Meanwhile, Netscape shoots itself if the foot. Again.
by AC - permalink
This morning Opera 8.5 was released, and it's free. They've removed the ad banners, the registration, and the licensing fee. While this is obviously the big news, there's also the software itself. The changelog shows four security fixes, some minor tweaking, and "multiple stability fixes." The browser JavaScript tool is now included and active by default. I uninstalled Opera 8.02 immediately before installing 8.5, and all bookmarks, history, skins, and UI customization was carried over intact.
The other day I finally got fed up with Opera's default toolbar layout (navigation controls and address bar below the tabs) and changed it. I activated therarely never-used Main bar, which is below the menu bar and above the tabs, took everything off of it, and dragged all the URL bar contents there (nav buttons, address bar and Go button, search form, and toggles for the View bar, panels, and wand). Now Opera looks and acts like a normal browser. With the default layout, the URL bar changes when displaying a "custom" tab - bookmarks manager, history, feeds viewer, etc. Now, none of my controls will disappear when viewing a custom tab; they may be greyed out, but at least I can see them. It's just easier to deal with.
Apparently tired of hearing how abhorrently hideous their new browser is, Netscape has released a browser theme kit, as well as a theme download center called the Netscape Theme Park. This might be the first time ever that a simple skin can actually improve the usability of an application.
Unfortunately, although there are a whopping five themes listed at the theme park, you can't actually install any of them. Clicking on one will take you to a page with more details about that theme. The "Install Theme" button you will then see simply links to the page you're already looking at. Brilliant. So you're stuck with that green mess. It's so hard to find anything in that awful, cluttered theme that it's actually easier to just exit the program and download a different browser.
by AC - permalink
This morning Opera 8.5 was released, and it's free. They've removed the ad banners, the registration, and the licensing fee. While this is obviously the big news, there's also the software itself. The changelog shows four security fixes, some minor tweaking, and "multiple stability fixes." The browser JavaScript tool is now included and active by default. I uninstalled Opera 8.02 immediately before installing 8.5, and all bookmarks, history, skins, and UI customization was carried over intact.
The other day I finally got fed up with Opera's default toolbar layout (navigation controls and address bar below the tabs) and changed it. I activated the
Apparently tired of hearing how abhorrently hideous their new browser is, Netscape has released a browser theme kit, as well as a theme download center called the Netscape Theme Park. This might be the first time ever that a simple skin can actually improve the usability of an application.
Unfortunately, although there are a whopping five themes listed at the theme park, you can't actually install any of them. Clicking on one will take you to a page with more details about that theme. The "Install Theme" button you will then see simply links to the page you're already looking at. Brilliant. So you're stuck with that green mess. It's so hard to find anything in that awful, cluttered theme that it's actually easier to just exit the program and download a different browser.
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