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Opera 9.0 Preview 1

Opera released it’s 9.0 Preview 1 at snapshot.opera.com.

What’s new? A lot.

From UI changes:

  • opera:config
  • Simpler preference window
  • ctrl+t opens tab, ctrl+n new window
  • Internal view source with ability to modify the the document on fly! (similar to CSS editor in Web Developer extension)
  • Tab locking (similar to many Firefox’s extensions)

For developers?

  • XSLT 1.0
  • Web Forms 2.0
  • Canvas
  • xml:id
  • default UA is Opera
  • XPath 1.0
  • designMode (Midas from Gecko)
  • window.getSelection (finally!!! I was waiting for it for two years!!!)
  • almost full Acid2 support
  • more or less ready SVG 1.1 Basic (yes – finally www.croczilla.com/svg/samples works!)
  • Some CSS3 selectors

and others…

Overall it seems that Opera is pushing browser market, and is hunting Firefox on the standard support ground.
But this also shows how far we are… Almost everything new from standard support section is already there in Firefox 1.5 or even Firefox 1.0… I think that I like this new “standards competition”. It’s for sure healthy for the market. I can almost smell the gunpowder from the cannons with new standards on a board.

Anyone remember the name of that old crappy web browser that was going to release its new version to catch up the market?

5 replies on “Opera 9.0 Preview 1”

Simpler preference window

Preference window is identical as in Opera 8.

Internal view source with ability to modify the the document on fly! (similar to CSS editor in Web Developer extension)

This is not only CSS editor, but also markup editor!

Almost everything new from standard support section is already there in Firefox 1.5 or even Firefox 1.0

Let see…

Web Forms 2.0

Planned for Mozilla 2.0

xml:id

Absent in Mozilla

Canvas

Much slower than Opera implementation.

almost full Acid2 support

Much better in Opera now than Mozilla support.

SVG 1.1 Basic

It seems that Opera support more modules now than Mozilla. I will publish details shortly.

Canvas: you base your feelings on one test, is it really enough for you?On my machine this demo – http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/A_Basic_RayCaster works much faster on Gecko.Please, try to test more before making statements like this.

No. I’ve tested more and also I’ve read interesting discussion about Fx vs. Opera canvas implementation:

“The thing here is that the specification, as I understand it, says that the canvas has to be updated multiple times. That other browsers are not doing that breaks with that.”
[http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2005/10/opera-merlin#comments]

Yea, it’s the same as with DHTML. Opera had displayed DHTML much faster because they repainted the screen less often 😉
It seems that about Canvas they switched positions 🙂

But I took a look at specification and didn’t find the place where the rules about repainting are described. So for the moment I must refuse that we’re doing sth wrong. And still, I’m not trying to say that Fx is faster, I’m only trying to calm down your hurra-optymism about white/black world with one great browser with perfect implementation of everything and another crappy one with sucky implementation of everything 😉

And about Web Forms – I hope that you saw this: [http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_10.html#a000583]

But I took a look at specification and didn’t find the place where the rules about repainting are described.

I also didn’t find such statement. Hmm… I based my comment on Anne’s comment 😉

I’m only trying to calm down your hurra-optymism about white/black world

From my side I’m trying to clean up your unfair belief about absolute Firefox supremacy in standards support 😉

And about Web Forms – I hope that you saw this: [http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_10.html#a000583]

Yes, and I also read the comment:
“I probably overreacted with the “all but totally inaccessible” comment. It seemed inaccessible to me because I am used to using the arrow keys to navigate popups and spinners on a Windows platform. Having spoken to Derek I am assured that the controls are indeed accessible.”
[http://dean.edwards.name/weblog/2005/10/opera9/#comment2618]

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