Hey, you're here!
Hi, we are very glad to welcome you to our new and shiny forums for our Community to meet and talk about all things Opera. Take a look around and make yourself at home. We hope you are going to enjoy our new ride together! 
Why the new forums?
We are motivated by one purpose: to provide you with a better experience. We believe this new place will be more user-friendly, faster, feature-rich and enjoyable for you and will encourage more people to participate in discussions about the products you love (or maybe would like to see improved at the same time). Plus, everyone wants to treat themselves with something new, so that's a gift we made for ourselves, too 
What’s new?
New forums engine 
We decided to adopt an entirely new, actively developed and maintained engine for our new Opera forums. It is fast, modern and has all the bells-and-whistles you might expect in the 21st century - you can read more about it below. Hopefully, this means that bugs will disappear faster than ever and new features will pop up more often.
Beautiful, brand-new visual theme 
Why? Because we believe aesthetics are as important as functionality. Modern, clean and readable - we hope it will make interacting in the Opera forums more straightforward and visually pleasing.
(Much) better search engine 
One of the top requests from the old forums was to improve its search functionality. We know that having a robust and easy way to search through past content might save you time and bring the answer much faster, so we're glad to give it to you.
Improved composer with live preview 
From now on, no more guessing! You will see exactly how your post is going to look before you submit it. If you are not a hardcore Markdown user, we have buttons to help you with the formatting.
Additionally, you can navigate around the forums (or even close your browser!) while you write, without losing your draft. Try it out!
Upload images 
No need to depend on third-party image hosting services and wonder if your images will disappear after some time. Now, you will be able to conveniently upload screenshots or any other image you might need right in the Composer window. Because a picture is worth a thousand words!
Upload your own avatar 
While we still depend on Gravatar as a default to keep things nice and familiar, we no longer limit your ability to upload your custom avatar picture.
Built-in chat 
Sometimes, the ability to quickly exchange ideas with a fellow community member is just what you need. Or, maybe you want to ask a question that you feel doesn't really deserve a public post? Finally, maybe what you need to pass is meant just for a few selected pair of eyes. Whatever the reason, now you can do it. Start a new chat by clicking on someone's avatar, then click on the button with three dots and choose Start new chat with....
Digest e-mails 
You might not have time to actively participate in the discussions, but you still would like to have a big picture regarding what's going on in our Community. Subscribe to our daily/weekly/monthly digest e-mails and never lose touch.
Reputation system (and posts up-/down-voting) 
While the old forums allowed voting on posts, there was not much consequence of it. Here, the number of upvotes (minus the downvotes) you have collected on all your posts equals to your reputation. There are certain benefits of having a high reputation (like ability to post more frequently), and we might be adding more in the future.
But, this means there are also restrictions. Until you reach reputation level 3, you will have to wait a couple of minutes before we let you submit another post.
Because reputation is a brand new concept to the Opera forums, everyone starts at level 0.
Follow via RSS feed 
Look for the RSS icon next to the breadcrumbs on top. You can follow whole categories or individual threads for instant and convenient notifications about new posts within them. You can even follow the special Recent category if you want to see everything that gets posted anywhere.
Tags 
Tags are short words that describe what your new thread is about. While by no means mandatory, tags are intended to help organize content better and make it easier for everyone to find posts on a similar subject. We're eager to see if you find it useful - it's up to you.
More emojis 
Even though our 
emoji cannot make funny faces at you, we still think you're going to welcome this great upgrade. There's also a convenient pop-up hint that helps you find the right one; start by typing : (colon) in the Composer window to see it.
What has changed?
English-first (without forgetting about our friends from around the globe) 
We are going with English as our primary language for all categories and, consequently, we will drop the idea of having each category in each language (which was never too popular on the old forums to begin with). There is a dedicated place for discussions in your native language, so non-English speakers will still have a place to go. Plus, we're adding French and Arabic to this list.
Reorganized "Opera for computers" category 
This category is special because we allow (and encourage) you to post directly in it about Opera for desktop computers. Only if you feel your question or issue is platform-specific, you should go into one of the subcategories for Windows/Linux/Mac.
Reorganized "Opera for mobile" category 
We hope this new division into "Android" / "iOS" / "Other phones" will make it easier for everyone to decide where to post, while at the same time giving flexibility to grow our product portfolio and have forums remain neatly organized and clutter-free.
More suggestion boxes 
We want to listen to your voice better. The old forums had just one "Suggestion box" category which we felt was not enough, making it a mix of ideas and wishes related to all Opera products. Now, there are separate ones for computer and mobile versions. "Forum feedback" also stays in place for ideas and suggestions about the Opera forums.
New "Archive" category 
This new category will gather topics about products that are no longer actively developed or maintained by us, yet we want to retain value created by your past discussions about them.
There is also a place there where we will hold old threads about Opera Mini that don't really fit with the new category layout for Opera for mobile.
Note that you will not be able to post in Archive or any of its subcategories. It's read-only.
What stays the same?
Your login credentials 
In short, nothing changes about how you log in into the forums. Login information was not part of the migration since we continue to use your Opera Account as a way to authenticate you.
You might want to check the notification settings, however. Click on your avatar, then Settings and browse around the different sections. Due to significant differences between the old and the new forums engines, we were not able to transfer them.
Discussion history and profile statistics 
On the other hand, your old forums user profile - the date when you had first joined, your post count and your entire posting history - has been transferred over here.
All the posts that have ever been published on the old forums are here, too. You should be able to pick up just where you left off.
Markdown-based formatting
If you love and got to know Markdown on the old forums, you'll feel instantly at home here. If you don't, the new Composer window offers buttons to assist you with formatting or more complicated actions like attaching a link or a picture.
"First post needs moderation" policy 
If you have never posted anything on Opera forums, your first submission gets automatically placed in the Post Queue, where it will wait for a moderator to approve it. Once approved, the restriction is lifted and your next posts will be visible right away.
What is missing?
Opera badges 
We're sorry, but the badges just didn't make it for this initial release. While cool, we felt they are not essential for your overall experience here. Let us know if you really miss them and we can work on replacing it with something at least just as good
Visual indication that there are unread posts in a thread 
That is a known issue and we will try to address it as soon as possible.
Your unread posts history 
Due to technical limitations of the migration process it is likely that new forums will mark as unread some posts that you have already seen on old forums. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
What now?
We sincerely hope you enjoy being here and using these new forums. If you want to leave any feedback for us, just go over to Forum feedback and let us know what you think.
Thanks! 
Artur from the Opera Websites Team
