Latest on Opera web browser 197
Steelehead
wrote in to tell us that Opera Software's Project Magic
page has a Linux Port. From their page:
"The Linux port of Opera will be built on the new and
redesigned Opera 4.0 code....the entire front and user
interface in Qt...you, the Linux user, should have the
latest version of our code along with the Windows user.
"
It's about time... (Score:1)
Jim Boswell
Not a member of the Durango Owners Club!
Re:BeOS, Epoc & Mac... (Score:1)
Doing the Right Thing (Score:1)
the MDI more than the create-whole-new-instance of
Netscape. (Ok, so maybe it isn't a completely new
instance, but I do find it irksome.)
However a feature that has been asked for, yes
by win* users, is an option to make the child
windows 'desktop windows' as in mIRC. Whether
this will be done I do not know, but I would
certainly like to have the option. Perhaps with
a *minimal* (and small, unobtrusive) toolbar, at
least navigation, on the seperate child windows.
This could allow the best of both worlds: MDI for
those who want it and yet not have child windows
locked inside a parent a window for those who find
that distasteful.
It's all about the enduser's choice and control,
is it not?
Re:When will it be available? (Score:1)
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Re:Opera (Score:1)
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Re:Opera is not free software, bash it! (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Re:The GUI is broken (Score:1)
As for "back," you have to go all the way to the menubar thing in Netscape and Mozilla too. In Opera, the "back" button is in nearly the same place as in Netscape. Plus, if you don't like that, you can press ctrl- to go back. Try that with Netscape.
Re:The GUI is broken (Score:1)
that's ctrl-[leftarrow]
Re:Opera is not free software, bash it! (Score:1)
Re:Opera is not free software, bash it! (Score:1)
Re:Key Bindings (Score:1)
NS 4.0+ and IE 4.0+ come really close to supporting navagation completely via keyboard, if not completely. Also, i think some of theese browsers should offer customizeable keybindings. Then someone could set their own set of keys do things like bring you back x number of pages, add the current page to a specific folder in your favorites, or run a macro.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
What's wrong with the UI? I've found its configuration much more intuitive than Netscape or IE. As far as usage, what more do you use beyond the back/forward/reload buttons? The extra options for toggling graphics loading, toggling CSS, and zoom are highly useful. The keyboard shortcuts can't be beat.
The only thing that sucks is the buttons, but the later versions let you do your own or download others.
Well worth the $$. Still, I wish they'd make it open source!
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
I'll pay for it if it's worth it. Shouldn't that ALWAYS determine what software I will and will not pay for?
In my opinion, NS 4 is not worth paying for. It's slow, crashes often, and generally angers me. MSIE is not worth paying for either...it's a decent web browser, but all its extra baggage (active desktop, etc.) makes it ugly and not worth it either.
If Opera is good (and many comments about it seem pretty positive) then I'll pay for it.
Wait a second... (Score:1)
Re:Opera (Score:1)
The UI design, (or lack thereof in its case) in the Windoze version of Opera is an absolute Joke.
I'm trying to use it now...
Why the F*** did they think that the address bar should go at the bottom in an MDI application? The toolbar and Address bar are a whole screen height sway from each other
Oh, and how many menus???
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
Personally,I'm waiting for the BeOS port of Opera to be ready...it's progressing a lot faster, and it'll give me a reason to reinstall Be on my hard drive...it should also give me occasion to install Be (read: not Windoze) on my Dad's computer. He can type about one and a half words a minute, and half the time his emails have the sig at the top of the message...but he loves Opera, so go figure...;)
Some, certainly (Score:2)
I buy hardware. I buy software. If something better is available at no cost, of course I'll use it instead. If quicken isn't a disaster by the time they port it, I'll be first in line (though looking at the trends for products, I'm more likely to buy a mac emulator to run version 1 or 2
But I'm not likely to buy a browser. I still use netscape 3; 4.0 and later are too much trouble and missing useful features. And the only reason I use it instead of lynx is that it can pop open extra windows from links. I very rarely have a use for graphics--basically reading comics, whiyh pop-up with xv from lynx, and have none at all for java and javascript. And lynx' cookie handling is much better; junkbuster is unneeded. Once I have a couple of spare hours, I'll patch lynx to do this.
But the point is that, yes, the majority of the potential user base will pay for software. There is certainly the High Church of Emacs, which won't use anything that isn't GPL, or can't be assimilated by the GPL, but these are a minority now, and will become a smaller minority as linux actually gets purchased for the desktop--into the hands of people who have proved they're willing to pay for software, and will already have paid for linux.
Yes, they are. (Score:1)
I will pay for Opera/Linux. In fact, I am even willing to pay for v4 on Windows, even though I have already paid for v3 and don't need to pay again. Opera Software need our encouragement.
Static.
Re:Yes, they are. (Score:1)
I was _so_ hoping Opera would do the smart thing and code their browser for gtk/gnome...
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
Re:Slashdot HOWTO: Getting rid of Linux bias (Score:1)
Bah, open source bigots are getting just as bad as Redmond.
Re:Slashdot HOWTO: Getting rid of Linux bias (Score:1)
We do not have a bias against BeOS because it is not Linux, but because it its a closed source product. I get mail from Mac sites all the time talking about a new "product" they have comming out. This is not news it is advertizing. Microsoft has a whole department that does nothing but produce "news"!
In the meantime, I'll wait around for Mozilla. Netscape suits me just fine at the moment. ditto!
foot in mouth ? (Score:1)
Since they will link the binary statically (I guess) against Qt they also could have chosen a widget set that is somewhat more widespread in use. If they've used a more common set, they could have used shared libraries. We all know the trouble with statically linked programs, don't we?
Actually Shared QT libs are available in every single Workstation or Desktop Linux distribution. Even RedHat and Debian.
Opera is closed source shrink-wrapped per user licensed software. I really don't think the GPL compatibility of QT keeps them awake at night.
Slightly misleading. (Score:1)
They're probably not using the best words when dealing with the open source community. It sounds a bit like we're going to have access to the latest CODE, but somehow I doubt that's what they meant.
simple answer no (Score:1)
but i may be wrong.
Re:License issues / How about some real news? (Score:1)
reasons to pay [operasoftware.com] - justifications to pay
Opera do themselves a bit of a disservice here because the balence between developing a browser, keeping it complient to standards and release time is difficult. Is the oss community up to it?
Nothing is really 'free'. It is merely subsidized by other products. It is done in the interest of market share and domination, but not necessarily in the interest of the user.
i put this in for a laugh
Re:BeOS, Epoc & Mac... (Score:1)
Pay for a browser? That's crazy (Score:1)
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
I'll pay for something, probably not Opera though (Score:1)
--
I want it to be ported to (Score:1)
Look here [geocities.com] for more ideas. :)
Today's English Lesson: Oxymorons
"Qt, the leading toolkit on Linux" ?!? (Score:1)
While I have nothing against Qt, I think it's a bit of a stretch for them to refer to Qt as "the leading toolkit on Linux."
That would seem to imply that it's used measurably more often than Xt, AW, GTK, and Motif, which I seriously doubt.
Re:Oh, you come on! (Score:1)
Hopefully at some point we can all agree on a kit that truly is elegantly designed, most efficient C++ lib. Unfortunately, Qt at this time is not it. (But neither is any other C++ kit.)
--Karl
State of the art callbacks are signal/slots. (Score:1)
My comparison is completely fair as I was comparing a signal/slot implementation with another signal/slot implementation from the Gtk--. Both have multi-callbacks. Both have signal concept. Gtk-- skips the slot concept, but any function can be used as a slot. One just happens to be 30 times faster. Since they do the exact same thing, I can definately say although Qt is a very nice library, it is not the most efficient C++ library out there.
For independent confirmation of what I have said please read this usenet post. [deja.com] That user found a 25 times difference between template based (gtk--) and string based (Qt) signal/slot implementations. We have improved since then.
But you are quite capable of testing it out for yourself. Grab my library, libsigc++ [ucdavis.edu]. I think you will be surprised by exactly how much a callback system can do. Qt was only scratching the surface.
--Karl
Re:First of all... (Score:1)
FUDing by association is hardly a rational argument.
-Karl
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Btw, I don't even have a taskbar on my desktop
Tal.
Re:Will Linux users pay for anything? (Score:1)
Of course, I'd prefer if everything was GPL'd, but some things it isn't necessary or possible. I'll try to avoid an OS that isn't GPL because my OS is too important to trust to someone else. But if I find something that I really want, and a similar product isn't available from OSS, I'll feel free to buy it.
I guess I'm rabid about somethings and not others.
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Bonus if you can drag windows between MDI containers. (hrm... potential "killer feature" for the Qt version? I know that'd be pretty painful to implement in Windows, so I doubt we'd see it there... might be easier with a from-scratch MDI implementation)
---
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot HOWTO: Getting rid of Linux bias (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot HOWTO: Getting rid of Linux bias (Score:1)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
Re:QT is way overpriced (Score:1)
Re:To do shareware? Thank god then. (Score:1)
Re:Yes please MDI (Score:1)
Re:The GUI is broken (Score:1)
Re:Opera is not free software, bash it! (Score:1)
Re:BeOS, Epoc & Mac... (Score:1)
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:2)
MDI is nice for Ultraedit.. but for a browser ?
bleh.
Re:The GUI is broken (Score:1)
Re:commercial caveat (Score:1)
So you get some upgrades for free, but not forever.
Hmm.. (Score:1)
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Re:qt (Score:1)
Re:Mixed blessing... (Score:1)
What library would you suggest as being in more wide-spread use? isn't Motif still the most widely used?
The Trollish licence issue aside, installing GTK and Qt is about just as much pain. But you need both, because some of your favourite apps require GTK and some require Qt. The good thing is: We can have both. That's no problem.
Using Qt was also a predictable decision for several reasons:
Re:It's about time... (Score:1)
It doesn't have to be IE though, but there are some other features in IE as well that might come in handy. I for one hate waiting for the huge tables on /. to load before I get to read what's in them. If Opera fixes this problem, I might consider buying one.
BeOS, Epoc & Mac... (Score:1)
Now, I know that
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
However, it wouldn't suprise me if MDI is an option on future versions of Windows Opera, and I aslo wouldn't be suprised to find that many of the other versions of Opera run SDI anyway.
Re:Theft (Score:1)
However, I still feel my original point was valid. I *do* understand free software. I also understand that free software is a choice. If someone wishes to keep their code which they've invested considerable resources into proprietary, then that's their right. If someone wishes to release their code under an open source license, then that's also their right. Good for them. However, it's also not proved (yet?) to be a feasible buisiness model for software development, and I suspect that in many areas it will stay that way (Games development springs to mind...)
cheers,
Tim
The Market (Score:1)
Opera *may* be helping Linux. (Score:1)
I just don't see how increased choice can be bad for Linux users.
Theft (Score:3)
You make me sick.
Re:I want it to be ported to (Score:1)
----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Sadly, (Score:2)
I don't even worry about the accuracy of the banner, though, since the beauty of the web is the sheer mass of fine-grained information available. It forces the individual to be a better and more discerning information consumer, though.
Anyone even marginally clueful will look around Slashdot for a day and see the biases are writ large for all to see, both in terms of editorial choice and in the comments posted. Every specialty site is like that, and we all ought to be sophisticated enough to know that the 'price' of micropublishing in whatever form is less compulsion to even appear unbiased.
The only real danger here is nothing we haven't all seen before: people who latch on to Slashdot as their sole source of 'news.' On the other hand (and this is not a slam on Slashdot, which I read plenty in the context of a healthy media diet composed of plenty of other sources) people like that will develop the stunted world view they've got coming to them, and the rest of us will learn to ignore them when they actually venture into the real world with their woefully narrow perspectives.
ObOnTopic: I'm looking forward to Opera for Linux. I ran it on a Win95/5x86-133/16 meg box some time ago and loved it. Much more nimble than the competition.
----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Opera *does* have CSS support (Score:1)
choice is a Good Thing (Score:2)
I'm sure we don't all use the same mail reader, or news reader, or text editor, or desktop clock, so why should we have to use the same web browser? Not that I have anything against Lynx, but more competition in this area is long overdue.
BeOS and Slashdot Bias (Score:1)
I first found out about BeOS from a Slashdot story, and I subsequently bought and installed it. I quite like NetPositive - I wish they'd add a decent JavaScript implementation to it. It's small, lightweight and fast, while not being totally retro like Lynx.
Be lovers will appreciate my ironic story, by the way. I had Be installed on a system with Windows, and it was working great. I finally transferred the things I needed Windows for on that machine to another, and enthusiastically gave Be the entire disk. The network card then stopped working, rendering the system unusable - and the only way to get it to work would have been to boot Windows on the machine that no longer had it!
Oops.
So now that system's running Linux. One of these days I want to restore Be since I think it's a truly fantastic environment. I even like a lot of the oddball commercial software created by tiny companies (like BeProductive).
So Be, I'll Be back.
Jean-Louise Gasse must have a strong stomach to withstand all these awful Be puns!
D
----
Re:Hmmm, deja vu (Score:1)
So that might be a contributing factor for choosing QT/TrollTech.
Anywayz if their parking habits is something to go by, the BETA is long way of. Its now 15.25 CET and both the Opera and TrollTech parking spaces are empty
But of course! (Score:1)
You see, not everyone feels software should be "free" through cross-subsidizing from sales of other software, like the Big Two are.
Yes please MDI (Score:1)
I prefer having multiple windows inside one app window rather than a Windows taskbar with two pixel wide "buttons" because of an excessive number of top-level windows.
Re:Yes please MDI (Score:1)
Well, in that particular case, Windows MDI is somewhat consistent: The keyboard shortcuts using Alt on the "top level", are represented using Ctrl on the MDI level - that is, closing a MDI window is accomplished using Ctrl+F4.
Non-MDI programs of course use them differently: On Netscape, Ctrl+Tab will cycle between the open "top level windows", whereas on MSIE will cycle between the frames and location bar on the active window.
Re:Theft (Score:1)
But Opera isn't a part of the OS, it's an application for it. You're not forced to buy it, you're not forced to use it, what's the problem?
Or do you also argue against free Windows software, since the OS costs money?
Re:The GUI is broken (Score:1)
Plus, I've become too accustomed to keyboard navigation using Q/A (link navigation), Z/X (back/forward), W/S (heading navigation) and +/- (zooming) to ever switch. The customizability is hard to match, too.
Re:Time for a GNU Web browser? (Score:1)
Since it is closed source we have to wait for them to make upgrades, and we are dependent on them to write the software the way we want it. If we had a GPLed browser we could give it the features that geeks want, keep the code slimmed down, and not have to worry about the issues of closed source and proprietary software.
Then use Emacs/W3. It supports CSS1, frames, and whatnot - if your Emacs is up for it, and not if it's not.
What I don't like is how the space bar mapps to whatever the mouse last clicked on
Blame Microsoft accessibility guidelines: The space works as the mouse button.
Mixed blessing... (Score:1)
Apart from the license question I am not in favor of programs using a library that is almost exclusively used by one set of programs.
Since they will link the binary statically (I guess) against Qt they also could have chosen a widget set that is somewhat more widespread in use. If they've used a more common set, they could have used shared libraries. We all know the trouble with statically linked programs, don't we?
Anyway, thanks a lot! Can't wait to have this little gem.
belbo. I support zero score posting.
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
PS: I really wish Gimp would have an MDI option!.. .. and more Photoshop-like in general
When will it be available? (Score:1)
Re:QT advocate... Re:Ignorance is bliss. (Score:1)
The signal/slot mechanism is slightly superior to message maps in MFC, however they are merely a kludge, they don't fit at all in the C++ object model. (Hint for framework developers: If your language is class based, try to use its class construct) What is more, the classes in QT are convenient for a couple of apps, but that's it; they're no thicker (?) than MFC stuff.
Qt does use the C++ class construct... Qt classes are C++ classes, with a macro thrown in. The macro, and the code created by the moc (meta-object compiler) just creates some standard functions, and framework, to allow the signal/slot system to work. Here's a quote from Qt 2.0's qobjectdefs.h
// They are used, strictly speaking, only by the moc.
#define slots
#define signals protected
#define emit
moc uses the signal and slot definitions to decide what to put into the moc code. You may call it a kludge, but the only other way to conveniently add that functionality to all objects independently would be to modify the compiler. And that may be theoreticallly possible for gcc, but Qt aims to be a lot more portable than that.
(I haven't examined QT2.0 very closely, so you can attack from that angle ;)
How much have you actually examned Qt 1.x? Have you ever studied the output of moc on a non-trivial class?
Re:Mixed blessing... (Score:1)
Re:QT advocate... Re:Ignorance is bliss. (Score:1)
what else is there ?
Re:I do. (Score:1)
(btw I was there 2 years ago
No thank you MDI (Score:2)
But with Opera's choice of making their browser MDI (Multiple Document Interface: meaning one father window contains all of the daughter windows) they have made it a product I don't want to use.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love a nice browser for Linux; but IMHO MDI is not "nice". Give me an SDI option and I will gladly check it out, and pay $$ if I like it.
Re:Hmmm, deja vu (Score:1)
Actually, Hemos... (Score:1)
Why? (Score:1)
and IE for being a big bloated piece buggy Microsoft-style (something).
Assuming Mozilla will be out in the same time Opera does,
Why would I pay money to get the same speed and stability,
but not all the features I would get in an open project?
This doesn't make sence.
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Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Will Linux users pay for anything? (Score:1)
Can't tell if that was an ironic comment, but I'm going to take it that way.
Just because there are some sub-par free options, does that mean people won't pay for a quality option? (Not that Opera for Linux will be quality, we'll see.)
Just because Linux is based on GPL software, will anyone who runs it pay for shareware/commercial programs? I'm not necessarily talking the philosophy of it all, which has been gone over multiple times on SlashDot. Just...would people pay? If Opera is good, will Linux users pay for it?
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
Web browsers are not a commodity. Slow, inflexible, bloated, non-standards-compliant browsers are a commodity. Under Linux, we can hope that Mozilla will change that, but if it fails, I'll be glad there's an Opera port, and willing to pay.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
Don't forget, BTW, that we've got the boys and girls in Redmond to thank for free browsers; if it weren't for their determination to wipe Netscape off the face of the Earth, we'd all be happily downloading trial copies of navigator and not paying for it.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:1)
Re:No thank you MDI (Score:1)
Re:Mixed blessing... (Score:1)
Re:The GUI is broken (Score:1)
commercial caveat (Score:1)
I have no intention of preaching right now, but I would like to point out a couple areas where I think you missed the mark a little. First, even if you are willing to pay for a binary-only license, I think that with a bleeding edge system like Linux, you should insist on an upgrade clause which will give you some insurance against premature obsolescence (relative to software for Windows, Mac, or even OS/2). Second, as with you, price is largely irrelevant to people who insist on running free software. Having source protects you against problems like the one I just mentioned much more than an upgrade clause in a binary-only license ever could.
Too bad the firewall support sucks (Score:1)
In defense of MDI (Score:1)
When I first got Opera, I'll admit I wasn't terribly impressed with the MDI way of doing things (to understate just a bit
And it was exactly the same with a number of friends who I have since introduced Opera to.
But. Having said that, I have to add that one gets used to it very quickly. I will often have 10 to 15 browser windows open at the same time. Just the idea of doing that in Netscape, or some other browser which opens a separate window per session makes me shudder. And again, it is the same with all of my friends who also now use Opera.
I agree, the whole MDI thing is a bit of a kludge, but dammit, it just works!
And using the hotkeys is a very good way of quickly switching between windows. In Linux (where I'm forced to use an inferior browser, a.k.a. Netscape), my Gnome-panel is always filled up with more Netscape icons than I can easily keep track of. And having to use the mouse all the time is beyond annoying. I'm a keyboard-centric worker. Both my hands stay rooted to the keyboard, and only wander to the mouse when needed. Unfortunately, under Netscape, that is far more often than I'd like.
Finally, I like being able to just minimize my entire browser with a single click, rather than having to go around and minimize every open browser window, as I have to do in Netscape. I like my desktop to be uncluttered. Opera's MDI helps me achieve that goal.
Opera and MDI: Ugly but it works!
--
- Sean
Re:Opera *may* be helping Linux. (Score:2)
too little too late? (Score:2)
the problem is, be they small in download and [relatively] quick in rendering -- their engine is woefully behind the pace. No CSS support, no HTML 4.0 support [3.2 is their current level] -- doh!
BTW: here's a great article [wammo.com] that looks at the whole browser deal. The state of Mozilla, the Netscape v. IE wars, iCab and Opera [and there's some spiel on Neoplanet who're supporting the Mozilla rendering engine if you didn't already know].