The Good Life... a weblog about life, technology, and the Opera Web browser

Posts from October 20, 2005

Date
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31

And then there was Merlin, AKA Opera 9.0 Preview 1 released!

A month ago, I introduced you to Merlin. Now, it's time to spend some quality time together. That's right, Opera 9.0 Preview 1, code-named Merlin, is now available for Windows, Macintosh (PPC and Intel!), Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. As with most previews, it's still pretty rough around the edges. But don't fret, we're already well on the way to making Merlin the best Opera release yet!

Remember, this is just a preview release and it may cause problems. The new IMAP back-end should only be used with test accounts, as there are still ways to lose mail.

In my previous post, I told you about many of the new features in Merlin, but I also left quite a few out. Here are the new specifications implemented in the core browser engine:

Of course, the core browser engine isn't the only part of Opera that received new features:

  • M2 now sports support for Atom 1.0 and the new IMAP back-end previously previewed in 8.0 Preview 5.1 (more details to come).
  • We've added quick access to most preferences via opera:config.
  • We added site-specific preferences (currently only accessible via opera.ini; more details to come)
  • You can now choose to reparse invalid XML documents as HTML
  • There's a new internal source viewer and editor (if you save your changes, the page is automatically reloaded with your changes included).
  • Tabs can now be locked via the tab context menu so they can't be accidentally closed.
  • Finding text on Web pages will highlight all matches.
  • There's a new message console used for everything from JavaScript to Opera Mail errors.
  • The default user agent is set back to Opera.
  • The Macintosh version is now packaged as a universal binary, allowing Opera to run on Intel-based Macintosh systems without emulation.

We're not just in the business of adding new features; we also fixed a huge number of bugs, including:

  • Acid2 is just one bug fix away from completion (more details to come).
  • OBJECT and IFRAME elements respect z-index
  • Fixed problems with width inheritance for positioned elements
  • Improved our margin-collapsing code
  • Key presses won't be lost after Alt+Tab
  • Full-screen will fallback to screen media stylesheets if no projection stylesheets are found
  • Many, many more!

We're proud of the work we're doing and we want you to enjoy it too. Happy browsing!

October 20, 2005