Here are several customisations and general thoughts on Opera 7, a web browser for Windows, Linux, Mac and other platforms. On this page:
- The W3-dev Menu
- Opera Advocacy: How Do I Justify Spending $54 on a Browser?
- Opera Tip: Compact Navigation Bar
- Opera Tip: A Better "Home" Button
- Opera Tip: Easy Stylesheet Viewing
- Opera for Mozilla Users
- Opera Links
The W3-dev Menu
The W3-dev Menu is an Opera 7 customisation for web developers, providing handy shortcuts to validate and check their pages and some useful links to web standards and tutorials.
The latest version is 1.21.
Check out this screenshot of the menu in action. The menu will not work in browsers other than Opera 7.x. The menu can be manually installed in Opera 7.0x, but it is beyond the scope of this page to explain how.
ChangeLog and Archive
- 1.21
- Install 1.21. Choose your favourite HTML validator during installation (choice of W3.org validator, WDG validator and the beta of W3.org's next generation validator), optionally switch off some of the submenus that you don't like, View CSS for current page (won't always work!), added VisCheck (a useful tool, although there do still seem to be some bugs in it). You can now download the source code and use it under the GPL.
- 1.2
- Install 1.2. Very few extra features, but the new version lets you choose which features you want before installing.
- 1.1
- Download 1.1: for Opera 7.1x and 7.2x, for Opera 7.5x. Version 1.0 breaks the Opera 7.5 preview slightly by hiding a couple of menus. This is really Opera Software's own fault for having such a daft menu format, but I have fixed it all the same. :-) Added "Cookies" check, "Server Software" query, link to a neat colour chooser, link to "lorem ipsum" generator, added 320x240 (PocketPC) and 544x372 (WebTV) to the Page Size menu, added ability to open a page in Mozilla Firebird for Linux users. Lastly, not very "W3-dev-related", but I have added a few helpful additions to the page bar pop-up menu. (If people say they don't like them, I'll get rid of them in the next release, but I like them.)
- 1.01
- Download 1.01: bg. Translation improvements.
- 1.00
- Download 1.00: en, bg. Added links to HPR and Ominweb browsers and renamed Chimera to Camino. Added link to CSS Zen Garden, Mark Tranchant's HTML tutorial and RNIB accessibility advice. CSS 2.1 is now a last call. WCAG 2.0 draft added. Added a link to the RFC Editor website. Numerous other minor changes.
- 0.99
- Download 0.99. Screenshot of 0.99. Added 'Show Javascript console'. Rearranged the 'Web Standards' and 'Resources' menus so that they have a similar submenu structure to each other. Added link to w3.org (duh!). Added Dublin Core. Added HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. Moved a lot of the tests into a submenu as the main menu was getting very long.
- 0.95
- Download 0.95. Improved i18n (thanks to Gargantua Blargg); added link to RSS 1.0 standard; added link to the WaSP (why the hell didn't I think of that earlier?!?); "View in" menu now works in Opera for Linux (thanks to the Opera guys for releasing Opera 7.20 Beta 1 for Linux).
- 0.94
- Download 0.94. Approaching the big 1.0. Have added links to draft CSS 2.1 and XHTML 2.0 specs. Have added a link to WML 1.1. This is just a link to the DTD. Anyone know of a good quality HTML version of the WML (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0) spec??? Have added a link to another Jakob Nielsen story I liked. Changed what the "about" link does!
- 0.93
- Download 0.93. Added scriptlets to resize the browser window to various predefined sizes (320x240, 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768) and an entry to switch to small screen rendering (yes, I know this can be done with the view menu!). On windows there are shortcuts to launch the current page in Internet Explorer and Mozilla (if installed). Currently this doesn't work on Linux/Unix — hopefully the Opera guys will fix this in 7.20!
- 0.92
- Download 0.92. Screenshot of 0.92. Added lots of links to browser home pages; renamed references menu to web standards menu; renamed tutorials menu to resources menu; moved all the server-side resources from the standards menu to the resources menu (except the CGI standard); added Tablin; added HTTP header viewer; added web optimiser; added cacheability; added source viewer; added lots more tutorials; other minor changes.
- 0.91
- Download 0.91. Screenshot of 0.91. This version included HTML and CSS validators; link checker; WCAG and Section 508 accessibility checkers; LynxView; the ICRA tester; the standards definitions for several markup lanuages, styling languages and other web formats; a few tutorials; a link to the quirks mode javascript and a link back to this page.
- 0.90
- Download 0.90. This version included HTML and CSS validators and a few other things.
Links
- Nick Wilson has written his own version of my menu with extra links to the web developer's portal Webmaster World.
- Vladimir Georgiev has created a Bulgarian version, which I have mirrored.
- Rijk van Geijtenbeek mentions my menu on his customized menus for Opera page.
- Jor's Opera customisations make mine look like the work of an amateur — I think he has customised Opera so much that he is using an entirely different browser now! Maybe "Ballet"?
- My menu has been discussed in the Webmaster World "HTML and Browsers" forum.
- And mentioned on Virtuelvis, this other weblog (in Japan), this other weblog (in Australia) and on Around the Web. It is mentioned (and deconstructed) on the stupid.boy/brilliant.girl weblog.
- A similar tool for Netscape/Mozilla is Checky, and yes, I have taken a few ideas from it for the 0.92 version.
- And for you unfortunate people using Internet Explorer, there is Favlets by Tantek Celik. Yes, that Tantek Celik.
FAQ
Why doesn't the "Page Size" menu work?
It does — just make sure that your page isn't maximized.
Why doesn't the "View In" menu work?
You need Opera 7.1x (or above) for Windows or Opera 7.20 Beta 1 (or above) for Linux.
Some other stuff doesn't work!
I'm told that some stuff is broken if the "Reuse Existing Pages" option is switched off. If you are still having problems, don't hesitate to ask.
Can I translate the menu?
Yes! Now that the "stable" 1.00 release is out, I encourage users to translate the menu. Simply open it up in a text editor (when Opera is not running!) and translate the strings within. When you are done, please send me a copy so that I can upload it here for others.
How did you get the menu to auto-install?
The trick is the application/x-opera-configuration-menu
MIME type. :-)
Opera Advocacy: How Do I Justify Spending $54 on a Browser?
Several good reasons for using Opera rather than other browsers.
- Very fast. Although there are other faster browsers, for me Opera offers the best trade-off between speed and features.
- Tabbed browsing.
- Ability to quickly toggle on/off JavaScript, pop-ups, plugins, images, etc.
- Nice system for quickly toggling user and author stylesheets.
- Google search field as part of the UI.
- Menus and toolbars are very easy to customise just how I like them. For someone who spends as much time on the Web as I do, this is very important.
- Powerful rendering engine with the best CSS support around. (Try CSS2 counters in other browsers.)
- It is about the only browser that can display this site completely correctly. (Mozilla comes a very close second.)
Actually, I spent $39 buying Opera 6 and then another $15 to upgrade to Opera 7.11
Opera Tip: Compact Navigation Bar
The navigation bar is by default only shown on websites that know how to use it (such as this one). It is situated by the top of the page and features buttons like "Home", "Index", "Contents", &c... anyway, to make it a little smaller, right click on it and choose "Images Only" and then right click on it again and choose "Large Images". Counter-intuitively, this will actually display small text!
Opera Tip: A Better "Home" Button
This should work in Opera 7.10 and above. Add the "Home" button.
Opera Tip: Easy Stylesheet Viewing
Here's another button for you. I recommend placing it on the site navigation bar (this is the toolbar that says "Home, Index, Contents, Search, etc"). Add the "Stylesheet" button.
Opera for Mozilla Users
In the spirit of Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Netscape Users page, I have put together some help for new Mozilla users coming to Opera.
Comparing terms in Mozilla and Opera
Mozilla | Opera |
---|---|
tabbed browsing | MDI |
tabs | pages |
tab bar | page bar |
"Go" menu | "Navigation" menu |
Sidebar | Hotlist |
Download Manager | Transfers |
Site Navigation Bar | Navigation Bar |
"Wow! Hasn't this site loaded quickly!" | "That's not much of a surprise. All sites load quickly with Opera." |
OK, so the Microsoft version is more complete than that. For more of what Opera has to offer, see 30 Days to Becoming an Opera7 Lover.
Opera Links
- Rijk van Geijtenbeek's Customising Opera — Opera tips from an Opera programmer.
- Non-Troppo Wiki — a wealth of information on Opera bugs (yes, they do exist!), customisations and other advice.
- 30 Days to becoming an Opera 7 lover — tips to help new Opera users discover some of Opera's hidden features and get the most out of their browser.
- Opera.com — well, it had to be mentioned, didn't it?