Appearance/Customization

[blackbird71]

blackbird71 last edited by

Over the years, Opera had accumulated literally hundreds of functions, customization capabilities, and tweak options... what many of us call "features". Most of these were implemented specifically for Opera's Presto rendering engine, in part because Opera had total control of the design of that engine, as well as the user interface. The new Opera rendering engine is not under Opera's sole control, but instead derives from chromium/Blink, and its architecture is such that including traditional features into the new user interface requires completely new coding. In many cases, the architectural differences are great enough that a formerly simple feature or option would require a great deal of new coding to incorporate (if even possible) into the new Opera. Given that developer time is a scarce and costly resource, not all "features" are reckoned to be equal... so the most-demanded features get added first. On top of that, not all former features may appear to the developers to be worth returning into Opera in terms of the effort required versus the targeted market audience payoff for the browser.

The major problem is that what I think is a necessary feature will not necessarily coincide with what you think. And perhaps neither of our opinions will fall into the feature range the developers are focused on for the user universe they have in mind. This is probably the greatest single problem with fully redesigning anything... all the accumulated features of the previous versions have to be reassessed from the ground up, and not everybody will be happy if some are left out or seriously altered. In fact, if a hundred users each have a different pet feature out of 100 features in the original product, and only 10 features return as they were, then 90% of that sample of 100 users will be unhappy - albeit for different reasons. But out there in the marketplace, there may be another 1000 users who are totally satisfied with the new design. I believe this is the current Opera story: lots of past users upset that certain favorite and necessary (to them) features are absent or highly altered in the new versions, but they're different complained-about features for different users... and Opera has a somewhat different view of its target user audience than many of the more vocal past users have.

This is going to take user patience to see what gets resolved/returned for the browser, and how it all plays. I've been telling others that it will be at least version 20 (and perhaps even 25) before users get a good sense of where the new Opera is ultimately headed and what the foundational limits of the engine versus developer skills may be with regard to "features" and customizability.

[jkhalilprince]

jkhalilprince last edited by

I have to agree with rderasta. I see and understand the limitations mentioned by blackbird71, but when I downloaded the Opera 16 and found I couldn't choose my own search engine, I switched to Chrome. (By the way, I use Duckduckgo right now) The only thing that brought me back was discovering that I could still get Opera 12. Opera 12 is superior to Opera 16.

The Opera 16 browser offers nothing special. It looks like Chrome, yet has less ability to personalize it. On top of that, Chrome has the Google universe of functionality behind it and will probably be growing more customizable in the future rather than less.

This disturbing shift in Opera's philosophy appears to me to be a move in the wrong direction. So wrong in fact, that if the source is truly the new rendering engine, Opera should revert back to the older engine. Opera's users have always preferred Opera, because there were more choices and options with Opera to personalize the browser than with Internet Explorer. Speed is important, but only up to a point. That point is parity. If Opera is roughly as fast as the other major browsers, speed isn't a deciding factor anymore for most people. After that point, the issue becomes which browser do I, the user, feel most comfortable using. The answer to that question is going to depend on how much each user can personalize it. Opera's unique niche was having lots of included customizable features. Firefox's niche is having tons of customizable addons. (I didn't get Firefox; because the more addons you use, the slower that browser becomes.) Chrome's niche is simplicity and speed. Internet Explorer has just been trying to keep up and remain the standard.

The reason I bothered to look for Opera 12 at all was because I recalled how great it was to make the Opera browser my own...not because Opera 12 is faster than Chrome. I'm not comfortable with Chrome because of irrational (perhaps) fears that my privacy is in serious jeopardy with Google collecting so much information about my internet traffic. So, to keep your customer base, my suggestion is that Opera keep three words in mind when you make the next version: personalization, privacy, and parity. I think these three are what matters most to people now...in that order.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Originally posted by jkhalilprince:

I couldn't choose my own search engine

This is already available in the Opera 17 dev version. I think most important features will come eventually, but it will take many months rather than a few weeks before it's close to the old Opera.

I do not expect ever to see an integrated email client, an MDI interface, voice support, Widgets or Unite.

If I cannot customise the GUI with proper skins (not themes), opera:buttons, keyboard shortcuts, menus, and mouse gestures, I may never upgrade. These are just too useful for me to work effectively without them.

[rderasta]

rderasta last edited by

I must admit i didn't expect such interesting answers, thank you.
But, honestly, i'm not going to get into a bunch of arguments or ideals about what should it be, or how should it be.. I just can't do that from my perspective, neither should the rest of "us" (users) stress for that matter. It's going to be the way they make it.

Originally posted by blackbird71:

....
This is going to take user patience to see what gets resolved/returned for the browser, and how it all plays. I've been telling others that it will be at least version 20 (and perhaps even 25) before users get a good sense of where the new Opera is ultimately headed and what the foundational limits of the engine versus developer skills may be with regard to "features" and customizability.

Along all what you said, i couldn't agree more. But i also couldn't agree more with jkhalilprince. To me, Opera was different than any other explorer. And now.. it's not.

There's a bunch of topics to be discussed, as in: features, appearance, stability, compatibility, performance, speed, resources (hardware) required, users, market, competition, and whatnot... which are all new now, so, comparing to our old neat stuff is not worth the trouble. Now we can only be optimistic and hope one day it gets to be similar to what it was, but better. And, we can also make ourselves clear in what we want.

Thats exactly why i meant my OP to look like a request, like a petition, i actually wondered if i would make it a poll.. and i should have.

What I want is Opera to be 'different', to be personal.
I want to feel again that comfort I had every time I opened My Opera.

[mikelu51]

mikelu51 last edited by

I must say i am utterly disappointed with Opera 17, I have been using Opera for about 10 years now, and i work as a senior UI/UX engineer and even though I use all the browsers out there for my development work my primary browser has always been opera.
I also operate on a high resolution screen, where its almost a must to use the scale functionality for icons in Opera to make it comfortable enough to use, also all those great customizations with toolbar items and icons which made my life easier is now completely gone.

I switched back to opera 12.16 after 10 minutes of installing opera 17. I see a lot of improvements , but they are completely useless without earlier features which makes opera the best browser out there.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Originally posted by mikelu51:

I see a lot of improvements , but they are completely useless without earlier features which makes opera the best browser out there.

I hope to see real skins one day, too, but I think we may have to wait a long time, if we ever see it at all. I use 32pix icons on Opera 11.64, using a 1280x1024 resolution monitor. I could just manage with the smaller icons in Opera 17, but I do need to customise the toolbars, shortcuts, menus, and mouse gestures.

17 users have so far voted for "Skins" in my poll:

Essential Features Needed Before Upgrading

[stng]

stng last edited by

OP, forget about it.

I bet the UI of the Chroium-Opera won't be even comparable with Opera Presto's interface in terms of flexibility and customizability.

From the recent interview with Opera Software's representatives (PR division):
"Some of these missing features will come back, some will be available through extensions, but there is no expectation that extensive customizability will return as it was before"

[Deleted User]

Deleted User last edited by

"there is no expectation that extensive customizability will return as it was before""

Then why bother with it at all? Ugh!!! That's what made Opera GREAT. The ability to change sizes, fonts, colors, skins, etc., etc., etc.

Now it's just another chrome.

[glmajo]

glmajo last edited by

here here i agree with you, they make something good do the little tweak here and their and then you go and mess it all up!

i have been using opera for about 12 years now or so.
And it had always been the best!
This last version has now gone down sevieral pegging in the layout, to a the crap interfaces of that of ms, crome and now firefox with the abity not to turn javscript off!

And even the logo on the desktop looks crap compired the the older ones or is it just because that i am in the middle of reinstalling my pc that's was do to ms update conflixs have fiddle kill the os from a 5 sec boot to 60+secs!

for my 2 cence i like to see the zoom size, the address bar and a search bar not one, the back button that has a slide function that allow you to jump back many pages, to choose my defualt search engine which a click.
i don't want google forced at me with every thing i do!

I liked the fact that you could just press f12 qnd get the quick option/setting up and see what were turned on or off. i want to see want how vunable the browser is not have to hunt to find them!

for the download manager to look good and right click on the item to choose my option not this not fact thing that fills the whole screen that can only 5! and to the function of that browers with having to to some 3rd to fix the bloopers that have been made!

so pls have a choice of which layout you what the crapy chrome or the better versions of 8.x 9.x 10.x

just becuase their is a name being flash around doesn't mean you have to dumb down it!
Come on opera keep your world leading appearance, skills, usablity and tech!

as i now going to download an older version that i like that isn't old to work with all webpages do their going 4+ hours or so!

[dantemephisto]

dantemephisto last edited by

I'm using opera 19... the reason? it is lighter and faster for a pc with low resources. But I really love the opera 12 features. It was mine, that sense of being comfortable with a browser was awesome, something like coast in ipad. It is called "The alternative web browser", but it is not much of an alternative if it is the same as chrome.

[thomasbranley]

thomasbranley last edited by

Hi,

I am a new user to Opera as Barclays Banking does not now work with Firefox, Chrome or internet explorer!

Initially I was really pleased to find it and like the interface, HOWEVER!

I have had to go back to firefox despite wishing to use opera, this is because there is no way to add bookmarklets to taskbar, no way to customise task bar and this simply put makes the browser totally useless to me. Apart from compatibility with my online banking.

So nice try opera perhaps you will do a Microsoft and go back to what you had before, why software companies repeatedly pander to the whim of developers and not to the user base who actually generate their income I will never understand.

Best

Thomas