relevant unobtrusive ads like Google's. I just don't want huge epileptic flash anims thrown in my face.

By porneL, # 21. September 2005, 21:34:07

desertfoxbeta: When it is ready :-)

By olli, # 24. September 2005, 02:09:59

I want Beta

By TheMajor, # 26. September 2005, 15:14:12

I can barely wait to try Opera9

By F_Elz, # 27. September 2005, 09:53:39

I've gotten so accustomed to Opera that I might opt to stay with it even after Merlin makes its magical appearance...unless Merlin can solve a problem I have with Opera. The problem may be simple enough so that someone out there might even have an easy fix. The problem is: I can't get Bookmarks text in Personal Bar to show up nice in its native language, such as Chinese. The webpages themselves show up nice, mind you, but links to them show up as small squares in the Personal Bar. For example, try saving the link to http://www.sogou.com/ and see what comes up. Instead of two characters for sogou, you get two squares. Can Merlin solve this dilemma?

By loperay, # 28. September 2005, 23:14:04

Great Job..

But Just XSLT. What about others.
You should implement all the W3C standards as much as possible especially XML related ones, since it is the future. Please provide a JavaScript Library for XML parsing, XSLT, etc like the one comming in Firefox.

Please convert Mail Client from Opera to A full fledged email client like Outlook Express. I really miss a good email client in Linux.

By jitheshm, # 29. September 2005, 18:53:18

Yes, I HATE Flash ads.

Check my specs, you'll see that I simply don't have the CPU to do Flash ads.

However, what I do, is simply disable Flash (actually, all plug-ins) and Java (yes, I've seen Java ads. They're even worse.)

By bhtooefr, # 3. October 2005, 16:17:27

@loperay

> I've gotten so accustomed to Opera that I might opt to stay with it even after Merlin makes its magical appearance...unless Merlin can solve a problem I have with Opera.

Merlin _is_ Opera. It is the next major version of Opera. 'Merlin' is just the code name we are using until it is properly released.

> I can't get Bookmarks text in Personal Bar to show up nice in its native language, such as Chinese.

I tried the page you gave as an example, and it worked fine in the personal bar. The window title bar was wrong though, that showed:
[][]Sogou--[][][][][][][] - Opera

That is controlled by the font that your computer is using. For the title bar, right click on your Windows desktop, select Properties - Appearance - Advanced - select the 'Active title bar' item, and select a unicode font, for example, Arial Unicode MS.

If your personal bar has the same problem, you need to change the font that Opera uses for your toolbars:
Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Fonts - Interface toolbars - set the font to a unicode font of your choice.

By tarquinwj, # 5. October 2005, 11:28:36

"Give us merlin, now!"

By Clic, # 6. October 2005, 15:43:54

Merlin? I liked "Opera" :-( Why new name?
And what about the community? "Merlin community" ? And opera.com - what will happen to it?

By tml605, # 9. October 2005, 11:26:20

@tml605

> Merlin? I liked "Opera" :-( Why new name?
> And what about the community? "Merlin community" ?
> And opera.com - what will happen to it?

Merlin is just the codename!

It is still Opera.
Opera 9 (Codename Merlin)

And I also hope to see the first preview soon!

By ---, # 10. October 2005, 20:20:17

Like Rapier said, AdBlocker gotta be fixed, a *.ini editor should be implented, and some cooler skins

By TuPLaD, # 13. October 2005, 16:05:49

I want NTLM support, multi proxy support in it.
It is becoming impossible to use my favorate browser in office.

If opera is eying 2nd spot, it must do that.

By cranil7, # 19. October 2005, 03:59:57

Me too. What about BiDi ?

By rubinproj, # 24. October 2005, 20:27:05

the most irritating is that copy/paste bug. When text is written in many lines it copies it all as a single line

By Dejan_Milicevic, # 13. November 2005, 18:44:23

So this is the same thing as Opera 9 Beta is ATM, right? Nice

By eestlane, # 6. December 2005, 23:55:09

eestlane jupp and more is coming ;-)

By olli, # 7. December 2005, 01:29:01

How can I import my bookmarks from firefox?

By gardening-tip, # 23. June 2006, 04:31:16

File/import/netscape/firefox bookmarks

By olli, # 23. June 2006, 11:41:45

Good afternoon!
Greater idea.
To let out Mega Build of Opera: assembly is put on any external medium (for example, Flesh a charm) and works under all operational systems for which there is a monodistribution kit, it is natural with the general structure (users profile). You can even sell such flesh charms with the preinstalled Opera which will work almost everywhere.

How you look at this idea?

By vva011, # 6. August 2006, 11:40:24