Opera >

These notes show just how long I’ve been taking notes, and give some insight into my early processes and ideas. Some ideas here are early precursors to what’s been implemented in contemporary web browsers.

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These notes are from before I strictly kept dates and version numbers.

• Unknown – Originally taken as notes in a text file with no dates kept
• Early 2000s – Imported into a content management system.
• 2003 – Imported into another content management system.

• 2017-07-14 – Brought here.

The most recent of these lists notes that I was using Windows 3.11 (not for workgroups), placing these deep in history. I may not have been using Windows 95 on the year of its release, so these notes would be safely placed in the 1995-1997 range.

However, one notes Opera version 4.02. The Opera version history states that 4.02 was released 2000-08-04, and that 5.00 was released 2000-12-06, placing these notes between those dates.

Note: This stuff was a flat list of sections, but I’ve tried grouping them sensibly.

• (date unknown) – 4.02 on Windows (version not recorded)

• (date unknown) – (version not recorded) on Windows 3.11 (not for workgroups)

(date unknown) – 4.02 ∞

Very fine work. Fine indeed.

They have fixed some of the more annoying problems in earlier versions of the software. It runs smooth as silk, but does have some screen hiccups. I suppose I could blame it on my video drivers.. but I don’t think I will since Opera is the only program to give me “scan lines” — yes, I’ve fiddled with settings, and it’s setting to solve that doesn’t work.. and I thought that screen problem was only with CGA.

• Scanlines appear when scrolling
• Had to fiddle with the jpeg advanced settings, otherwise when I scroll to view a large picture, it will get chopped up and mixed around. Very ugly. — actually, it screws up a lot of pages.. I don’t think the jpeg settings are responsable. When I click through to another link, a bar on the bottom of the screen sticks around and screws up the next page. I think this has to do with my setup of the status bars / URL bars etc.. (which, of course, have to be fiddled with to make sense.. I hate it when software tries to make it’s own standards.. grr)
• The cursor placement when tabbing around a list of links is not remembered properly.. pressing tab once will place the cursor at the link at the top of the page if I use “back” to go back to a list.
• Furthermore, additional functionality allowing me to just cursor around instead of using tab would be particularly cool.. (imagine a 3×3 table, with the ability to cursor left/right up/down to move the focus.
• If I click on a link, then (BACK) to that page, pressing tab should start on that clicked link (+1) — it doesn’t always do it.. hrm.. no wait.. it’ll do it.. but if I back up and click another link, it doesn’t remember that clicked link and restarts at the old focus.
• have to restore then maximize to fix the placement of the status bar.. it will stay floating in the middle of the screen, where it would normally be if the program was in “restore”
• Cannot scroll left/right with the middle button
• The middle button forces the mouse to centre – very nasty on the wrist since it makes me recentre the mouse on the mousepad
• Cannot use the cursor keys to scroll left/right when viewing a picture larger than the screen, while in fullscreen mode (F11). Hang on, I can’t cursor right/left at all even with a “too-wide” pagefull of text.
• The option to disable the scroll bars doesn’t actually DO anything. Eesh. Hey wait.. after a reboot it did kick in. I do recall exiting and restarting Opera entirely, and it didn’t work at that point. Odd. Actually, F11 twice will recreate the scroll bars even if they were turned off.
• Ya know, I really do want to be able to use the space bar instead of the pagedown key to go down a page. It’s a pain in the ass to navigate without that. =(
• Cannot control-r when in a text input box (e.g. a feedback form)
• Cannot set a home page.. hrm
• Cannot control-tab to get back up to the URL bar to edit it.
• Include an option to enable all histories, but keep them session-only (deleted on exit)
• Even though the “show tips at startup” ‘feature’ can be disabled, all that routine does is close that box after it appears — very slipshod programming. It shouldn’t appear in the first place.

• If a file is done downloading, I can “resume” the transfer and it starts from scratch!

• if I save a picture and type C:\ then it will save .jpg — a VERY illegal filename! instead of switching to the root of C: — this could be because I turned off all the drive letters accessable from explorer.. some other programs have been acting up. Interesting…

• it seems like the memory cache is the culpret for the bad video display problems

• turn off messages on top? this conflicts with Odigo on top
• be able to start odigo minimized if I am invis and I try to communicate, it won’t let me but it should!!
• be able to properly import the renamed icq people on my friends list
• I have my default settings at large fonts, so they do not quite fit in the odigo windows
• cannot press esc to abort a message
• replying to a message doesn’t close the previous message.

• make the help offline!! Especially the connection help etc.. it was very annoying to be denied access to the help when I needed it most.

This stuff is all old ∞

• Cannot navigate the hotlist without a menu unless you close all windows, then close and then reopen the hotlist!
• can’t actually properly navigate without a mouse
• make it able to be default to have all pages not load images.. (the button thing)
• cannot press escape to cancel an auto-download from, say a tucows page.
• when downloading something, it should give max. priority to what is being done in the foreground.
• I should be able to “queue” a file for download, such that it will begin an auto-download after the previous file is completed with its downloading. Thus, I could download single files faster.
• when I click a link to go to a page, and then flip to the download window, and the back again, this action “frees up” my mouse to click on another link.
• don’t blank the screen when loading one SHOW IMAGE !
• sometimes pressing tab takes me to a stupid place on the page, losing my spot. It goes to one of those boxes to type in, beside one of those buttons.
• tell me when you’ve completed a search and are searching from the top again – the autowrap search is annoying
• When doing a FIND, when you don’t find anything, put me back into the FIND window so I can try again, or cancel that window without having to use a mouse!
• be able to save a block of highlited text to a file, overwrite/append/prepend
• when it updates the time/date connected to a url in the hotlist, it “unsticks” that section, forcing a reload and displays the list from the top again.
• when highliting a selectable URL with tab, animate it.. make it obvious!
• when you right click and leave that menu around, sometimes it’s aborted (it vanishes) if the background is loading an image from “show image” and completes.
• don’t re-load an image if the user does a “load all images in frame” or control-i
• the opening opera screen is a waste of time, oh, and it’s to the right too far
• links visited from clicking on the URLs in the special window “cache” are missing the lower bar! A nice feature if it could be done on purpose.
• add in a hotlist function to make aliases which can be made such that the user can opt to, when hovering over an alias, delete all of them or just that one alias. Make it such that editing one of the aliases or the real one, they all get edited. Don’t actually define the “original” and the “alias” or copy.
• add a search function in the hotlist!
• in the download window, when highliting, it doesn’t complete the entire bar to the right all the way the text goes.

• add a function to let me “save a document to disk”, like a shift-left click on a URL, when doing a document open in the hotlist. Sometimes it sucks if a document won’t bring up the “save to disk”-type dialogue. — control-enter ??

downloading ∞

• give an estimated time remaining
• if I’m downloading something, and I’m in the download window, and I have the hotlist up on the second half of the screen, and I drag across a direct file connection to download it (into the download window) and I then use the <WINDOW> command to flip to #1 (the only real web page window), it doesn’t show the attempt to connect, nor can I abort the attempt! (it acts like it’s aborted it, but it hasn’t, as I later get a dialogue)
• the kb/s is still buggered, it downloads while I pick the dir to save it into, and the kb/s is waaay too high!
• it doesn’t seem to like multiple things downloading at once!
• make a function to queue things, and download one at a time
• make a log function to tell me if something dies, because it sucks to have opera crash and me not knowing what’s ok and what’s not, and what * hasn’t even had a chance to attempt to download.
• be able to have an address book, or use an address book from another program
• some pictures don’t show while “show picture” is working. A %age complete would be cool
• if i do a “show image” when images are not autoloaded, and the page is still loading, when the page is done loading, the picture load is not displayed like it normally is if I were to do the “show imtage” after the page has completely loaded.
• when I click on one of the bottom buttons, then use a command like control-i, it won’t work because the main page is no longer active.

• it would be nice to be able to assign the middle button as a quick “show picture”, instead of having to go through that menu. It would similarly be nice to be able to use that same middle button click to STOP a picture from continuing to load.

There should be a listing for all of the CTRL commands, like ∞

• control-i – load images

  • if control-i is to load all the images in the window, why can’t there be a key to only load what’s in the current section of the screen, if it’s a multiple-section web page?

• if I use “save link document”, and that link is a single picture, I see that the link is shown as having been visited, but the picture isn’t in the cache! So if I were to look at that link, it re-loads that picture

• doing a “show image”, it doesn’t give the %age

• if I click on a button, then decide to abort, I can’t press escape, I have to click on that page somewhere, and then press esc, or click the red button!

Hotlist ∞

• When I visit a page which has a blank “last visited”, it does not update the date/time!
• What if I don’t want to have it list the time last visited?

• What if I never want to see the time a bookmark was created? What if I don’t even want it recorded on disk?

• when I have the hotlist opened on 1/2 the screen, and I go into one of them, it “loses” where I was as soon as the page is loaded!!

• when moving a link to another folder, it doesn’t sort it!

(date unknown) – (version not recorded) ∞

I am using Windows 3.11 (not for workgroups), with relatively few installed programs or drivers. I could, techincally, provide you with information on my setup, but due to its insane complexity, perhaps my using your style of setup would help?

If/when requested, I can provide a more detailed step-by-step set of instructions for recreating any particular bug/problem, or explain in fuller detail any suggestion. If needed I can send screenshots.

I realise that some of these problems are Windows, and not Opera.

Bugs ∞

• it does not show a %age if it’s one frame loading one picture

• even after a control-r, it still recieves pictures!

• Go to X:, click on the ..\ , it gives me an error and dies. Amusing.

• When I have the hotlist open, and one browser window open which is downloading and showing a picture, and I drag a new link over to open into that same browser window, it just acts as if it’s following the control-r command, and not going to that new link. If I click stop, and try the same dragging to get to someplace new, it tries reloading the same picture.

• When I download, say, a picture, and it is being displayed but the server pauses for an annoying amount of time, it is nice that control-r retrys the download and continues where it left off, but the percentage complete doesn’t continue from where it left off.

• Click the lower left user-selectable colours, then move the mouse away, the button stays white.

• Does the cache actually work? I’ve seen no evidence of anything but the memory cache working!

• I load up a page, then exit the program, then go back into the program, and it still goes through the downloading of that same page which ought to be in the cache!

• When I open up the hotlist, it should not display the scrollbars unless there is need. I have had the hotlist in such a situation as to have it display only the bottom half of my folders, and give me a scrollbar. When I scroll it back up to the top, I find that the entirety of all of my folders fits neetly in the window space without the need for the scrollbar!

• When loading a new page, sometimes Opera does not show the title, or continues to show the title of the last page (this often happens when the new page has no title). Sometimes Opera will show the title later on.

• Open the hotlist, click the “maximize” button on the one page which is on the right-hand side.

• When I click back on the hotlist, it maximises! It should stay the way it was.

• When I add a new bookmark, it adds a space after the bookmark name.

• It waits for a page to be completely loaded before showing click-boxes like [o] [x].

• It messes up the kb/s when it is allowed to pre-download a file before I select save to disk, when downloading.

• If I put size of network buffer (kb), in [Preferences/Advanced], to an invalid value, like 32, it gives me an “internal communication error”. It should either tell me that the value is invalid, or that the changes will take effect the next time I load Opera.

• The hotlist, last visited and perhaps other options, don’t save! When Opera crashes (as tends to happen if, say, the user has an old version of Winsock), and Opera is reloaded, all those hotlist changes or additions are gone! This shouldn’t be a write-ahead cache fooling with things, but I’ll check if you ask.

• If I maximise the window I am in, and then open the hotlist, it un-maximises that window! This is bad enough, but it doesn’t restore that window to its full self when I exit back out of the hotlist!

• Netscape bookmark importing did not work for me. I have, as I’m sure most people have, a really large and fairly complex bookmark list. I found that it puts some of the folders or links in the wrong places.

• Click on a link, then click on the colour button before that page has loaded, the link stops its attempt at loading!

• I’ve displayed pictures in Opera, and saved them to disk, and have had them end up unreadable by my picture viewer! Is there something Opera can do to make even partially complete pictures readable?

Minor bugs (or personal annoyances) ∞

• When I am on a page which has a multiple selection box, one of the ones which opens up a list of options when I click on it, and a button, pressing tab will only switch between the two of them and will ignore any links which are later on in the page. Even if I scroll down to make sure that the links are the only thing on the screen, pressing tab goes back up to the top where the selection box and button are, and only lets me tab between those two.

• There is no scroll bar in the download window when it gets too full.

• When I do a “show image”, and do it again (quickly) for the same picture, it literally tries to load it a second time after loading it the first time.

• The hotlist jumps back up to the top of its list if I drag a link into a window to go there.

• Why does the screen jump around when I do a show image with the right mouse button?

• When I scroll down a screen full of urls, like a simulated FTP listing, and press tab, it sometimes highlites the one just above where I was, scrolling the screen back up a ways.

• Must I fully load tcpman.exe before Opera will load. Technically I don’t need to be logged on if I want to use Opera in offline-mode.

• In the hotlist. When I am in a sub-sub folder, e.g. FUN\PICTURES\FLOWERS, and I close FUN, and then re-open FUN, I am in FUN and not back in FUN\PICTURES\FLOWERS. It should remember the complete path of where I was. Even if I exit the program!

• It’s annoying to right-click, then let go of the button, and have it mindlessly pick one of the menu options. Perhaps you could have the menu pop up a little more away from the mouse?

• Clicking on a link, then imputting into a field (e.g. a search engine) doesn’t always work if the page is still loading. For example, I go to https://www.yahoo.com/ and click in the input box (to do a search), and type in “Opera Browser”, and then press enter, or click on the [Search] button. It ignores me, and continues to recieve the page instead of aborting the page recieve and starting the search.

• Don’t show the side bars if there’s nothing to scroll to. I find that the scroll bars overlap overtop of a picture (I believe 640×480 is the size) in some cases where if the bars were not displayed, the picture would be full-screen. This option should bypass the scroll bar preference and perhaps should only kick in when the user views a plain picture which isn’t on a page, or views a page which only has that one picture?

• When I click on a link, and it loads that page, and then use control-left to go back, I note that the URL which took me to that other page is not coloured properly. This occurs if the link was something like [http://www.somewhere.com] and I ended up being sent to something like [http://www.somewhere.com/default.htm] . A little fuzzy logic would be nice here.

• When Opera is downloading in the background, it should (at my option) give me higher priority when I want to surf around. I sometimes want to be able to go and load up a simple, graphicsless page and read while I am downloading, and I find the wait to be a killer.

• When flipping through maximized windows, I’ve seen Opera redraw the screen, then redraw part of the screen (e.g. a corner 1/4 of a picture) again!

• When flipping through maximised windows, I believe the URL box which is displayed at the bottom of the window is redrawn in the location it would be in if the window was “restored”, and then it is redrawn across the screen to the new location at the bottom of the maximized window.

• ??I have also seen this redrawing effect when I type in a new URL, or on clicking??

• I cannot save with control-s, a picture until it is fully loaded. Did you do that on purpose? An option to save only part of a picture would be cool.

• alt-e, i to load all images, it reloads the one’s which have already been loaded! It zips up to the top of the page if I click on the right-hand scrollbar.

Suggestions ∞

• When I only have the hotlist open, and no browser window, and I drag to make another window, why can’t I make that window maximized as its default?

• Why don’t you ram-cache “other”. You give the option to disk-cache it.

• A function to “go back” in a new window would be cool.

• It would be nice for me to be able to save a partially edited email, to re-edit later, before I send it.

• An option to send an email without having to click on a button would be nice. Netscape uses a handy alt-enter command for this, which I love.

• Add an option to automatically retry a link if I have gotten no responce from that/my server for, say, 10 seconds.

• Make an option to have Opera “queue” files to download, and download them at specific times, and/or have an option to have Opera download them one at a time, and not all at once, which is horrifically slow and annoying when all that time is wasted if Windows crashes in the middle of a download.

• A quicker window switch would be nice. Like control-1 for window 1, control-2 for window 2, etc.

  • 2017-07-14 – I wonder how original this idea of mine is, since either/both of control-# and alt-# are implemented in everything tabbed.

• The ability to show the last connection to the link the mouse is currently over. Maybe it displays it just above the mouse if I hold shift down and hover over the link.

• In addition to the information normally displayed at the bottom status bar, a little dot which changes colour depending on which message is being displayed would be nice. For example, a red dot displayed to show when Opera is downloading information, an orange dot to show when it is reading from the HD/memory cache, and a yellow dot when sending information. Something like this would be a very simple, and yet powerful way to display something as complex as what the computer is doing at the current time.

• In the status bar, when I have, say, only two maximum connections to the internet. It should say which connection is currently downloading. Perhaps even an option to display on the screen which connection is currently downloading which picture, or something of the sort, would be nifty.

• It should display which window I am currently in, and how many are currently open. Sometimes I am hopped around by a website which opens up multiple windows, and I start surfing with another window and don’t realise that I have seven open windows slowing me down.

• Sometimes pressing escape to stop a page doesn’t work. I have to click on the screen somewhere and then press escape, or press the stop button. It is as if when I am send into a new window, which then starts a connection to a new URL, the keyboard is linked to another program that doesn’t understand escape.

• Sometimes it completely ignores a link. Clicking on it does nothing. I have to right-click on it, and then open it manually, or exiting and re-entering Opera sometimes corrects the situation.

• Make the history between all frames / browser windows “global”. That is, when I start a new window, that new window should have the history of the old window.

• It does not show how large a picture is. It should display the number of bytes when displaying a picture. As in [512 / 8192], or something. It should not be limited to a percentage complete. Perhaps a user-selectable display option is needed? Display the text total, the completed page total and the individual total for each item being downloaded.

• The “show pictures” button (the lower left one with the picture of a camera) should be 132, not, as it stands, 123. The order ought to be:

  1. (1) Full Pictures
  2. (2) Formatted Text
  3. (3) Unformatted Text

• The “show pictures” button – clicking it once should give the grey “x”, not the red “x”.

• Could it have the option to highlite a link in a different colour if that object is in the cache already?

• right-click, to bring up the menu, then type a key. It should automatically be as per a click on that menu selection. There should not be duplicate keys!

• control-r when loading just a picture, the way it “reloads” it, but continues from where it left off, is really nice. An option similar to that one, when in the download window would be nice. Perhaps even an option to re-download a file if it is aborted, or even after it’s finished downloading.

Hotlist ∞

• control-F2 to get to the hotlist is rather annoying. Can’t you use control-h or control-b?

• In the hotlist, the [title] [last visited] and [created] are not swappable.

• There is no option to show the URL.

• There is no option to not display the [created].

• For security, adding options to not display, or not record the [created] or [last visited] would be nice. Maybe an option when I first make the bookmark to have it not record the [created] date?

  • 2017-07-14 – Yes, the early concepts of a privacy mode.

• Have a function to quickly remove the [created] or [last visited] on any selected links.

  • 2017-07-14 – Yes, the early concepts of a “clear private information” feature.

• control-t to enter a new “bookmark” is not really standard. Many pages actually state that the user should use control-d. This nonstandard key combination is misleading.

• When I make a new bookmark, I want to be able to immediately put it anywhere.

• A new bookmark should not be plunked where I happened to be. Have an option for a “new bookmark” folder, where all new bookmarks automatically go, unless, when making the bookmark, the user selects an option to have it stuck in the currently opened folder.

• Have it import the cookies, bookmarks, HD cache and even the .ini settings of other browsers.

  • 2017-07-14 – Yep, thought of this one too.

• Perhaps have this all kick in right during installation.

  • 2017-07-14 – Yep, thought of this one too.

Questions ∞

• Does the “show picture” option stop / pause when I scroll?

• Does it check my free space when I begin a download?

• I have noted that CuteFTP saves the appropriate FTP time/date stamp with the file. Does/can Opera do the same thing?

Praise ∞

• It uses so few resources that I can play a normal-quality MP3 in the background while downloading!

• If (when) Opera crashes, I don’t have to log off and log back on, or restart windows, to restart Opera and continue surfing!

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I’ve gotten a “pure virtual call” for no reason!