Opera First Impressions (New User)
rlee0001
Before that I used IE6. The reason for the switch is to reduce memory
consumption by the browser. Firefox regularly used 100MB or more and I
heard Opera was much less needy in this regard. I tried Opera 9 Beta
briefly a couple of months back but didn't like it at all and ended up
uninstalling it within a couple of hours. I've been using Opera 9
(final) for both web and email since about 5:00pm today. Here are my
thoughts:
Performance:
- Start-up time is excellent compared to Firefox and on par with IE.
- Memory usage seems to stay under 30MB, which is great.
- The browser releases almost all its memory when minimized. Thats
pretty cool.
- Pages seem to load faster but this might be due to Firefox hitting
the swap file pretty heavy during navigations due to memory usage being
so high.
- Switching, opening and closing tabs is slightly faster.
- Back and forward buttons are also slightly faster.
- Using smooth scrolling with the middle mouse button tends to cause
streaks to be drawn down the page as it is being exposed.
- Clicking OK on some dialogs (e.g. Preferences) causes a short pause
before the dialog is undrawn.
- Overall the UI is very responsive.
Default UI Design/Layout:
- I really don't like MDI interfaces but maybe that will grow on me. I
can live with an MDI interface as long as it's possible to hide the
Window menu (it is). I wish there was a way to hide the "inner"
minimize/maximize/close buttons and the icon on the menu bar though.
- The default skin is pretty ugly in my opinion. The chrome color is a
little too dark and there is way to much blue.
- The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
- The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly conceived
and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already tried this with
IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
- Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
kidding me?
- Too many menus and menu items, especially on context menus. Validate
this page? Come on. The order of these items is questionable as well.
- Some menu icons have ugly icons. I have yet to figure out why some
menu items have icons while other don't.
- The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
there a way to turn that icon off?
- The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
stinks.
- The "Remove this item" menu item is located on practically every
chrome context menu even when the customizer is not open. That's a bad
thing.
- The home button is on the address bar drop down menu instead of the
toolbar. What the...?
Core Features:
- I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
(ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
- Per site options are pretty cool. This almost makes up for NoScript.
- Spell check is awesome. I wonder how it compares to Firefox 2.0's.
- Wand is awesome.
- Mouse gestures is awesome.
- Tabbed browsing behavior is much better than in Firefox.
- Integrated email client is great.
- I'd like to see an AIM (TOC or Oscar) capability if it wouldn't hurt
performance. (if you are going to have a tray icon you might as well
use it for something useful)
- The ability to shrink/enlarge the page and use alternate rendering
modes is a nice toy but really just adds clutter to the menus.
- A graphical menu editor is missing. Is there a free external tool
that will edit the menu .ini file graphically? That would be awesome.
If not I'll write one in VB and post a download link if there is any
interest.
- There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
removed along with widgets.
- I thought there was supposed to be a feature that turned textareas
into rich text editors (via an option on the context menu) so that
sites that accept rich markup didn't have to provide rich text editors
written in JS? Was that just my imagination?
Customizability (oh my, what a treasure trove!):
- Skins that you can "try on the fly" with a single click (from
gallery to live preview).
- Customize toolbars (note that this UI is way overloaded and should
be overhauled).
- Every function you can imagine exists on the customize toolbar
button galleries. Its really very nice (although perhaps overwhelming
to some users).
- Toolbars can be relocated and hidden easily. For example the tab bar
can be moved to the bottom of the window instead of the top, which is
really very cool.
- You can customize all menus (including popups) by editing a VERY
cumbersome config file. This is a file I hope never to have to look at
again. Also, this requires manually copying the default config file
from the Opera folder (under Program Files) to your profile folder
(under Documents and Settings somewhere nested deep inside hidden
folders).
Bugs:
- So far no crashes (yay).
- I did notice a couple of times that the page needed to be drawn due
to graphical malfunctions.
- You can reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in alphabetical
order. Thats crap.
- Spell check doesn't scroll the page/text area as its highlighting
words so you can see the context. Nor does it's dialog box move our of
the way. This should be docked onto the buttom of the viewport or
something.
Overall:
Aside from a couple of annoying bugs and missing features its a great
product. I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it. Its only my
first day but I can honestly say that I am very impressed. I hope it
doesn't let me down.
-Robert
Holger Metzger
> - Using smooth scrolling with the middle mouse button tends to cause
> streaks to be drawn down the page as it is being exposed.
Sounds like a graphics card issue to me. I don't see this here.
> - Clicking OK on some dialogs (e.g. Preferences) causes a short pause
> before the dialog is undrawn.
Same thing as above, IMHO.
> - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> kidding me?
Why not? Integrating searching Opera support if you have a problem with
the browser seems like a good idea to me.
> Core Features:
> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
Something like content blocking?
http://help.opera.com/Windows/9.00/en/contentblock.html
> - A graphical menu editor is missing. Is there a free external tool
> that will edit the menu .ini file graphically? That would be awesome.
> If not I'll write one in VB and post a download link if there is any
> interest.
Try opera:config for starters.
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
As with many other things you mentioned as useless: it should always
read "useless to you". ;-)
--
Holger
OmegaJunior
wrote:
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
> I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it.
You do realise those two statements directly contradict each other, right?
--
Yours,
ΩJr
Brian Redmond
wrote:
>
> ...
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
removed along with widgets.
> ...
> Overall:
>
> Aside from a couple of annoying bugs and missing features its a great
> product. I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it. Its only my
> first day but I can honestly say that I am very impressed. I hope it
> doesn't let me down.
Robert, impressively detailed feedback for a single day's use, well done!
While I enjoy a few of the widgets, I too wonder about their place in
Opera. However, for me Notes is one of Opera's killer features and I'd be
utterly lost without it. I'm constantly dumping things into it - useful
references, how-to's, funnies or just plain "may be useful someday". It
has severly reduced the number of my "I'm sure I came across something
about ..." moments!
Regards,
Brian
Remco Lanting
wrote:
> - The default skin is pretty ugly in my opinion. The chrome color is a
> little too dark and there is way to much blue.
I really like it. But the best thing is that there are lots of skins, so
if you don't like it, use another. Or, even better, create your own!
> - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
> search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
> can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
Turning off all those buttons would make the browser very inaccessible for
new (novice) users. You seem to be an advanced computer user, and for
those people, the buttons can be removed.
I also hope that you know the special behavior of the fast forward button.
Try pressing while searching with google. It will take you to the next
page. This is especially usefull for directories containing a lot of
images and no index file.
> - The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly conceived
> and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already tried this with
> IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
Widgets are young. There is some pretty advanced stuff circulating the
internet. You should check out http://widgets.opera.com and look though
and use them before you say it's not a good thing.
> - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> kidding me?
If you have a problem you, as an advanced computer user, can delete them.
But for the most people, the number of search engines is fine.
> - Too many menus and menu items, especially on context menus. Validate
> this page? Come on. The order of these items is questionable as well.
It's possible to customize the menu's if you really want to. The validate
option is there because Opera takes the web standards very seriously. A
good starting point for customizing is http://operawiki.info
> - The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
> the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
> there a way to turn that icon off?
The tray icon is there if you have a mail/chat/news account so you know
when new messages have arrived. It's also very usefull if you do ctrl+h.
> - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
> Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
> stinks.
I think the panels offer a quick way to a lot of functionality. If you
right click the bar with the icons, you can remove ones you don't need.
> - The "Remove this item" menu item is located on practically every
> chrome context menu even when the customizer is not open. That's a bad
> thing.
I think it's an easy way for people to remove stuff they don't like. And
how often do you right click a menu item?
> Core Features:
> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
Ad blocking will never make it to Opera. This is because then sites will
start blocking Opera because it always blocks the ads and therefore costs
them money.
There are ways of disabling javascript. Try pressing F12 for a quick menu
which controls global settings.
> - I'd like to see an AIM (TOC or Oscar) capability if it wouldn't hurt
> performance. (if you are going to have a tray icon you might as well
> use it for something useful)
Somewhere I read this was on the wishlist since version 7. Considering
Opera's memory management, I would like to see some IM plugins too.
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
Why I use notes:
- They are easy to create (right click, copy to note)
- They can be inserted easy through the right click menu
- They make me remember things I would have forgotten without them
Simply said: they may be useless to you, but there are a lot of people
that like them.
> - I thought there was supposed to be a feature that turned textareas
> into rich text editors (via an option on the context menu) so that
> sites that accept rich markup didn't have to provide rich text editors
> written in JS? Was that just my imagination?
I would go for the last one ;)
> - You can reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in alphabetical
> order. Thats crap.
Try right clicking and going to "View" in the bookmark manager.
> Aside from a couple of annoying bugs and missing features its a great
> product. I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it. Its only my
> first day but I can honestly say that I am very impressed. I hope it
> doesn't let me down.
Opera also has features other browsers don't have. It's a matter of
preference what is more important. If you really miss things, there is a
wishlist newsgroup as well as a wishlist forum. The Opera developers are
active members of the Opera community, so if you post a whish, it will be
looked at an maybe even be incorporated in Opera.
To put it simple, if you compare Opera to IE6, IE7 and Firefox then Opera
has the most features out of the box AND is the smallest of them all.
Remco
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Matthew Winn
> - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> kidding me?
I use only one of the supplied searches and add one of my own (Clusty),
but the large number of searches doesn't bother me because I always
access searches from the address field with "x term-to-search-for"
(where "x" is the search letter).
> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
Right-clicking on a page and selecting "block content" allows you to
block images from specific servers.
> - Mouse gestures is awesome.
Before too long you'll start swearing at other products when you try
to use a mouse gesture and it doesn't work. One way of spotting
habitual Opera users is by the way they keep sweeping the mouse across
the screen and then grunting in irritation as the application they're
using fails to behave like Opera.
> - A graphical menu editor is missing. Is there a free external tool
> that will edit the menu .ini file graphically? That would be awesome.
> If not I'll write one in VB and post a download link if there is any
> interest.
Menu editing is one weak point in Opera. In particular, if you create
your own menu file then on a subsequent upgrade you won't get to see
any new options that are added to the parts of the menu you have
customised. That means you have to compare two files and look for
changes in order to avoid losing out on new features, which is about
as unfriendly as you can get. I think this is the most important area
of customisation that needs to be addressed in the next version of
Opera.
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
Notes are extremely useful when you know you'll want to come back
to a page in the near future but you don't want to clutter up your
bookmarks with a site you'll only visit one more time.
> - You can reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in alphabetical
> order. Thats crap.
(I assume you meant "can't".)
If you go into Bookmarks > Manage bookmarks and click on a column
heading until the little triangle goes away you can drag all your
bookmarks into whatever order you choose. Be warned, however: if you
have a large number of bookmarks you'll be doing a lot of dragging.
--
Matthew Winn
[If replying by email remove the "r" from "urk"]
Brian L Johnson
> - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
> Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
> stinks.
>
You may not have noticed a sneaky little option...
See Tools | Appearance ^ Panels. [x]ShowPanelToggleAtEdgeOfWindows ?
What that means is that you can click the mouse anywhere on the left-
hand edge of the screen and turn panels on and off. Instantly.
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
I won't argue with Widgets. Not yet, anyway. ;)
But, Notes...
Notes are just SO cool! Highlight some text on a webpage (have you
noticed what happens when you click 2, 3 & 4 times on text? <g>) and
then rt-click > CopyToNote.
That joke, book review, ISBN number, ini-setting for your modem,
address, quotation, dissertation, amplification, whatever... is copied
to the Notes panel.
Days/ weeks/ months later, to get back to that joke, book review, etc
etc, type into the NotesSearch box a word that you know is in it and...
it appears.
Want to go back to the (long forgotten) webpage where you got that joke,
book review, etc etc from? Just dbl-cick the Note.
It's got to be the best way there is for organising those thousands of
snippets that just seem to accumulate as I wander about. :)
--
-blj-
Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd
wrote:
> - I really don't like MDI interfaces but maybe that will grow on me.
I'm sure it will. The ability to tile or cascade your tabs is very useful.
Have you tried "Create linked" followed by "Tile
vertically" yet? Excellent when googling.
> - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
> search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
> can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
All of these are very useful IMHO (except the search icon). Maybe not all
users like these functions, but the thing is, if you hide the icons by
default, many new users are never going to find out about them.
> - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> kidding me?
I actually use this quite regularly.
> - Some menu icons have ugly icons.
De gustibus...
> - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
I, on the contrary, have my Panels open at all times. Whether it be Email,
Bookmarks or Notes, it's a quick and easy way to access relevant info.
> - The "Remove this item" menu item is located on practically every
> chrome context menu even when the customizer is not open. That's a bad
> thing.
I like it.
> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Enable JavaScript
Can also be done on a site-by-site basis.
> - Mouse gestures is awesome.
Yes, they are. Can't live without them.
> - A graphical menu editor is missing. Is there a free external tool
> that will edit the menu .ini file graphically? That would be awesome.
> If not I'll write one in VB and post a download link if there is any
> interest.
I'm not aware of any such tool. I myself don't mind hacking the occasional
.ini file, but I can imagine that other people don't feel comfortable
about that. In fact, most people will probably have no clue about where to
start and what to do.
If you decide to write a menu editor, I think it will be welcomed.
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
Notes are great. Notes:bookmarks = scientific calculator:abacus.
> - You can reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in alphabetical
> order. Thats crap.
In the Bookmarks sidebar: View > Sort by my order
> Aside from a couple of annoying bugs and missing features its a great
> product. I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it. Its only my
> first day but I can honestly say that I am very impressed. I hope it
> doesn't let me down.
I don't think it will. The more you get to know Opera, the better you're
going to love it.
--
Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd
Ted S.
<remco....@no.spam.at.gmail.please.com> wrote at Fri, 21 Jul 2006
11:31:21 GMT:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:06:31 +0200, rlee0001
> <robed...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> - The default skin is pretty ugly in my opinion. The chrome color
>> is a
>> little too dark and there is way to much blue.
>
> I really like it. But the best thing is that there are lots of skins,
> so if you don't like it, use another. Or, even better, create your
> own!
Warning: I learned the hard way that many skins aren't optimized for O9
yet. If you use a skin configured for O8, you may not have some of the
options in the "Edit Site Preferences" dialog, for example.
--
Ted <fedya at bestweb dot net>
TV Announcer: It's 11:00. Do you know where your children are?
Homer: I told you last night, *no*!
<http://www.snpp.com/episodes/4F06.html>
hansa
<garmtd...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I'm sure it will. The ability to tile or cascade your tabs is very
> useful. Have you tried "Create linked" followed by "Tile
> vertically" yet? Excellent when googling.
what does that do, "create linked"?
--
hansa is using O9.01 (8509) on Win XP home SP2
Dell laptop Inspiron 8500
Gene Goldenfeld
> Default UI Design/Layout:
> - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab,
> the search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the
> trash can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
>
> Customizability (oh my, what a treasure trove!):
> - Customize toolbars (note that this UI is way overloaded and should
> be overhauled).
> - Every function you can imagine exists on the customize toolbar
> button galleries. Its really very nice (although perhaps overwhelming
> to some users).
> - Toolbars can be relocated and hidden easily. For example the tab
> bar can be moved to the bottom of the window instead of the top,
> which is really very cool.
> - You can customize all menus (including popups) by editing a VERY
> cumbersome config file. This is a file I hope never to have to look at
> again. Also, this requires manually copying the default config file
> from the Opera folder (under Program Files) to your profile folder
> (under Documents and Settings somewhere nested deep inside hidden
> folders).
I think a new browser deserves more than several hours of usage
and experimentation before a critique. And recognition that your
tastes are not mine or the next user's. Which is not to say that all
is perfect for me, any more than for you or anyone else, since any
piece of software is necessarily a set of functional and technical
compromises.
I would point out, if you haven't realized it, that toolbars can be
combined and rearranged, not just relocated, from the customize featue.
I have only three toolbars functioning, only two of them always visible:
the Address bar up top and tab on the bottom, with the Start bar coming
up as used. That Address bar has the key functions I regularly use
(Print, PP, Back, Next, etc.) on the left and the current URL and the
search engine choices (google, etc.) to the right. Thus, I end up with
lots more real estate for web pages. On previous looks I hadn't found
other browsers that allowed me to do that at all or so easily.
Gene
Evo2Me
<remco....@no.spam.at.gmail.please.com> wrote:
>Opera also has features other browsers don't have.
Remco, nice to see someone taking the pain to explain what certain
features are about, not to mention freedom of choice. But why did you
take that troll serious? Many of his suggestions, questions and
criticism was drivel. And I don't say that as an Opera fanboy.
I mean, come on, "take away notes because they are superfluous"?
"Panels are crap"? "Too many buttons on the toolbars"? He could go
kiosk mode with one key!
In the best of cases he is a Lynx user experiencing graphic browsers
for the first time ever ...
Remco Lanting
He did write everything. I think that it would be too much work for a
troll. I'm active on the newsgroups to answer questions and/or put things
straight. I didn't reply only to answer his questions, I mainly did it for
all the other people that might read it so they get the right impression.
But for the rest I must say I agree completely.
Brian L Johnson
> I think a new browser deserves more than several hours of usage
> and experimentation before a critique.
>
I disagree.
I think it was a very valuable critique because it gives Opera devs an
insight into how new users see Opera.
It's all very well we long-term users quibbling over this and that, but
if a new user simply can't find stuff -- or doesn't even suspect that it
exists! -- the only way OS will find out about that is if chaps like
Robert tell them.
Bring it on, Robert! :)
--
-blj-
Eik
> I mean, come on, "take away notes because they are superfluous"?
> "Panels are crap"? "Too many buttons on the toolbars"? He could go
> kiosk mode with one key!
A few of the points he raised did make me raise an eye brow, such as
hiding the wand, removing searches (including Opera support!) and the
'remove this' and customise right click menus. And surely most desktop
browsers have panels? Also, his comments about MDI were odd because Opera
hasn't used MDI by default for a while now, it just uses simple tabs like
IE7, Safari, Netscape and Firefox. You only get MDI by going into the
preferences and changing things. But I gave the post the benefit of the
doubt, as did the other friendly contributers to this thread who have all
highlighted many of the other great and simple features they've come to
love in Opera.
As for Notes, Opera wouldn't be the same without it and its integration
with the browser, mail and other functions. In fact, I recently installed
Opera 9 on a very computer-illiterate user's machine and the very first
thing they appreciated was Notes because it was "just what I need" to
paste in standard signatures, addresses and other snippets of text in work
emails. The only problem is when you'd like the note to start with some
white space; then Opera won't give it a meaningful name on the drop down
list. That's why, although it's slightly more cumbersome, I'd like notes
to have proper names like bookmarks do.
rlee0001
Evo2Me wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:31:21 +0200, "Remco Lanting"
> <remco....@no.spam.at.gmail.please.com> wrote:
>
> >Opera also has features other browsers don't have.
>
> Remco, nice to see someone taking the pain to explain what certain
> features are about, not to mention freedom of choice. But why did you
> take that troll serious? Many of his suggestions, questions and
> criticism was drivel. And I don't say that as an Opera fanboy.
Wow, I can't beleave I just heard that on a community-based support
forum. I've never seen a member be able to talk to a new user like that
on MozillaZine. If this is how you treat your users when they provide
feedback it is no wonder you have no user base. Maybe to you some of my
questions and comments were "drivel" but if I didn't feel they were
worth some additional attention by the community I wouldn't have
bothered posting.
> I mean, come on, "take away notes because they are superfluous"?
> "Panels are crap"? "Too many buttons on the toolbars"? He could go
> kiosk mode with one key!
If my complaints are "drivel" then why are you making excuses for them?
Are all users expected to press F11 every time they launch your product
if they don't want to deal with an over-cluttered interface?
Also, I think customizing the toolbar would be a much better solution
than kiosk mode. And if you had read my entire post you would have seen
that in fact not only did I customize the toolbars and my menus that I
gave Opera kudos for delivering such flexible customization controls.
> In the best of cases he is a Lynx user experiencing graphic browsers
> for the first time ever ...
I'm a PHP/MySQL software developer for a small application service
provider that sells an online data management suite to non-profit
organizations and governement agencies. Our user base consists of over
10,000 users and our annual recenue is over $8 Million. We have three
software developers and one designer on out IT team. I've been
developing web-based solutions for "graphical browsers" for about 15
years.
If I didn't think Opera was a great product I wouldn't have wasted my
time proving feedback just to see it written off as drivel.
-Robert
rlee0001
Holger Metzger wrote:
> rlee0001 wrote:
> > - Using smooth scrolling with the middle mouse button tends to cause
> > streaks to be drawn down the page as it is being exposed.
>
> Sounds like a graphics card issue to me. I don't see this here.
Well this system is somewhat old (866MHz) and I think the algorithm
Opera uses for very slow smooth scrolling is to bitblt the viewport up
one pixel then render the freshly exposed scanline of pixels at the
bottom from the cache every second or so. My system is just so darn
slow that I can actually see this happening.
> > - Clicking OK on some dialogs (e.g. Preferences) causes a short pause
> > before the dialog is undrawn.
>
> Same thing as above, IMHO.
Agreed. Its a very short pause anyway (maybe a second).
> > - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> > kidding me?
>
> Why not? Integrating searching Opera support if you have a problem with
> the browser seems like a good idea to me.
Search Opera Support should be an option on the help menu (if it isn't
already) rather than in "usage-land". In my experience the screen
should really only show options that the user needs to operate the
software in day-day use. I think this is the philosophy so appearant on
the IE7 user interface. You can look at every widget and ask yourself
"Does this need to be here?" and almost always answer "yes".
> > Core Features:
> > - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> > (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
>
> Something like content blocking?
> http://help.opera.com/Windows/9.00/en/contentblock.html
I found that but disqualified it because it isn't compaitible with the
Adblock Plus filterset syntax which means you can't plug Filterset.G
into it. :o(
If somewhat made a Filterset.G for Opera (Filterset.O?) that would be
absolutely awesome.
> > - A graphical menu editor is missing. Is there a free external tool
> > that will edit the menu .ini file graphically? That would be awesome.
> > If not I'll write one in VB and post a download link if there is any
> > interest.
>
> Try opera:config for starters.
>
> > - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> > removed along with widgets.
>
> As with many other things you mentioned as useless: it should always
> read "useless to you". ;-)
I guess my Firefox roots are showing: its hard to forget about
extension support. I guess in Firefox something like Notes would have
been downloaded and installed seperately instead of integrated. Its a
way of thinking that I'll have to learn to do without.
> --
> Holger
Gene Goldenfeld
A lot of times people, including many of us, can't find stuff because
they don't take the time to look. It's one thing to start by asking
questions -- I'm new, where is this or that, or is it missing? -- and
another to jump into a long-winded critique that speaks more to the
author's impulsiveness than to his knowledge and experience. There's
plenty of time later to come back and post a list of deficiencies
from a newbie's perspective. BTW, that quick, shotgun approach is where
the bad reviews come from, too.
Gene
rlee0001
Remco Lanting wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:06:31 +0200, rlee0001 <robed...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > - The default skin is pretty ugly in my opinion. The chrome color is a
> > little too dark and there is way to much blue.
>
> I really like it. But the best thing is that there are lots of skins, so
> if you don't like it, use another. Or, even better, create your own!
I managed to find a pretty nice skin called Tango CL. I really like it
but really thats just a matter of opinion. As were my thoughts on the
default skin. I wasn't trying to say that there was anything wrong with
it but rather just wanted to give my first impression. I guess I really
like bright shades of cream. LOL.
> > - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> > should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
> > search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
> > can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
>
> Turning off all those buttons would make the browser very inaccessible for
> new (novice) users. You seem to be an advanced computer user, and for
> those people, the buttons can be removed.
I agree with most of that though I would say that there is a balance
you try to strike when designing a user interface between making sure
available functionality is accessible where new users will readily find
it and keeping the user interface simple enough as to not overwhelm the
user.
Here is my thoughts on it:
- Fast Rewind: Most new users will have no idea what this is doing.
They will think it is the back button but will then become confused and
disoriented when it doesn't take them back to where they thought they
would end up. Since the icon isn't helpful nor the tool tip text they
will probably never figure out why there are two back buttons. With any
luck they will realize that Fast Rewind is the one that "acts funny"
and will learn to aviod it. In my opinion no amature users will ever
figure out what Fast Rewind actually does unless someone actually sits
down and explains it to them. And frankly it belongs on the navigation
menu not the address bar anyway.
- Fast Forward: Same as above.
- Close buttons on each tab: This is taste. All those close buttons
are hard to look at and might scare some users. For one thing, red X
means "delete" not "close". Some users might even consider them errors;
especially if they are not familiar with tabbed browsing in general (a
critical error in most operating systems is displayed with a giant red
X icon).
- Search Button: The odds of the user's keyboard suddenly breaking
between the type they type their query and the type they press the
enter key is pretty slim. Ironically a search icon was provided yet no
"Go" button is provided next to the address bar.
- Wand: The wand actually pops up a dialog on first use and explains
to the user that when passwords can be filled in my Opera automatically
the fields will be highlighted. It then goes on the tell the user that
they can press CTRL+ENTER to log in. So what was that icon for again?
- Trash Icon: Honestly I have no idea what this does. I never tried
it. I'd say that makes it pretty redundant. I hope it isn't yet another
close buttons for tabs! After all its located on the tab bar. In its
place I put Check Mail and Compose there. :o)
- New Tab: IE7 does this best with its "stub tab" at the end of the
tab bar. This takes up no room, isn't distracting, is placed exactly
where you'd think it would be, has a 100% instinctive behavior. MS
finally did something right.
I tend to favor simplicity because I treasure my screen real estate so
I like to keep seldomly used tools hidden away in menus. I love how
customizable the browser is.
> I also hope that you know the special behavior of the fast forward button.
> Try pressing while searching with google. It will take you to the next
> page. This is especially usefull for directories containing a lot of
> images and no index file.
It actually sounds useful but there are many reasons that is should not
be shown by default (see above). I think this behavior would be
appropriate to use if the user double-clicks the back button itself.
Most users would then expect to go back many pages and would simply
appreciate that the browser was able to calculate the most likely page
to land on.
> > - The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly conceived
> > and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already tried this with
> > IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
>
> Widgets are young. There is some pretty advanced stuff circulating the
> internet. You should check out http://widgets.opera.com and look though
> and use them before you say it's not a good thing.
>
> > - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> > kidding me?
>
> If you have a problem you, as an advanced computer user, can delete them.
> But for the most people, the number of search engines is fine.
It would be really nice to show 4 or 5 by default but then have
additional search engines available on the Customize dialog to user can
drag onto the search bar. Opera Support should be on the Help menu
only.
> > - Too many menus and menu items, especially on context menus. Validate
> > this page? Come on. The order of these items is questionable as well.
>
> It's possible to customize the menu's if you really want to. The validate
> option is there because Opera takes the web standards very seriously. A
> good starting point for customizing is http://operawiki.info
Wouldn't a web page designer just go to the w3c validation service? Why
would an end user want to validate someone else's web page? Why would
an end user want to validate any web page? This is an example of
developers influencing product design based on their own needs rather
than the needs of their user base. End users don't care about whether
or not the markup is valid when they right click a page. Rather when an
end user right-clicks a page they either want to print the current
frame or want to set the web page background as their windows
background.
> > - The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
> > the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
> > there a way to turn that icon off?
>
> The tray icon is there if you have a mail/chat/news account so you know
> when new messages have arrived. It's also very usefull if you do ctrl+h.
...it's all making sense to be now. :o) Thanks.
> > - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
> > Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
> > stinks.
>
> I think the panels offer a quick way to a lot of functionality. If you
> right click the bar with the icons, you can remove ones you don't need.
I guess this is an opinion thing. I kinda like the idea that clicking
on the very-left edge of the viewport exhibits the back button
behavior.
> > - The "Remove this item" menu item is located on practically every
> > chrome context menu even when the customizer is not open. That's a bad
> > thing.
>
> I think it's an easy way for people to remove stuff they don't like. And
> how often do you right click a menu item?
Right-clicking toolbar buttons should show a context menu associated
with the button's underlying behavior. For example if I right-click on
the back button I would expect to see the back button history menu. If
I right-click on the home button I would expect to see an option to set
the current page as my home page. If I right click the refresh button I
would expect to see an option to redraw from cache.
You would expect that the prefered method to remove an icon from the
toolbar would be to click View > Toolbars > Customize. Then drag the
icon off the toolbar into oblivion (or onto a trash icon that appears
next to the customize dialog box). Then click OK on the dialog box to
save my changes.
> > Core Features:
> > - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> > (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
>
>
> Ad blocking will never make it to Opera. This is because then sites will
> start blocking Opera because it always blocks the ads and therefore costs
> them money.
But they could make the content blocker's filterset syntax compatible
with Filterset.G.
> There are ways of disabling javascript. Try pressing F12 for a quick menu
> which controls global settings.
>
> > - I'd like to see an AIM (TOC or Oscar) capability if it wouldn't hurt
> > performance. (if you are going to have a tray icon you might as well
> > use it for something useful)
>
> Somewhere I read this was on the wishlist since version 7. Considering
> Opera's memory management, I would like to see some IM plugins too.
>
> > - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> > removed along with widgets.
>
> Why I use notes:
> - They are easy to create (right click, copy to note)
> - They can be inserted easy through the right click menu
> - They make me remember things I would have forgotten without them
Is there any reason that this could not be implimented as an extension?
Currently there is a "Translate" context menu option that sends the
selected text to Babblefish. Why could this selected text not have been
sent to Yahoo Notepad and be made available to you from anywhere on
earth even from non-Opera browsers? Wouldn't that be the same thing?
> Simply said: they may be useless to you, but there are a lot of people
> that like them.
>
> > - I thought there was supposed to be a feature that turned textareas
> > into rich text editors (via an option on the context menu) so that
> > sites that accept rich markup didn't have to provide rich text editors
> > written in JS? Was that just my imagination?
>
> I would go for the last one ;)
I think your right because I don't even know where I read that anymore.
Hmm, maybe if I had Notes then... :o)
> > - You can reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in alphabetical
> > order. Thats crap.
>
> Try right clicking and going to "View" in the bookmark manager.
Ah...much better.
> > Aside from a couple of annoying bugs and missing features its a great
> > product. I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it. Its only my
> > first day but I can honestly say that I am very impressed. I hope it
> > doesn't let me down.
>
> Opera also has features other browsers don't have. It's a matter of
> preference what is more important. If you really miss things, there is a
> wishlist newsgroup as well as a wishlist forum. The Opera developers are
> active members of the Opera community, so if you post a whish, it will be
> looked at an maybe even be incorporated in Opera.
>
> To put it simple, if you compare Opera to IE6, IE7 and Firefox then Opera
> has the most features out of the box AND is the smallest of them all.
Agreed.
Ted S.
22 Jul 2006 00:45:21 GMT:
> - Trash Icon: Honestly I have no idea what this does. I never tried
> it. I'd say that makes it pretty redundant. I hope it isn't yet another
> close buttons for tabs! After all its located on the tab bar. In its
> place I put Check Mail and Compose there. :o)
>
Did you click on it?
If it's the Trash icon I'm thinking of, it's got a list of tabs that
you've closed. If you've accidentally closed a tab, or have a closed tab
that you decide you need to see something in again, you can reopen using
the Trash icon. (And if I'm not mistaken, you'll get that tab's history
as well, for the Back icon.)
exclipy
I hope the Opera people take this on board as many of your observations
are very real issues which long-time users have just grown accustomed to.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
exclipy
It makes a new tab into which links from the current tab will open.
exclipy
I set up my panels like this (and don't see why it isn't like this by
default):
* Images only (no text) - this makes the panel selector small enough to be
always on.
* Panel toggle at left of window off - for a more consistent interface
* Shortcut configured:
F4 = Show panel, -1 | Hide panel, -1
so F4 behaves predictably and in line with clicking the selected panel -
ie. it never hides the panel selector
* I'd customise that little X in the top-right of the panel to also not
hide the panel selector, but I'm too slack and never use it anyway.
This way, I've always got the panel selector strip on the left and don't
need that extra click on the far left to open the panel I need. I don't
think even new users need the text for the buttons since they can just
hover over them to get their tooltips.
exclipy
> questions and
> criticism was drivel. And I don't say that as an Opera fanboy.
Come on now, the original poster was not a troll. It's such a shame that
a few members of the the Opera community so often accuses new users of
trolling, when they are just offering their honest opinion. rlee0001 has
obviously spent a lot of time writing in this thread and has offered a
very balanced list of "first impressions", both positive and negative, and
actually came to a positive conclusion.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
Roger Johansson
Brian L Johnson wrote:
> Notes are just SO cool! Highlight some text on a webpage (have you
> noticed what happens when you click 2, 3 & 4 times on text? <g>) and
> then rt-click > CopyToNote.
>
> That joke, book review, ISBN number, ini-setting for your modem,
> address, quotation, dissertation, amplification, whatever... is copied
> to the Notes panel.
>
> Days/ weeks/ months later, to get back to that joke, book review, etc
> etc, type into the NotesSearch box a word that you know is in it and...
> it appears.
>
> Want to go back to the (long forgotten) webpage where you got that joke,
> book review, etc etc from? Just dbl-cick the Note.
>
> It's got to be the best way there is for organising those thousands of
> snippets that just seem to accumulate as I wander about. :)
I just used notes for the first time, selected what you wrote above and
rightclicked and sent it into the notes, a very good description of how
to use notes, saved as my first note. (could be saved as an example
note in the default installation of opera)
Mouse gestures should have an option: Do you want to use the mouse
gestures in all your programs, so the mouse gesture part of opera stays
active all the time, even when you close opera and work in other
programs?
The standard trashcan should be exchanged to the more advanced one
which is available as a button somewhere. One click restores the last
deleted page, otherwise it works like the standard trash can, and this
is very practical because it is usually the last deleted page you need
to restore.
All skins that are uploaded should go through a standardazation
machine, to add all options and make all names the same, add invisibly
buttons the skin designer forgot, etc.
It would also make it easier to upgrade all skins to the last version
of opera.
I think most people would be surprised to know that I use a skin called
Flat skin.
It's old and clunky, but has features I want, which are forgotten in
many newer skins.
Sometimes I use opera really heavily, opening many tabs with a lot of
thumbnails on each page, and then it crashes after a while, it just
disappears, no error message, no warning, the program just suddenly
ends itself. It has been like this for many versions and still is. (I
recently changed from win98se to win2000pro-sp4, and it did not change
this problem, so it is not related to the operating system)
This is a serious bug that should be fixed, Luckily I get the option
when restarting to start where I was and if I choose this, and quickly
delete a lot of the older tabs I can get back to the place I was
without it crashing again. It looks like opera crashes when using to
many open tabs with too many pictures, and too much resources are used.
This thread has been very useful, thanks to the first poster who did
such a detailed review of a first experience with opera.
--
Roger J.
Andreas W
> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
> search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
> can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
intuitive to me what it does. on the other hand, i also never used mouse
gestures
before using opera...
the trash can icon is just great and it seems like firefox is copying this
in
version 2.0
i also don't see why the wand icon should be removed
> - The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly conceived
> and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already tried this with
> IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
i also don't see the use of widgets in a browser, so i don't use them.
i'd like to see some other features like gpg-support for mails instead of
widgets but i'm ok with it, if someone else finds them useful..
> - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> kidding me?
also not completely false, but is this really a problem? i mean i would
have thought for new users it's easier to ignore search engines they don't
need instead of having them add searches manually
> - Too many menus and menu items, especially on context menus. Validate
> this page? Come on. The order of these items is questionable as well.
the point about validate is true - you don't really need this in the
context
menu and for the typical user it doesn't make much sense. besides that i
don't
see a problem - which menus/items do you mean? is the mail-menu even there,
if you don't use the mail-client? i'm not sure, as i use the mail-client,
but
i believe it's hidden until you set up a mail account.
> - The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
> the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
> there a way to turn that icon off?
allready answered - it makes sense if you use the mail-client
and there is a way to turn it off - at least unter linux there is a
"opera --help" to show you the options. most likely it's the same under
windows
> - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
> Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
> stinks.
i don't see your point here? you don't like panels so you turn them off -
where
is the problem? i like panels and i like the way to show/hide them with a
single
quick click at the border
> - The home button is on the address bar drop down menu instead of the
> toolbar. What the...?
also something which makes sense to me. ok, i have to admit that i rarely
use the home button, but typically when i want to go to a site i open a new
tab - and when i do that, buttons for home, top10 (great) and bookmarks
appear
(i also added "open" for local files) - when i have selected the addr.
the buttons are hidden again and don't need any space. i like that...
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
i didn't use notes for a long time, but as others mentioned they are quite
cool.
i don't think that the browser would be more useful to anyone if you
remove this
feature..
Andreas
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Remco Lanting
wrote:
> Mouse gestures should have an option: Do you want to use the mouse
> gestures in all your programs, so the mouse gesture part of opera stays
> active all the time, even when you close opera and work in other
> programs?
That would be really cool. No more shouting when using another program
that hasn't got any mouse gestures.
> The standard trashcan should be exchanged to the more advanced one
> which is available as a button somewhere. One click restores the last
> deleted page, otherwise it works like the standard trash can, and this
> is very practical because it is usually the last deleted page you need
> to restore.
I use ctrl + z (undo, sometimes equal to the next) or ctrl + alt + z
(reopen last tab) to get back my recently closed tabs.
Remco
Remco Lanting
> the point about validate is true - you don't really need this in the
> context
> menu and for the typical user it doesn't make much sense. besides that i
> don't
> see a problem - which menus/items do you mean? is the mail-menu even
> there,
> if you don't use the mail-client? i'm not sure, as i use the
> mail-client, but
> i believe it's hidden until you set up a mail account.
The mail menu is in deed hidden until a mail account is setup.
>> - The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
>> the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
>> there a way to turn that icon off?
> allready answered - it makes sense if you use the mail-client
> and there is a way to turn it off - at least unter linux there is a
> "opera --help" to show you the options. most likely it's the same under
> windows
All commandline options are on this page:
http://www.opera.com/docs/switches/
Unfortunatly, Windows doesn't have as many options as Unix/Linux
Remco
Chris Game
> A lot of times people, including many of us, can't find stuff
> because they don't take the time to look. It's one thing to
> start by asking questions -- I'm new, where is this or that, or
> is it missing? -- and another to jump into a long-winded critique
> that speaks more to the author's impulsiveness than to his
> knowledge and experience. There's plenty of time later to come
> back and post a list of deficiencies from a newbie's perspective.
> BTW, that quick, shotgun approach is where the bad reviews come
> from, too.
You probably know if you're going to like or hate some software app
after ten minutes. If there are no alternatives, you may be prepared
to put in the hours of learning time, otherwise it's easier just to
try another supplier's alternative app till you find one you like.
Many suppliers don't care what users think, as long as the in-house
geeks are happy it's ok. Someone else can write the help files.
--
Chris Game
Chris Game
> If I didn't think Opera was a great product I wouldn't have wasted
> my time proving feedback just to see it written off as drivel.
It wasn't generally 'written off as drivel', many felt the questions
raised usability issues worth discussing, even if they have been
discussed before.
--
Chris Game
Chris Game
> I've used Opera since version 5 something or other and did not
> know about "Notes". I just hadn't clicked on that item until
> Robert's post brought it to my attention.
LOL!
(Well I thought that was funny!)
--
Chris Game
Ken Knox
wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:25:43 +1000, exclipy <exc...@g.mail> wrote:
>
>>> But why did you take that troll serious? Many of his suggestions,
>>> questions and
>>> criticism was drivel. And I don't say that as an Opera fanboy.
>>
>> Come on now, the original poster was not a troll. It's such a shame
>> that
>> a few members of the the Opera community so often accuses new users of
>> trolling, when they are just offering their honest opinion. rlee0001
>> has
>> obviously spent a lot of time writing in this thread and has offered a
>> very balanced list of "first impressions", both positive and negative,
>> and
>> actually came to a positive conclusion.
>
> I agree. I thought it was an excellent and informative post and we all
> could benefit if he visits: http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/ and
> participates in testing the Opera beta builds.
>
> I've used Opera since version 5 something or other and did not know
> about "Notes". I just hadn't clicked on that item until Robert's post
> brought it to my attention.
>
Not to blow my own horn....but I think the OP (and a lot of other people)
might enjoy the article I wrote regarding the notes feature in the Choose
Opera newsletter. <URL: http://chooseopera.com/archive/apr-2005.html>.
Look for the article named "TAKE A MEMO!". I was quite taken by the
possible uses of the feature and have received quite a bit of positive
feedback on that article. While the Notes feature may not be some
people's "cup of tea", it sure has filled a void in my usage of Opera on
the internet.
--
Ken
Choose Opera! <http://www.chooseopera.com>
Your web, Your choice:
Opera 9.00 - <http://www.opera.com>
Chris Game
>> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that
>> should be removed along with widgets.
> i didn't use notes for a long time, but as others mentioned they
> are quite cool. i don't think that the browser would be more
> useful to anyone if you remove this feature..
You really need something outside the browser to do this though,
like ONeNote, Evernote or even the old Windows Cardfile.
--
Chris Game
Roger Johansson
Remco Lanting wrote:
> > Mouse gestures should have an option: Do you want to use the mouse
> > gestures in all your programs, so the mouse gesture part of opera stays
> > active all the time, even when you close opera and work in other
> > programs?
> That would be really cool. No more shouting when using another program
> that hasn't got any mouse gestures.
If you learn to use a new tool, like mouse gestures, or like a mouse
when the mouse was introduced 20 years ago, you do not want to use it
just one program, you want to use it for all communication with your
computer.
If the mouse was only usable in ms word, and the mouse gestures only
usable in opera, and the keyboard could only be used in the file
manager, that would limit the user's possibilities, having to learn a
new interface for each program, and that interface would only be usable
in one single program.
> > The standard trashcan should be exchanged to the more advanced one
> > which is available as a button somewhere. One click restores the last
> > deleted page, otherwise it works like the standard trash can, and this
> > is very practical because it is usually the last deleted page you need
> > to restore.
> I use ctrl + z (undo, sometimes equal to the next) or ctrl + alt + z
> (reopen last tab) to get back my recently closed tabs.
Some people use the keyboard, I use the mouse to control my computer,
so the enhanced trashcan is very valuable for me.
I can only use one hand so I must move my hand from the mouse only when
I write text, then I move it back to the mouse and use the mouse for
all other operations.
--
Roger J.
Ken Knox
wrote:
Possibly, although I've often accessed the notes.adr from outside Opera to
access the info there...It's merely a text file. I've rarely needed to do
so, though, because most of my notes usage has been related to the
internet in some manner so I'm usually online when I need them. YMMV, of
course with different usage patterns.
Gene Goldenfeld
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:37:12 -0500, Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
>
> > A lot of times people, including many of us, can't find stuff
> > because they don't take the time to look. It's one thing to
> > start by asking questions -- I'm new, where is this or that, or
> > is it missing? -- and another to jump into a long-winded critique
> > that speaks more to the author's impulsiveness than to his
> > knowledge and experience. There's plenty of time later to come
> > back and post a list of deficiencies from a newbie's perspective.
> > BTW, that quick, shotgun approach is where the bad reviews come
> > from, too.
>
> You probably know if you're going to like or hate some software app
> after ten minutes. If there are no alternatives, you may be prepared
> to put in the hours of learning time, otherwise it's easier just to
> try another supplier's alternative app till you find one you like.
Don't disagree with you there. And have picked up some things from this
thread.
GG
Evo2Me
wrote:
>Wow, I can't beleave I just heard that on a community-based support
>forum.
My comment was actually rather subdued and still taking you serious.
Some others have already qualified my stance, particularly in light of
some of your points.
Let's be honest, coming in, qualifying oneself as a newbie with just a
few hours experience and then telling off features, and users liking
them, does not come over as objective criticism. When I come to your
house I don't start by saying that your garden's layout is bad, your
choice of wife wasn't too wise and your children don't behave as I
like it.
A lot of your critical points could (and should?) have been phrased as
questions. Some of them are so obviously nonsense, putting your own
tastes over that of others that you either didn't take them serious
yourself. Or are a troll.
Take the Notes feature as an example or the panels or the widgets. All
three not only have their merits, many of use them because they eased
our life (well, work-flow). You find all three of them unnecessary.
This would perhaps be a valid criticism if Opera was unduly slow or
had a big memory footprint. Actually Opera is very small, fast and -
apart from some systems, where bugs lead to 100% CPU usage and memory
leakage - a minor process in memory and CPU-usage.
> I've never seen a member be able to talk to a new user like that
>on MozillaZine.
So, frankness is for you but not for me?
> If this is how you treat your users when they provide
>feedback it is no wonder you have no user base.
"Your users"? Looks like you are under the impression I am part of
Opera Software; wrong, I am a user like you.
And the user base of Opera isn't that small, actually the active user
base is neither small nor cult.
>If my complaints are "drivel" then why are you making excuses for them?
>Are all users expected to press F11 every time they launch your product
>if they don't want to deal with an over-cluttered interface?
But you did get the ironical figure of hyperbole I used in asking you
to go kiosk mode?
Again, as someone else pointed out, the default UI of Opera may not be
to *your* liking but it shows everything a new user may want to have
at his fingertips; Forward, Fast Forward, Wand etc. are essential
features people expect to find or have to see to believe. How often
have we seen reviews shunning a product simply because a certain,
competitive feature was not obvious?
>And if you had read my entire post
I did.
>I'm a PHP/MySQL software developer for a small application service
>provider that sells an online data management suite to non-profit
>organizations and governement agencies. Our user base consists of over
>10,000 users and our annual recenue is over $8 Million. We have three
>software developers and one designer on out IT team. I've been
>developing web-based solutions for "graphical browsers" for about 15
>years.
Thanks for letting me know. Does an $ 8 Mio yearly revenue make your
comments any better?
Now, if you really take Opera and discussing its features serious, we
should probably leave this metadiscussion and stop calling ourselves
names and start over with actual arguments and questions about
features.
For instance, as you've seen and mentioned yourself, Opera is highly
flexible and can be customised to meet your usage. Panels can be
totally put away or hidden temporarily; the 'Remove from ...' is a
very good thing to quickly get rid of buttons without a modular window
open; widgets don't need to be downloaded and used (although
KnowledgeMate, Wikipedia, LEO, Currency Converter, Unit Converter are
very useful).
Just for starters.
Matthew Winn
> A lot of times people, including many of us, can't find stuff because
> they don't take the time to look. It's one thing to start by asking
> questions -- I'm new, where is this or that, or is it missing? -- and
> another to jump into a long-winded critique that speaks more to the
> author's impulsiveness than to his knowledge and experience.
On the other hand, if we see the same questions coming up over and
over again it's a good indication that there may be a problem with
usability.
If only one user says "Why can't Opera ...?" then there's probably
nothing wrong. If several users ask the same question it shows that
(a) this is an option that is important to many users, and (b) users
are giving up in frustration before they find the answer.
--
Matthew Winn
[If replying by email remove the "r" from "urk"]
Matthew Winn
> It would be really nice to show 4 or 5 by default but then have
> additional search engines available on the Customize dialog to user can
> drag onto the search bar.
Which four or five would you have available by default? I guarantee
that such a list would result in thousands of wishlist items: "Why
doesn't Opera support [whatever] search?", when in fact Opera already
supports it but it must be customised in.
The advantage of the current system is that the users can see all the
searches that are available. If they want to simplify things they
can, should they find that they never use some of the searches, and
it's a whole lot easier to delete something than it is to add it.
> Opera Support should be on the Help menu
> only.
I agree with that. When people are in trouble with an application
that's the place they head for. If not, they'll do a search with
their favourite search engine.
> Right-clicking toolbar buttons should show a context menu associated
> with the button's underlying behavior. For example if I right-click on
> the back button I would expect to see the back button history menu. If
> I right-click on the home button I would expect to see an option to set
> the current page as my home page. If I right click the refresh button I
> would expect to see an option to redraw from cache.
>
> You would expect that the prefered method to remove an icon from the
> toolbar would be to click View > Toolbars > Customize. Then drag the
> icon off the toolbar into oblivion (or onto a trash icon that appears
> next to the customize dialog box). Then click OK on the dialog box to
> save my changes.
I'm not happy with the asymmetry of this either. You can remove
buttons directly, but to add them you have to enter a special mode.
> Remco Lanting wrote:
> > Ad blocking will never make it to Opera. This is because then sites will
> > start blocking Opera because it always blocks the ads and therefore costs
> > them money.
>
> But they could make the content blocker's filterset syntax compatible
> with Filterset.G.
It might be possible for someone to create a third party translation
application.
Brian Redmond
> Let's be honest, coming in, qualifying oneself as a newbie with just a
> few hours experience and then telling off features, and users liking
> them, does not come over as objective criticism.
Were Opera aimed at a stable, relatively unchanging population then there
might be some merit in this point. However, OS is putting much effort into
attracting new users, and I suspect that their experiences in the first
minutes (at most, hours) will very largely determine whether or not they
stay with Opera. So I feel that this kind of feedback is extremely
valuable.
By the way, I was very impressed with the quality of the remarks he made.
Yes, I was surprised at some of them - but then the world would be a
pretty bizarre place if everyone thought like me.
Finally, on the off chance that he is a troll, I'd like to take this
opportunity to applaude the better class of troll we're attracting these
days! :)
Regards,
Brian.
Christian Ziemski
>Holger Metzger wrote:
>> rlee0001 wrote:
>> > - Using smooth scrolling with the middle mouse button tends to
>> > cause streaks to be drawn down the page as it is being exposed.
>>
>> Sounds like a graphics card issue to me. I don't see this here.
>
>Well this system is somewhat old (866MHz) and I think the algorithm
>Opera uses for very slow smooth scrolling is to bitblt the viewport
>up one pixel then render the freshly exposed scanline of pixels at
>the bottom from the cache every second or so.
I'm seeing those streaks too here, with a relative new system.
As far as I found out it's not an Opera issue.
It always (with other programs too) happens here if:
- the Windows taskbar is at bottom and hidden by default
and it is automatically popping up on mouse touch
- the bottom of the smooth-scrolled area is next to the taskbar
For example if Opera is maximized and there is no status bar at the
bottom of Opera visible.
To let the streaks go away simply de-maximize Opera and resize it
manually as big as possible but at least one pixel away from Windows'
taskbar.
Christian
Andreas W
> to some degree i agree with the f.fwd - i never use it and it's not
> really intuitive to me what it does. on the other hand, i also never
> used mouse gestures before using opera...
just a small comment to f.fwd: coincidentally yesterday i watched someone
who uses opera just for a few days and he navigated through an image
gallery
by clicking the left/right buttons of his 5-button mouse, which is
obviously mapped to f.fwd/rwnd. he didn't think much about it, it "just
works" like in any other image viewer. maybe sometimes i am too much
interested in techincal issues while others use it quite naturally...
(and too bad, that my mouse doesn't have 5 buttons ;) )
Richard Grevers
wrote:
>>
>> > - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
>> > kidding me?
>>
>> If you have a problem you, as an advanced computer user, can delete
>> them.
>> But for the most people, the number of search engines is fine.
>
> It would be really nice to show 4 or 5 by default but then have
> additional search engines available on the Customize dialog to user can
> drag onto the search bar. Opera Support should be on the Help menu
> only.
>
The fact is, most of those searches are there because they are a primary
revenue stream now that Opera is free.
By the tme I've finished customising, I end up with more searches, but
only google and opera support remain from the original set :-)
And how can you put a serch on a help menu?
>
> Wouldn't a web page designer just go to the w3c validation service? Why
> would an end user want to validate someone else's web page? Why would
> an end user want to validate any web page? This is an example of
> developers influencing product design based on their own needs rather
> than the needs of their user base. End users don't care about whether
> or not the markup is valid when they right click a page. Rather when an
> end user right-clicks a page they either want to print the current
> frame or want to set the web page background as their windows
> background.
- The validate function does use the W3C service (by default - its
editable) and has several vital differences from simply going to the W3C
site, since it uploads the page as cached: 1) You can validate the output
of dynamically generated pages from a test server on your own PC. 2) you
validate as served to the browser, not whatever might be served to the
validator based on its UA-string.
As for it being on a menu: that's UI 101: everything accessable some other
way (in this case by the shortcut Ctrl-Alt-V) should be discoverable on a
menu. And as it is a frame-specific command, it needs to be the frame
context menu.
>> I think it's an easy way for people to remove stuff they don't like. And
>> how often do you right click a menu item?
>
> Right-clicking toolbar buttons should show a context menu associated
> with the button's underlying behavior. For example if I right-click on
> the back button I would expect to see the back button history menu.
But that's on the left click (and slight hold), just as it always has been.
> If
> I right-click on the home button I would expect to see an option to set
> the current page as my home page.
How many times in the life of an installation do I set my home page? once.
> If I right click the refresh button I
> would expect to see an option to redraw from cache.
>
> You would expect that the prefered method to remove an icon from the
> toolbar would be to click View > Toolbars > Customize. Then drag the
> icon off the toolbar into oblivion (or onto a trash icon that appears
> next to the customize dialog box). Then click OK on the dialog box to
> save my changes.
Who wants to be forced to a cumbersome "customise" interface just to
remove an unwanted control? The menu item you object to has been around
since Opera 3, years before there was any customise interface. Its removal
would have been a slap in the face for regular users.
I like Opera's context menus because they are fast. One of the many things
that makes me want to punch my monitor out when using IE is that it has to
look in about 50 places in order to determine what to put on a context
menu, and as a result the menu takes between 1 and 1.5 seconds to appear.
That is shockingly poor usability.
>
>> > Core Features:
>> > - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
>> > (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
>>
>>
>> Ad blocking will never make it to Opera. This is because then sites will
>> start blocking Opera because it always blocks the ads and therefore
>> costs
>> them money.
I'll have to correct that: Ad blocking HAS made it to Opera - on the page
context menu.
>>
>> Why I use notes:
>> - They are easy to create (right click, copy to note)
>> - They can be inserted easy through the right click menu
>> - They make me remember things I would have forgotten without them
>
> Is there any reason that this could not be implimented as an extension?
> Currently there is a "Translate" context menu option that sends the
> selected text to Babblefish. Why could this selected text not have been
> sent to Yahoo Notepad and be made available to you from anywhere on
> earth even from non-Opera browsers? Wouldn't that be the same thing?
1) Opera doesn't have an extensions API. Extensions are Firefox's biggest
weakness as well as its greatest strength.
Firstly because there are a lot of extensions out there without any
independent validation by a trustworthy source that they are safe - which
makes them the equivalent of installing an unsigned activeX control. Then
there's the mess they make of the UI by everyone applying their own idea
of an interface, and extensions you come to depend on now break
automatically as the browser updates itself and renders half of them
incompatible.
2) Notes which are sandboxed on your computer are not at all the same as
data transmitted insecurely
>
>> > Aside from a couple of annoying bugs and missing features its a great
>> > product. I with I could use my Firefox extensions with it. Its only my
>> > first day but I can honestly say that I am very impressed. I hope it
>> > doesn't let me down.
>>
>> Opera also has features other browsers don't have. It's a matter of
>> preference what is more important. If you really miss things, there is a
>> wishlist newsgroup as well as a wishlist forum. The Opera developers are
>> active members of the Opera community, so if you post a whish, it will
>> be
>> looked at an maybe even be incorporated in Opera.
>>
>> To put it simple, if you compare Opera to IE6, IE7 and Firefox then
>> Opera
>> has the most features out of the box AND is the smallest of them all.
>
> Agreed.
>
>> Remco
>>
>> --
>> Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
>
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
Remco Lanting
<newsr...@dramatic.co.nz> wrote:
>>> > Core Features:
>>> > - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or
>>> scripts
>>> > (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
>>>
>>>
>>> Ad blocking will never make it to Opera. This is because then sites
>>> will
>>> start blocking Opera because it always blocks the ads and therefore
>>> costs
>>> them money.
>
> I'll have to correct that: Ad blocking HAS made it to Opera - on the
> page context menu.
First of all, I should have said "Content blocking will never be
pre-configured in Opera" (the rest stays the same). You can block an
entire domain with wildcards, which happens to hold only ads, but you
can't block ads because of their properties. Therefore, I think Opera has
made the right choice in naming it Content blocking.
Roger Johansson
rlee0001 wrote:
> > > - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> > > should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
I have removed the fast forward and fast backward arrows from my
toolbar, I put some extra spacers around the back and forth arrows
instead, because I use them often so I want to be able to hit them
quickly without happening to hit something else.
The close buttons on each tab are hopeless to work with, they move
before you click because another tab closed, I remove them and I have
added my own close tab button, to the right on the tab bar, next to the
trash can, which is very useful.
The trashcan is the opposite of the close tab button, it reopens the
closed tab.
How many times haven't you regretted that you closed a tab too
quickly, there was something more you wanted to read or do on that
page?
In opera you just click on the trashcan and reopen the closed tab
again. Or click on the arrow to the side of the trash can and choose
from a list of closed pages.
> - Close buttons on each tab: This is taste.
A close button should be in a fixed location, because then you can
always find it quickly, and you can close more pages without moving the
mouse, just click again and again and page after page are closed.
A close page/tab button close to the trashcan is the ideal position,
near the right end of the tab bar, like in firefox, but not too close
to the screen border, let the trash can be between the close button and
the screen border.
--
Roger J.
rlee0001
Roger Johansson wrote:
> rlee0001 wrote:
>
> > > > - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> > > > should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
>
> I have removed the fast forward and fast backward arrows from my
> toolbar, I put some extra spacers around the back and forth arrows
> instead, because I use them often so I want to be able to hit them
> quickly without happening to hit something else.
>
> The close buttons on each tab are hopeless to work with, they move
> before you click because another tab closed, I remove them and I have
> added my own close tab button, to the right on the tab bar, next to the
> trash can, which is very useful.
>
> The trashcan is the opposite of the close tab button, it reopens the
> closed tab.
> How many times haven't you regretted that you closed a tab too
> quickly, there was something more you wanted to read or do on that
> page?
> In opera you just click on the trashcan and reopen the closed tab
> again. Or click on the arrow to the side of the trash can and choose
> from a list of closed pages.
http://www.learninteractively.com/opera.png
I removed the trashcan and used that space for email so I have fast
access to "Unread Messages" and "Compose". Also also removed Rewind and
FFwd and added Refresh and Home.
I moved the tab bar to the bottom of the screen and turned off the
close buttons on each tab. The annoying thing is that when you turn of
those close buttons the menu bar shows the MDI buttons. Did you find a
way to hide the per-tab close buttons without showing the MDI buttons?
(To open and close tabs I use the middle mouse button). Also I have
tabs set to text-only because the icons are really unhelpful.
Also, I simplified all the context menu's and the menu bar. That is why
there is no Help menu. I removed the "Remove this button" and
"Customize" items from the context menu's when you right-click on the
toolbar and added the "Appearance..." item to the Tools menu, which has
also been greatly simplified.
Sounds like the action for that trashcan icon would be nice to have on
the context menu for the tab bar itself. I'm thinking of putting "Home"
on the right side of the tab bar and moving the Feeds meny to a submenu
under Bookmarks so it emulates Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature. I also
might move "Manage Bookmarks" and "Manage Feeds" to the top of the
Tools menu to they are not cluttering stuff up.
Roger Johansson
rlee0001 wrote:
> The annoying thing is that when you turn of
> those close buttons the menu bar shows the MDI buttons. Did you find a
> way to hide the per-tab close buttons without showing the MDI buttons?
No, but I just ignore those small buttons which are useless for quick
use.
My own close icon is extra big and has empty space around it so I can
hit it very quickly.
> Sounds like the action for that trashcan icon would be nice to have on
> the context menu for the tab bar itself.
Then it would take more than one click to restore a closed page.
An item on a context menu on the tab bar would need navigation, click,
more navigation, and one more click.
The advanced trash can needs only navigation to a very big icon in a
fixed position and one click.
I am talking about the advanced trashcan that is available as a button
and should replace the original trash can that gives a list of closed
pages.
The advanced trash can opens the last closed page with only one click.
--
Roger J.
Eik
wrote:
> I'm thinking of putting "Home"
> on the right side of the tab bar and moving the Feeds meny to a submenu
> under Bookmarks so it emulates Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature.
You've changed the icons and menus to make it look and behave like
Firefox, and you're using a skin that makes it look exactly like Firefox.
Why are you using Opera?
Matthew Winn
Probably a combination of good sense, intelligence and sanity.
Haavard Kvam Moen
wrote:
> I'm coming from Firefox, which I have been using for about a year.
> Before that I used IE6. The reason for the switch is to reduce memory
> consumption by the browser. Firefox regularly used 100MB or more and I
> heard Opera was much less needy in this regard. I tried Opera 9 Beta
> briefly a couple of months back but didn't like it at all and ended up
> uninstalling it within a couple of hours. I've been using Opera 9
> (final) for both web and email since about 5:00pm today. Here are my
> thoughts:
Thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts. You have many
interesting observations, but I'd like to comment on a few of your
points:
...
> Default UI Design/Layout:
> - I really don't like MDI interfaces but maybe that will grow on me. I
> can live with an MDI interface as long as it's possible to hide the
> Window menu (it is). I wish there was a way to hide the "inner"
> minimize/maximize/close buttons and the icon on the menu bar though.
The Window menu is disabled by default, and so are the MDI controls
(minimize, restore, maximize). By default, Opera shows just a close
button on each tab, which also happens to be what Firefox is going for
in the next version, simply because usability testing by several
different organizations has shown that this is more usable for novice
users.
> - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
> search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
> can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
Well, I count seven buttons in Firefox and nine in Opera by default. I
don't think that qualifies as being "extremely cluttered". The "New
tab" button makes it easy for new users to figure out that they can
open multiple tabs, and the trash can is very handy. Hiding too many
features is not necessarily a good thing, since some features are
useful to a large amount of people.
Note that the close button on each tab has been adopted by Firefox, as
I explained above. I am not sure why you are seeing those, though,
since Opera doesn't show both MDI controls and the tab close button at
the same time.
> - The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly conceived
> and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already tried this with
> IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
You should rather compare Opera's widgets to the popular Apple
Dashboard or Yahoo Widgets. That Microsoft failed at something similar
a few years ago doesn't seem to prevent widgets from being popular
today.
> - The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
> the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
> there a way to turn that icon off?
It is disabled by default, and only appears if you create a
mail/chat/etc. account. In Windows XP, it is possible to hide specific
tray icons by configuring the system tray.
The tray icon was actually a frequently requested feature, and it does
serve a purpose. For example, it will give you a visible indication of
new mail.
> - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
> Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
> stinks.
Panels, too, are hidden by default. You can easily toggle panels by
pressing F4.
> Core Features:
> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
Opera 9 has a content blocker. I don't think you can expect Opera's
file formats to be aligned with a Firefox extension, though...
> - The ability to shrink/enlarge the page and use alternate rendering
> modes is a nice toy but really just adds clutter to the menus.
These are accessibility features. For those who need those, they are
definitely not toys.
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
What's useless to one user isn't useless to someone else. Removing
features is not the way to go, I'm afraid :)
I don't think it is very useful to ask that features are removed.
People have different needs after all, and most features in Opera are
hidden or disabled by default anyway (such as mail, panels, etc.).
Focus on what you like/don't like about specific features, or simply
ignore them.
--
Håvard Kvam Moen, QA SaD
Haavard Kvam Moen
wrote:
> Evo2Me wrote:
...
> Are all users expected to press F11 every time they launch your product
> if they don't want to deal with an over-cluttered interface?
Bear in mind that most people in these groups are Opera users, like
yourself, and not Opera employees or representatives. Let's try to
stay civil.
Evo2Me
<haa...@opera-dot-com.invalid> wrote:
>Bear in mind that most people in these groups are Opera users, like
>yourself, and not Opera employees or representatives. Let's try to
>stay civil.
To be fair, I was the first to be slightly rude by taking him serious,
then deducing he must be a troll. His language ("retarded",
"useless"), generalising from his own needs and experiences
("annoying" => "stinks"; "shrink/enlarge pages" => "toy" ; "useless
... notes" =>"removed") and some strange non sequiturs (i.e.
Microsoft's Active Desktop -> Widgets
->ill-conceived->useless->remove) led me to this.
So, if he really was serious, just a bit over the top, I apologise
herewith.
Frank J. Perricone
> - You can reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in alphabetical
> order. Thats crap.
Not sure which half of this sentence is the typo, but you *can* reorder
your bookmarks, just drag and drop into any order you like.
Overall, I think a good analysis.
--
Frank J. Perricone fr...@dlc.state.vt.us
IT Manager 802-828-4926 Fax: 802-828-2803
Vermont Department of Liquor Control http://www.state.vt.us/dlc/
Frank J. Perricone
> Wow, I can't beleave I just heard that on a community-based support
> forum.
It's actually a newsgroup, and not a moderated one, which has its pros and
cons. One of the cons is the idiots are only limited by their own idiocy
and the tendency for everyone else to ignore them. Don't sweat the petty
people.
Frank J. Perricone
> You've changed the icons and menus to make it look and behave like
> Firefox, and you're using a skin that makes it look exactly like Firefox.
> Why are you using Opera?
Opera is more than its superficial appearance, in many ways. If a familiar
appearance helps people bridge the gap, so much the better. They get
Opera's superior performance, reliability, and security on day one, and
they'll probably gradually evolve to using the bits of its interface that
aren't Firefoxlike little by little as time passes. Seems win-win to me.
Chris Game
>> - The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly
>> conceived and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already
>> tried this with IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
>
> You should rather compare Opera's widgets to the popular Apple
> Dashboard or Yahoo Widgets. That Microsoft failed at something
> similar a few years ago doesn't seem to prevent widgets from
> being popular today.
They're having another go in vista.
--
Chris Game
rlee0001
Memory footprint is really the only reason. But like I said in my
original post, Opera seems like an awesome product. Its almost as
configurable as Firefox and has several features that Firefox does not
have built in.
The only reason I say "almost as configurable as firefox" is that
Firefox has XUL for fully mod-able browser chrome and extensions. But
Opera more than makes up for that with its much better use of system
resources and its own integrated featureset.
I think Opera probably adheres more closely to W3C standards (though I
have come across more than a couple of rendering issues with some sites
but that's not bad at all).
Plus I had a short conversation with Opera's CTO, Håkon Wium Lie, a
few months ago and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. Very down-to-earth
an open to suggestions.
I hope nobody took my critique as a complaint. I like the product. The
only thing I questioned were the defaults and you have to admit that
that's a pretty mild critisism. Especially in a product as configurable
as this.
As far as making it look like Firefox: Firefox is skinable and unless
you apply a very bland skin, it looks nothing like the way I've
customized Opera. In fact you can't move the tab bar to the bottom of
the screen in Firefox without hacking the XUL. Nor is there a way to
customize buttons onto the tab bar using the GUI (IIRC).
-Robert
Splibbilla
wrote:
> I'm coming from Firefox,
more snips ahead
> I've been using Opera 9
> (final) for both web and email since about 5:00pm today. Here are my
> thoughts:
>
> Performance:
> - Start-up time is excellent compared to Firefox and on par with IE.
for me, somewhere between (winme 800mhz duron)
> Default UI Design/Layout:
> - I really don't like MDI interfaces but maybe that will grow on me. I
> can live with an MDI interface as long as it's possible to hide the
> Window menu (it is). I wish there was a way to hide the "inner"
> minimize/maximize/close buttons and the icon on the menu bar though.
all operas (7, 8, 9) have been tabbed for me. i didn't know you could ruin
otherwise. but i prefer tabs.
> - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
> search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
> can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
yeah, some things need removing. too bad the toolbars and buttons aren't
fully independent.
> - Too many search engines loaded by default. "Opera Support"? Are you
> kidding me?
i used that one when first trying o.
> - Too many menus and menu items, especially on context menus. Validate
> this page? Come on. The order of these items is questionable as well.
> - Some menu icons have ugly icons. I have yet to figure out why some
> menu items have icons while other don't.
some icons aren't readily differentiable from and too many icons have a
fuzzy appearance.
> - The tray icon on the task bar is retarded. Why would anyone go to
> the windows clock area to add a new tab to the web browser window? Is
> there a way to turn that icon off?
i hadn't checked it's context menu yet. the icon is small.
> - The concept of Panels is annoying. I turned them off altogether.
> Unfortunately this practically cripples the email client portion. That
> stinks.
yeah, now i can't recall if one of o9's modes, at first i thought i had to
keep the panel squished as narrow as possible. i think i customized other
toolbars to provide certain commands that were in the panel.
> - The "Remove this item" menu item is located on practically every
> chrome context menu even when the customizer is not open. That's a bad
> thing.
a waste of menu.
> Core Features:
> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
proxomitron. saves all browsers. get the grypen set at castlecops.
install, then delete filters you'd never use.
the proxomitron "menu" allows you to learn to add site exceptions
> - Per site options are pretty cool. This almost makes up for NoScript.
Per site options are great. maybe they should be in the right click menu,
if only until you've set options for your most regularly visited sites
> - Spell check is awesome. I wonder how it compares to Firefox 2.0's.
i've never had aspell work for opera or metapad. on either winme or winxp.
> - Mouse gestures is awesome.
too mysterious. i tried briefly with mozilla extension IIRC.
> - The ability to shrink/enlarge the page and use alternate rendering
> modes is a nice toy but really just adds clutter to the menus.
Zoom? i see it only in View menu. i use zoom, often by keyboard (in ie, ff)
> - A graphical menu editor is missing. Is there a free external tool
> that will edit the menu .ini file graphically? That would be awesome.
> If not I'll write one in VB and post a download link if there is any
> interest.
lots of interest from me :-)
i imagine opera would ned to be restarted to load edited ini's.
> Customizability (oh my, what a treasure trove!):
> - Toolbars can be relocated and hidden easily. For example the tab bar
> can be moved to the bottom of the window instead of the top, which is
> really very cool.
ff (and i assume sm) can do that with userchrome, IIRC
> - You can customize all menus (including popups) by editing a VERY
> cumbersome config file. This is a file I hope never to have to look at
> again. Also, this requires manually copying the default config file
> from the Opera folder (under Program Files) to your profile folder
> (under Documents and Settings somewhere nested deep inside hidden
> folders).
kmeleon also has some textfiles, and they aren't easy to edit. some menu
changes require editing two locations
> Bugs:
> - You can ['t?] reorder your bookmarks -- they are stuck in
> alphabetical
> order. Thats crap.
Splibbilla
<haa...@opera-dot-com.invalid> wrote:
> On 21 Jul 2006 01:06:31 -0700, "rlee0001" <robed...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> ...
>> Default UI Design/Layout:
>> - I really don't like MDI interfaces but maybe that will grow on me. I
>> can live with an MDI interface as long as it's possible to hide the
>> Window menu (it is). I wish there was a way to hide the "inner"
>> minimize/maximize/close buttons and the icon on the menu bar though.
>
> The Window menu is disabled by default, and so are the MDI controls
> (minimize, restore, maximize). By default, Opera shows just a close
> button on each tab, which also happens to be what Firefox is going for
> in the next version, simply because usability testing by several
> different organizations has shown that this is more usable for novice
> users.
tab no X extension was created for bon echo to return to the single close
button/icon.
otherwise it's too easy to cloes a tab when simply trying to bring it to
the "front".
>> - The toolbars are extremely cluttered. Examples of buttons that
>> should be off by default: F.Fwd, Rewind, Close buttons on each tab, the
>> search icon to the right of the search box, the wand icon, the trash
>> can icon on the tab bar, the new tab button on the tab bar.
>
> Well, I count seven buttons in Firefox and nine in Opera by default. I
> don't think that qualifies as being "extremely cluttered". The "New
> tab" button makes it easy for new users to figure out that they can
> open multiple tabs, and the trash can is very handy. Hiding too many
> features is not necessarily a good thing, since some features are
> useful to a large amount of people.
all software has to deal with first time use, learning curve, user
adaptation, customizability. so reagarding most of the default UI, I see
opera as just different.
>> - The entire widgets concept should be removed. Its poorly conceived
>> and has no place in a web browser. Microsoft already tried this with
>> IE4 (Active Desktop) and it was a giant flop.
>
> You should rather compare Opera's widgets to the popular Apple
> Dashboard or Yahoo Widgets. That Microsoft failed at something similar
> a few years ago doesn't seem to prevent widgets from being popular
> today.
until widgets grow in use for win or win apps, i guess we'll have to try a
mac :-)
>> Core Features:
>> - I have yet to find a way to block ads (ala Adblock Plus) or scripts
>> (ala NoScript). At least there is a popup blocker.
>
> Opera 9 has a content blocker. I don't think you can expect Opera's
> file formats to be aligned with a Firefox extension, though...
i just now did paste and go (good opera feature) in the
www.opera.com/support/search , for
content blocker
no results, but there should be. opera gives this another name?
btw, another good feature: context click in text input on search page.
menu includes command "create search"
that's nice.
>> - The ability to shrink/enlarge the page and use alternate rendering
>> modes is a nice toy but really just adds clutter to the menus.
>
> These are accessibility features. For those who need those, they are
> definitely not toys.
>
>> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
>> removed along with widgets.
>
> What's useless to one user isn't useless to someone else. Removing
> features is not the way to go, I'm afraid :)
agree again. ui customizing is needed. outright disabling only if that
reduces startup time (but removing few features seems too minor a change
to speed startups)
Splibbilla
> i also don't see the use of widgets in a browser, so i don't use them.
> i'd like to see some other features like gpg-support for mails instead of
> widgets but i'm ok with it, if someone else finds them useful..
agree
> - There are a few other useless features such as notes that should be
> removed along with widgets.
> i didn't use notes for a long time, but as others mentioned they are
> quite cool.
> i don't think that the browser would be more useful to anyone if you
> remove this
> feature..
if opera was my main browser, i might be using Notes (works like an
enhanced unformated clipboard? or does it copy non-text, too?).
rightclick, copy to notes is a little faster than dragging selections to a
text editor.
btw, i replied by first selecting text i wanted quoted. too bad opera
won't do this for multiple (non adjcent) blocks of selected text.
xnews has somewhat of a workaround.
go back to message view. copy second block of text.
back to Compose. "paste as quoted" adds > quote markers
this feature has extra usability:
if an earlier msg upthread has been snipped since posted, you can manually
"unsnip" it:
go to that earlier msg, select & copy.
go to Compose. paste as quoted, select (what you just pasted), cut. paste
as quoted again. now you have two levels of quote markers > >