Daily Archive for June 5th, 2008

Opera 9.5 just got a face lift!

Published
by
kyleabaker
on June 5, 2008
in Applications, News, Opera, Picture and Web Browsers
. 0 Comments

Good news today for Opera browser fans! The Browser received a much needed face lift today. The desktop team has (on a side project) put together a new skin for the browser to enhance it’s appearance, improve functionality and bridge the gap between a few more cross-browser usability issues.

The new skin is now installed by default in the latest Opera 9.5 snapshots from the Desktop Team’s blog. However, if you need some time to get used to the new skin, they have also packaged the previous skin in the installer as well and it is called the Opera Classic skin.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go download this bad boy as you continue reading the rest of this post! You can grab the download from the original post (which is here), or you can just use the links I’ve gathered below for you. ;)

Now that you’ve got the download process going on in the background, I’ll tell you a little bit about the changes that you may notice.

The new skin has replaced all of the old icons that you may be used to and with glossier and shinier new ones. The back, forward, refresh, stop, etc. buttons are all easily recognizable, but different.

It didn’t take me long at all to like the new skin! I actually liked it from the instant I restarted Opera!

One thing, however, that I used quiet often that has been changed is the panel toggle button that extended up the left-hand side of the window. You could click the talk and narrow button to show or hide the side panel and it’s windows.

A new button has been placed to the left of the tabs that does the exact same thing now. I’m still getting used to it, but I think it’s a good change..as many of you may not have known about the older button in the first place. :P

The New Tab button is now moved to the right side of the row of tabs. It moves as the tabs row grows and is designed..or placed there to be more conveniently placed. This change is also one of the areas that Opera is working to bridge the gap between usability in Internet Explorer 7+ and Opera.

If you’ve used Internet Explorer 7 or 8 (beta) then you known that the new tab button is on the right side of the row of tabs and follows the tabs. Well, this is the same behavior as Opera now. :D

The panels icons are also new. Although they take a little more time to get used to than the navigational icons, they are still a much needed update!

One thing that I’m not in favor of is the background color of the windows in the panels tab. The windows are, in my opinion, too dark and slow for the eyes to glance through.

I’ve spoken with some of the developers and they have told me that the skin is by no means finished. They are taking feedback from everyone, tweaking the theme, releasing it and then taking feedback again.

If you have any suggestions or feedback at all for them then you should go post it in the blog so they hear your voice! You can make a difference in the development of Opera!
http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2008/06/05/looking-sharp

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The Emperor’s New Clothes

Published
by
David Storey
on June 5, 2008
in Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Ubuntu, Web Browsers and Windows
. 0 Comments

Opera’s default user interface hasn’t changed dramatically since Opera 8. All this is about to change with the upcoming release of Opera 9.5 (Code-named Kestrel). Today marks the first public outing of this all-new UI.

The development of the new skin has been running in parallel with the development of Kestrel, but has been kept secret, even from many Opera employees. The inspiration for the new skin is clear. As Johan Borg puts it on the Desktop Team blog:

If one word should describe the new look, it would be Sharp. We wanted to create a skin with clean lines and clear icons, inspired by the intuitive symbols you can expect at an airport and in line with our Scandinavian heritage. This also better matches the look and feel we introduced on the Wii and refine in Opera 9.5 for Windows Mobile.

As a frequent visitor to airports (See Oslo Gardermoen in some of opera’s product pages), I can see some of this inspiration show through. The tab bar is the most visually distinct part of the new theme, and could become somewhat of a trademark visual clue. With a dark glossy strip, and two arrows—which make up the new tab and trash can buttons—always pointing forward, it certainly stands out. This visual trick reminds me of the arrow in the Fedex logo.

The panels button on the right hand side makes it much easier to discover and open the panels, especially on Mac where the previous opening strip was disabled due to not running applications in full screen mode. On Mac however, the tab bar remains visually the same as the previous Kestrel skin, with the updated icon positions.

The rest of the interface is toned down and understated, in swathes of grey. I think this works best for the icons on the status bar, where the grey icons don’t call out for attention and steal your eyes focus. The camera icon is perhaps one of the nicest in the set.

Just like Kestrel, the skin is going through refinement, and progress marches on. If you’d like to see the new skin and download the latest build then head over to the Desktop Team blog.

Looking Sharp

Published
by
Johan Borg
on June 5, 2008
in Apple, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Ubuntu, Web Browsers and Windows
. 0 Comments
Alongside the regular development of Kestrel we have had a separate project to modernize our look and feel. The new skin is in many ways a prelude to Peregrine, giving you a sneak peak into the future...

If one word should describe the new look, it would be Sharp. We wanted to create a skin with clean lines and clear icons, inspired by the intuitive symbols you can expect at an airport and in line with our Scandinavian heritage. This also better matches the look and feel we introduced on the Wii and refine in Opera 9.5 for Windows Mobile.

The color scheme of the user interface is designed to not steal focus away from your browsing, but being available when you need it and clearly indicate activity (stop button turning red) or security elements.

The quality and attention to detail in the browser itself should be reflected in the look and feel. That is why we have let ourselves be inspired by high-end and professional audio/video equipment for the backgrounds, buttons and tabs.

In the default setup we have chosen to include a button to open the panels, since they are far too useful to be hidden. Also, on the panel selector we have added a "+" button to easily add more panels or remove the ones you don't use. This makes Opera easy to use for a beginner while making it natural to grow with the product and discover more advanced features for the rest of us :cheers:

The New Tab button has been moved to the right of the last tab. IE7 users will be familiar with this, so the transition to Opera is natural (before you learn Ctrl+T or double-clicking the tab bar...). As you can see, the button has a sharp edge, mirrored by the closed tabs button, a hint of speed and performance.

PS
We will of course offer the classic skin for download for those of us who need a bit of time to get used to the new :angel:

Nice Graphics ™ by Pål Syvertsen, Flott Altså


WARNING: These are development snapshots: they contain the latest changes, but they also have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations. In fact, they may not work at all.

We are using a new signing key for the online root store and for EV data - the previous keys were test keys. Due to the update, EV will not work when upgrading from an older builds supporting EV until you perform a manual check for updates and restart Opera (or wait until the automatic check for updates kicks in).


Known issues:
  • Dragonfly does not work when JavaScript is disabled.
  • All the search icons are Opera icons
  • Translate menu doesn't work
  • Panel dropdown selector doesn't work


changelog
  • Fixed links in the fraud protection dialog
  • Fixed crash when saving mhtml files
  • Fixed random crasher when going back in history
  • Fixed moving videos on youtube when hovering tabs
  • Made form submit work properly in widgets
  • Fixed bug where plugins would continue streaming after closing a tab
  • XHR - Fixed calling of calling abort() from readyState 2 or 3
  • More fixes to xpath
  • Fixed viewing of feeds with slow loading images
  • Fixed problem with duplication of bookmarks when using Opera Link
  • Fixed issue where the integrated Dragonfly window would be too tall
  • Added three default speed dial entries
  • Windows: Fixed the default Save and Open dialog folders
  • UNIX: Fixed import of mail on when using the QT filechooser
  • UNIX: Improved finding of icons for download dialog
  • UNIX: Fixed filename when saving URL's



Download
Windows
Windows Classic
Macintosh
UNIX