kinda like batman, but with a wife and 3 kids

I know it’s stealing Firefox3′s thunder, but Opera 9.5 was just released and it is REALLY well done. I have always been amazed at how blazing fast it is and this release continues in that vein.

However…

• Is it just me or does the Gmail “move to trash” / “delete” shortcut (shift+3 or “#”) TOTALLY not stinking work in Opera???? I am just blown away by this. I am trying to not let it irritate me to the point of switching back to Firefox (I mean, there are other things that will probably do it (see below)), but it is increasingly frustrating.
• When editing a wordpress post, if you hit “Enter” in the Visual editor, it pre-pends a newline?? Um, wtf??
• Mouse bindings rock!! Just remember that you need to edit your “Mouse” shortcuts, not your “Keyboard” shortcuts to make “Button8″ (at least on my Logitech VX (ROQXORZ!!!) mouse) bind to “Back” and “Button9″ bind to “Forward”. Heh. Silly Jason…
• When editing an e-mail in Gmail’s visual editor, “Enter”, “Backspace” and “Delete” can’t seem to interrupt a previous quote and get rid of the preceding “quote” vertical line?? You know… like for inline commenting?? Gr!
• I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all I have time for now. =:/
• UPDATE: Webex anyone?? Why can I not launch a webex session from Opera, even if I mask Opera as Firefox?? =:(

8 Responses

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1. 

   lopo

   Hey vanRijm,

   I’m personally not using GMail at all, but I read

   http://code.google.com/p/gmail2-for-opera/

   would do a pretty decent job.

   Might want to check it out.
   And hey, it’s not only Opera’s fault – Google ignores Opera as it seems.

   Wednesday June 18, 2008 at 3:14 pm
2. 

   metellius

   Yeah, I noticed the wordpress newline thing too. Really annoying.

   Wednesday June 18, 2008 at 7:15 pm
3. 

   Jeff

   So does that mean they finally got around to fixing Flash support? After Adobe changed Flash around, I couldn’t fool Opera into thinking Flash wasn’t there, so I’d have those ugly gray boxes (where most sites have fall-back images in place of Flash content). After that, I gave up and learned to love Konqueror.

   But Opera was my baby up until then. Maybe I’ll have to give it another go.

   Wednesday June 18, 2008 at 11:05 pm
4. 

   S.

   Hi Jason,

   Yeah, the trouble with FF is that, let us put it this way, it takes liberties with the DOM standards (no kidding, compare the W3C DOM specs with that on the Mozilla site), or outright embraces-and-extends it (look up MIDAS for instance.)

   Likewise Flash: Mozilla succesfully lobbied Adobe into using their own (GTK+-based) plug-in framework as of the latest Flash 9, which is incompatible with every other browsers. That’s why nspluginviewer and friends have scrambled to implement what poor Mozilla-emulation they could, with only moderate amounts of success.

   I am unpleased with the Mozilla organization, frankly. What was the point of moving away from MS if we’re going to use the same competition-extinguishing tactics?

   Thursday June 19, 2008 at 6:09 am
5. 

   AlexeiSergeev

   First: This post is like firefox3 promotion post.
   Second: Don’t expect web-apps to work well with current implementation of Ajax, it is wrong way google move internet and firefox. Ajax is not targeted to implement so complex web apps, it’s a google mistake it do so. As well using web interfaces on everyday basis is mistake too.

   Third: WordPress rich editor is crap.

   GL 2 firefox promoters and google lovers.

   Thursday June 19, 2008 at 8:18 am
6. 

   Nick

   I don’t agree with the “stealing Firefox3′s thunder” comment – it seems to me that the majority of tech websites have completely ignored Opera 9.5. I think Opera deserves more support than it is getting at the moment.

   What a pity when such a good product, such an innovative browser, is overlooked by so many, let’s face it the browser space wouldn’t be what it is today without them.

   And BTW Jeff; flash works just fine in Opera 9.5 – it has to be the best browsing experience out there, although I don’t use Gmail so I can understand the frustration of others.

   However a lot of Opera’s troubles probably result from adhering to standards and you could argue that they shoot themselves in the foot on this front, but someone has to stick to their principles and I applaud them for this.

   Opera is doing more for web browsing than anyone else, not just on the PC front but on mobile devices, game consoles and so on – talk about convergence, they are ahead of their time and ahead of everyone else. I only hope that eventually they get the recongition they deserve.

   Friday June 20, 2008 at 7:27 pm
7. 

   peter

   Opera 9.5 is a nightmare for web developers!!! Some pages simply don’t appear. Both JBoss (Red Hat) and Google should boycott this new version because of the way it limits JavaScript. RichFaces simply does not work any more and there are new problems with GWT too. I’m sick of all these new versions not compatible with existing web solutions…

   Wednesday June 25, 2008 at 8:57 am
8. 

   Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper

   @peter: ugh. I’m sorry to hear that. How does it limit JavaScript? Are there regressions between Opera 9.5 and previous versions?

   Wednesday June 25, 2008 at 12:25 pm