Re: Opera 10.60 Gripes and Complaints

On Monday 05 July 2010 20:35:46 J. William Cupp wrote:
> I have downloaded and installed Opera 10.60 and there are several things
> I really don't like about it.  I call these "gripes and complaints"
> because some may feel these are just personal taste issues but I
> disagree.  I think some of them are steps backward in development, and I
> have a hunch some are unintended.  Rather than pick a fight, I'll just
> give my list and let others choose to agree.  (Or not.)
> 
> I downloaded and installed Opera 10.60 on both Linux (Fedora) and
> Windows (Win XP and Win 7) platforms.  Both cases were upgrades, as they
> installed over previous, recent, versions of Opera 10.  In both cases,
> prior settings I had made were removed and new "defaults" were set.
> 
> In the Windows version, my default Speed Dial search engine (choice of
> Google) was replaced by a default setting of Bing.
> 
> In the Linux version, my default Speed Dial search engine (choice of
> Google) was replaced by no search engine displayed on the Speed Dial
> page.

That is most likely an upgrade/merge issue with the current search.ini you
have in the ~/.opera directory. If you look in 
/usr/share/opera/locale/en/search.ini you should see one entry that refers to 
the search field in the speed dial field. I am not sure what may have gone 
wrong. In any case, once you have the search field back, you can change the 
search engine to use there.

> 
> The default display removed the Command toolbar in lieu of a "command
> tab." It took me some figuring how to make that go away and put the
> Command toolbar back.  In Windows I finally did so, but in Linux
> although the Command toolbar appears the skin does not appear under it.
> The background of the Command toolbar is solid gray.

hmm, menu bar of main bar? I am not quite sure what you mean.

> 
> In the Linux version my setting for an external mail client (Evolution)
> was replaced by the default choice to use the internal Opera mail
> client.

Ok, that sounds a bit strange.

> 
> In both versions, the default settings of the Status toolbar were
> installed over my preferred settings.  The "display minimized" setting
> -- which was new to me (but maybe I didn't notice it on previous
> versions) -- was particularly difficult to figure out and remove.
> 
> Additionally, for each of the last few upgrade installations, the Status
> toolbar has placed an "Opera Unite" icon in the left area of the
> toolbar.  I have chosen to move mine to the right area.  In the past few
> previous releases, this results in two "Opera Unite" icons, in which I
> have to remove the default one.  As stated, in the Opera 10.60 install,
> all of my setting on the Status toolbar were ignored and the basic
> default installed, so I had to reset the whole thing.

My guess (this is not code I deal with normally) is that there have been so 
many changes that merging in old settings have been difficult. But, I do
not know the details.

> 
> Previously, in my Linux versions of Opera, I have enjoyed selecting the
> Bookmarks from the Command toolbar, then stepping down through the
> various sub-menus to the point the bookmark I wish is displayed.  From
> there, I formerly could right-click on any bookmark and display the
> Properties of it.  This never worked in the Windows versions; to display
> bookmark properties it was always necessary to begin with Manage
> Bookmarks in a separate tab.  Now, however, in 10.60 the Linux version
> works just as badly as the Windows version -- too bad, because I liked
> being able to reach the bookmarks' Properties without needing to go
> through Manage Bookmarks first.

Yep. I have not had time to get that in. I want it back as well.

> 
> In the Linux version of 10.60, some web pages' pop-ups do not open in
> the background.  I checked, and my former setting to open all pop-ups in
> the background remains selected.  It's odd: some pages DO open pop-ups
> in the background and some DO NOT.  I haven't troubleshot exactly the
> difference yet.  (On the Windows version, all pop-ups that I have found
> do open in the background as intended.)
> 
> Well, that's the list.  But here is a pure gripe, meant for the Opera
> development team.  What I like to call a "Microsoftian philosophy" is
> the practice of developers making decisions on behalf of end users ahead
> of time, and then preventing the user from having any say so about it.
> Surely, Microsoft is not the only proprietary software firm to do this,
> but they are certainly one of them.  Until now, this has been IMHO one
> of the big features of Opera Software: eschewing the Microsoftian
> outlook and leaving such things as previously set customizations alone
> when new releases are installed.  As I see it, Opera 10.60 was a
> **major** step in the wrong direction.  If I wanted other people to make
> all of my user interface decisions in advance for me, I wouldn't use
> Linux.  Please don't ruin a perfectly good browser by going completely
> Microsoftian on us.  ;-)  Thanks.



--
Espen Sand
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