Forum Moderators: phranque
Major client REQUIRES Opera compatibility [webmasterworld.com]
There is not much to coding for Opera except, first write clean validating code, and two, understand how page elements are meant to be displayed.
Both IE & Netscape take liberties with various elements. Both are pretty good most of the time, but Opera sticks closest to W3C recommendations.
Some notable differences include list margins and header spacing. I have not yet found a situation where a little CSS could not resolve an issue and result in uniform display across Opera, IE and Netscape/Mozilla.
If you design with heavy doses of javascript and dhtml, you will find a few limitations. For myself, I keep scripting to a bare minimum.
C_F, I have been monitoring TheCounter.com's stats for sometime now, first and most likely, Opera is drastically under-reported, on a windows platform (not certain about others) Opera 6 installs with it's Quick Prefence default set at Identify as IE, I could not even begin to speculate as to the percentage of users who never adjust this setting. Brett may have a better handle on all of these stats, but in any event, even if under-reported, Opera's adoption rate is climbing.
It is very interesting to read the stats and comments regarding Opera at Download.com, where Opera 6.01 (bundled w/JRE 1.3) is #5 on the Most Popular List (Internet Category)
Since 2/12/02 Download.com reports the following download stats:
There are other builds available, including a custom (Composer built?) version titled: LabourStart Trade Union.
It is very intersting to read the comments and approval ratings available from the download page (Opera 6.01 JRE1.3 appears to draw the most comments) with a 90% approval rating, Opera is obviously winning some converts. It is best to sort the comments by date and then read away... the positive comments reflect much of what we have touched on here at WebmasterWorld. In any event, it looks like Opera has a real chance to gain some decent market share.
Opera has arrived!
Opera certainly has arrived but someone needs to tell most of the big design houses. I was recently talking to a designer at one of the top web design/marketing companies in my city and the basically told me "Yeah Opera is cool and all but we don't waste time making sure sites work right in it".
I design for Opera, IE and NN but depending on my target audience I may not knock myself out to get the full Opera compatibility working - although usually the compatibility issues crop up with NN :)
Richard Lowe
For display issues, you can't blame 'O for every bad page on the web that was designed for the quirks of IE. That's just for openers. Then there is all the proprietary javascript, dom, growing batch of illegal CSS, and even proprietary Java running around.
Opera not only has to meet internet standards, it has to attempt to code around all that mountain of garabage that was built to run around IE and Netscape Errors.
You can not believe the number of code errors in IE that I have found. I have no doubt, that there are over 200 spec violations and errors just in IE's html rendering engine. The CSS engine is just as bad. You never see those errors on the web because everyone codes around them.
To top it off, you have people reading statistics from counters that are known to count Opera as IE or Netscape. Even some of the raw logging programs can't get it right. For several years, WebTrends reported Opera as Netscape.
I ran into a counter last fall that contained two sections of java script to launch the counter: a Netscape section, and an IE section. Gosh, which one does Opera pick to run? It doesn't matter - fact is, Opera was being counted as one of them.
I also know of a guy who ran a fairly large site (he reads here frequently). He was always telling me that he didn't have any Netscape or Opera users. I finally started digging through his site and very few of his links worked. I looked at the code and found in almost all places but his menus, he was exploiting a js construct that would only work in ie. Gee, no wonder he didn't have any nn/opera users.
Buggy? If I didn't have IE installed, this site would validate 100% to w3c and would only be viewable in Opera.
> I only make sure that the site I
> am designing looks OK on only both IE
As a last check, run your code through the w3c validator. If you can get it 'close' to validating, or make it validate, you should rest assured that your site is actually visible on alternative browsers.
the big problem with building to specific browsers is that you are forever chasing your tail trying to keep up with the latest releases...work to the specs and you only need to know when something departs dramatically from them
It is crashing regularly on Windows XP - more so than Mozilla or IE6. I use Version 6.02 Build 1078
I would still use it in preference to IE6 though.
<addendum>Is there any way to get rid of that pesky ad in the upper right of my Opera browser?</addendum>
<addendum>Is there any way to get rid of that pesky ad in the upper right of my Opera browser?</addendum>
yes buy it!!!
yes buy it!!!
Feh! It's hardly worth paying for it just to get rid of the ad. Aside from total standard compatibility, what advantages does Opera have over IE (on a Windows machine)?
(If one of you says "What more do you need?" . . .)
F12
ease of viewing frameset source
bookmarks
speed of flipping backwards and forwards between cached pages
the list is endless
read and digest opera browser [searchengineworld.com] by our very own BT
get the opera tools as an extra resource
mouse gestures
bookmarks
I'm not really ragging on Opera - it's a good browser. I only use it for compatibility issues though because IE integrates with Windows so well and I'm extremely accustomed to its interface.
Again: does anyone have any hard data on how much Opera is used?
IE vs Opera vs Mozilla
[searchengineworld.com...]
the main advantage of opera is the multiple windows within the interface i forget the official name, which means you can easily manage a great many open windows at once.
if you are a bit geeky it is very customisable.
if you haven't yet discovered mouse gestures then DON"T because once you do, you'll never want to use a browser without them again.
other cool functions are ease of turning off pop up windows and ease of changing your preferences like have js on or off, you can do this with other browsers sure, but with opera its really quick and easy, just press F12 and make your selection.
Security
Super Search
Speed - I still use IE sometimes for editing online but I find myself murmmering "come on, come on" as IE pokes along. Opera is just faster.
>...link to another window, (Correct me if I'm wrong) you have to go through the long process...
Shift+Click
It's abilty to valid html and css online far outways any of it's bugs.
I also enjoy the multiple window options.
In my opinion it's a must have browser!
