Opera has a development tool, says guy with the company

By Steven Rosenberg on August 11, 2008 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) |

In response to my item on the Opera Web browser, I received this e-mail from Thomas Ford, communications manager for the company that produces the browser:

Hi Steven,
I read your post about Opera and just wanted to drop a short note to say thanks. We really appreciate the kind words.

You did mention that you use the Web Developer add-on for Firefox. You should also check out our Web dev tool, Opera Dragonfly. It's just in a second alpha, but you'll see where we're going. To access it, just go to Tools > Advanced > Developer tools. This will launch Dragonfly. You can follow development over at http://my.opera.com/dragonfly

Let me know if you have any other questions or comments. If you don't have an iPhone, you ought to try Opera Mini (if you have a Java-enabled phone) or Opera Mobile (if you have a Windows Mobile smartphone), but that may be a conversation for another time. Thanks again!

Best regards,

That's something I'll have to look at. The problem with developing on the Web with Opera is the same problem that Firefox kinda-sorta faces, but not really. That problem is the persistent fact that the majority of the world sees the Web through the eyes of Internet Explorer, and you've got to make sure your sites look good and work well on IE before considering Firefox. When it comes to sheer numbers of Web users, Opera doesn't factor in.

But since Opera seems to be aiming to be a standards-compliant browser, that is very much in its favor as a development platform. If making things work in Opera meant they would be sure to work in IE and Firefox, that would be a point very much in Opera's favor.

I'll be exploring Opera further in the days and weeks ahead. Among the features I'll be looking at:

Mail capability. Like Seamonkey (and Netscape Communicator before it), Opera has a built-in mail client. At the office I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my mail, and I occasionally use Evolution, the default GNOME mail client, when I'm in Debian or Ubuntu Linux. I always use IMAP, not POP, because IMAP lets me leave the mail on the server and allows me to have access to it from different computers at different places, unlike POP, which downloads the mail to a single computer and generally erases it from the server at that point (unless you tell the server not to do that, a choice that presents its own set of problems). But usually when not at my office computer I just use the many Web interfaces that let me access my various e-mail accounts.

I'll give Opera a try with e-mail to see how it stacks up to stand-alone clients like Thunderbird, Evolution and Sylpheed, as well as to Seamonkey's mail component.

Chat. Opera has chat capability. I currently rely heavily on Pidgin, which allows me to bring my Google, AOL/AIM and Yahoo! IM accounts into a single application.

Managing bookmarks. I have a lot of bookmarks. Managing them is difficult. Opera automatically brought in the bookmarks from Firefox, not IE. That was OK by me, but the folders are in alphabetical order, and going under "Manage Bookmarks" in the Bookmarks menu didn't allow me to drag and drop the folders into the order in which I prefer them. I soon figured out that when in Manage Bookmarks mode, you must click on View ahd then choose "Sort by My Order" to do just that. It's nice to have the choice of custom or alphabetical order when it comes to bookmarks. I'm not sure if Firefox offers this choice or not (it defaults to sorting by the user's own order), but I'd like to see that. One of the things I like about the GNOME browser, the Mozilla-based Epiphany, is that it defaults to alphabetical order. That was a refreshing change from Firefox. I don't know yet which way I prefer -- presorted by alphabet or custom-sorted, but it's nice in Opera to have a choice.

Business model. At this point, I'm looking at the Opera browser strictly as a user. The business model of Microsoft (IE) is very well-known, that of the Mozilla Corporation/Foundation less so (hint: it has a lot to do with Google search income). Opera, which isn't giving its source code away (like Mozilla) nor keeping its browser on a single, owned platform (Microsoft, with the Windows-only IE), must have a business model. I'll be looking into what it is.

1 Comments

ric storms

said:

I have been using Opera for my older Power Mac and I have been more than impressed. The mail integration, while fairly basic, is a breeze to set up. I use gmail for my primary account, and setting it up was as easily as entering in my login and password. While I have no problem doing it manually ( ie Outlook) its nice to have it simple and well integrated. It uses IMAP protocol by default, so I can still access my gmail anywhere. I just started trying Opera on my Linux Mint 5.0 installation and it looks stunning, very sleek compared to Firefox. It also uses a smaller memory footprint. If you're looking for a web browser with a small footprint that is still functional, try Kazehakase. Its pretty basic, but its my favorite of the Gecko based browsers.

August 12, 2008 8:40 AM