Opera Dragonfly alpha 2
Bear Bottoms
New features added since the initial alpha include auto-complete for the
Command Line (including object inspection), docked window mode, CSS
editing including auto-complete, and a downloadable debug menu. There has
also been many bug fixes and stability improvements.
Support for editing and a single window mode have been two of the three
most requested features for Opera Dragonfly. The third was HTTP
inspection, but this requires Core support to expose the required
information through Scope, and will require the next version of our Core
rendering engine. Alpha 2 will debut experimental support for the first
two features.
Currently only CSS editing is supported, but much of the code can be
reused for DOM editing for alpha 3. CSS can currently be edited by
clicking on a property or value in the styles sidebar. User defined values
are editable, but not the browser default values. Pressing tab will move
to the next token (and shift-tab for the previous token). Pressing the up
or down arrows on the keyboard activates auto-complete, that will cycle
through the valid values. Typing co then the down arrow when a property is
highlighted will suggest color for example. Pressing the up or down arrow
on a value will increase or decrease the value. All changes are live and
instant, so it is incredibly useful for testing tweaks and colour or size
changes. I find it very useful when using HSL colour values for example,
to get the exact shade I want to use. When at the end of a line or when
the value is highlighted, pressing return will create a new property.
The docked window mode is now default, but can be changed to a separate
window by pressing the icon next to the close button in the top right
corner of the Opera Dragonfly UI. The UI for the docked mode is still very
experimental as the support came at the end of the Opera 9.5 development
phase. The UI will be improved to make it less confusing in alpha 3.
Command Line auto-complete has also been added. This can be activated by
pressing the tab key. If an object is returned it is highlighted and can
be clicked on. Doing this will allow the object to be inspected in the
Inspection sidebar. A debug menu has also been released to complement
Opera Dragonfly, which currently packages existing Opera features that are
useful to developers, along with links to reference materials and
validators. This will be improved upon in the future to add new
functionality. It can be downloaded on the Opera Dragonfly web site.
Once alpha 2 is released there will be a break while the lead developer
takes a much deserved holiday, then work will resume on Opera Dragonfly
alpha 3. This should include more bug fixes, DOM editing, support for
localisation, UI work and more.
You can test out the release candidate of alpha 2 by entering
https://dragonfly.opera.com/app/weekly into the Developer Tools URL field,
which can be found by going to opera:config#DeveloperTools in Opera, and
pressing the save button. Please give us feedback in the usual places.
http://operawatch.com/news/2008/06/opera-dragonfly-alpha-2-rc.html
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Bear Bottoms
Freeware website: http://bearware.info