UI overhaul in Opera 37.1
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operamilleson last edited byHelp us test the new Opera browser for Android!
Today, we’re starting to roll out an upgrade of Opera for Android to our beta channel. We’re doing this gradually, so it might take a little while before you see it on your device.
A brand new UI
The first thing you’ll notice is the UI overhaul. We’ve rebuilt the main browser interface completely, while the settings section has gotten a lick of paint as well.
News in the US and Indonesia
In the US and Indonesia, the start page looks a little different: Speed Dial is still there as a panel on the left, but in the center, there is a news feed powered by a totally overhauled Discover engine. It allows you to read the latest news right when you start the browser, and you can easily dive in and start exploring.
We expect this feature to be rolled out to more countries and languages in the near future as well, so stay tuned for more news.
Under the hood
This release is still based on Chromium 50, but we’re working in the near future on updating the engine as well: that’s why we’re calling this release version 37.1, in case you’re wondering.
We did find the time though to do a number of bug fixes to the “add to home screen” feature (progressive web apps):
- view mode media queries are now properly supported
- the notification area picks up the theme color from the manifest
- there’s a better fallback mechanism to deal with omissions in the manifest metadata
Additionally, intent:// URLs, which can be used to jump from webpages to native apps, are now supported as well. You can try this out by visiting Deezer.com and clicking on the blue button.
Let us know what you think about the release!
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operamilleson last edited by
@mrninko yes translations is coming in an update for all supported languages!
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mrninko last edited by
Know,bad luck for US and India. But really - never use it anyway. Won't be crying for that.
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A Former User last edited by
Well the new UI has some interesting positive changes but also some negatives. For the start let's just say that I have no interest in feeds, predefined news suggestions and suggestions in general, which i consider bloat, clutter, and very annoying to the eye due to their chaotic and dizzy nature, so reading in the mobile blog that you can turn that stuff off in the options is more than welcomed. Please keep it that way and not like in the US browser experiment which was the base for this new UI.
The critique:
- I have a lot of speed dials which I keep them fitted and on a perfect raster on my smartphone's 5" screenspace so that I don't have to scroll up, thus the browser needs to remember my layout preference (either address bar + Speed Dial or plain Speed Dial), and not start with that huge red address bar-banner, because that makes me do the extra unnecessary (scrolling) move to bring it to the desired position first. Annoyance level: Major. Needs to remember (last) state.
- How can I view my other synced Speed Dials? Button is gone now. Annoyance level: Major.
- One tap access to bookmarks and saved pages now became two tap. And while it looks more modern and includes the url, the space between the items is too big forcing you to scroll much much more. Reduce the distance between them. Annoyance level: Medium
- Tab selector still sometimes hangs the browser. Waiting for fix.
Some debateable things of minor severness:
- Dark grey color of the tapped pop-uped SD folder is too dark imo, the contrast is too big compared to the white background. Needs a tone down imo.
- Indifferent as of now about the replacement of the right arrow by a share button.
- I somehow miss the percentage value of the data compression
Positive changes:
- slick design
- the ability to choose between full banner, address bar & SD, plain SD (but it needs to be remembered )
- SD button behavior (opening new tabs)
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A Former User last edited by
Know,bad luck for US and India. But really - never use it anyway. Won't be crying for that.
Let's pray though that we will be able to turn it off and keep our Speed Dial intact an in the core of the browsing experience and not as a togglable panel at the side and other horrific ideas!
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mrninko last edited by
Could someone post pics gow it looks like in US amd India with feeds and for what we can "looking for"?
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fscorpio last edited by
Hello world,
My first time here.My point of view on this UI.
Some good things, but far too many bad in this new UI for me.The good :
- New menus look like more modern.
- Share it's more easy.
- Reach speed dial doesn't "close" the current website anymore. It's change the current tab instead.
- Now, Speed dial are only Speed dial, no more Bookmarks or Saved pages on it.
- The two menus (the plus at the top-left corner and the red O at the bottom-right corner) are a single menu (at the top-right corner).
The bad (for me) :
- But now, Bookmarks and Saved pages are more complex to reach.
- The new red banner, in two words : beautiful and useless. They take too much place for absolutely nothing. A phone screen are small, at least remember last state or (better for me) provide an option to disable it (or just remove it).
- I can see the previous button, but where is the next button?
- I like to have history in a single movement on the left of Speed dial, it's easy, rapid and efficient to retrieve one of the lasted viewed websites. Now, it's painful.
- Where is synced speed dial?
- There are a refresh button at the left of the home button only on the speed dial tab, but it's always disable, what does it do?
- Data saved are only in bytes, not percent. It's easy to replace "Total saved XX Mb" by "Total saved XX Mb / XX %" and doesn't take so much place.
- Now the home page/speed dial it's not anymore a tab, with a new "new tab" UI (the same when I touch the URL bar). It's not bad but :
- Why speed dial still in tab selector? It's accessible anywhere with the Home button, no need to be in tab selector and I think this can be annoying. It's not anymore a tab, but it's still a tab in the same time.
- [Bug] Click on the URL bar, then on Bookmarks in speed dial work fine, but not in a new tab.
- Only one tab Speed dial, ok, how can I open a website from Speed dial in private tab since they can't have speed dial in a private tab? With this UI, private tab are unusable : No speed dial, No bookmarks and Partial access to history (only the few suggestion when I type the URL). For Bookmarks, I can open it in a private tab with Bookmarks, but they need a long touch to select it, press the menu on the top-right corner and choose "Open in private tab". Too much tap and too much tap at different location (bottom-right corner, at the top, long in the middle and two in the top-right corner), it's too tiring for my fingers.
- It's less red and more blue.
- The new UI in one sentence : More tap for less features.
Globally, the new UI that look like more modern, but too much menus, too much tap, too much boring.
The previous one has less complex menus and are just really simple to use. No headache.
For comparison :- Bookmarks : 1 tap on "Bookmarks", now it's 2 with the need to search a little bit the correct button due to it's non explicit appearance.
- History : The same as above, 1 swipe vs a complex and annoying method.
- Saved pages : 1 tap vs 2 taps, and "Reading list" are a less explicit name.
- Trash history : 1 swipe to access history and 1 tap on a trash icon, it's just simple, no need to search, rapid. Now, the same complex method as above to reach history and 2 taps to trash it.
- And so on.
In conclusion, that I love in Opera, it's a full featured browser with a simple UI. Now it's become a complex full featured browser. In my point of view, a simple and elegant UI become a complex and harmful UI (but it's "modern").
Simple is better than complex. -
mrninko last edited by
Could you minimise letter font or use more letter for naming?
And another, could you add a bit of side slide bar?<a href='https://postimg.org/image/q1fp9zhux/' target='_blank'>
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operamilleson last edited by
Major thanks for the feedback! All of you bring up good points that we will work on to improve. We know it's a major change, especially with the new focus on news and certain features being moved to different locations.
@fscorpio:
Your point about certain features being harder to reach is a good point. We will think about ways to make it easier for users to reach these key features of the browser.Since only US and ID get the new news feed some of the features in the browser doesn't make sense, like the refresh button in the bottom bar. We are working on making news available for more countries. But I agree that if you only have Speed Dial page having the (disabled) refresh button makes no sense.
@xirit32:
Synced speed dials will be back soon. How common is the tab selector issue you mention? Does the browser freeze or do you get a crash?@mrninko:
We will look into making the text smaller.Thanks again for helping test out the new browser, we will look into all other points mentioned too!
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mrninko last edited by
@operamilleson
News feed - will it be possible to turn off or is it forced feature?
Because if it's SPAMMING display I'll leave Opera for good (guess you will lose lot of users, except fanatics :D) -
A Former User last edited by
@operamilleson Thx for reading all that stuff. There's also a bug to be reported, you can't drag & edit a thumbnail that locates inside a SD folder.
About the tab selector: Freezing. Sometimes it takes several minutes to come back and sometimes it throws me back to the phone's main. I haven't experienced it with tab selectors of other chromium browsers so I don't know what to think about it. Check also the dedicated thread on this very forum. Cheers.
@mrninko About how it looks: I'm pretty sure like this: http://www.opera.com/blogs/mobile/2016/06/us-help-us-test-new-browser-concept/
About disabling feed news fortunately there is some extra info in the mobile blog announcement.
Quoting:
The news feed has various customization and subscription options — you can connect your Twitter account, or pick your favorite channels, for instance — and there is even a new reader mode which offers a really clean reading experience. You can also configure in Settings if you want to use the news feed or rather stick to Speed Dial as your default start page. -
suppliedrelic last edited by
About the tab selector: Freezing. Sometimes it takes several minutes to come back and sometimes it throws me back to the phone's main. I haven't experienced it with tab selectors of other chromium browsers so I don't know what to think about it. Check also the dedicated thread on this very forum. Cheers.
I have experienced the exact same issue across all current builds of Opera Mobile. I've filed a bug report for all applicable browsers several weeks ago, but so far nothing has been done about it.
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A Former User last edited by
Could someone post pics gow it looks like in US amd India with feeds and for what we can "looking for"?
Probably like this: http://www.opera.com/blogs/mobile/2016/06/us-help-us-test-new-browser-concept/
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A Former User last edited by
worst ever....
You killed the layout with tabs? Only for phones anymore?
You know, that some systems, like samsung tablets, have an overlay button on lower right corner???
(is there the tab-switch???)Fact is, after update i have no more access to my open tabs...
Or i have, but the ui won't show me without playing for hours (i won't).
0 points.
