Changelog for Opera 6.0 for Windows

What's new?

Opera version 6.0 is now available for download.

Opera 6.0 supports the Unicode Worldwide Character Standard, and comes with a new set of help files. Both single and multiple document interface (SDI/ MDI) are supported at start-up, and switching between document windows is made easier with the enhanced "Ctrl+Tab" feature. Hotlist panels can easily be added or edited. Hotclicking (i.e. double-, triple-, or quadruple-clicking a word, phrase, or paragraph) produces a pop-up menu with powerful tools such as searching, encyclopedia look-up, and translation. The new personal bar makes it even easier to organize and personalize bookmarks and searches. Opera's "Preferences" has been reorganized, and image display has been improved.

Very little is new since the beta version was released.

Opera 6.0 for Windows has the following change log:

At first glance

• New start-up dialog
• SDI/MDI mode
• New default skin and button set
• Unicode Worldwide Character Standard support
• Hotclick
• Hotlist panels
• Personal bar
• New set of help files
• Enhanced image rendering, with full support for PNG alpha transparency
• Support for international URLs

Install

• Installer creates an "opera6.ini" file, which is used by Opera 6.0
• The default write directory has been changed from "c:\opera" to the directory in which Opera is installed
• Opera only imports "opera.ini" settings from a previous installation of Opera if installed to the same directory

User Interface

• Support for both MDI and SDI
• Personal bar with bookmarks, search fields, and drag-and-drop support
• New in-line "Find-in-page" search field
• New powerful drag-and-drop Page bar in SDI mode
• Panels can be added to (and removed from) the Hotlist
• Quick preferences added, with instant access to important settings
• Improved skinning functionality
• Possible to search bookmarks
• Bookmarks icon changes color to indicate visited links
• Added "Open" and "Save" buttons to full button set
• The e-mail, instant messaging, and news clients can be turned off in "Preferences" (requires restart)
• "Preferences" has been reorganized and some dialogs changed
• (Ctrl+Tab) makes switching between document windows easier
• Fix for documents with no scrollbars
• Scrollbars added to Hotlist panels
• Added support for personalized icons in Contacts list
• View buttons added to clients
• Space saving options to show or hide details added to clients
• Fixes for moving back and forth in history
• Brand name added in "opera:about" for customized versions
• Improved borders when zooming
• A "go to homepage" command will open the "set homepage" dialog if no homepage is set
• Shift-clicking on a window bar will close the window
• Focus fixes
• New "Import" and "Export" menu entries under "File"
• It is now possible to choose not to show the validation upload warning
• "Button bar" is now called "Main bar"

Standards

• New CSS parser with Unicode support
• Full support for WML 1.2
• Full PNG support

Speed and Memory Optimization

• Improvements to Bookmark manager
• ECMAScript optimizations
• When 9x systems run low on resources, Opera will give a warning
• Enhancements to cache and cookie control
• Improved display speed

E-mail

• Option to import e-mail from a Microsoft Outlook Express account
• Transport Layer Security (TLS) support is added for POP and SMTP
• Semicolon can be used to separate recipients

Accessibility

• General improvements to zooming
• Pressing [F12] opens Quick preferences
• Active bookmark folder menu is opened when [Ctrl+Alt+A] is pressed
• Pressing [Esc] in the URL field sets focus to the document
• Backspace goes back in history
• Pressing [Shift+F7] sets focus to personal bar
• Added keyboard shortcuts to back [Alt+Z] and forward [Alt+X] drop-downs
• Added keyboard shortcut for uploading document to validator [Ctrl+Alt+V]
• Pressing [Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V] validates document in the background
• Pressing [Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H] opens "History" in the background

Read about keyboard navigation in Opera, or press [Ctrl+B], for a detailed list of shortcuts.

ECMAScript and JavaScript

• General improvements
• CGI arguments can be chopped off the URL returned by "location.pathname"
• Support for "window.print()" has been added

Instant Messaging

• Address field possible to change only when adding new account
• Fix to "Always be visible to this contact"

Documentation

• New help files
• New "Tip of the Day" file
• New "Readme" file (replaces the "Install" file)
• New "Start-up" file

Languages

• Improvements to the Web language dialog
• User defined language works better

Miscellaneous

• New start-up dialog with MDI/ SDI option, exit dialog off by default
• Possible to run more than one instance of Opera, provided the instances do not write to the same files
• Full support for LiveConnect
• Proxy settings can be automatically configured
• Improved support for "IFrames"
• The "plugin-ignore.ini" file can be used to tell Opera to not load certain plug-ins
• A search performed in one window can be redone in another window (F3)
• Minor fixes to "copy and paste" functionality
• Option added to open pop-up windows in the background (drop-down)

New since the beta release

• Print selection added (text only)
• Improvements to "copy and paste"
• Use [Ctrl+Alt+PageDown] and [Ctrl+Alt+PageUp] to switch between pages inside an SDI window
• Mouse gesture DOWN (open link in new page) works in the banner window
• Pressing [ESC] in the Personal bar sets focus back to where it came from
• The installer skips the language and country dialog if these variables are already set
• Help files are updated
• Skin images can be defined in "buttons.ini"
• Resource savings on Win9x, especially with maximized windows in MDI or many pages in SDI
• More speed optimization and improvements to memory and resources usage
• Fixes to some printing issues
• Fixes to some focus issues
• Fixes to other known issues

Read more about the New features in Opera 6.0.