Seventeen

[lucy24]

Well, I don't know where 13 and 14 went, but I must have blinked because when I finally got around to downloading 15, I found myself with 17 instead.

On the plus side: they have finally knuckled under and added a History menu, after clinging for years to that tab-plus-world's-smallest-icon setup that you'd have thought went out with MSIE 5. Whew.

On the down side: Has anyone else had issues with the View menu? Half of mine seems to be missing. (After "Enable developer tools" there's a dividing line ... and then nothing.) I even re-downloaded and reinstalled in case something got eaten in transit. This is slightly crucial for me, because as far as I can make out, View is where they've hidden the font-and-size preferences-- if in fact they exist anywhere.

And speaking of hiding: What's the magic trick to get Opera to open a blank generic empty window, either at startup or in response to a New command? I never figured it out in 12 either; closest I got was gutting the Speed Dial window so it's just a grey screen :( Can't even do that in 17.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

?

[penders]

Opera updates do seem to be fast and furious, I've blinked and missed them before [webmasterworld.com]. In fact I've just been prompted with a minor update to version 17, which I've dismissed for now. I thought it was downloading something!

The version identifier 13 was skipped, thought to be for reasons of superstition, while 14 was used to refer to a WebKit-based release of Opera for Android.

Source: [en.wikipedia.org...]

Version 15 was the first WebKit/Chromium release on desktop.

Has anyone else had issues with the View menu?

Hhmmm... what "View" menu?! In my "More tools" menu, the "Enable developer tools" item is the last in the menu and there is no dividing line beneath it. Windows 7 64-bit, Version 17.0.1241.45

I do not see any font-and-size preferences anywhere, apart from the "Zoom".

What's the magic trick to get Opera to open a blank generic empty window

Nope, don't know (in Version 17). You can set a page (or pages) to always open on startup... can you set this to something like about::blank? New tabs always seem to open the Speed Dial.

[RonPK]

The address bar is still crippled: no query string, no protocol.
Still no bookmarks (Mosaic 1 already had them).
Still no option to open PDFs in an external reader.

Bummer.

[lucy24]

Hhmmm... what "View" menu?!

Heh, that's funny, why would they call it something different depending on platform? I think all my browsers have a View menu. On Opera 17 it's between Edit and History. Actual Size, Zoom In, Zoom Out, divider, More Developer Tools, divider ... and that was all she wrote. It's the same in 12. That is: same menu name, not the same content.

You can set a page (or pages) to always open on startup... can you set this to something like about::blank? New tabs always seem to open the Speed Dial.

So do new windows. But about:blank (for me it worked with one colon) works for startup, and that's a help.

:: detour to check something ::

Dang, no, they haven't changed one mildly irritating feature. If you open the browser by dragging a file icon into the Opera icon-- as when you're testing html-- the requested file opens in addition to the chosen startup page, not instead of as in all other browsers I can think of.

otoh, 17 does seem to load up fractionally faster than 12. Say, a week rather than a week and a half.

[penders]

On Opera 17 it's between Edit and History. Actual Size, Zoom In, Zoom Out, divider, More Developer Tools, divider ...

I don't have an "Edit" menu either! (Copy/Paste functionality is now solely on a dynamic context menu.) My main menu goes Print, divider, Downloads, History. And the contents of that menu differs for me also. The zoom functionality is in the form of 3 icons on the main menu which zoom in, out and reset zoom.

17 does seem to load up fractionally faster than 12.

I guess that's what happens when you remove half the features!

[lucy24]

I've got a vague idea that the Edit menu-- as a system-wide institution, not specifically in Opera-- was originally a Mac thing. You even see it in many games that have no text functionality to speak of. Still-vaguer idea that it had something to do with Desk Accessories, but that's pushing the furthest limits of my first-hand Mac memory.

[birdbrain]

Hi there Lucy24,

What's the magic trick to get Opera to open a blank generic empty window

Use this easy to follow procedure....

1. Open Opera 17.0.1241.53
   
2. Type 'about:config' in the address bar.
   
3. Go to the 'On startup' section.
   
4. Click the 'Open a specific page or set of pages' option.
   
5. Click on 'Set pages' option.
   
6. This action will open a dialogue box.
   
7. Type 'about:blank' in the box that has 'Enter address' in it.
   
8. Click 'OK'.
   
9. Close Opera 17.0.1241.53
   
10. Open Opera 17.0.1241.53
    
11. Smile benignly at the result of your efforts :)
    

birdbrain