The saga continues ...
Mercutio said:
The squamous close tab "x" is WAY too close to the regular Windows Close button. I have now closed Opera twice when I meant to close a tab.
I guess it is a problem for the inexperienced Windows user. :lol: Most of the alternative skins change the client window icons to be clearly different from the MDI parent window's. At the end of the day, you need to complain to Microsoft - it's their API, i.e. native Windows.
Alternatively, right-click on the page tab and select Close page (or if it has focus, hit [Ctrl][F4] - this is another Windows standard).
To be fair, I noticed that Opera's alternative SDI interface seems to have got somewhat broken around version 7, in that it no longer makes sense. :-? Perhaps Tannin could comment on this?
Apparently the "Stop" button on the main toolbar flashes for about 1/2 second when I click a link.
That's right, the page objects have already been retrieved. I realise that this seems somewhat impossible to a Moz/IE afficionado, but it really is that fast. All that remains is to render the page.
Seriously folks, I'll concede that my daughter has noticed that the Stop button
occasionally disappears prematurely (although she is still on 7.11). I've never noticed it myself - could it be related to image blocking, Merc?
Again, I think every browser needs a real stop button ... Firebird's can do things like stop animations, even if a page isn't loading. Very handy; I hadn't realized that the smilie icons on SF blink and twitch and crap.
Well, I just tried this with Mozilla 1.6, and all I could see was a grayed out Stop button that completely ignored me when I clicked on it. Perhaps it's a 'feature' of Firebird 0.8 alpha, which I haven't tried?
As I've already said, you can kill these in Opera with two keystrokes. <yawn>
Opera seems to me to have a very chunky interface. There are sparsely-used toolbars and needlessly large dialog boxes. In feel, ignoring the UI issues that I consider idiosyncratic, it feels more like IE or Konq than Moz.
Try launching a {File} - {Open} dialog from Wordpad. It's the same, because it's a standard Windows dialog box. :roll:
Keyboard shortcuts aren't quite right either. A lot of shortcuts that are held in common with IE and Moz do something different in Opera.
A lot are the same too! Not to worry, as I already pointed out, you can actually customize Opera, unlike the other two. But as Opera's shortcuts are usually more logical and predate the other two, I would not bother personally.
Opera didn't automatically find or import my Moz/Firebird bookmarks or IE favorites. It does appear to have a functional converter, but it doesn't find the files on its own, instead asking me to navigate through explorer. Pbbt.
Interesting. It certainly used to auto-import other browser bookmarks, particularly IE favourites. In fact, I just tried it manually, and it went unerringly to the Exploder Fave directory. I can understand it not jumping to conclusions with Moz, however.
Opera appears to use a single file for bookmarks, as is good and proper, but Operasoft has also helpfully filled my list of bookmarks with a bunch of crap I'll never look at. Thanks for bookmarking ebay for me. I never would've found it on my own.
Well, there you go! Helpful, isn't it?
Again, seriously, how hard is it to select all the predefined bookmarks and delete them? Two keystrokes, actually: [Ctrl][A], then [Delete]. Given that the supplied bookmarks are solely intended as a helpful feature, I might go the extra mile and create a new folder called, say, 'Default' or 'Opera', and just drag all the existing bookmarks into it.
I'd definitely need a good lie down after that, though ...
As far as page rendering goes: Opera seems to load elements of a page faster than Gecko. I don't think that's a good thing.
Yes folks, you saw it here first: Man dislikes faster computing experience.
Things literally leap around the screen as loading finishes. Firebird has a slightly longer gap before it begins to display, but page elements are fixed. It's much easier to interact with an unfinished page in Firebird.
From
nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera7Performance (currently overloaded):
Problem: Page contents moves about while loading, appearing to load slowly.
Cause: Opera uses a progressive rendering technology which actually speeds up the time it takes to get readable text content, but at the expense of the page redrawing each time some new information is added. Many users perceive this to be actually slower when they see the content redrawing, even if when timed objectively, it is faster. Opera gives you the choice about how you want it to load the page, depending on what you perceive as faster!!!
Solution: If you would rather read the text quickly at the expense of the page redrawing more, set Preferences » Windows » Loading to "redraw instantly". If you would rather wait (to see more smooth loading behaviour), then increase this setting according to your taste. Users on slow connections but fast computers should set this about 1-2 second, slower computers on slow connections about 2-3 seconds. If you have a fast connection, most data should be in by about 1-2 seconds, so set to "redraw instantly" (or "redraw when loaded" if you want it super smooth!). If your fast connection is linked to a slow computer, then set it from about 2 seconds up ("redraw when loaded" should be good in this case) to minimise lots of page redrawing.
As a further tip for older computers:Opera gives you the choice to save some memory and CPU by not pre-drawing the images before you see them on the page. The benefit is less used resources, but graphics may 'pop' onto the screen rather than smoothly scrolling into view. If you want to save memory and resources, set Preferences » Multimedia » Draw Images Instantly to OFF.
