Opera 10 Beta Arrives

The latest revision of Opera browser has arrived, and this one is actually packaged as a Beta. Revision 1535 was called an Alpha on the download sites, but identified itself as Beta once installed. This latest revision is 1551, and with it comes the actual announcement on the Opera website.

It includes upgrades everywhere; some of them are:

Opera auto update (New)

Opera now includes the ability to update itself automatically when new releases become available. By default, Opera will notify the user about available updates. Users can specify that snapshot build releases of Opera should be downloaded by enabling “Download All Snapshots” in opera:config. Users can also choose not to check for updates or to automatically install updates by going to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Security and changing the “Opera update level” (select box) to the: “Automatically install updates” setting.

This may shake up those who are paranoid, but that is why it can be turned on or off, depending on your mental state. The updates on feature allows fixes to be downloaded quickly and lessens any attack vectors – however, if you notice, Opera doesn’t get attacked frequently. It remains one of the most secure browsers available, while delivering a rich user experience.

Opera inline spelling checker (New)

Spelling errors are now indicated as you type via a dotted red underline in all places where you can input text: form fields, Opera Mail compose windows, Notes, Chat, etc. Only single-line text fields do not check spelling automatically. The spelling checker can be enabled/disabled from the context menu (right-click a text field to open this menu). The context menu also includes spelling suggestions, the ability to change dictionary languages, and the ability to select additional dictionaries for automatic download and installation. Opera uses the Hunspell dictionary format, and a US English dictionary is included by default.

This is something I really like. I am an excellent speller, but a poor typist. There is frequently a problem between what comes from my forebrain, as it gets to the keys. This makes things very easy, just look for the little red underline. One minor irritation is that it doesn’t seem to understand contractions at all, so you will see that little red line if you tend to use them.

Opera Mail
Rich Text Message Composition — HTML authoring (New)

Opera Mail can now send rich text messages including inline images, styled text, links, and/or custom HTML. Forwarding and redirecting rich text messages is now available. Rich text composition can be enabled by default for an account on the Outgoing tab of the account settings dialog by checking “Prefer HTML formatting”. It can also be enabled on a per message basis in the message composition window. Bold styling, italic styling, and underline styling can respectively be toggled using Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, and Ctrl-U. Rich text message signatures are not yet supported.

Delete After X Days — POP-only (New)

Delete after X days automatically removes messages from POP servers after the specified number of days, which is particularly useful for users who have limited server space. This option can be enabled for POP accounts on the Incoming tab of the account settings dialog by checking “Remove from server after #days” (7 days by default). It is also possible to specify that only read messages and/or only fully downloaded messages should be removed. Warning: Disabling the latter option is dangerous for those that use low-bandwidth mode, as messages that are not completely downloaded will be removed from the server, making it impossible to retrieve the complete message.

Very nice features from a built-in e-mailer. I use this on a USB drive and find it very good. The benefits of having one program that is light in weight cannot be underestimated on the go.

Opera Presto 2.2 rendering engine (Improved)

The Opera Presto rendering engine has been updated to version 2.2 further enhancing its reputation for stability and security. It is identified within the user agent string of Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Presto/2.2.15 Version/10.00, which is located in the main Toolbar under Help > About Opera; see this Opera reference.

- and then there is the way it handles the web, which is why you are using a browser, right?

Acid3 test
Opera 10 Beta scores 100/100, pixel perfect on the Acid3 compliance test; see our Opera reference.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Support for the CSS3 color:transparent value has been improved.
Full RGBA and HSLA opacity support is now included for an easier way to make Web page features transparent. This is accomplished by the addition of a fourth argument to HSL and RGB, namely alpha transparency and results in RGBA and HSLA values. See this Opera reference.
Support has been added for the CSS Selectors API. This feature makes the selection of DOM elements a lot simpler. It includes partial support for namespace resolver features which allow you to work with mixed namespace documents and select elements based on their namespace; see this Opera reference.
CSS files must now be served with the correct MIME type (”text/css”) in Strict mode, or they will be ignored.

HTML 5 support
HTML 5 algorithms have been implemented for detecting charsets in HTML.
HTML 5 end-tag and start-tag parsing, whitespace parsing, and DOCTYPE parsing have been added.
HTML 5 <canvas> elements can now export images to the JPEG format.
HTML 5 <canvas> transforms are applied when building a path, not when painting it.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
FPS (Frames Per Second) support: Opera enables you to manipulate the speed (frames per second) of your SVG animations using JavaScript by supporting the SVGElement.currentFps and SVGElement.targetFps properties. These properties respectively read and control SVG frames per second; see this Opera reference.
SVG fonts in HTML support: Use SVG font files to style your text using CSS (in both HTML and SVG files); see this Opera reference.

Web fonts support
font specification (@font-face CSS at-rules) with the font-family descriptor
src descriptor with local and remote
TrueType (TTF)
OpenType (OTF)
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) font support

I started using Opera because it did the best in the Acid2 tests. Now, there is Acid3, and once again Opera 10 scores 100/100. This means that Opera shows what it is supposed to. When web designers code, this is what they meant. (unless they’re specifically coding to an Internet Exploder audience – which they should not, that’s why there are standards.)

Other small things, which, taken one at a time mean little, add up to a very rich and satisfying user experience include -

Opera User Interface

Opera skin elements (New)

New skin elements have been applied to the Opera 10 Beta 1 user interface, and will continue to be added as Opera 10 progresses to its final release; see this Opera reference. Some of these are:
Etch effects and border inner highlights have been applied giving extra crispness to edges.
Text Shadow has a new parameter. This was added to reproduce the etched text effect that is standard on OS X® and many Windows® applications.
Horizontal and vertical splitters can now be skinned.

Opera Speed Dial configuration options (New)

You can now easily configure how many speed dials will fit comfortably on your Opera desktop. Click “Configure Speed Dial” in the lower-right corner of the Speed Dial page to open the configuration dialog box. Three tools are available:
Background image
Browse to an image you wish to use as the background of your Speed Dial page.
Position this image on the Speed Dial page by selecting center, stretch, or tile.
Layout of your speed dials
Select which dial layout best suits your monitor size:
Small (2 x 2): renders a 4 speed dial grid
Normal (3 x 3): renders a 9 speed dial grid
Wide screen (4 x 3): renders a 12 speed dial grid
Large screen (4 x 4): renders a 16 speed dial grid
Large wide screen (5 x 4): renders a 20 speed dial grid
Extra large screen (5 x 5): renders a 25 speed dial grid
Hide Speed Dial
Unchecked by default, check this box to hide all speed dials.

Opera Tab Bar thumbnails (New)

The Tab Bar can now be used to show all open tabs as thumbnails.
Open the Tab Bar in the Opera user interface:
In the main Opera Tool Bar, navigate to View > Toolbars > Tab Bar.
Click the Tab Bar check box. This opens the Tab Bar in the Opera user interface.
In the Tab Bar, middle-click or double-click the drag bar to fully expand or collapse all open tabs into thumbnails, or
Grab the lower border of the Tab Bar or grab the drag bar and:
move it down to expand all open tabs into thumbnails;
move it up to collapse all open thumbnails back into tabs;
slowly expand and collapse the Tab Bar to adjust the tab thumbnails to a size of your choice.
Functional note: The Tab Bar select box is set to “No wrapping” by default (right-click the Tab Bar, in the context menu click “Appearance”, “Wrapping” is set to the “No Wrapping” selection). If you change this selection to “Wrap to multiple lines”, Tab Bar thumbnails will not function.

I installed the Iron browser, just before writing this. I wanted to see what might be out there to further challenge Opera. Iron is nice, and I prefer it to Chrome, but it still is like seeing Word Perfect for DOS after using any other Word Processor of the time. It looks like it’s unfinished, and less capable. It just doesn’t make it.

You owe it to yourself to try it out. Look around, Check the features, Use it long enough to get a feel. Once you use Opera and stop trying to simply check raw speed you’ll understand why Opera users are a loyal bunch.

Opera has speed, and great features. Chrome is building a rep on speed alone, but is bereft of features, making for an unsatisfying browsing experience. Chrome is building features, Opera is building speed. Which do you think you’ll be most happy with while you’re waiting for equivalence?

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full changelog here, with full explanations

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now it’s 10!