Opera

Opera 7.50 beta for Mac

Release Note

Please note that this release requires Mac OS X 10.1 or later.

Changelog

Changes since Opera 6.03:

At first glance

• Opera Mail - revolutionary e-mail, Usenet news and newsfeed client
• Chat client
• Faster rendering engine
• Redesigned user interface
• "Fast Forward" button
• Panels
• Support for bi-directional text
• Web Unicode keyboard layout support

Presto, Opera's rendering engine

• 100% ECMAScript support. New JavaScript console
• Partial support for bi-directional languages
• Support for page/document reflow
• Support for DOM (Document Object Model) level 2
• Support for dynamic HTML
• Extended CSS2 support, including e.g. styling of form elements
• Improved HTML 4.01 support
• Added support for SCRIPT in XML
• DOCTYPE switching enabled (see separate document for details)

Operating system integration

• Support for OS X Services. Full support requires that Opera be installed in "Applications" folder
• Dynamic updating from Addressbook
• Wand passwords are also stored to Keychain

Opera Mail

• Perfectly integrated with the Opera browser
• Automatically generated access points, including auto-detection and threaded display of mailing lists
• Support for Usenet news servers with password authentication
• Support for SMTP authentication
• Learning spam filter and custom filters
• Filters support regular expressions
• Messages can be labeled by importance, status, etc.
• Support for POP3, IMAP, and ESMTP
• Quick reply - send reply without opening a compose window
• Support for RSS newsfeeds
  • RSS 0.9x, 1.0 and 2.0 are supported
  • "Newsfeeds" added as access point in the e-mail panel
  • Clicking RSS link automatically adds newsfeed to Opera Mail
• Context-sensitive automatic filling of to-headers
• Choose timespan for visible e-mail messsages - one day, last week, last month, last 3 months, last year, or forever
• Personal information or the content of any Opera note can be added to messages from the context menu

New chat client

• Uses IRC (Internet Relay Chat) protocol
• New chat panel lists visited chat rooms and status of on-line contacts
• Graphical smileys

User interface

• New Panels feature
  • Notes panel -- write reminders or annotate web sites
  • Links panel -- lists all the links on the current page and allows you to quickly download groups of files in just a couple of clicks
  • Transfers panel -- lists all your downloads and file transfers from chat
  • Search panel -- multiple search options gathered in one place
• Introduced "Fast Forward" for quick navigation by auto-detection of "next"-type links ("Forward" button changes automatically when available)
• Session manager -- choose between multiple saved sessions from the start-up dialog
• The Wand - a password and form manager. You can set one master password for both e-mail and Wand.
• New "Tools" menu gathers handling of preferences, private data, etc.
• Extended drag-and-drop support, notably in toolbars, bookmarks and e-mail panel
• Support for embedded favicons
• Support for one-click download-and-install skinning -- skin is applied directly, but deleted from disk if user opts not to keep the skin
• Color schemes can be selected from the "View" menu

Accessibility and Usability

• Support for alternate style sheets
• Built-in accessibility user style sheet
• Support for multiple user style sheets, including 100% CSS-made text browser, that can be applied to any Web page
• User mode address-bar icon has a drop-down menu that lets you choose alternative ways to view a Web page
• Press Alt+Shift+F11 to enable Small-Screen Rendering (SSR), which emulates a handheld (small-screen) device running Opera
• Move focus to page elements with Shift+arrow keys
• Multiple new keyboard shortcuts increase accessibility. For a full listing of existing shortcuts, press Cmd+B while using the latest Opera version. Keyboard shortcuts for all actions can also be customized in Mouse and keyboard Preferences
• New navigation bar supports page/document navigation defined using link tags
• Dynamic on-the-fly generation of access keys in menus
• Paste and go - pressing Cmd+D will use clipboard URL to go to new Web page (replaces the sequence of focusing address field, pasting address and hitting Return

Miscellaneous

• Web and e-mail Unicode keyboard layout support
• Choose between Google relevant ads and a generic selection of banner ads in the ad-sponsored version of Opera. Read more about Opera Browser Google Ads.
• Support for accepting requested pop-ups only
• Built-in help files open as ordinary browser pages