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Opera 9.5 To Fully Support CSS?

Posted by kdawson on Fri Jun 22, 2007 06:48 PM
from the taking-standards-seriously dept.
Software The Internet
Albert Sandberg writes "According to a developer blog, it looks like Opera 9.5 (which has been code-named Kestrel) will be the first browser to fully support the CSS selector test (test is here). Finally! Weekly builds should start being available in a few weeks."
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Opera 9.5 To Fully Support CSS? 50 Comments More /

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  • Safari Beta 3 (Score:5, Funny)

    by WrongSizeGlass (838941) on Friday June 22 2007, @06:50PM (#19615461) Homepage

    From the 43 selectors 25 have passed, 9 are buggy and 9 are unsupported (Passed 346 out of 578 tests)
    Not great, but a lot better than I ever did in school. ;-)
  • is it a problem of CSS spec if nobody can support it easily?

    • Re:why is it so hard? (Score:5, Informative)

      by daeg (828071) on Friday June 22 2007, @07:20PM (#19615741)
      Part of the issue arises from the fact that much of browser rendering code is ancient. Much of the basic rendering pieces weren't built to handle some of the CSS properties. For instance, many advanced selectors break when you are dynamically adding content or changing/adding stylesheets.

      Expect Internet Explorer to lag again unless they completely replace large parts of their HTML rendering engine for standard-compliant sites. There is simply too much legacy code running against the Internet Explorer control, unfortunately.

  • Opera allows me to do great things (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_kanzure (1100087) on Friday June 22 2007, @06:56PM (#19615509) Homepage
    Really, the Opera web browser [opera.com] has allowed me to do great things throughout the internet, with hundreds of tabs open, and consequently more bookmarking being done, and session management, I do not know how productive I would be with Firefox alone. Commonly, when stranded on Firefox-only systems, I am burdened with odd tab loading impairments and generally limited to acting like I am doing literally one thing and one thing only-- no queuing up content or strands of thought, etc. Even with the hierarchical vertical tabbing enhancements through the TBE extension [sakura.ne.jp] akin to iRider [irider.com], my productivity seems to drop. So, I am glad to see more (good) publicity for Opera.
    • Unfortunately, I've been having similar problems (though not as severe) with Opera for Linux since version 9. Looks like 9.5 will fix alot of that, though.
    • You dissed Firefox on /. , major karma mistake (Score:0, Offtopic)

      Yes, Opera is second to none overall, but don't let anyone know, OK? Yes, most of the good features of the new IE and Firefox actually came from Opera, but they don't know that, and as long as you keep getting modded into karma hell, they never will.

      (Yes, I do use Firefox and Konqurer and Opera and I want them all, but please don't take my opera away... It is the ONE closed source tool I REALLY like, and since it does not threaten anyone ple

  • Not Even Close! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2007, @06:57PM (#19615511)
    This post is fanboyism at its worst. Opera is going to fully support CSS selectors, not CSS. Selectors are just one structure in the CSS language. There are still many other parts of the CSS standard that are not supported by Opera and are not yet planned for any future release.

  • The Internet-Age-Old PITA... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...Do I use a fully compliant browser in which half the pages out there won't display properly because they've been coded by lazy, clueless hacks with MCSE...or do I use the shit that is Internet Explorer because almost all pages will display semi-properly, even though the code - and IE - is totally fucked up?

    I use Opera exclusively, and I know that one day everybody will create compliant webpages. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sigh...

  • What does it matter? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by msauve (701917) on Friday June 22 2007, @06:58PM (#19615531)
    I use Opera, which is already known to support existing HTML standards pretty completely and accurately.

    I still frequently run into web sites built by clueless authors who feel a need to do a browser check, and finding it's not IE or Firefox (or sometimes Netscape!), think it is their duty to inform me that their sites only work with "modern" or "updated" browsers. Feh. By and large, that immediately sends me to the site of a competitor if it's a commercial site I'm visiting.

    When will web authors get a clue, and start coding to standards and not implementations. (fuck it if IE breaks because they don't do things correctly)? A properly written web site should never need to do a browser check.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jugalator (259273)
      Well, I use to think of it like this... If Firefox wouldn't have got so common (really it is pretty common today -- seems like especially in Europe), Microsoft wouldn't have as much pressure on making an IE 7, and now that they did, they took the opportunity to update some of its worst CSS problems at least. MS has more or less announced there'll be an IE 8 in their blogs, so I think this competition is good for the web as a whole. It probably doesn't matter in the short perspective, but could in a longer o

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kjella (173770)
      When will web authors get a clue, and start coding to standards and not implementations. (fuck it if IE breaks because they don't do things correctly)? A properly written web site should never need to do a browser check.

      I'm sorry, but you don't say "fuck it" to 80%+ of your visitors. I believe you meant to say "A properly written web site should do a browser check, and assume that any non-IE browser is standards compliant". Oh yeah and "We know it doesn't work with this old version, please upgrade" is also

        • If every website told IE users to fuck off and come back with a real web browser the world would be a much better place.
          Please replace IE with Windows and web browser with operating system and repost.

          Thanks,
          The Intertubes Fairy

            • Re:What does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by brusk (135896) on Friday June 22 2007, @09:17PM (#19616369)
              Yes, because kneejerk reactionaries of the sort trolling through this thread would be off in their little corner of the web and the rest of us sane people would be able to talk civilly. Telling the majority of your users (including, for example, poor people who don't own a computer and use whatever is installed on the computer in the public library) to fuck off is like a shoe store refusing to sell shoes to anyone with uncool socks. Much better to sell someone a nice pair of shoes, and say, "By the way, you could try these really nice socks to go with them. The don't have holes in them like the ones you're wearing."
    • Oh, you use IE? That's okay, we didn't want your money anyway.

      Wait, what's that? ... Yeah, we didn't want 80% of everybody else's money either.

  • Still no icon (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TenBrothers (995309) on Friday June 22 2007, @07:03PM (#19615579)
    Despite Opera showing its superiority as a browser over and over again and on multiple platforms, from desktop to mobile to game systems, ther eis still no Slashdot Icon to mark Opera news stories.
  • I'm really impressed if they dare to follow the standard.

    Because with their good example, pages will render differently in opera than the author wanted it too as the pages are probably tuned for IE/Mozilla/Konqueror.

  • Go Opera! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Aminion (896851) on Friday June 22 2007, @07:10PM (#19615637)
    Very nice news but somehow not surprising by the constant underdog. It truly is a shame that Opera only has 2% of the market considering how great it is in comparison to its competitors regarding speed, features, innovation and security. Imagine a browser so great that people actually paid for it as late as 2005 (these days, Opera is 100% free).

  • Konqueror FTW (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Reorax (629666) on Friday June 22 2007, @07:13PM (#19615667)
    I'm using Konqueror 3.5.7 on Kubuntu right now, and it passes completely. I don't know how long it's been able to pass, since I just found out about the test now. Firefox 2.0.0.4 fails pretty badly, but this version of Konqueror says that it passes all the tests. Yet Opera claims that it is the first browser to pass? Objection! At least one browser has passed before it, and that Opera version is not even out yet, it's in the weekly builds. This is the stable version of Konqueror

  • I used Opera exclusively on Windows, Linux, and BSD for several years, but recently switched to Konqueror. I finally got fed up with a few things in Opera.

    My first complaint is their lack of 64-bit support. I'm running the AMD64 version of Debian, and Opera is (was) the only 32-bit program I had to run, making it a pain to keep a bunch of 32-bit compatibility libraries around for one program. I think 64-bit is popular enough now that it'd be worth the time to compile for it. Given the large number o

    • Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)

      by SpectreBlofeld (886224) on Friday June 22 2007, @07:31PM (#19615819)
      The second big complaint was that it doesn't support more than 9 mouse buttons. I spent $100 on a fancy mouse, hoping I could control most of my GUI programs with only the mouse. Much to my surprise, any shortcuts after Button9 simply don't work. This was quite disappointing

        I'm trying to figure out if that's a joke. Nine mouse buttons?

        Any Mac user will tell you that one mouse button, when used in conjunction with seven funny-looking keyboard keys should be enough for anybody!

      • Nine mouse buttons?
        Must be one of those new fangled two-handed mice. That's a button for each finger (a la Twister) with one thumb leftover for the traditional "thumbs up" when you finally complete that complicated multi-mouse buttoned maneuver in Duke Nukem Forever.

    • Oops, should have RTFA :-)

      Looks like they're fixing the tab issue and releasing a 64-bit Linux version. As a bonus, they're releasing a version using Qt4! Maybe I'll get lucky and supporting mouse buttons above Button9 will be one of the UI tweaks they mentioned.

  • Different Browser Ratings (Score:5, Informative)

    by The MAZZTer (911996) <megazzt AT gmail DOT com> on Friday June 22 2007, @07:24PM (#19615769) Homepage

    Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Windows Vista:

    From the 43 selectors 26 have passed, 10 are buggy and 7 are unsupported (Passed 357 out of 578 tests)

    Internet Explorer 7.0.6000.16473 on Windows Vista:

    From the 43 selectors 13 have passed, 4 are buggy and 26 are unsupported (Passed 289 out of 534 tests)

    Lynx 2.8.3dev17 on Windows Vista:

    No JavaScript == No tests. :(

    Opera 8.5 on Nintendo DS:

    From the 43 selectors 14 have passed, 3 are buggy and 26 are unsupported (Passed 313 out of 578 tests)

    Opera 9.1 on Nintendo Wii:

    From the 43 selectors 30 have passed, 2 are buggy and 11 are unsupported (Passed 450 out of 578 tests)

    Opera 9.21 on Windows Vista:

    From the 43 selectors 25 have passed, 3 are buggy and 15 are unsupported (Passed 346 out of 578 tests)

    Safari 3.0.1 Beta on Windows Vista:

    From the 43 selectors 25 have passed, 9 are buggy and 9 are unsupported (Passed 346 out of 578 tests)

    Oddly enough, the Wii with an OLDER Opera wins in the Most Completely Working category, while Firefox wins in the Most They At Least Tried category (least unsupported).

    • Amusing addendum while looking for other browsers:

      Internet Explorer 3 16-bit on Windows Vista:

      No JavaScript, and doesn't even recognize the CSS on msn.com or on the test page.

      Newer versions of IE, except for 7 of course, won't run on Vista at all (maybe I'm missing a version-specific DLL for those. Oh well).

  • Mark me flamebait if ya like. If there's some way to tag my user agent data, you'd see I'm running Linux and Firefox 1.5.0.12. But I have to wonder why Firefox hasn't been all over the idea of 100% compliance.

    It's slick, it's fast, it's effective and it's very compatible. I also love the plugins. But it's not much of a 'selling point' that it's not 100% compliant with whatever standards there are out there. It's especially damning when the same demographic often cite that MSIE isn't compliant with stan

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dan Ost (415913)
      There is no browser out there that is 100% compliant with all the standards that describe web content.

      One of the primary goals behind Firefox/Gecko is standards compliance and, as far as I know, Firefox is the most compliant browser out there, categorically speaking. The problem is that there are several standards (and several versions of each standard) and each standard is large enough that they have to be implemented piecemeal. Each browser team prioritizes what they think are the most important elements

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kjella (173770)
        One of the primary goals behind Firefox/Gecko is standards compliance and, as far as I know, Firefox is the most compliant browser out there, categorically speaking.

        Adverb: categorically `katu'górik(u)lee
        In an unqualified manner
        - flatly, unconditionally

        I hardly think that's called for. As you can read in this discussion, Konqueror has supported this for six months, Opera will, Firefox won't for a while. And if you look at the summary table [webdevout.net] here, you'll see that while Firefox wins by 5% in HTML and CSS

  • I can't believe... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrNemesis (587188) on Saturday June 23 2007, @05:25AM (#19618531) Homepage Journal
    ...that no-one has mentioned some of the other gems from TFA, especially in relation to the *nix builds:

    64bit Linux builds
    Qt4 builds
    Faster tab switching (my only gripe with the current Opera under Linux)

    I've been using Opera since 2001, and on Linux since 2004, and it's great to see a vendor maintaining feature parity across different platforms.

    The improvements to CSS et al are always welcome, but as some other users have pointed out it's almost always crappily coded sites that give "alternative" browsers a hard time, so it's also good to see they're apparently factoring in better support for error-ridden sites.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tim C (15259)
      It stands for Cascading Style Sheets [w3schools.com].

      (That link was the first hit on google for a search on CSS, incidentally...)

      • (That link was the first hit on google for a search on CSS, incidentally...)

        Pardon my rant, but hints at using Google for questions really are endemic, yet not helpul. While Google is very good at returning hits for the savvy user, it actually does very poor at returning hits for people who don't know much about the field of the search terms they're looking for.

        Often, this is because a certain art is required to figure out an effective set of keywords to get decent results (I frequently have to try three or four different keyword combinations and orders to get good results), but

    • Cascading Style Sheets.

      But if you don't know what it means, you're probably not too affected by it anyway. I don't think that CSS3 compliance will matter for "average users" soon, because far from all browsers will support it at the time Opera 9.5 will. It's a step in the right direction for sure, but it'll only be of interest at first to geeks keeping up to date with the latest web browser developments. It may not matter in reality until a few years ahead, or whenever IE 8/9 or whatever gets this far.

    • It would be even better knews if I had a clue as to what means "CSS".
      Seriously? I mean really? For true?

      OK, fine. It stands for Cascading Style Sheets [wikipedia.org]. Welcome to the Internets.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Shulai (34423)
      Since 1999 or so, the preferred way of putting style on web pages ("how this part of looks") is not mixed into the content structure ("what kind of information this part contains"), but in a separate place, the style sheet.
      The style sheet Selectors say what parts of a page must carry it associated style, e.g. 2nd level headers (selector) must be blue and use a 14 point, bold, sans serif font (style).
      The CSS stylesheet standard allows lots of complex kinds of selectors, and so browsers used to support only a

      • Thy Parchment bear Good tidings! (Score:4, Funny)

        by Domo-Sun (585730) on Friday June 22 2007, @09:19PM (#19616379) Journal
        Since the 99 of the great 1900's, ways of preferred stoning, and styling leafs of thy webbing, ("imparts of the face of thy brows") Is not structure forged with contentment? ("What manner of entrails subsume thy tiding parts?")

        But in thou'ists separate standings, the sheeted of the stylets suffice.

        Upon thy Selectors of the Sheet Stylets' dictate: ("What parts of this beast ought carry thy consorts!") E.G. Archfiend the 2nd, Level of the Headers, Lord of the Blue, and Bold user of the Fourteen-Pointed Seraphim") Indeed, it is but I, Sir Salvor of the Cataclysm. Eternal Barron of Travelers and appointed ruler of his Majesty's canonical archetypes.

        GO FORTH IN GODS' GLORY VENERABLE SOLDIERS!
    • For you, "Confederate States Ship".
    • Safari Version 2.0.4 (419.3)

      From the 43 selectors 21 have passed, 7 are buggy and 15 are unsupported (Passed 336 out of 578 tests)

    • Re:Test results (Score:5, Informative)

      by frogstar_robot (926792) <frogstar_robot@yahoo.com> on Friday June 22 2007, @07:32PM (#19615823)
      Konqueror 3.5.6 Results:
      From the 43 selectors 43 have passed, 0 are buggy and 0 are unsupported (Passed 578 out of 578 tests)

      This release of Konqueror has been their stable release since last January was supplanted by 3.5.7 last week. So Opera isn't the first. A stable released browser has been able to pass this test for at least 6 months. I don't know how 3.5.5 and before would have done on it.

      All that said, Firefox tends to do better with the javascript heavy sites and has extensions I can't live without. If I were going to use something else it would probably be Konq though. When KDE4 comes out, Konq will be easily installed on Windows and OS X. That might get a bit more momentum behind it.

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