The User Interface

Opera's user interface (UI) is what you are looking at and interacting with. This part of the tutorial will explain the different parts of the user interface. Note that it can be customized in great detail if you wish. For more information on how to change or customize the user interface, see the tutorial's Configure and Customize section.

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Tabbed browsing and Multiple Document Interface (MDI)

Opera offers several ways to manage your browser window. As well as offering the traditional single page, single window interface, Opera also offers many useful alternatives, allowing you to manage your browser window the way that suits you.

You can have several Web pages open at the same time within a single Opera window. This is called tabbed browsing, and is the default setup that Opera offers. When several Web pages are open at the same time in Opera, these will be organized using tabs on the tab bar. There are several benefits to this, such as speed, easy access, low memory usage, and a less cluttered task bar. Click a tab to bring the page into view, or use the standard Windows function by pressing Ctrl+Tab. You can also drag tabs on the tab bar to reorganise them, and middle-click to close them. Right click on a tab to see more options.

You can configure how you want Opera's tabs to behave, using Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Tabs. The tab options allow you to tell Opera if you want it to use tabs, or you could even make it behave as a Multiple Document Interface (MDI).

True MDI is more than browsing with tabs. In Opera, you can resize pages and tile them next to each other on the same workspace to compare or work with several pages. For instance, you can have a chat page open and running next to a page for browsing or composing an e-mail message. To make the most of this feature, use Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Browsing > Show window menu to show the window menu. This allows you to manage the pages in the MDI.

If you want to have new pages open in an entirely new application window instead, like some other browsers do, go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Tabs and enable "Open windows instead of tabs".

Main menu

The main menu in Opera is made to be quite typical for the various operating systems; you will find that many of the options available in the menu are familiar. Be sure to keep in mind that the Tools menu is the main place to go to manage saved items and change Opera settings. Several extra menus appear when features are enabled, such as the Feeds menu, that only appears after at least one newsfeed has been added.

Main bar

The main bar is now disabled by default. This bar contains the basic buttons used to open files, save or print Web pages, and manage windows within the MDI.

Address bar

The address bar contains the basic buttons used to navigate within a document. Additionally, it contains the address field that allows you to enter a page address to navigate to, the search field for quick searching on the Web, and a button to toggle the view bar.

The address field also has some extra features. Clicking on the address field causes the start bar to appear, which offers home, top 10 visited sites, bookmarks, and search features. If the page contains any linked newsfeeds, a button will appear in the address field that allows you to quickly add the feed. If the page uses a secure connection, the security information field will appear that gives information about the security level the page is using. See the Opera security tutorial for more information.

View bar

The view bar can be shown by clicking the toggle button on the address bar. As well as inline search, it offers quick access to features that affect the display of the page, such as images, stylesheets, zoom, and fit to window width. If voice is available, the voice button on the view bar can be used to tell Opera to listen to a spoken command.

Personal bar

The Personal bar is a toolbar that can consist of bookmarks, folders with bookmarks, or your favourite search engines, for instant access. You can configure all this yourself simply by dragging and dropping from the panels. Links can also be dragged from the address field and from within documents. Choose a bookmark folder for display in the personal bar by right-clicking it in the panel. Choose which searches to include on the personal bar by right-clicking it and viewing the options available.

This toolbar is disabled by default. Should you choose to customize and use it, you can enable it using View > Toolbars > Personal bar.

Tab bar

The tab bar acts like a taskbar; if you have several documents open at once, you can select the document you wish to view by clicking a tab on the tab bar.

The tab bar also contains the trash icon that allows you to reopen blocked pop-ups and closed tabs.

Tip: You can close tabs by holding down Shift while clicking on the page bar tabs. Right-click the tab to see a context menu with more options.

Panels

Bookmarks and history, windows sessions, chat sessions and e-mail messages are some of the items that can be managed using the panels.

Navigation Bar

Some sites provide links for a navigation bar to make site navigation easier. If you have set the Navigation bar to "Show only when needed" in View > Toolbars > Customize, it will appear directly below the Address bar whenever you go to a Web page that has support for it. This toolbar is disabled by default.

The Opera help files are made for use with the navigation bar. Press F1 to get a demonstration and find further information about Opera's user interface.