Changelog for Opera 6.1 beta 1 for Unix

This document details the changes made in Opera 6.1 beta 1 for Unix since 6.03.

Changelog

New main features in 6.1 Beta 1

• Qt3 support
• Improved font support, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
• Font anti-aliasing is now enabled by default
• Java support without using a plug-in
• Improved plug-in management and error handling
• Kiosk mode support
• Improved bookmark handling
• Improved skin support
• Panning support (anchored mouse scrolling)

Other changes since 6.03

Core

• Fixed crash when going back in history on pages with non-inline plug-ins in frames
• Exporting a Web page as plain text doesn't crash anymore
• Some fixes for faulty HTTP headers (content-guessing if the "Content-Type" header is either bad or missing)
• Web page text decoder crash fixes
• Display Latin-1 Supplement (U+00A0-U+00FF) characters in "Opera > History"
• Got rid of pages that don't stop loading
• Fixed crash related to plug-ins in frames

Fonts

• Font switching in UI controls outside the page area; simplified bookmark display
• Interface with Qt3's new font system; there is no charset anymore
• Better font switching inside documents
• Smooth-scaled core X fonts. This will keep the X server from scaling the fonts which would produce an ugly result. This is a big improvement for Oriental writing systems. Requires RENDER extension on both the X server and client
• Better font substitution (which font should be used as a replacement for a font that wasn't able to display a specific character)
• Support for codepages (Chinese Simplified/Traditional, Japanese); Web pages encoded with an Eastern Asian encoding (like jis0208, big5, and gb2312) will try to use a font with the same encoding
• International fonts (preferred font for a specific writing system) have been changed and improved. It will now work correctly for east Asian pages (differentiates between Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Japanese). The font selected for a specific writing system in "International Fonts" will now only be used as a replacement for a font that isn't able to display a character in this writing system
• Keep the font down at the baseline when switching fonts. We used to have an annoying effect of text jumping up and down. It was especially evident for Latin writing systems with extension characters (typically anything but English, like Czech, Polish, and Norwegian). Very system-dependent problem -- a system with "nice" fonts wouldn't have this problem anyway
• Fixed X-server crash that could happen when displaying long text strings

Java

• Opera will now use Java directly, not through a plug-in
• Added information about Java presence in "Help > Opera"
• Added "Enable Java" on F12 menu
• Added Java section in preference dialog ("Multimedia" page)
• "Window > Special > Java Console" should now work.
• Java JNI debugging messages turned off unless the command line switch "-debugjava" is used
• Added support for an environment variable "OPERA_FORCE_JAVA_ENABLED" that will stop disabling Java if it otherwise should have been. Use with care! It is enough to just define the "OPERA_FORCE_JAVA_ENABLED" variable itself

Plug-ins

• Banned (hardcoded) "libnullplugin.so". Causes async dns blocking on Mandrake 8.2
• The command line switch "-debugplugin" will now show all the plug-ins that are probed on startup. Can be useful to pinpoint problematic plug-ins
• "Plugins to Ignore" preference setting is now activated. The ignore file name is by default "pluginignore.ini". Opera will first look in the local "~/.opera" directory next in the shared directory ("/usr/share/opera"). The file name can be set in "opera6.ini" as: [Adv User Prefs] Plugin Ignore File=path-to-ignore-file. The ignore file format is:

      Opera Preferences version 2.0
      ; Do not edit this file while Opera is running
      [Plugins to Ignore]
      full-path-to-plugin.so = comment

• Plug-in protection. We will now know if a plug-in crashed Opera during plug-in detection and give the user the choice to not detect plug-ins when Opera is restarted
• Added testing for invalid netscape proxy plug-in ("libnpp") when starting Motif-based plug-ins. The "libnpp.so" uses Qt and will crash Opera if it does not use the same major version of Qt as Opera.
• Added a new "Add plug-in" dialog that will make it simpler to accept new plug-ins. All new plug-ins are placed in a list instead of in separate dialog boxes
• Added a monitor that runs as a separate program that will kill hanging motifwrapper processes on exit.

Kiosk mode

• Kiosk mode is now supported. Some functions are only available in the registered version

Images

• Png gamma fix. Use 0.4545 (default value) instead of 0.5 for png images that do not contain gamma info in the file
• The statically-included png library will now use symbols that cannot be picked up by Qt in the shared version. If Qt wants to use png for skins, there was a danger that the png version used in Opera is not the version Qt expects => controlled abort
• Refuse to create and decode very large images; fixes crash
• Speed up for some tiled images

Copy/paste

• Opera is now better interfaced with Gtk (Gnome) and KDE3; KDE2 and Qt2-based applications may be a problem
• Some Copy/Paste fixes; allows better integration with existing programs

Skinning

• Improved skin handling: less memory, more skinning and better alignment
• Skin support in all pop-up menus (except for spinbox and file selector popup menus)
• Skin support in dialogs. Can be disabled by a setting in "opera6.ini":

      Skin In Dialogs=0(x) > 1
      0: Do not show foreground skin in dialogs
      1: Show foreground skin in dialogs

  Example:

      [User Prefs]
      Skin In Dialogs=1

• Made the skin path parser handle paths with '\' separators. Some button files contain "path\to \skinfile" instead of "path/to/skinfile"
• Added a guard against using skins that are too large in the Qt2x-based version - it will not handle it (the X-server can crash). The limit is configurable in "opera6.ini", for example:

      [User Prefs]
      ;Allows 200x200 images, default is 22500 (150x150)
      Skin Area Limit=40000

• Proper skinning of non-active banner area (in SDI mode)
• Added a SkinInstaller class that can install the skin on Qt dialogs where we have no access to the dialog pointer from the Qt API
• Skin fixes for splitter between hotlist and pages.

Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts

• Added support for panning (anchored mouse scrolling); activated by clicking the center mouse button on the page. The center mouse button action (panning or paste text) is now configured by clicking Ctrl+ MidButton on the page
• Fixed a bug that caused a duplicate shortcut not to be removed from the list in the keyboard shortcut dialog.
• Ctrl+Space now toggles selected entries in the bookmark and contact views again - Pressing Ctrl+Alt+B or Ctrl+Alt+C will now activate the hotlist window if it is floating.
• Let Ctrl+Shift+Enter in the "go to" dialog box open the page in the background
• Support for displaying search results in a new window or in the background (Shift+Enter and Ctrl+Shift+Enter) when searching from the search entry on the address toolbar - "Shortcut definition file" ("User prefs") had a spelling issue. The new string is "Shortcut definition file", but the old string will still be supported until 7.0
• Support for half-page-scrolling - there are no default shortcuts for this so it must be set up on "Edit > Shortcuts"
• Pasting text with the center mouse button into the URL address fields can now be configured to clear the current text first either by pressing the control button or by this preference setting:

      Append Text On Center Mousebutton Click=0 > 1(x)
      0: Clear current text before pasting text into url address fields
      1: Append the pasted text

  Example:

      [User Prefs]
      Append Text On Center Mousebutton Click=0

• Window navigation (with '1'/'2' or Ctrl+left/Ctrl+right) will no longer be blocked by a minimized window
• Allow pasting a bookmark into an empty folder with the keyboard
• Ctrl+W (in UNIX shortcut mode) will now also delete a single character word in the front of a string
• Ctrl+Space will now toggle selection of listbox elements in the document when keyboard focus in on the listbox
• Ctrl+left and Ctrl+right will now be used for cursor movement inside the address entry field when it has focussed on restoring pre-6.02 behavior.
• Pressing F9 should move focus to the document window area even if the document is empty
• Give focus to the addressbar when activarting history dropdown by pressing 'h' in the document window
• The menu button on the keyboard will now activate context menus
• Page scrolling with mouse wheel now works in the main window when the mouse cursor is located over the ad window
• Fixed some shortcut problems in the transfer window and a lost focus problem when the transfer window was closed
• Added "Undo" and "Redo" actions to "Edit" menu and shortcuts in the line edit popup menus
• Fixed a tooltip problem that caused the tooltip to not be shown properly when one navigates the links in a page using the keyboard
• Added Shift+Delete (cut), Ctrl+Insert (copy), and Shift+Insert (paste) as additional default shortcuts in the shortcut file.
• Fixed a focus problem when using Alt+right and Alt+left. Focus was moved to the menu bar
• "Mouse down" gesture will now open a new browser window when Opera is running in SDI mode.
• Fixed a problem with mouse gestures. A URL with a relative name would be opened without the relative part

Startup

• Made it possible to open a file in the current directory on startup without specifying the full path.
• Modified the parsing of "-remote" command line commands so that strings such as "opera -remote openURL (javascript:window.open(),new-window)" will work; the parser could not cope with the internal bracket () set
• Fixed a problem that made it impossible to detect a running instance of Opera in certain window managers; "Enlightenment" and "Blackbox" are two window managers that caused this problem
• Starting Opera with the "-nowin" flag will now bypass the startup dialog
• Support for opening a page in background from the commandline; use "opera -help" for more information
• Added some new debug options -debugdns Show async dns progress (see below) -debugjava Show java setup progress -debugfont Show fontswitching progress
• Added logging support for async. dns lookup. Some users report problems (asyndns does not work) so now we have a test tool. The logging is activated on startup with the command line argument "-debugdns"

Transfer window

• Ensure that a list entry added to the transfer window is made visible if the list is taller than the transfer window
• Ensure transfer history is deleted even when transfer window has not been opened.

Cookies

• Support for editing cookie contents (name, value, created and last visited time)
• After the cookie dialog box had been shown once it was possible to add certain cookies without updating the list in the dialog box
• Some more layout fixes in the cookie dialog boxes. The multi-line edit layout behavior has changed
• Added preference settings so that the size of the cookie editor dialog and the bookmark search dialog box can be saved/restored
• Identified and fixed some server filter problems (when saving) in the cookie manager code. This could cause that server filters were lost if they used certain settings
• Support for the default state (third state) in the server filter list of the cookie filter in the preferences box

Privacy

• Clear "opera.win" and "autopera.win" when deleting private data
• Corrected a problem that caused Opera to segfault when deleting private data when running in SDI window mode

Security

• Added some security enhancements and a crash fix in HTTP protocol code.
• For some reason the, "Medium", "Low" and "None" strings of the security button were left out of 6.03; they have been activated again
• Added new certificates
• Support for trusted external URL protocols. We do not have a registry so the list of trusted applications must be stored in preferences (opera6.ini) like this:

      [Trusted Applications]
      Assign applications for protocols that are not handled by Opera
      irc=path-to-irc-client
      someprotocol=path-to-someprotocol-handler
      ...
      [User Prefs]
      TrustedExternalURLProtocols=irc,someprotocol,...

Print Preview

• Do not allow opening of links with midbutton when in print preview mode
• Print preview icon is now "pushed in" in preview mode
• Leave print preview before navigating in window history
• Open the result in a new window or page when activating a network search from the search context menu when in "Print Preview" mode

"search.ini"

• Support for configurable (read from "search.ini") translations, dictionary, encyclopedia and currency search engines
• Added "English -> Japanese" and "Japanese -> English" to Web translation list.
• Encyclopedia and dictionary search types now support POST URLs
• Prevent that three windows are opened when there is no active document window when we start a super search from the go-to (F2) dialog box
• Internet searches will now accept search keys that are longer than one character.
• Made the search engine interface more flexible with respect to encodings

Hotlist

• Use regular arrow cursor in hotlist area
• During drag-and-drop of bookmarks multiple folders can be highlighted in the bookmark view. Qt3 issue.
• Fixed a problem (Qt issue in 3.0.5) which made it impossible to sort the upper bookmark and contact treelists in user-defined mode.
• The indicator telling what sort mode was used in the bookmark list of the hotlist would not work properly if a column was hidden
• Added a guard against making it possible to open a docked hotlist window with a width less than 10 pixels. Too many users have reported missing hotlist problems because of this

Bookmarks

• Added support for rightclick popup menu inside bookmark popup menu. One can open the bookmark in a new window, open in background, edit it and copy/cut/paste/delete a bookmark or folder from the menu.
• "Add bookmark" dialog now supports selectable destination folder
• Do not clear bookmark menu if the menu is open when a bookmark change has occurred (could happen when a pixmap should be updated)
• Bookmark Parser speedup. The loading time has been reduced by approximately 15%
• Delayed bookmark search in hotlist in order to catch more string changes in one pass; feels faster
• Add-bookmark dialog size is now saved and restored
• The "Modify bookmark" dialog size is now saved and restored

Toolbars

• Added a "My style" on the main toolbar popup menu. It lets the user configure the buttons on the toolbar (very simplistic approach)
• "My style" support in "View > Main bar"
• Fixed a problem that caused the default address bar position (the position used when opening a new window) not to be saved when changed from "View > Address bar"
• "Compact Toolbars = 1" is now the default preference setting. This will save space in various toolbars
• The context popup menu shall not be enabled by right-clicking at the arrow button in the toolbars
• Disable 'move to new window' function in SDI mode where there is only one window in the browser
• The search toolbars will now always be shown on the same edge of the open document windows
• It is now possible to select the back/fwd button layout from the context pop-up menu on the main toolbar ("Short buttons" entry)
• Hide searchbar when popup windows are opened (in SDI mode)
• Support for disabling special (heart) icons on personal toolbar by setting a flag in "opera6.ini": Normal Icons On Personal Bar=0 > 1(x) 0: Show special icons on the personal bar (if supported in button.ini) 1: Use same icons as in bookmark menu and hotlist area. Example: [User Prefs] Normal Icons On Personal Bar=0
• Let the address toolbar resize itself properly depending on the font size (height)
• Under certain circumstances it was possible to activate a window without activating the corresponding window toolbar button

Print dialog box

• Added some help text to the tab page of the print dialog where one can add a custom printer. This should help more users understand how to use this tool
• A CUPS printer configuation file will now be parsed if present and the printers listed in the printer dialog
• Removed "Print Options" from file menu. The code is now inside the print dialog
• Changed help path in print dialog

Dialogs

• Added a help dialog box that will be shown the first time the center mouse button in clicked in the page area. The center mouse button action can be configured
• Fixed a number or problems with the "Window list" dialog box that took place when Opera ran in SDI mode
• Removed some non-functional help buttons in the find and find-bookmark dialogs
• The currency dialog will now show the value that is about to be converted; the value can be modified
• Fixed a problem that caused urls with a password to be scrambled before the page was opened with the URL string. This happened only when pressing Enter in the "Go to" (F2) dialog box - Fixed a focus problem in the "Go to" (F2) dialog box. Sawfish and probably other window managers as well could loose keyboard focus when the auto-completion dropdown menu was closed
• Fixed a problem caused by a change in Qt3 that made it impossible to center some dialogs under the mouse when that option was selected in the preference dialog box
• "Add panel" will now work even when hotlist area is floating
• Links In Frame dialog could crash Opera if activated before document was created. Some selection changes in that dialog as well. Added a "Name" checkbox so that we can display the URLs only in the dialog
• "Link in frame" dialog 1) Support for opening multiple links at the same time 2) Improved removal of duplicate links (a bugfix) 3) Pop-up menu will use current foreground skin
• Bookmark search dialog 1) Pop-up menu will use current foreground skin

Strings and localizations

• Fixed a broken time string display (for some locales) when receiving cookies
• Display localized time strings in hotlist and bookmark property dialog boxes
• Sort translated versions of the "Internations fonts" dropdown string list
• Let the search engine dropdown list always be at least as wide as required to show the widest string in the list
• Fixed a typo in the "Append Text On Center Mousebutton Click" preferences parsing option so that this option can be used
• Some minor string fixes in the mailto link context menu in order to sync with the Windows version

Workspace

• The workspace mdi button decoration is now updated directly when changed in the preference dialog. No restart required. The window context menus now also contain a decoration submenu - The icon of a minimized window will now always be lowered under the active window in the internal Opera workspace when in full-screen mode
• Fixed a problem that made it impossible to list more than 2048 files in a directory

Focus

• Do not give focus to a window when it is reloaded if it is not the active window (can happen when reloaded from the "Window list" dialog box)
• Some search-failure dialog fixes. Changed icon usage and improved focus restoration when the dialog closes

Other enhancements and fixes

• Added support for selecting default font by right-clicking with the mouse on an entry in the fontlist in the preference dialog box
• Added support for removing an entry in the "opera.dir" history list when a manually-entered URL could not be resolved
• Fixed a problem that caused the zoom level not to be displayed correctly in the help window menu bar
• Activate next/prev page failed in SDI mode when page was opened in the background.
• Check that separators are not present at end of menus (menus can be configured to turn off entries)
• Open a new window if there are only minimized windows when we open a page from the hotlist or the personal toolbar
• Do not write "download.dat" unless the download data has changed. This causes unwanted disk activity on battery-powered devices
• A style change will now trigger the handshape icon to be updated whenever it is used. The shape is different in windows and motif-based styles
• The subject and body contents of a created "mailto" URL is now encoded according to spec (some mailers want a raw "mailto" URL)
• Fixed a hotclick menu problem. If text was highlighted by a double/triple mouse click, then the copy menu would not be shown if the mouse were outside the selected area
• Let multi-line tooltips in the document stay visible longer (proportional to the number of lines) and try to break at spaces between words
• Fixed problem that caused filename with spaces to use %20 when saved.
• Save windows when Opera is closed from the window manager; this bug was only a problem when using "Show saved windows setup"
• "Help > OperaOnTheWeb" was not activated properly

See the changelog for Opera 6.03.