Author Topic: Opera Dragonfly (Read 27,032 times)

nontroppo · « **on:** February 25, 2008, 01:55 PM »

[attachimg=#]

In a recent interview with Dave Storey (chief web-opener at Opera) in a Norwegian paper, some astute readers noticed a pamphlet on his desk for a new project from Opera, called Dragonfly (or the Dragonflyer). Dave is not leaking many more details, but we may see more info coming soonish:

http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/2008/02/24/opera-dragonfly

My money is on the set of web-developer tools they are developing. The interface is already set up in preferences:

opera:config#DeveloperTools|EnableDebugging

Another idea is of some kind of peer-2-peer interface hinted at in an older interview some months ago. Anyone care to guess what the Dragonflyer may be?

nontroppo · « **Reply #1 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:07 PM »

The URL for the Opera holding page: http://www.opera.com/dragonfly/

Lashiec · « **Reply #2 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:19 PM »

My guess is that they're getting Yngwie Malmsteen for the Opera project

I don't know, I prefer to be surprised. As long as it's something that does not make me cry (</Scoble>), weird hype it's not good

What intrigues me is why he has so many Internet Explorer 7 references in his desk...

f0dder · « **Reply #3 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:59 PM »

Why don't people google the web before coming up with codenames for their projects? I thought this was going to be a specific port of Opera

nontroppo · « **Reply #4 on:** February 25, 2008, 03:32 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on February 25, 2008, 02:19 PM

What intrigues me is why he has so many Internet Explorer 7 references in his desk...

Perhaps Opera Dragonfly will replace the fast, efficient Presto renderer with IE8's bloated core?

allen · « **Reply #5 on:** February 25, 2008, 03:42 PM »

Or better yet, the ability to force your computer/applications to use presto rather than IE for in-application browsing.

Ampa · « **Reply #6 on:** February 25, 2008, 04:13 PM »

The [Fire][Bug] -> [Dragon][Fly] argument seems believable, since we already know that Opera has promised better developer tools for a while now.

yotta · « **Reply #7 on:** February 25, 2008, 04:58 PM »

firebug for opera would be good, its needs it!

Lashiec · « **Reply #8 on:** February 25, 2008, 06:44 PM »

It must be the web developers tools, the story has started to propagate around the web, and everyone is betting on that possibility, both the guy running Avencius and the commenters at Opera Watch

Renegade · « **Reply #9 on:** February 25, 2008, 09:27 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on February 25, 2008, 02:19 PM

My guess is that they're getting Yngwie Malmsteen for the Opera project

Hahahaha~!

You KNOW that we'd expect it to download the entire Internet somewhere between bar 2 and 3 then!

(For those that don't know Yngwie, he's the guitar speed God and can play all of Wagner's "The Ring" in under 8 seconds instead of 8 hours.)

justice · « **Reply #10 on:** February 25, 2008, 11:00 PM »

I think its something to do with handhelds, seeing as the two stylesheets in the source are the regular one and a handheld one, even in the regular one i see references to a handheld class, why go through so much bother for a splashpage - it must be the css for the full site which leads me to say they're targetting handhelds.

maybe its opera for the iphone

sri · « **Reply #11 on:** February 26, 2008, 11:10 AM »

Quote from: Ampa on February 25, 2008, 04:13 PM

The [Fire][Bug] -> [Dragon][Fly] argument seems believable, since we already know that Opera has promised better developer tools for a while now.

or, being optimistic:

[Robo][Form] -> [Dragon][Fly]

i.e., Opera supporting Roboform (or the other way round). yay!

justice · « **Reply #12 on:** February 26, 2008, 11:19 AM »

If you want to know as soon as it changes:
http://www.changedetection.com/log/opera/dragonfly_log.html

urlwolf · « **Reply #13 on:** February 26, 2008, 06:17 PM »

How about a response to the new Safari engine, webKit, which is supposed to be really fast:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/safari_is_about_to_get_crazy_fast

Honestly if another company (even apple) can make something faster than opera, I'd switch in a heartbeat. I only use Opera over FF due to its speed (and M2, but I can live without that). Plus that would mean I can stop supporting a company that doesn't listen to its users and that have generated quite a lot of hate in me... and I didn't know software could do that.

sri · « **Reply #14 on:** February 26, 2008, 06:45 PM »

wolf: Does it work on Windows?

urlwolf · « **Reply #15 on:** February 26, 2008, 10:07 PM »

No idea. Probably it'd be beta at best, like the current safari, for long time after it's fully released on macs.

allen · « **Reply #16 on:** February 27, 2008, 09:13 PM »

Quote from: sri on February 26, 2008, 06:45 PM

wolf: Does it work on Windows?

Yup http://nightly.webkit.org/

justice · « **Reply #17 on:** February 28, 2008, 12:42 AM »

maybe: ;-) although they very likely wouldn't present it as coming soon

Quote

Some users of Opera's mobile browser complained about the switch from Google to Yahoo after last year's change. Given the length of time Opera and Google have worked together, it was surprising Yahoo ever entered the equation.

Maybe it's time to spark up new whispers of Google acquiring Opera, as has been rumored a few times over the past couple of years. That event certainly won't surprise industry observers if it comes to pass, but YouTube notwithstanding, Google tends to favor smaller acquisitions.

justice · « **Reply #18 on:** April 24, 2008, 09:07 PM »

Quote

With the launch of Opera 9.5 beta 2, the pieces are now in place to announce our next product – Opera Dragonfly. The product team has been hard at work on this release since last year and it is just about ready to leave the labs.

Opera has always strictly followed Web standards, and prides itself on giving Web developers and designers the latest standards to advance the state of the art on the Web.

Our Focus on Web Standards

The latest release of our rendering engine – Presto Core-2.1 – is a culmination of our standards commitment and will be found in Opera 9.5 on various platforms and devices. Our improved standards support now includes full CSS selectors, HSL, text-shadow, JavaScript 1.5 getters and setters, HTML5 getElementsByClassName, improved Canvas support, and much more.

Opera’s support for standards is further demonstrated by <http://dev.opera.com>;, our Web development tutorial site. In addition, Opera’s Open the Web initiative focuses on making the Web a more standards-compliant place by giving developers hands-on help and support with their work.

The Dragonfly Is About To Land

But there was something missing. Opera has—until now—lacked one important piece of the jigsaw, but this missing piece is being added as you read. We are proud to announce Opera’s all-new developer tool — Opera Dragonfly. With Opera Dragonfly’s alpha release on the 6th of May, 2008, developers will have an array of new tools to debug Web sites and applications from within the Opera Browser.

Opera Dragonfly’s alpha release is still under active development as it matures to become ready for beta and final releases. We want your feedback and feature requests for the initial alpha release to make sure it fits your needs and makes your work easier. Over the coming months and years, we will continually develop Opera Dragonfly to realize our vision of first-class developer tools, and add even further functionality to the product. The alpha release is a first snapshot and foundation for that vision.

Opera Dragonfly will be available on the 6th of May at <http://dragonfly.opera.com>;.

Regards,

Opera

David Storey

Chief Web Opener

Josh · « **Reply #19 on:** April 24, 2008, 10:34 PM »

WOOHOO!! A debugging suite for the browser that wont see popularity until it opens itself to 3rd parties!

justice · « **Reply #20 on:** April 24, 2008, 10:48 PM »

actually i find opera is the best browser to develop on, as when i develop on firefox it screws up IE way more than opera, but when i'm on opera it looks fine on firefox and just slightly bad on IE.

Lashiec · « **Reply #21 on:** April 25, 2008, 01:08 PM »

Quote from: Josh on April 24, 2008, 10:34 PM

WOOHOO!! A debugging suite for the browser that wont see popularity until it opens itself to 3rd parties!

I doubt that Opera would get popular overnight once it opens its API, Opera already had a time to become "popular" (several years actually), but Firefox beat it to it. Be glad that they make an agreement with Google, otherwise it would be in a OmniWeb-esque situation. The possibility of extensions is there though, and it may come in the future.

So, nontroppo gets the cookie, I guess

urlwolf · « **Reply #22 on:** April 25, 2008, 06:58 PM »

Well, looks like FF is taking the opposite road: having too many possibly conflicting extensions gets you a buggy, slow experience. They seem to be taking more things into the core it seems, because the current barebones FF is... insipid.

Maybe they should both meet in some happy medium point.

nontroppo · « **Reply #23 on:** May 07, 2008, 09:10 AM »

Link fest:

http://my.opera.com/dragonfly/blog/2008/05/06/introducing-the-dragonfly
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-dragonfly-architecture/
http://www.opera.com/products/dragonfly/
http://my.opera.com/dragonfly/blog/

You need a 9.5 beta 2 (and on OS X, a post 9.5 beta 2 weekly build).

First impressions? Looks and works fine, full DOM access and CSS analysis. Currently missing editable DOM/CSS, which is coming. Also no HTTP/AJAX logging yet (also coming). A single-window interface is also on the cards, but dual window works better on my dual-monitor setup at the moment...