Thursday, 13. July 2006, 15:59:22
Hello!
Here's my wish list for Opera 10, sorted by importance. Opera Internet Suite is already very big, so many things can be improved. This wishlist is big. I have included things from
Opera Watch too, things I also consider needed.
Be warned: some items are asking for too much!
Must have:*1. Fix the
bugs. Not just rendering bugs.
There's one particular rendering bug I want fixed: PNG transparency (when the image file loads slowly).
*2.
Speed: cut down the "fat" when starting Opera with a big cache, lots emails, contacts, whatever. There are also pages which scroll slowly (I can provide
examples).
Another speed issue: PNG transparency

.
Yet another speed issue: high number of items in address bar autocomplete.
*3.
Site compatibility. Yes, some sites still don't work.
I know these problems are not caused by the browser. Somehow get all Yahoo and all Google working. That's what matters most. It's very "sad" to say "uhm, dude, the site you are trying to view does not support the browser I just recommended to you. No, no, wait! It's not Opera, it's Google/Yahoo the one to be blamed!" That's what usually happends, and ... when you start with the technical details about why the site works differently in Opera, you've lost the case. The usual saying goes "yeah, awesome browser, but it can't even fully support two of the most popular sites".
General:*1. Better
BitTorrent client. Allow more connections at once (provide an option to change max. connections for the BT protocol). This is needed because I can't currently use Opera to download torrents, since I only get to download from 5 people, which each sends me 1 kb/s. Verrryyy slow.
This basically asks for a usable BT client

.
*2.
Trackerless DHT support for BT.
*3. Allow selecting
individual files from a BitTorrent file.
*4. Add more options for
Site Settings.
*5. Make
Search engines editor usable. It currently adds separators on a "per-guessing" basis. I have to manually clean search.ini. Allow us to edit separators too.
*6.
Rich text copy/paste.
*7. Allow using wild cards for Server in
Site Settings. For example, I can't disable cookies system-wide and just enable them on all yahoo.com (they have many subdomains).
*8. Remember all form inputs between sessions and when closing tabs.
*9. Autocomplete/suggestions drop-down in Search field (same as in upcoming Firefox). Allow us to add other search engines with autocomplete.
*10. Implement a serious form autocomplete feature (wand is not enough).
*11. Overall better drag-n-drop support. Under Linux I can't drag a file in an Email Composer window to attach a file

.
*12. Import/export/sync emails, contacts, bookmarks, settings, every from/to online, files, Outlook, Thunderbird, Firefox, Evolution, Eudora, The Bat, iCal, PDAs, etc.
*13. Inline spell checker (for any language, not just engrish): for any input type=text, textarea and any field in Opera browser (email/notes composer, chat, search, etc).
14. Add to
Search engines editor alll features from the ini file.
15.
Bookmarks database with tagging, integration with
online services. Allow easy installation of new services.
16. Wand should not ask for remembering the password until the submitted page is not loaded. This is because users sometime type the wrong username/password.
17. If you guys added BT, it shouldn't be a big deal to add
threads for HTTP/FTP downloads.
18.
Speed limit for downloads.
19.
FTP Upload/Rename/Delete. Awesome!

20.
SOCKS proxy support.
21.
Widget transparency support for Linux.22. Make
printing better than the one in IE 7. Again, not something I use.
23.
Backups for everything as a single package, or each feature: emails, contacts, bookmarks, etc.
24. Page rendering output to PNG/JPEG/TIFF files, with included command line option for automation.
25.
Better EXIF support for JPEGs. Show more info, IPTC, comment, etc.
26.
Cache browser: per server, per date, etc. Similar to history.
27. Make the search field automatically
search everything in Opera. When I start typing I want to see results from notes, chat logs, history, bookmarks, contacts, emails, feeds, cache files (yes, even the HTML content), and everything one can think of

. This would simply rock, if properly implemented.
28. Add to the opera:// protocol the possibility of adding menu items, keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures, voice commands and more (same as for toolbar buttons).
29.
Delete private data based on a selected interval. For example, this would allow me to delete data generated this week. This would prove to be a really nice feature. Or...
delete private data on exit.
30.
Right-click Widget > Uninstall (quick way to remove a widget, useful for development).
31.
Save page with images should be the default option. Even "experts" fail first time to save pages with images included. It's not "intuitive" to have the Type dropdown. So make "Save page with images" as the default, or ... add a checkbox in the dialog, or add a separate option in the File menu.
32.
Open Document Format support? Anyone?
33.
My.Opera Center. This is the ultimate
Update Manager and lots more.
34. Maybe ... add
SCP support. This should work as FTP does.
User Interface:*0.
Status bar enabled by default. It is about time

.
*1. The new
WebForms 2 inputs don't look good enough. Improvements needed.
*2. Add a nice "callout" graphic for the RSS icon, for first-time users, quickly explaining the functionality. Many users don't know what's that, so you guys need to "advertise" this.
*3. When the first-time user closes Opera, inform him/her about the functionality of remembering the open tabs. Allow him/her the option to change the behaviour. Again, a nice feature which needs advertising.
*4.
Fix the Accesskeys list. The order in which it displays the links is weird.
*5. Make the
accesskeys list clickable.
*6. Add a border to accesskeys list. It's not very nice how it looks now.
*7. Some
consistency issues: take a look at Cookies manager, Wand manager, Site editor, Search editor, Preferences > Advanced > Downloads. The "Add/edit/delete" buttons are some times ordered as: Add/edit/delete; other times they are ordered as: Add/delete/edit. Fix this!
*8. In the above dialogs: the position of the Add/edit/delete buttons should be changed a bit. Move Delete button at the bottom of the list, so users don't delete something by mistake.
*9.
Error console as a tab and as a panel.
*10. Fix the
Error console: for example, now if I pick to view just SVG errors I still see the network errors.
*11. The Windows panel must show the highlighted tabs (the ones which finished loading, the Chat tabs with new messages). Some users like using the Windows panel instead of the tabs: so, please provide similar functionality.
*12. The Windows panel must allow a single click to activate the tab. Same reason as above.
13. Show the number of emails in *current* view. For example, in Received folder Opera now shows 11268 emails, even if I have only selected to view unread messages (about 5 emails). This is not intuitive.
14.
Resizable Search field.15. The dialog asking for password remembering should not disturb my work. Make it non-modal.
16. Show a
smiley in the address bar when a page is
valid (no error generated in the console).
17.
Improve native skin for Linux (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, and probably for Windows XP/Vista too). Make it look really native

.
18. Add
thumbnails to the Windows panel?

19. Enable thumbnails by default for tab cycling and improve the interface (currently they don't look right).
20. Improve the looks of the thumbnail tooltip over the tabs. It doesn't look nice right now (IMHO).
21. The simplified Preferences > General dialog looks "empty" and "unfinished" when one knows how it looked in Opera 8. Maybe this needs rearranging the elements.
Email, chat, notes, newsfeeds:*0. IMAP must work properly. Make all those guys who complain about IMAP happy for once and for all. I am not a user of IMAP myself, but this is really needed.
*1.
Rich text editor for email and notes composer. No, I won't use it. However, it is important.
*2.
Allow disabling external embedded scripts/images/objects in newsfeeds too (I do NOT like banners in newsfeeds). I currently have to change to text-only view to get rid of advertising.
*3.
Chat logs with integrated viewer and search.
*4. Fix grouping of single discussions (threads).
5.
Rework the filters. They seem OK at a first glance. Using them is not so OK. The problem I seem to have is with AND/OR/NOT filters. I can't get expected results.
6.
Delete attachments.7. The Newsfeeds drop-down in the Mail panel should also contain "All", so I can see all of them in one view. To get this functionality I have to use the menu "Flux RSS" > "Lire les flux" (en français).
8. Allow running
UserJS in Chat and Mail.9. The ability to keep an IRC channel open in Opera even if you close it’s tab, and then being able to re-open it as if you never closed it via the chat panel of the sidebar.
10. "Auto connect to this network at startup" checkbox for IRC networks, and the option to turn off automatic opening of IRC channels in tabs when connected/joined.
11.
PGP/GPG/S-MIME support. Needed by many (except me).
12. Title for Notes.
13. Read newsfeeds in panel(s). Allow the user to group multiple feeds in a single panel. Provide a JS and a CSS we can edit to change the display and the behaviour.
14.
Live Bookmarks.15. Allow editing Contact birth date. Also, allow me to setup a reminder.
16. Make Contacts and Notes as the mail database. Add labels for contacts and notes, so they can showup in multiple places.
17. Allow me to set multiple reminders for a single note. All reminders should showup in the
new Calendar panel, with a nice timeline. Reminders via email, via chat, via popup. Look at Yahoo! Calendar, that's good enough

.
18. Rename labels to tags (read: make noobs happy).
19. Allow add/deleting/renaming labels/tags for Mail client.
20. Add GUI for editing the Reply/forward template, per account, per contact.
21. Add
templates for new messages, per account, per contact.
Developer-related:*1.
JavaScript debugger.
*2.
DOM Inspector. At least as good as the one in FF.
*3.
Live HTTP headers monitor and requests generator. Like
LiveHTTPHeaders extension for Firefox.
*4. UserJS files must be given personal storage, similar to widgets.
*5. All links in Source Viewer must be clickable. The ones pointing to JS, CSS, iframes, frames, etc. should open in the source viewer (hold shift for new tab).
*6. Make the source viewer faster (scrolling is slow).
*7.
Quick search in source viewer.
*8. Line numbers, find & replace, tab size setting, and word wrap for source viewer.
*9.
opera:config must provide descriptions for all options. This can be done by connecting to opera.com and fetching the description of the INI setting the user wants (show "?" for each); by fetching all descriptions automatically (no "?" for each setting); by including the descriptions in the installer (this might not be nice for you guys, since this slows down the release cycle). This can be done, you guys already have a page with all the needed information:
Opera's settings file explained.
*10. The Info panel must show the
sent/received HTTP headers.
*11. The Info panel must also make all the URLs clickable with two "versions": online (the real URL) and local (from cache). The locals must open in Source Viewer and allow us to quickly edit and save.
*12. I like the iframes list from the Info panel. I would also need lists for: images, objects, CSS files, and scripts. As above: local (from cache) and online (real URL).
13. Source viewer as a panel.
14. Better source highlighting (it's not good enough right now).
15. A bundled set of UserJS scripts and UserCSS files for aiding development (mostly debugging). This should be included in Opera by default, or very easily available on the opera.com site (it needs advertising, otherwise developers won't ever know of them).
16.
3D Canvas.17.
Microformats (like hCard).
18. Maybe
Python, Perl and/or Ruby alongside JavaScript.
19. Give higher powers to UserJS, extension-like. More details in "
My Opera Center".
CSS:*1. css3-background (this would prove very helpful in many cool designs)
*2. column layout
*3. more css3-selectors
4. Anything new and fixed is good. This list could be really big, with each property I want. Just add more, because that's what matters.
Voice:Hehe. No, I didn't forget about this

.
1. Support for SAPI 4, SAPI 5 and Festival (for Linux).
2. Support for Linux.
3. Support for CSS generated content with media type speech.
Almost impossible, but worth asking for.
Security: phishy filter

. Make n00bz happy.
Last, but not least, if you guys implement half of the above, rename Opera 10 to "Operateng System"

.
Nice to have: read-only access to the parts of the Bug Tracking System, without signup.
Read more in the "
My Opera Center" post. This is something new which would integrate update manager, remote settings, remote backup, etc. It also integrates developer features.
* is a "must have" for Opera 10