Opera Tips

Quick Translation

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:20:00 -0600

Sometimes it’s necessary to translate webpages, and many times it’s an unwieldy process. Many browsers, including Opera, have methods in their GUI to use online translation services to translate, but there’s a much easier way to do it.
Earlier we showed you how to create a custom search. This works exactly the same way. Google Translate can detect the language for you, so it works very well for a custom search. Navigate to Google Translate. Under “Translate Into” change the language to your preferred language. In my case it’s English. Right-click on the textarea and go to “Create Search…”. Set your Keyword to what you want and hit “OK”. I’ve used “tr”.
Navigate to a location which would require translation for you and type “keyword website”, replacing your chosen keyword and website at the appropriate locations. Google will have translated the page for you into your language of choice. Custom searches are searches in name only sometimes; they can be created for and utilized in many different ways.

Quick search

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:44:00 -0500

I was amazed by how many people don’t know about this trick. Even the ones who use Opera for years were surprised when I showed it to them. Here’s the deal: Let’s say, I’m not able to watch the football match Roma-Fiorentina live on the TV, but I want to be able to follow it on the Internet. In that case, I’d go to Opera Portal and look for it there. Opera is all about speed, right? And the fastest way to find something on the page is to press “.” (period) on the keyboard to revoke the Quick find dialog.
So I hit period (.) on the keyboard and start typing ‘roma’ and all the instances of ‘Roma’ on the page will get instantly highlighted, as you type… If you’re searching for links, hit ‘,’ (comma) instead of period on your keyboard. It will display the “Finding links” dialog.
That’s it :) Enjoy!

Enabling User JavaScript

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:37:00 -0500

User JavaScript is a tool in Opera used to modify Web pages via code on your computer; it makes for lots of tip opportunities! To enable it, start by going to opera:config#UserPrefs|UserJavaScript and checking the box.
In order to actually use scripts you need to specify the folder where Opera will look for script files. You’ll need to type a path in the field marked “User JavaScript File”. A good idea might be to create a folder inside your Opera preferences folder and use that.
To apply the changes click the “Save” button. Opera will now execute any User JavaScript files copied to the folder you specified.

Author Mode & User Mode

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:37:00 -0500

Author Mode and User Mode in Opera will feel foreign to users of other browsers. They are presentation modes where the end user can control style options. Confused? Let’s begin, then!
Go to View -> Style -> Manage Modes and a dialog box will appear and look exactly like this. Author Mode displays all styles while User Mode displays none of the styles except stylesheets, fonts, colors, and link styles you specify. As can be seen any of those can be changed. However, let’s leave those be for the present. Feel free later to experiment.
Author and User Modes can be accessed through the main menus, but it is much easier and more convenient to access them through an interface button. Read how to customize the interface and place the “Author Mode” button anywhere you wish. It’s categorized under “Browser view” in the button tab of the customize dialog box.
Click the arrow on the button to display the dropdown menu. Author Mode provides a sort of dynamic stylesheet switcher, allowing the end user to apply and combine custom styles on top of the website’s styles. Feel free to explore. Some interesting combinations useful for web development are already built into Opera.
Click on the arrow on the button and select “User Mode”. You should notice that the page loses all styles. This is useful for developers to make sure their markup is semantic and that their sites work with styles turned off, a necessity for accessibility.
Knowledgable users can create their own stylesheets to use with Author Mode by closing Opera, finding their preferences folder, navigating to the styles/user folder within, and dropping in a stylesheet they created. When Opera is reopened an additional stylesheet should be present in the menu.
Author Mode and User Modes are powerful features which give Opera users more control over the content they view.

Customizing the User Interface, Part 1

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:03:00 -0500

Let’s start with the basics here with something you might not know or may not even have heard of. First let’s learn how to remove buttons from toolbars. Right-click on the button or any other element you want to remove and choose Customize -> Remove from Toolbar. The item will be gone now. If you want it all back you can repeat the process again except selecting “Reset Toolbar to Its Defaults” instead.
Go to Tools -> Appearance (or press Shift+Opt+F12 on Mac / Shift+Alt+F12 on Windows or Linux).
Choose the Buttons tab at the top. You’ll see lots of different interface elements available for you to choose from. Don’t be afraid to explore by your own.
Let’s add some space to the address panel after we’ve cleaned it up from the elements we don’t use. Select “Spacers” on the left and drag the Fixed spacer item from the right panel in the very beginning of the address panel until you see the insertion marker and then release. You can drag items from the Appearance dialog box to lots of different panels and toolbars inside Opera, not only the address bar.
You can also move items without opening the Appearance dialog box. Simply hold down the Shift key and then click and drag any element to its new position. Now when you know the basics, go ahead, play around! More customization tips to come :) Have fun!

Synchronizing M2 filters

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:08:00 -0500

I bet those of you, who use Opera on multiple computers, will like this one. If you are using Opera’s superior mail client, M2, with a mail server, that supports IMAP, and don’t have any mail filters there, you’ll need to create one. You can find out how to do it in our previous post here: http://is.gd/3e8vQ. I am going to show how to synchronize already created Today smart filter, that displays e-mails, received today.
Enter opera:about in the address field to get the information about where your e-mail folder is stored on the system. Remember the name of the filter you want to synchronize (it’s called Today in our case) and quit Opera.
Go to that folder on your hard drive and find a file, called index.ini. Open it with the text editor of your choice.
Search for “Name=Filtername” string, which is Name=Today in our case. Then add a “Keyword=” line in that section and save the file. Now your new filter should synchronized. Enjoy!

Content Blocking

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:22:00 -0500

Annoying ads are the bane of many people’s browsing experience. Many browsers contain methods of blocking ads, and Opera is no exception.
Right-click on an empty area of the villainous page and go to “Block Content”.
Click on any offending content to block it. When done, click “Done” on the newly visible content block toolbar.
Sometimes the ad will change completely and repeating the process proves ineffective. This is because the GUI’s filtering isn’t precise enough. Thankfully Opera can do more, but it requires some additional work.
Thankfully people have done the work for us and have shared the fruits of their labors. Close Opera, find your preferences folder, and open urlfilter.ini within that folder in your favorite text editor. Replace your ini file information with theirs. Save, and reopen Opera.
Chances are you will rarely run into an ad again. While increasing Opera’s initial load time (such as after a restart) it has benefits to browsing as can be seen here.

Find Your Opera Preferences Folder

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:55:59 -0500

Since Opera can be installed many ways and on many systems its preferences are going to be stored in a multitude of places. Knowing where your preferences folder can be useful. First type “opera:about” in the address bar and press return.
Read where your preferences folder is located under “Opera directory”.
Now you know where your preferences are stored.

Creating a “Today” Smart Mail Filter

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:47:00 -0500

If you use Opera Mail (M2), go to Mail item in the main menu and choose “Filters…”
Then click on the “New Filter” button in the top left corner.
Set a name for the filter. As we’re going to create a filter for today’s e-mails only, “Today” seems to be logical.
Under “Match” choose “Any Header” from the first dropdown and enter your e-mail address in the text field to the right. You can click on “Apply Filter” then “Close”.
All your messages will get filtered by this filter. However, we have one more step. Click on the filter in the Mail panel…
Then click on the View button in the toolbar, choose Period -> Today and you’re done.

Create Custom Searches

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:13:00 -0500

Find a website you want to create a search for, right-click the search input box, and then go to “Create Search”.
Type in a short keyword you want to use and click “OK”.
Type in the keyword you specified and a space followed by what you want to search for. Press Enter.
You have just searched for something or in this case created a shortened URL to use on Twitter!

Hiding the Panel Selector

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:17:00 -0500

Right click on the free area of the panel selector toolbar and choose “Customize…”.
Then click on the Toolbars tab at the top of the dialog box.
Choose “Off” from the “Placement” drop downmenu and click “OK”.
You will still be able to switch between the panels from the dropdown menu at the top left corner of each panel.