Changelog for Opera Beta for Windows
At first glance:
Improved user interface
More workspace in the default setup.
Cleaner menu setup and dynamic display of messaging features.
Notification of blocked pop-ups.
Simple retrieval of closed pages and blocked pop-ups.
New start bar gives easy access to useful features.
Voice functionality is available for Windows 2000 and XP.
"Fit to window width" feature removes the horizontal scrollbar.
"Fit to page width" feature improves printing.
Enhanced RSS newsfeed reader is available without activating e-mail client.
Support for XMLHttpRequest; Gmail Web mail is fully supported.
Implemented automated weekly check for updated versions.
Changes since 7.54u1:
User Interface
Added voice feature and support for documents written in XHTML+VoiceXML.
Enable in Tools > Preferences > Voice to download the necessary additional files.
Available for Windows 2000 and XP only.
For more information, see the help files and the Opera with Voice page.
Made the default "Prefer pages inside window" setup simpler and added choice of window preference to first run start-up dialog.
Added "Advanced Opera workspace" preference that makes full use of the Multiple Document Interface.
Extensive simplification of menus and dialogs. The menu and panel setup is now dynamic and depends on what features the user has activated:
The "Mail" and "Chat" menus and panels are added as e-mail and chat accounts are set up by the user. Account handling is now available in the "Tools" menu.
A separate "Feeds" menu is added when the user adds an RSS newsfeed for the first time.
The contacts panel is only displayed if e-mail or chat accounts exist.
The "Window" menu is only displayed when the "Advanced Opera workspace" option is selected in the first run start-up dialog Tools > Preferences > Windows.
Removed "Navigation" menu.
Added trash can button on the page bar that notifies of blocked pop-ups and doubles as a repository for closed pages that can be retrieved.
Unwanted pop-ups are now blocked by default.
Added start bar that drops down from the address field when it is focused. Contains various options for navigation and search.
Added view bar toggled by the eye button on the address bar. Contains new voice button, new "fit to window width" feature, search in page, and styling/zooming options.
New customization dialog (View > Toolbars > Customize) includes customization of panel setup.
New "Delete private data" dialog has simple and advanced options.
"Save with images" is now an option within the save dialog, found in the "File type" drop-down menu.
"Continue from last time" is now the default start-up setting.
In the default setup, each tab on the page bar has its own "Close" button.
Enhancements to notifications for transfers, messages, and feed items. Notifications are now displayed above the system tray.
Swapped F4 with Shift + F4 for toggling panels. F4 now toggles the panels with the panel selector.
Added Ctrl + F12 and Shift + F12 as keyboard shortcuts for the Preferences and Customize dialogs, respectively.
Enabled text selection in certain dialogs, such as JavaScript Alert.
The "in-line find" option for search in page has been moved to the search preferences.
Added setting for (dis-)allowing scripts to hide the address bar. Available in Tools > Preferences > Multimedia > JavaScript options.
Fixed problem selecting the first letter of a text selection with the mouse.
Fixed problem where form element status was forgotten when toggling print preview.
Display and standards support
Implemented Opera's Extensible Rendering Architecture (ERA):
Added "Fit to window width" feature. Available on Web pages and for printing, this setting squeezes page contents to make them fit the width of the screen and avoid horizontal scrolling or margin overflow.
The "Small screen" mode now includes more of the page's original styling.
Support for CSS3 speech module (properties new to CSS3 are prefixed by "-xv-") and XHTML+Voice 1.2
Support for XMLHttpRequest, required for using Gmail Web mail. Also added support for XMLSerializer and DOMParser.
Support for DOM3 Load and Save.
Transparent background (wmode) support for plug-ins.
Changed calculated line height to be based on actual font size rather than specified font size.
Fixed handling of nested floats.
Several fixes related to bidirectional text support.
Allow mixing of background-position and keyword, in accordance with CSS2.1.
Borders for radio buttons and checkboxes can not be turned off with CSS.
Improved handling of paged media.
Recognize "application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml" documents as handheld.
Messaging and newsfeeds
When a page has embedded links for one or several RSS newsfeeds, an RSS icon is displayed within the address field. Click on the icon to subscribe or get a multiple choice menu if several newsfeed links are present. Improved "Add newsfeed?" dialog.
Separate "Feeds" menu is added to Opera's main menu when first newsfeed is activated. Newsfeeds can now be read independently of the mail panel.
Improved consistency of newsfeed checking.
Improved handling of contacts with multiple e-mail addresses.
Added options to mark message threads as read (keyboard shortcut M) and go to next unread thread (shortcut N.
Several improvements to quick reply: expand automatically when typing multiple lines, handle one draft per message, and reset focus to message list after replying.
Chat improvements
Status is now set globally in the chat menu.
Added "ban" and "kick with reason" commands, as well as typed "/invite" command.
Support for links/URLs using "irc://".
List of servers updated and expanded.
Security
Fix for tabbed/MDI browsing vulnerability reported in Secunia Advisory SA12713. For more information, see Opera's security advisory: Phishing attack possible with a delayed JavaScript prompt
The closed padlock icon for secure sites now appears inside the address field. Click to display security information concerning the site.
Documentation
Help documents are now on line, still accessible from the menu or by pressing F1.
Implemented in-line error pages that replace most error dialogs.
Help files and error pages have the CSS signatures "opera-help" and "opera-error".
Miscellaneous
Implemented automated weekly version control to let user know whether there is a new release of Opera available. (Can be disabled by setting "Check For New Opera=0" in Opera6.ini.)
Manual "Check for new release" option added to help menu.
If Java is enabled, but not found, the user will be prompted and offered a download. If the user accepts, the Java Runtime Environment download page is loaded; no Opera with Java version is offered.
Various stability improvements.
Fixed authentication issue; pages can now be authenticated in any sequence.
Fix to restore previous default file settings after uninstalling Opera.
