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Opera 9 Technical Preview 2 due out tomorrow...Looks interesting

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nontroppo:
This release is amazing!

Widgets are simply web pages that can exist outside of the  browsers UI, they use all the technology already present in the HTML renderer, added with the PNG alpha transparancy without formal UI window chrome. This is not really another "feature" in the sense that it was always built-in, but it has opened the possibility for some really neat features. http://my.opera.com/community/dev/widgets/

Bittorrent is treated as another protocol like HTTP and FTP, as it should be. Obviously this will not replace a fully-featured client, but for general use it is great.

The killer feature without a doubt is Site preferences. This has been discussed in the Opera community for a long time. Omniweb, with release 5 was the first browser to come out with a live implementation, followed by others. Opera's neat spin on this is based on its excellent support for user CSS and javascript. Basically you can apply custom CSS and javascript on a per-site basis, customising your web site experience infinitely. There is also a UI for blocking unwanted content (ad-blocker), and the pop-up blocker has been beefed up.

For power users, Opera's user CSS handling has been improved by allowing a directory for storage of all your CSS files. Remixing doesn't get easier than this!

A nice feature taken from Firefox is the "add search", basically this scrapes search fields on web pages, and a new UI gives you full control over your search engines.

Tab thumbnails are now available, and you can enable them also for ctrl+tab switching using opera:config.

A small, but neat feature is the source viewer (now syntax-highlighting), allows editing of pages, including blank pages so you can code in HTML and let it preview!

Of course, the big changes are under the surface. Merlin, Opera's next-generation rendering engine is really amazing. It supports a huge range of standards with a very high level of compliance. And amazingly as always, the same rendering engine can be run in mobile phones, which proves the efficiency of its coding.

nontroppo:
i hold out faith someone will hack up a google map or Chat Client-tinyvillager (February 07, 2006, 05:02 AM)
--- End quote ---

That would be trivial to do. Regarding chat, what's wrong with IRC?

In my opinion this Menu should expand into the widget you want to show ,instead of just show widgets  -tinyvillager (February 07, 2006, 05:02 AM)
--- End quote ---

Good idea, you should post that on the my opera forums...

tinyvillager:
I don't know,seeing a little customized google map tucked away in the corner might be neat.
Yeah i know what you mean about IRC,but i've heard of people making AJax applications that
simulate google talk.Just looking at the site preferences,very impressive.Having every site
costomized to your specification is pretty sweet.I like the eye candy tab thumbnails.Opera
spends alot of freakin time on development but it shows in the end.Even though it's called
a preview i bet they'll release a final pretty soon.

allen:
That would be trivial to do. Regarding chat, what's wrong with IRC?-nontroppo (February 07, 2006, 05:29 AM)
--- End quote ---

Perhaps they meant an interface for instant messaging clients -- which is something I, too, think would be pretty cool.

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All in all this is a stellar release -- I'm especially glad to see that they've taken care to make gmail work perfectly in it.  No use for the widgets, yet, but the bittorrent is worth giving a spin.

edit
This article says it will be released first half of '06.

nontroppo:
For Operatists, here are quite an extensive set of links on the new TP2:

General: http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2006/02/opera-9-tp-2

Search engine customisation interface: http://my.opera.com/mitchman2/blog/show.dml/133235
Thumbnail displays: http://my.opera.com/mitchman2/blog/show.dml/132533
The great content block interface: http://my.opera.com/mitchman2/blog/show.dml/132479

Tim covers a lot of features not obvious from the changelogs: http://weblog.timaltman.com/opera/

Spatial navigation has gotten even better; OPML import/export now supported for feeds; CSS3 opacity etc.

CSS rendering has got even more solid, it is now the only desktop browser to pass George Chavchanidzes arduous stress and torture tests (makes Acid2 look like childs play!). SVG, XSLT and WebForms2 are also much improved.

Site preferences really rock. Remember, even if the UI doesn't have a feature you want, it should be possible to enter it manually. It does currently have bugs with whitelisting cookies.

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