Monthly Archive for May, 2010

In trying to keep with the Opera wishlist idea that was started in July 2007, I’d like to list 5 things that I would like to see completed or implemented (some for Windows and Mac as well) by the time Opera 10.5x final is reached for Linux. There’s no better time to do this then now, with the hint of an Opera 10.53 Beta 1 on the FTP servers for Linux!

1. Improved implementation of dragging tabs around. I’m glad to see that the Opera 10.5x interface is becoming a little more stylish and slick, but some aspects seem to be left unfinished. The one I’m talking about is when you drag a tab out of the tab bar and you’re suddenly dragging an unpolished chunk from the tab bar:
   
   Dragging this tab back into the tab bar results in a fall-back to the old way that Opera handled moving tabs and you now see an arrow insertion point rather than a smooth transition of the tab falling into the tab bar and others making room for it…as Google Chrome does.

   If Opera can show a chunk of the tab bar to represent the fact that you’re about to detach it then they should also be able to make it more pleasing to look at as Google Chrome has done. I suggest that rather than displaying what you see in the image above, they show the new tab bar thumbnail next to the cursor when its been dragged out of a window:
   
   Then the transition to moving the tab into a tab bar again should be polished so the entire process is aesthetically pleasing to see.

2. Merge the tab bar and title bar. This has been done in Windows for XP, Vista and 7 in Opera 10.5x thus far and would carry over very nicely to the Unix/Linux platform as well! I mentioned this a while back, but it still deserves a place in my wishlist.
   
3. More complete Opera Link support. I think we all expected more settings to be synchronized via Opera Link when it was first introduced. Unfortunately, though, we’ve seen only stability and maintenance updates for the same feature set while other browser venders (Google and Mozilla) are now beginning to grow close to releasing similar and more complete solutions.

   I have been looking forward to being able to synchronize my complete “Preferences” settings (including opera:config), mail/chat/feed accounts (just the account information…excluding locally stored mail), as well as my stored passwords for a very long time and I know that I’m not alone.

   It would also be very nice if Opera implemented Opera Link as a user sign-in to show that users bookmarks and settings instead of merging with data that is already stored. I’ve been wanting this “messenger” style support for a while now and it looks like Mozilla Firefox could already implement this with Weave and a built-in Account Manager.

4. Vastly improved interface for Dragonfly. In its current form, Dragonfly is very usable and offers a great number of features. The down side to Dragonfly, however, is one of inconsistency. It would be much easier to use if the interface matched Opera’s own interface much more closely.

   The speed of the interface can be frustration at times as well. With Opera’s vastly improved JavaScript engine, I expected Dragonfly to begin to feel nearly native. Instead I noticed little to no change at all. Resizing the Dragonfly window still has a very noticeable delay and sometimes doesn’t resize correctly at all.
   

5. Generic support for Linux notification libraries using the FreeDesktop.org standard (as mentioned here) so file transfers and other notifications become more integrated with the system in use:
   

Now lets see what kind of beneficial wishlists YOU can come up with (for Windows, Mac and/or Linux)! Post a link to your “top 5 wishlist” in the comments below!