Messages

276

General Software Discussion / Re: Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in (nice blog post)

« on: September 06, 2007, 09:35 AM »

While some of the methods you mention could work, it would be as you say a game of "cat & mouse." You should also be very careful by going overboard with that, because you will end up blocking a lot of "legit" visitors that aren't using any form of ad blocking. Also, just like when it comes to software copy protections, they all get broken at some point. The ones you usually end up hurting are the paying customers, and the ones that just might click your ads but are getting falsely accused of blocking your advertising and as such aren't allowed to visit your site.

I would also like to point out once again that ads aren't "evil" as long as they are relevant to the content of the website, and don't distract me from reading the content. If the ads aren't relevant, there's no difference for a website it I block them or not, because there still is absolutely no chance that I'll ever click any one of them. The same thing goes when the ads becomes overwhelming. This is one of the reasons I never visit sites like IGN anymore. Their ads are usually relevant to the content, but there are just so many of them and they take up a whole lot more bandwidth than their content do so it's just not worth it. After all, you need to have some pretty damn unique content to make me put up with that behavior, because otherwise there are tons of other sites I could visit that offers me the same...just without all the trouble.

277

General Software Discussion / Re: Help needed (again): Miro "destroyed" all my videos!

« on: September 06, 2007, 07:35 AM »

Well, here's what I would have tried:

- Uninstall Miro. Applications that change extensions in Windows most often leaves a backup copy of said extensions that gets restored when uninstalling.
- Try using the "Default programs" utility in Windows and try setting WMP as the default player for all supported filetypes.
- Try installing a new movie/music player, like KMPlayer, VideoLAN or perhaps GOM Player and let it take over all supported extensions.
- Shift-right-click the filetypes you're having problems with, and change the player under "Open width.."

Should the above fail, you could try to open regedit and under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT locate the extensions you're having problems with (like .mp3, .mp4, .aac, .mpg etc.). Each of these keys should have at least two string values that are important here:

PerceivedType = Should be either video or audio, depending on the filetype.
Content Type = The files mime type. For instance, AVI files should have video/avi, MP3 should have audio/mpeg etc. Just google <file extension> + mime type and you should have no problems finding the correct ones.

Now this might not work seeing as there are other regkeys affecting this as well, but it could be worth a shot. I know how difficult this can be to fix, as not to long ago some application took over my .exe and .lnk extensions...but I finally got that sorted by taking a look over here

278

General Software Discussion / Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows

« on: September 05, 2007, 07:21 PM »

Hmm.. Thanks for that Dirhael. Interestingly, this is a feature of Reflex Vision (and Entbloess before that): Live Preview. I've reinstalled the latest version and when using alt-tab the thumbnails are live - I can watch a download progress indicator complete the download and change to "download complete", for example. Just verified that this works under XP Pro.

-Darwin (September 05, 2007, 07:11 PM)

I used to use that program back when I still was on XP, but I removed it after a while seeing as there are several types of windows/applications it doesn't show. It also slows down after using it for a while and it does not always update the previews correctly or as fast as I'd like (well, it didn't back when I used it. They could have improved it since). Basically, there is only so much you can do without having a backend such as Aero or Compiz (Linux) to run on.

279

General Software Discussion / Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows

« on: September 05, 2007, 06:39 PM »

Sorry cybernetnews, I'm not really following what you're saying about the Aero interface (I don't have access to Vista). What does Aero offer above and beyond what these various options listed running under XP offer? You may have answered this in your post above, but as a teacher it is my perogative to encourage my students to read carefully without actually practising what I preach!

-Darwin (September 05, 2007, 06:28 PM)

The main advantage Aero has over all the earlier interfaces of Windows, and this extends to applications such as this, is that all windows are 3D objects. This gives applications like this the possibility to have all windows display their content in real-time. Movies playing in your favorite player will continue playing, that youtube video in your browser will keep playing, if you're compressing a huge set of files, you can see the progress bar updating in real-time in the HUD...basically, none of the "thumbnails" being displayed are static

280

General Software Discussion / Re: Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in (nice blog post)

« on: September 05, 2007, 02:03 PM »

Well, on the same note, they are well within their rights to block you from accessing the site if you choose to block the ads. Its a two way street. I am a firm believer that if you utilize something enough, and its provided for free or offers an option for some form of reimbursement, you should reimburse the author (be it donations, subscriptions, etc). If an ad makes your favorite site free, why shouldnt you support them and let it be shown?

-Josh (September 05, 2007, 01:43 PM)

Oh they certainly are, but by doing so they are really just shooting themselves in the foot. At the moment there are no reliable way of detecting adblocking software (and really, there never will be) so the choice they are left is blocking an entire browser. While this might seem unproblematic to some, you should remember that adblocking is possible, for free, with all major browsers and you can't very well block everyone (well you could, but then what would be the point of having a website at all). Even if you factor in that most people blocking ads are using Firefox, and that they represent perhaps 10-20% of your audience you also need to remember this; The people competent enough to install an extension blocking adverts are also most certainly able to install another extension faking their user agent string being passed to the web server as well. As such, no matter how you look at it, it would be a waste of time and resources to try combating this.
Now I don't make a point of blocking every ad I ever encounter, but I will remove the distracting and intrusive ones. Keep the ads relevant to your content, and don't ever try forcing me to install/enable plugins just to view your ads. Text adverts like the ones Google offers are fine, flashing ones telling me that my computer is at risk because I'm not using some very questionable "security" software is not.

When it takes longer to download the ads than the content of a website, you are clearly doing something wrong. Good look trying to read up on the latest news using dial-up in this day and age. Let me tell you, it's a pain...and expensive.

281

General Software Discussion / Re: Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in (nice blog post)

« on: September 05, 2007, 12:08 PM »

Thats just it, you are visiting something THEY own, not the other way around.

-Josh (September 05, 2007, 11:12 AM)

It still doesn't mean that you've agree to their terms by visiting their site. As long as I didn't sign any legal contract, or at least had to press "OK" on some form of EULA before entering the site, I most certainly have not agreed to anything. I understand that they have them and need the revenue, but if I block them I'm fully within my rights to do so. If it is a site that I really enjoy and would like to support, I'd much rather prefer them to have some form of donation system where I can just give them money directly. If I dislike ads enough to block them, white-listing them on some site I enjoy wouldn't help as I still wouldn't click them. Because of this, they would be nothing more than unnecessary visual (and even audible) distractions and in certain cases, a potential privacy and security risk.

282

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a program like add/remove programs any idea's?

« on: September 05, 2007, 11:59 AM »

You know, I'm as surprised as you are that none of the really good uninstallers have a feature such as this. After all, when something can be done with AutoHotkey in a few hours time by someone that haven't made a GUI application in this scripting language before (I'm mainly a PHP kinda guy ), it shouldn't take a good software author more than a few minutes to do.

283

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a program like add/remove programs any idea's?

« on: September 05, 2007, 07:11 AM »

is there anyway I or a mod can mark this thread as solved since Dirhael came up with a solution that has worked with 100% success ?

-NightFlyer (September 05, 2007, 02:13 AM)

Still no problem with it? Good! In any case, I've updated the program to v1.1, and added a few new features and fixed some potential problems:

+ Added the option to pass command line parameters to the uninstallers without having to change the path field. Did this to prevent someone from accidentally forgetting to enclose the uninstaller path/executable in quotes, which you need to do when passing parameters.
+ Added possibility to add company name and version string.
+ If you selected the incorrect uninstaller when you started the program, you can now browse for a new executable without restarting the program or entering the path manually.
* Sanitized the UID string so that it should be impossible to create unreadable keys if you typed invalid characters into the edit field.
* Fixed generation of random UID strings. Previously it was a very very minimal chance that you could have generated a string that you've added previously, thus overwriting your previous entry. Should not be possible to do in this update.
* Various other changes and fixes for potential problems.
* Better commented .ahk script if you would like to change something.

[url=http://gallery.thesecondscreen.com/uploads/Add_Uninstaller_1.1.zip][Download here]

284

General Software Discussion / Re: AOL active virus shield fails to update - is it just me?

« on: September 05, 2007, 04:41 AM »

Kaspersky doesn't really have anything to do with the lack of updates, since AOL several versions back moved all updates to their own (AOL) servers. As such, Kaspersky doesn't really have anything to say in the matter.

285

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a program like add/remove programs any idea's?

« on: September 04, 2007, 08:55 PM »

Dirhael your awesome  exactly the sort of thing I was looking for thanks a million 
 
PhilB66 thanks for the info, I knew about the large space problem and have a regkey on a disk someplace here to fix that...sadly there is no scroll bar so I knew that wasn't the problem.

-NightFlyer (September 04, 2007, 08:46 PM)

No problem at all, just happy to help out Let me know if you encounter any problems with it, as I've only tested it on Windows Vista.

286

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 08:36 PM »

That comment wasn't directed directly at torrent support. I merely listed torrent support as an example of how they add a feature and have yet to expand it. My comment was more aimed towards roboform. You are limited to using the wand or you don't have much of a choice otherwise. Am I wrong in this arena? Can you in fact use roboform or any other form filler/password manager with opera? Yes, keepass works, but that is more something sending keystrokes to the browser, not a true form filler since it cant gather field names to determine what values to fill in each field.

Anyways, when it comes to irc, again, this isn't what my comment was directed at. I don't use email or IRC from opera because they are, in my opinion, substandard, more difficult to use, and don't belong in a browser suite (Mozilla realized this, and as such the Mozilla suite is basically being eliminated).

Your pointing out the spell checkers reinforces my point that a more suitable API or plug-in based system is required so that you don't have to jump through hoops to get features like this to work. I would love to use my auto-complete utility to fill in where opera fails to add a feature (Auto-complete is another highly requested feature, and no, notes isn't an acceptable alternative since I don't want to type every possible auto-complete or web address into a note field). This again, is an example of where a user should be able to grow the browser as their own without having to resort to only what the developers add to the browser.

-Josh (September 04, 2007, 07:31 PM)

Opera supports Aspell for spell checking out of the box though so I wouldn't call it jumping through anything to get that done though

Also, both the email and IRC client are both tripple A products in my eyes, for my use of course. Anyway, I see nothing wrong in wanting support for something like extensions of plugins. Still, I would best like to see this discussion taking place in some other topic as nothing good can come out of it.

287

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a program like add/remove programs any idea's?

« on: September 04, 2007, 08:09 PM »

This thread actually inspired me to make my first GUI AutoHotkey application...ever It's a very simple program, in that when you launch the executable you get a "browse for file" dialogue. When you've located the file, you'll get a dialogue asking for the name of the program and if you want to add the uninstaller for the current user only, or system wide. I've added the .ahk script, a compiled executable and the icon in a archive, just in case you need to do some changes.

Hope this helps you, or someone else out!

[See this post for latest version]

288

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 07:16 PM »

I have to say, I don't agree with you regarding what you wrote in that last post Josh. The bittorrent support works, even if there isn't a lot of options. Should you not like it, there is nothing stopping you from using whatever client you want to. The same goes for IRC, E-mail and everything else.
Saying that Opera Software have an attitude in the area of "Use what we put in there, or nothing at all" is patently false, seeing as outside of the wand you have always been free to choose whatever alternative application you want to use, and I'm not so sure that 3rd party developers can't develop a working solution in that area either. After all, if it wasn't possible to read or add text to text fields etc. from the browser by external programs, I wouldn't be able to use things like external spell checkers with Opera.

289

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera and NoClose - please help :)

« on: September 04, 2007, 01:25 PM »

Unfortunately, Opera Company does not want to change this problem, for example by putting the whole window into the dustbin (so one can undelete the window with tabs. Closed Tabs are moved to dustbin where one can undelete).

-Ralfi008 (September 04, 2007, 12:45 PM)

Don't know about noclose, but what you just said there simply isn't true. How do I know this? Because in the latest test release of Opera, you can do just what you are looking for It's still a alpha version, so I don't know if I'd recommend you to use it as your primary browser just yet but should you want to try, you will find more details in this topic.

290

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 11:21 AM »

Oh, yeah, forgot about one thing. Opera's cost. IIRC Opera has this agreement with Google, which provides revenues by the use of the search box. I don't know if they had one with Yahoo, I think only the Mozilla team has this one. In this recent interview with Jon Von Tetzchner, the interviewer mentions a revenue of $50 million from Google (search for "50m", it's the only result there). IIRC Firefox has something like $70 million last year, but of course, Google is much involved with Firefox development. They also have some contracts with Nintendo for the DS and the Wii browsers, and probably phone carriers or manufactures paid to them for Opera mini (or not).

Ah, cool, thanks Dirhael. About that screencast, I have a open tab with Cybernetnews waiting

(If Asa Doztler came here, he would shout "fanboy" at me )

-Lashiec (September 04, 2007, 11:14 AM)

Asa Dotzler shouts obscenities at everyone that doesn't repeat "Firefox is is the tools of the Gods" to themselves at least 10 times a day though, so I wouldn't really have taken that as an insult. No matter how one feels regarding the grilled Fox, it's hard not to despise that man. He doesn't exactly do the Mozilla foundation any favors from a PR perspective...

291

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 11:07 AM »

The very moment I saw this thread I was expecting Josh to bash Opera for lack of support for RoboForm. You are so predictable... haha, just joking, take it easy . If they add extensions support, it won't happen before Opera 10, too many things should change and this is a medium upgrade, not a major new version. To support extensions, MAJOR tests are needed before release, and more considering how picky are at Opera Software about not opening the software to avoid bugs like some affecting Firefox (and IE )

As for the news... OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD... the changes are impressive. Better integration with sites, more speed and that new desktop search-like feature is something worth hearing. I'm particularly amused by the last one. Did anyone try it with Opera at its maximum settings for history entries (10000)? Does it perform better than Opera 9.2? (it's one of the annoyances that plagues Opera). And I wonder if that mysterious 'status bar' feature was revealed...

Hmmm, and Spybot 1.5 was released today, with Opera support. And probably some new iPods later today. And 'Barcelona' next week... this what they call 'returning from holidays' I suppose, at full blast, indeed.

-Lashiec (September 04, 2007, 10:56 AM)

Haven't tested it with 10k entries, but for me that have it set at 1000 the new alpha build is a whole lot faster than the older versions. Most notably, the opera.exe process quits just about the same instant I close the browser (and that it didn't to it the past, not even close).

By the way, Cybernetnews have a short screencast up where they introduce some of the new features. It's short and doesn't dive very deep, but it's nice for those that doesn't want to install pre-release software

292

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 09:13 AM »

Hmm... I think you didn't understand my problem. At least, the fix you mentioned doesn't work.
I also tried adding enter=open link in the browser section, but that only made "enter" open the link under the cursor and not the link selected

-jgpaiva (September 04, 2007, 09:03 AM)

It could be that I'm just bad at explaining, but it does work.

I do think I understood what you meant, but just to be sure...:
- Press "," to start a inline search for links...
- ...start typing what you're looking for, and when a match is found you hit enter to open said link
?

If that's what you mean, then it does work here at least. However, you could try adding the following under "bookmark widget" instead of just "Open link":

[Select]

Activate element | Open link

That's the exact same thing that previous releases uses. Let me know if it helps

293

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 08:01 AM »

It does not appear to be any workarounds at this time, as it seems like the problem is caused by a bug in the new javascript engine (well, it *is* alpha software after all). Looks like we'll just have to wait for the next release if we want to watch more AAA flash videos from that site...which of course if unfortunate, considering just how funny those videos are

294

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 07:43 AM »

The video is this one, dirhael.

About the enter thing, the checkbox is there, but unfortunatelly, it doesn't fix my problem

-jgpaiva (September 04, 2007, 07:32 AM)

Doh, I didn't notice that Enter didn't work as expected. No matter, I've solved it properly now What you need to do is to go to the same page as I sent you to the last time, but this time you should double-click "Opera standard" under "Keyboard setup."
In the list you're now looking at, expand the "Advanced" branch and locate the "Bookmarks Widget." Select it and press new. On the left you simply type in "Enter", and on the right "Open link"
When done, just press Ok all the way out, and things should be back to normal again

I'm going to take a look at the video thing right away, and I'll report back what I can find.

295

General Software Discussion / Re: web mail client

« on: September 04, 2007, 07:28 AM »

you are wrong

-kalos (September 04, 2007, 07:22 AM)

No I'm not, as I am using POP3 to access my free Yahoo account right now

296

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 07:25 AM »

I like the new way it scrolls with pageup/down.
I've seen reports about it being faster, but as i already found it very fast before, i can't see any difference.

It does have an anoyance, though. Before, i could search for links with the keyboard ("," + keyword) and then press enter to open the link. Now, when i press enter, nothing happens

-jgpaiva (September 04, 2007, 07:19 AM)

That feature is still there, just disabled by default. As I understand it, the reason this was done is that some users complained that they kept accidentally hitting one-button shortcuts when they thought that a text area was focused. No, I don't understand the complaint either...

Anyway, to enable this useful feature again, open "Preferences", go to the "Advanced" tab, select "Shortcuts" and place a checkmark in the box where it says "Enable single key shortcuts."

Hope this helps


EDIT: Could you give me a link to one of the places where the Flash players doesn't work? Not that I can do anything about it as I'm just a fellow Opera user, but I just suspect that the reason if fails has something to do with browser sniffing (for instance, Google does this so I have to use "site preferences" to work around it).

297

General Software Discussion / Re: web mail client

« on: September 04, 2007, 07:00 AM »

there is no free POP3 access to yahoo web mail

-kalos (September 04, 2007, 04:45 AM)

There isn't? I signed up for a new yahoo account just the other week, and I sure have free POP3 access. All I had to do was go into my settings and enable it.

298

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 06:40 AM »

Super sweet !

I have to admit i'm not going to touch it til it goes beta at least.I dig Opera,it seems as a company they listen
to their users.Ironicly,for a browser i wouldn't pay for back in the day i would pay for now.I wonder how they
generate money ?

-tinyvillager (September 04, 2007, 06:30 AM)

I don't think they get much money from the desktop browser. I think I read somewhere that most of their income comes from Opera on other platforms, like mobile phones, PDA's, TV sets, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii etc.
The only income they get from the desktop browser is from the deals they have to use google/yahoo as their default search engine (or so I've heard).

That's all fine and nice. How come I can't change the search engine (inside the search box) from yahoo to anything else?

-sri (September 04, 2007, 06:32 AM)

You can. Just open your preferences, go to the search tab and double-click on the search engine you want to use. There, press the advanced button and place a checkmark the the relevant box

299

General Software Discussion / Opera - new alpha version brings untold pleasures...or something like that.

« on: September 04, 2007, 06:18 AM »

So yeah, I understand that there are other Opera users here as well, so I thought we'd have a topic regarding the new alpha build that was just released today. Let me tell you, I already love it despite the fact that it haven't even reached beta status yet. The changelog is *huge* so I'll just post it within the code tags and pick out some things that I've found to be the highlights so far

[Select]

Changelog for Opera 9.50 Alpha 1 for Windows
Information
Download:
MSI English-only
English Classic installer
Build: 9500
Released: September 4, 2007
Release Notes
This is an alpha version of Opera. Use only on properly backed up computers and do not install over previous Opera versions
This release uses new storage and indexing formats for Opera Mail (including newsfeeds). If you copy your Mail directory from an existing profile, you will be prompted to convert all accounts into the new format and re-index your messages. You will not be able to downgrade to a previous version of Opera after starting the conversion process
Known issues
Kestrel does not currently run on Windows 95B
POP server cleaning has been disabled: When disabling the "Leave messages on server" option, existing messages on the server are not removed
[BUG 274975] Graphical smilies do not work
[BUG 280261] Removing messages from filters does not work
[BUG 277681] Some order lists are displayed as unordered lists
[BUG 279302] Line wrapping does not work correctly in some cases, causing overly long lines of text and horizontal scrollbars; often seen at Wikipedia
[BUG 280678] Files are often saved with the incorrect file extension
[BUG 213115] Queued mail is sent at the next check, instead of waiting for manual action
[BUG 281550] Setting an external source viewer does not work
Changes since Opera 9.23
Display and Scripting
Rendering Engine
Fixed numerous stability issues
Plugged numerous memory leaks
Plethora of performance improvements throughout
Added support for the CSS3 overflow-x and overflow-y properties (demo)
Added support for the CSS3 text-shadow property (demo)
Added support for the CSS3 Selectors (demo)
Added support for the CSS3 outline-offset property (demos)
Added support for the CSS3 background-size property (only accessible via the custom -o-background-size property)
Added support for the CSS3 currentColor color keyword
Added support for the CSS2.1 white-space: pre-line value
Added support for the :-o-prefocus pseudo-class, which allows styling of form elements reached via spatial navigation
Added support for the custom -o-language-string(n) property for use in User and Internal Stylesheets to allow localized strings in stylesheets
Added support for the custom -o-table-baseline property, used to determine which row of an inline-table will be used as the baseline of the table. The property accepts either an integer or inherit value, where the integer refers to the table row to use as the table's baseline. -1 refers to the last row of the table and -n refers to the nth row from the bottom. If the integer value is 0, the bottom margin edge of the table will be treated as the table's baseline. The initial value is 1. This property only applies to inline-tables
Added support for the label attribute of option elements
Greatly improved table layout algorithm
Major improvements to the shrink-wrapping algorithm
Greatly improved support for the CSS outline property
Support the min-width and max-width properties for elements styled with display: table-cell (such as td and th elements)
Improved the handling of vertical alignment changes for form elements
No longer use font-variant: small-caps for acronym elements
Disallow use of percentage width values for the border-width property
Removed support for class selectors starting with a digit in Quirks mode
rowspan=0 is now also supported in Quirks mode
Fixed problem where the :lang() selector did not correctly match the full string
Improved support for @import, @media, @namespace, and @page at-rules
Fixed problem where the background-attachment property did not apply in ::first-line contexts
Fixed error handling of nobr tag
Fixed problem preventing elements with height: inherit from inheriting the computed value of height
Support the color attribute for hr elements
Fixed layout problems on TV.com caused by using <li">
Updated tabindex attribute handling: any element with a tabindex that is a positive number should be reachable by tabbing. Elements with a negative tabindex should never be reachable by tabbing
Fixed problem with the scrollbar at BlogLines.com
Give multi-select elements a reasonable default size
Fixed problem with large decimal em values being rounded to nearest integer (demo)
Support overflow in inline-table and inline-block elements, which fixes unclickable links and truncated content on Dell.com
Fixed problem where certain MHTML files displayed blank until resizing the page
Fixed redraw problem when reducing the width of td elements via DOM
Support for the display: table-column and table-column-group values on elements other than col and colgroup
Fix rounding error when calculating percentage font-sizes
Fixed problem where links in floated elements were not clickable, which caused problems with WordPress web sites
Fixed problem with using percentage height on blocks inside table cells
Resolved issue where linebreaks were shown in the title of XML documents
Allow changing the background of input type=image elements
Fixed incorrect use of padding on table elements when setting the border-spacing property and using the separated-border model
Fixed problems with negative margins on caption elements causing the captions to display far, far to the right, as seen at Wachovia.com
Inherit frameset encoding into frame documents, using the same restrictions as used for inline frames
Add HTML5 entity &TRADE; as an alias to &trade;
Media queries are now dynamic, allowing them to update when the window size is changed not just when the page loads
Fixed problems displaying full-screen YouTube videos
Fixed problems focusing the message composition area on Gmail
Store the original strings in HTML attributes for use by CSS selectors and DOM
JavaScript/DOM
Rewritten ECMAscript engine, which is more flexible and uses less memory
Added support for JavaScript 1.5 Getters and Setters
Added support for the DOM 3 Core Node.isSameNode method
Added support for the DOM 3 Core Text.wholeText attribute and Text.replaceWholeText method
Added support for the DOM 3 Core Node.compareDocumentPosition method (used by Google Pages)
Added support for the Microsoft XML DOM Node.selectNodes and Node.selectSingleNode methods
Added support for the Gecko DOM Range.comparePoint method (used by Google Pages)
Added support for the HTML5 {Document,Element}.getElementsByClassName method
Added support for the HTML5 Navigator.onLine attribute and the Window.{online,offline} events
Added support for the HTML5 Canvas.getImageData and Canvas.putImageData methods, including support for creating an ImageData object using the ImageData interface
Added support for the HTML5 Canvas.transform, Canvas.setTransform, and Canvas.isPointInPath methods
Added support for the HTML5 Element.tabindex attribute and the Element.{blur,focus} methods
Added support for the Microsoft XMLDocument class used for all XML documents (except SVG and XHTML) for cross-browser consistency. The DOM 3 Load and Save Document.async attribute and Document.load method will no longer work in the Document class
Added support for the document.moveFocus{left,right,up,down} methods for directing spatial navigation via JavaScript
Added support for the start and stop methods of marquee elements
Insert em tag instead of i tag when using italic execCommand parameter
Fixed problems changing the font size of textarea elements via DOM
Fixed problem that caused non-breaking spaces to be inserted in textarea elements as seen at Gmail
Corrected name of LSLoadEvent.input attribute (was LSLoadEvent.filter)
Fixed various bugs where mouse events had built-in effects before script event processing was finished (cancelled mousedown should not move focus, blur/focus events caused by mousedown event should be processed after rather than before the mousedown event causing them, and so on)
Stopped showing text nodes in script and style elements when using the Document.all collection
Trigger an onload event for images set to display:none
Fixed canvas locking in the 2dgame context to allow updating when the canvas is locked and fixed the update function to actually work
Disabled Document.length, as it caused problems in the Apple.com CoverFlow demo
Remove the text attribute from the HTMLSelectElement collection
Date.getYear() now returns full year when the year is > 1999 or < 1900 for cross-browser compatibility (despite breaking the JS spec.)
Removed IE-compatibility where Document.getElementById treated name and id attributes the same, which caused problems with jQuery
No longer share events between the Window and Document objects
Fixed problem where the Date method with an out of range day parameter became the current date and other cross-browser consistency issues
No longer create multiple text nodes when there's more than 32KB of data in the text node
Fixed problem changing the type attribute of button elements
Fixed problem where setting the scrollTop attribute for textarea elements didn't scroll the textarea contents
Several fixes to Document.activeElement to make it work more consistently
Give xml tags within HTML documents a documentElement attribute
XMLHttpRequest now resolves URLs according to the HTML base element
Event.keyCode will now return keyboard codes for punctuation keys in addition to alphanumeric keys, which fixes issues with keyboard navigation at Gmail
Fixed problem displaying maps on theaa.com caused by scrollTop working on both the html and body element simultaneously
Document.body.{clientHeight,clientWidth} and Document.documentElement.{clientHeight,clientWidth} now return the correct values in Strict mode, which fixes issues with Novell GroupWise
Made event capturing more cross-browser compatible: No longer capture load events if listener is attached to the window and fire capturing events at target; attach listeners to the document object if you need to capture load events from within the document
No longer lose the value of an input element created via DOM when changing the type attribute, which caused problems when editing del.icio.us bookmarks
SVG
Added partial SVG Tiny 1.2 support
Added support for using SVGs in img elements and the CSS background-image and list-style-image properties
Added external reference support for SVGs
Rich Text Input
Use line/paragraph breaking in rich text editor: Enter should insert block-break (new paragraph) and Shift+Enter should insert line-break (br element)
Improved handling of inserted and removed elements
Other
Fixed numerous inconsistencies and specification violations in the SVG, DOM, WML, Web Forms 2.0, XPath, and XSLT implementations
Added support for UAX #14 Line Breaking Properties and UAX #29 Text Boundaries annexes
XSLT document() function will no longer cause an XSLT processing error if it is not called
Enabled RTL support in text inputs (including Opera Mail) and form elements
Fixed problem where the HttpURLConnection Java object did not support getHeaderField and getHeaderFieldKey
Allow installation of certificates that generate warnings
Always obey server-set Expiry header
User Interface
Opera Link: bookmarks, Personal bar, and Speed Dial data can be synchronized via my.opera.com; access via the File > Synchronize with My Opera menu option; the most recent Speed Dial data will always be used when synchronizing
Redesigned Address bar drop-down displayed when entering text in the Address bar:
Includes excerpts from previously visited pages
Improved visual design
Orders entries by popularity
Local file auto-completion
Re-enabled Status bar by default and moved some UI elements from View bar to Status bar
Removed View bar
Simplified Download dialog
Closed windows are now also displayed in the Trash can and the Window > Closed menu
"Open with" functionality added to web page context menu and Transfer panel/page
Content blocking improvements:
Added site-specific toggling of content blocking
Fixed problem where opening the Details dialog for a page would cause some blocked paths to change
Double-clicking entries in the Details dialog now edits them
Only show filters that cause content to be blocked on the current page in the Details dialog
CSS and JS files matching blocked patterns are now also shown in the Details dialog
Redesigned certificate warning dialog
Added Undo for Speed Dial
Added Quick find to the Windows panel
Improved thumbnail rendering quality
Improved use of ellipses throughout user interface
Only display one thumbnail in the tab cycle dialog (Ctrl/Option+Tab)
Disabled dragging links/favicons to arbitrary toolbars (exceptions: Personal bar and opera: buttons); hold Shift or open the Tools > Appearances dialog to enable dragging
Fixed problem where the window resizer only worked in a small percentage of the region that it should
Close the correct tab when attempting to close an inactive tab via the Windows panel
Fixed problem with tabs being upside down when the Page bar is at the bottom
Fixed problem with over-zealous generation of toolbar files
Abort start-up when closing the Start-up dialog
Fixed problem with multi-word bookmark nicknames
Fixed problem where changing the language file closes Preferences
Switch to the locked tab when clicking its locked icon
Wand will no longer block form submits, making it possible to see if login was successful before storing your login credentials
Fixed problem where the Error Console was not cleared after being reopened
Fixed problem removing scrollbar styling once it's deactivated
Spelling check now works in single-line inputs, too
Default to saving as Web archives and remember format selection
Switch to title casing for menu text
Fixed problem dragging notes when no tab was active
Customization
Allow cascading dialog.ini files
Added new delay action for setup files: delay, X where X is milliseconds. It will delay asynchronously the rest of the actions defined in the string until the specified time has expired
Make [Cycler Button Skin] section in skins work correctly
Added .mini toolbar state (used in the Status bar) to make buttons and padding 80% of normal size
Moved several files into the "defaults" profile sub-directory for improved consistency
Added PluginInitialized User JS event
Accessibility
Major refactoring of keyboard shortcuts
Experimental screen reader support:
Added support for Microsoft Active Accessibility API (MSAA)
Preliminary support for Window-Eyes, JAWS, NVDA, and OS X VoiceOver
Collaborated with GW Micro on improved compatibility with future releases of Window-Eyes
Basic implementation of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)
Spatial navigation improvements:
Restore navigated element when moving in history
All keyboard navigation methods (spatial navigation, Ctrl/Cmd+Up/Down, inline find, etc.) should now work based on the same elements, which allows you to use spatial navigation after inline find, etc.
Fixed problem with Tab key navigation finding form elements beyond the current page when navigating history
The scrollbar now touches the edge of the screen when the window is maximized to better adhere to Fitts' Law
Keyboard shortcuts using Ctrl/Cmd+Shift no longer always open in a background tab
Mail/News
Back-ends
Performance improvements, including reduced memory usage, reduced disk accesses, and reduced freezing when checking for new mail/newsfeeds
Improved IMAP reliability, especially when fetching mail with multiple clients
When using "Leave messages on server", POP3 messages are permanently removed from the server when the Trash view is emptied (disable by setting "Permanent delete=0" for the relevant account in accounts.ini)
Connections are no longer initiated before the Start-up dialog is dismissed
Experimental IMAP Keyword support: messages marked as Spam will automatically be marked with the $Spam keyword; existing keywords will generate new filters
Fixed several problems handling multipart messages and message attachments, including messages sent from Apple Mail
Fixed problems updating the list of newsgroups available on a server
Messages in the selected IMAP sent folder will be shown in the Sent view
Fixed problem where mail was never sent if it initially failed to send
User Interface
New, experimental notification system: each message will generate a notification, though one notification per account will appear if more than three messages are received
Refreshed Mail panel, which replaces the status pane with account icons
Pressing F5 will check for new messages in the current view; useful for manually checking for new newsfeeds
Replaced "Save as draft" button in the Compose window with a "Discard draft" button: drafts are auto-saved once text is entered in the message body
IMAP folders are displayed in a hierarchy, as appropriate
The Mail panel now indicates nested filters or mailboxes
Users can now decide how many messages to download when subscribing to a newsgroup
Message thread expansion/collapse is now performed only by clicking the thread triangle in front of the message subject, not when clicking the message subject text
Fixed problems overriding encoding of received messages via the View > Encoding menu
Fixed problem where a filter named "INBOX" could not be edited or deleted
Fixed multiple problems caused by using a master password
Mail passwords are now stored in the Wand password database
Improved selection tracking in message lists (for instance, when toggling threading in a view, scrolling, etc.)
Fixed a couple of issues that could hamper proper threading
Fixed problem where replying always quoted the text/html portion of multipart/alternative messages
Correctly delete subscribed newsfeeds when requested to do so
Added option to filter/search based on message bodies only
Improved spatial navigation of messages
Added Ctrl/Cmd+S shortcut to add attachments to messages
Import
Made Netscape, Eudora, and Opera 5/6 import options available cross-platform
Fixed problem importing mail from Thunderbird
Fixed multiple problems with the Outlook Express importer
Fixed problem sending mail from accounts created by importing mail
Chat
Notifications can be limited to private messages rather than all channel activity (can be enabled in Preferences > Advanced > Notifications)
Miscellaneous
New internal page, opera:historysearch, which searches the content of visited pages
Redesigned Info panel: it now includes the page display mode, download date, META tags, links to stylesheets and JavaScript files, etc.
Cache files no longer use file extensions
Added "Drag to scroll" (disabled by default) which allows scrolling by "grabbing" the page, much like on mobile phones with touch screens
Numerous improvements to mailto link handling
Automatic page refreshing can now be overridden via the "Reload every" context menu item
Fixed problem with pages/bookmarks showing the incorrect favicon
No longer attempt to follow automatic redirects when navigating in history
Improvements to handling of full hard disks
Partial Extended Validation certificate support: no user interface has been added yet
Added support for the httpOnly parameter of the Set-Cookie header
Disable "Allow raising of windows" by default
Fixed problem disabling plug-ins via plugin-ignore.ini
Added support for the BitTorrent peer exchange protocol, which is compatible with libtorrent and µTorrent
Increased network buffer size (opera:config#Performance|NetworkBufferSize) from 32KB to 128KB
Added support for JIS X 0212 in EUC-JP code set 3 and ISO-2022-JP
Added support for JIS-Roman output in ISO-2022-JP
Enabled auto-detection of ISO-2022-JP-1 support
Added zh-SG and zh-MO as known language codes and SG and MO as country codes for selecting Chinese variant
Windows-specific
Associate Opera with .xhtml, .mht, .svg, and .torrent files
Removed option to associate Opera with URL Shortcuts
Auto-scroll icon now appears where clicked instead of centered on the page
Add drop-down shadows on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista if Control Panel > Display > Appearance > Effects > Show shadows under menus is enabled
Better support for the Default program settings dialog in Windows XP and Vista
Dropped support for Winsock 1
Fixed problem where transparent GIFs used as backgrounds would turn black when the page was zoomed

[Changelog link]

So, to recap:
- It features a new, even faster, rendering engine. No, I didn't think it was possible either

- Brand spankin' new javascript engine. It is now (as far as I can tell) compatible with both Google Docs and Google Calendar.

- Better integration with your OS, meaning that for instance the "save as..." dialogues on Vista uses the native ones instead of the old-fashioned one. Other Opera+Vista users will understand what I'm saying here I hope...

- Built-in synchronization with your my.opera.com account. Online storage for bookmarks etc. is always welcome!

- Amazing new address bar feature, where it doesn't just keep track of what links you've visited, it keeps a fulltext index of the entire page content! This means that if you start typing "donationcoder" in the address bar and you've visited both these forums and some other blog where someone might have mentioned "donationcoder" in a comment on the page, you will now have both URL's displayed in the dropdown menu (with a brief summary of the text as well). Don't know if I've explained this well enough so that you'll understand it, but this is one of the most amazing things I've tried. It's like a Google Desktop Search, only for your visited and bookmarked pages, built into the browser. It doesn't even slow things down one bit. I love it! 

- Updated M2 mail client. It's now even faster, and apparently more reliable.

- New, smoother, autoscrolling. I know this is a minor point, but I've seen many users complain that when you press the middle button, the autoscroll symbol and mouse cursor jumps to the middle of the page instead of where you pressed it down. Well no more!

---

There are a ton more features etc. as well, but this'll have to do for now. I need to play around with it a bit more before I have more to say

[Download it here]

300

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: xplorer², a powerful windows file manager and explorer replacement / alternative

« on: September 03, 2007, 08:52 AM »

Well, you're obviously a convert - good for you

It just doesn't work for me, I like my explorer to be LEAN_AND_MEAN (xplorer2 weighs in at ~780kb uncompressed) and fast... and without a lot of stupid copy protection running in the background that isn't a problem for the crackers anyway, but stops me from un-UPX'ing the executable (and yes, that does matter when having multiple open TC windows launches a full new process).

-f0dder (September 02, 2007, 06:03 AM)

While I completely agree with you on the point about not being able to un-UPX totalcmd.exe being stupid, you can get a offical unpacked executable by checking out this topic at the TC forums. I don't like UPX at all no matter what application it is, as it slows down file access if you're using real-time anti-virus protection (in my case, NOD32).