Opera 9 Beta

[allen]

Opera 9 has been under development for a while, and preview builds have been available -- but for those too cautious to use pre-beta software but not cautious enough to avoid betas, Opera 9 beta is now out.

Opera Software today announced the first public Beta of Opera 9. This version includes Widgets, small Web programs running in their own windows that are fun, easy-to-use and live on users' desktops. The Opera 9 Beta also features support for BitTorrent, a popular file downloading technology, in addition to an easy-to-use content blocker and thumbnail previews of tabbed sites.

Press Release
Windows Beta Download

I made an admittedly simplistic widget for it.

[Redhat]

Thanks, Allen! Got it running smooth on this Ubuntu box 

[Harrie]

I am loving Opera!  I'm having so much fun learning about it - it has some simply great features.  I have Opera 9, Build 8212.  Allen, I saw this the other day and then looked at your site and read about your widget, etc.  I enjoyed it all.

I'd like to say now, though, that I love the idea of the widgets, but really, if they'd only snap into place or somehow otherwise "sit" right.  The few that I've tried (not yours yet), they just seem so obtrusive.  Is this a lone opinion?  For instance, I got Knowledge Mate last night, but after running it, it just grew too much and I couldn't find a way to adjust it. 

[allen]

Opera is great -- and the longer you play with it, the more obvious it becomes -- beyond the obvious, there are a lot of configuration options you can take advantage of hidden throughout various files -- with a little time and a lot of love, Opera can be optimised to be the perfect browsing environment for any user.

That said, the widgets are interesting.  It took me a while to adopt them at all, as I too found them obtruse and, essentially, trivial.  The widget I made is by no means an exception -- it's nothing more than a frontend for my regex find/replace utility.

That said, for me the best approach to widgets is on-demand.  While I often keep the weather widget pinned (always on my desktop) the rest are usually hidden.  When I need to use a widget, I just hit F6 and they all toggle on.  Use what I need and toggle them back off.  There are a lot that can be handy but when push comes to shove, there just isn't enough desktop space for a bunch of widgets that I'm only using once or twice a day if that on top of everything else I keep open.

The widgets are novel and have great potential as they evolve, but at this point there far from being one of Opera's stronger features in my opinion.

[zridling]

Count me in. I completely ditched and deleted Firefox for Opera 9. Not because it's free, but because it's just... so damn good.

[Harrie]

That makes a lot of sense, Allen.  I think I'll just go for any widgets that blow me away, use them on demand, and forget about any others. 

I know I have a lot of learning to do about customizing Opera and I'm glad! 

zridling, what "struck you most," between the eyes I mean, about Opera?  Just very curious.

[tinyvillager]

Firefox has taken a back seat for me too.Still a great a great browser and will always be installed on my machine,but Opera seems so effortless to me.I swear it handles tabs better.


Personally i don't tweak it too much but i do put the "enable cookies" option on the face of the browser.
I shrink the icons down to 40% and use windows native as it's theme.

[jgpaiva]

Here's a good thread for people to post their screenshots of opera: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2573.0
That said, opera is the best browser there is, no discussions about it. Although firefox does have some interesting extensions (which even made me try it for about 2 hours), opera is the ultimate browser machine (recognize the paralel? )
I've used opera for years, and i wouldn't trade it for anything!

[allen]

I know I have a lot of learning to do about customizing Opera and I'm glad! 

A good place to start is here.  Lots of information . . . maybe too much

[Edvard]

I'm seriously considering switching to Opera from FF for many reasons I won't go into here. The things that have stopped me from using Opera are (1) Price. (no longer a consideration) and (2)  User interface. I'm not talking skins, I'm talking Where's My Freaking Buttons (!?!?!?!). I have a lot of muscle memory invested in FF and the default Opera interface is (for now) cluttered and disorienting. It took me an hour, but I finally figured out how to put a Stop button on my Navigation toolbar (w00t!!!11!!1). Now I have to clear out the crap and put what I want where I want and it is proving to be a difficult task. But, judging by past experience, this is try #2 so it may turn out to be a keeper.

[jgpaiva]

@edvard: I had the exact same problem when i tried ff. I couldn't find the buttons, nor move them to other places. You just have to dig a bit, but you'll find opera's user interface is (very!!) costumizable. If you'd like to see some nice all-in-one buttons, you should see here.
(this is a link to nontroppo's fantastic website, with everything you'd like to know about opera, the same allen mentioned, just another page)

IMO, you just have to give it some time. I'm sure you'll find out great things about it.

[Edvard]

What I'm wanting to do is make everything a little more FF-ish. BIG nav buttons to the left of the url box, tabs under that over the window. No bookmark, link or fav buttons taking up space to the left of the window, things like that. HEY I just noticed my Stop button is not there any more... what gives?!?!. These kind of things make me STOP using software. I'm not done with Opera yet so there may be hope...

P.S. Opera 9 Beta crashes on NT4 (I'm on 8.5...). Where the heck do I submit a bug report (and a Dr. Watson log, )?

[jgpaiva]

I can understand you. Once one gets used to an interface, it's very hard to use a different one.
I know why your "stop" button disappeared. It's the reload button. The reload button changes to the stop button when a page is being loaded

[Edvard]

Weird. I just noticed that as I was getting to this topic. Freaking weird.