Day 1: General Preferences

April 19, 2005

The first thing I like to do when I get a new app is checkout the preferences, to see what’s available. Opera8 sports a completely revamped set of preferences, so we’re all beginners again.

[screenshot of Opera's General Preferences]

Windows: To open the preferences panel, use Goto Tools and then Preferences. You can also use ctrl + f12 (you can also use the older, deprecated alt + p in Windows and Linux. alt + p has never been used for Mac OS X, where Opera follows the standard Command + ,).

Opera has done a good job of dividing the Preferences up into different sections. It used to be all in one giant list in the panel, and it was nearly impossible to tell what was important and what was dangerous. There are still flaws of course, I don’t think there is a perfect solution, but this one is better than the old one.

Startup

Continue from last time
This is the default option, and the best, in my opinion. When you quit Opera, or if Opera crashes (horrors!), it will re-open all the pages/windows (we’ll talk more about those below) which were open when it shut down.
Continue saved sessions
Opera can save sets of pages/windows (called “Sessions”) to be re-opened later. We’ll talk more about those too. Be patient, young padawan. Just store this information in the back of your brain for a bit.
Start with home page
This option tells Opera to, um, start by showing the home page. If you don’t know what that means, you’re probably confused by all these marks on the page, so I won’t bother trying to explain it any further.
Start with no pages
If you’re one of those “live in the moment, forget the past” sort of people, then this is the option for you. It tells Opera, “Don’t worry about where I’ve been, I’m more interested in where I’m going. So just leave me a nice, blank slate, and I’ll take it from there.” And Opera will let you do that, because Opera respects you. It also won’t let other programs reset your homepage to some nasty site (and by nasty, I mean, well, you know exactly waht I mean). Let’s just say some other browser won’t respect your home page. Not that there are other browsers out there that will not only let malicious types hijack your home page, but there are even some companies which will provide you with anti-spyware but then hijack your homepage to their portal website.
Show start-up dialog
[screenshot of Opera startup dialog] On the other hand, perhaps you’re one of those really indecisive types (hint: if you’ve read this far and haven’t decided which one you like best, this might be the choice for you!). This option lets you decide each time you start Opera what you want it to do (any of the above 4 options). And if a fit of decisiveness does overcome you, you can check the box marked “Do not show this dialog again”

Home page

Again, if this isn’t self-evident, I’m not sure I can explain it. In case this is your first day on the web, your home page is that page that you tend to go to most often and therefore would like a quick way to get to. Opera offers theirs as http://portal.opera.com/, but you can change it here to whatever you want.

Pages

Another big change in Opera8 is the way that Opera deals with “windows” and “pages”.

If you follow my writing at all, you may have heard me mention that Opera’s pages are not tabs. It’s a point I’ve made more than once, and sometimes I’ve made it rather strongly. I was right to make the clarification, because Opera’s idea of pages are more than just tabs.

But now Opera has started using the word “tabs” just to add to the confusion. Well, maybe it will reduce confusion, since more people are used to the word “tabs” anyway. Still, it would be good to define some terms:

windows
In Opera, a “window” can display one or more pages/tabs. By default, Opera will show multiple pages/tabs per window. So when you close a page/tab, the other pages/tabs in the window remain open, but when you close a window, all the pages/tabs in that window are closed. Just to make things interesting you can have multiple windows. For example, if you were searching for information on Diana Krall (and who could blame you?) and Norah Jones you could open one window with information about the lovely Diana, and open several pages on her. Then you can open a new, separate window and open pages about the fabulous Norah. There are some more advanced things we’ll get into later on.
pages/tabs
At this point I almost have to just give up and start using “pages” and “tabs” interchangeably, because Opera has started to do so. But there are still some things Opera’s tabs can do that others can’t!. More on that later. All you need to know right now is that if you see the words “pages” and “tabs” they are essentially referring to the same thing, and pages/tabs go inside a window (usually, you can change that).

Open Pages in Tabs

If you un-check this box, Opera will only open one page/tab per window. While this is the default in Mac OS X, most Windows users will probably not choose this option because otherwise you end up with a lot of buttons on the taskbar. If you find yourself inexplicably drawn to choose this option, it’s there, but I don’t recommend it.

Show close button on each tab

This is a new feature as well. Checking this box will give you an easy way to close pages/tabs (ok, I’m just going to call them “tabs” from here on). This one is pure personal preference. If you don’t like the close button, turn it off and you can just use ctrl + w (note: use command [sometimes called the Mac key or cloverleaf] instead of ctrl on the mac).

Pop-ups

Advertisers continue to try to find ways to annoy us. One of the more annoying is the pop-up/pop-under ad (although fortunately that trend may be dying). Still, going around without a pop-up blocker is like drinking out of a puddle. Sure, you could do it, but why would you?

Opera8 has its pop-up blocker enabled by default, which is only logical. That’s the good news. The even better news is that you now get a little popup notifier when a window is blocked, which will fill you with a warm sense of happiness knowing that you are stickin’ it to the (ad)man by ignoring his pop-up. In case you suspect that a popup might have been something that you wanted to see (some sites foolishly offer things like free shipping, etc in a popup window, which a lot of their customers will never see), then you can click on the Trash Can icon, then click on “Blocked pop-ups from” and select the website that sent the pop-up.

See Notifications Preferences for more information about controlling the pop-up notifications.

There are other options available, which are self-evident but which I shall explain anyway to artificially lengthen this document in case someone decides to pay me by word.

  • Open all pop-ups: For those of you who seek out annoying experiences, or if you find a site which requres pop-ups (bad site!), you can change this. But I don’t recommend it.
  • Open pop-ups in background: If you like your annoyances to be delayed, you can force the pop ups to appear behind other windows. This effectively makes them pop-unders.
  • Block unwanted pop-ups: where “unwanted” basically means “any link that you didn’t request by clicking on it” This is the default option, and my recommendation.
  • Block all pop-ups: While this might seem desirable, there are some sites which do use legitimate pop-ups.

See also: JavaScript Options (part of Advanced → Content Preferences) for more information about controlling JavaScript Keyboard Shortcuts: F12 menu.

Language

If you prefer to set a non-English language (which will tell some websites to send you content in a different language), choose one from the drop down box. Alternate language files (from Opera) can be downloaded from Opera.com and selected using the “Details” box.

Opera 8 will automatically download a language file on changing this option (insofar as they are available online of course). [Thanks for the tip Rijk]

  • I still ask to cover this greate intro with some of the Common Creatives licenses.


    That would alllow putting this text to Wiki and cooperative translation of it.


    It would greately simplify upating of translation when original text would be updated.


    ((TjL adds: If someone wants to translate it, I'll be happy to host it here as I've done with previous versions))

  • Could You, pleaze, cover this text with some license like Common Creatives ?


    Russian translation is frozen at 7.09 version. The person who did it is very busy.


    Putting this text onto Wiki could make updates much more easier! Every updated text can be pasted as-is and part-by-part translated with small pieces.


    This text is much needed to evangelize Opera, and it is pity that it is not available in russian up to date :(


    Thank You.


    {{ TjL writes - I have not had a chance to investigate CC enough to know which license would be appropriate. I do not have access to a Wiki nor time to learn how to set one up at the moment. }}

  • http://operalover.tntluoma.com/8/day1general_preferences


    Start with no pages:



    It also won't let other programs reset your homepage to some nasty site (and by nasty, I mean, well, you know exactly waht I mean).


    typo: waht → what (last word but two).



    Let's just say some other browser won't respect your home page.




    hmm ... my impression was that, when they said "my computer" they meant it (it's not "your computer", it's theirs) ... and when they say "home page" they mean "the page set up for you by the parties to whom we've sold the right to charge advertisers for access to your eye-balls". They just don't like to say those things out loud ...



    Re: Richard Grevers' description of "Show close button on every tab" - I'd not noticed that option; and agree with (1) so exercised it; it did (1) but I see no evidence of (2) and (3). Maybe that's just something that got fixed in 8.01 ...

  • wessonruger

    The WINDOW is the entire application of Opera. You can have multiple instances of Opera running at the same time. (i.e. multiple WINDOWS).


    The PAGE is what you are viewing on your screen when you have a web page open. If you have multiple pages open, only the active page is viewable. The others lie underneath like sheets of paper. (Unless you have the tile or cascade view enabled, then all of the pages will be shown on the screen. However, only one will be active, and you can change the active page by clicking within the bounds of that page or on the TAB for it.


    The TABS are the rectangular button located at the (top or bottom, left or right depending on where you place them), that once clicked, brings that page to the front in active status.


    "The WINDOW is the application, the PAGE is what you are viewing, and the TAB provides a quick link to perform operations on that page."

  • Peter Van Tine

    I believe Steve has it. Especially since you can move the "Tabs" on the Page Bar around without effecting the "Pages".


    Also, if you decide to close the Page Bar under the Toolbars tab in the Appearance dialogue box, the Pages then resemble minimized (until you maximize them again) files inside a standard MicroSoft application, e.g. Excel. Unfortunately if you do this with the Open Pages in Tabs box unchecked under the General tab in the Preferences dialogue box, there is no Windows menu available (not sure on the logic here).

  • I think dlambe's analogy above works, but with further explanation. And hopefully this will explain the difference between TABs and PAGEs (as I see it). ;)


    Starting with windows, lets say you have only two applications running: Word and Excel, and both programs are available on your desktop. In your taskbar you have two "Taskbar Buttons", as Windows calls them. If you click on the Word "Taskbar Button", the Word program is now in front of the Excel program. If you click on the Excel "Taskbar Button", you see Excel in front. So the "Taskbar Button" (let's just call it a "TaB") is clicked on to bring that program in front of the rest.


    To complete the analogy, clicking on the TAB in the Opera window brings that PAGE to the front, on top of the others. The Opera TAB for the Opera PAGE acts like the Windows "Taskbar Button" ("TaB") for the Windows program.


    The TAB is the "button" that brings the PAGE to the front. (It also sends it to the back, but I don't want to make this TOO complicated.)

  • dlambe

    al dasman:


    I'd think of it this way.. think of a Window as a container for pages/tabs. You can have mulitiple windows, each having it's own set of tabs/pages within. Close one window with a bunch of tabs? The other open windows remain untouched, as do their contained pabs/tages.


    Tabs and pages are the same thing, if my obvious reciprocating wasn't clear. :)


    If you've never used a tabbed browser before, I'd first say shame on you, and then try the Microsoft Windows analogy.


    Tabs and windows in Opera are analogous to open applications and the Taskbar in Microsoft Windows. The open applications are the "tabs/pages", and Windows itself is the containing window which allows you to swap through those "pages/tabs" of applications. In Opera, the only real difference is that instead of swapping through multiple applications, you're swapping through web pages.


    Best I got, hope it helps. :)

  • Al - sorry to have confused you.


    Some of the terminology confusion comes from Opera ASA. I wish they had avoided talking about tabs at all, and I wish they had made the traditional SDI and MDI distinction clearer.


    I'm completely open to suggestions on how to make it more clear.


    I still think the easiest way to understand it is to think of Tabs and Pages as being two ways of saying the same thing, and think of Windows as containing 1 or more Tabs.

  • al dasman

    I find it very difficult to understand the above. And I'm an Opera user - you have thoroughly confused me on Window and Tab and Page. To beat all, after you open pages in a window, or in a tab, - the "open pages in tabs" control is total gobbledeygook..


    It would be better to define your terms first - then apply them.


    It was a waste of time for Opera to come out with version 8 if they will not make it intelligible.

  • To clarify further, that "Show close button on every tab" checkbox has multiple effects.


    <ol>
    <li> The horrible close buttons go away*</li>
    <li> The Windows MDI controls come back (top right corner, the minimize, restore/maximize and close buttons - immediately below the set for Opera itself. I find that I use these if my mouse is near the top of the screen and the pagebar if the mouse is lower down.</li>
    <li> The Windows menu reappears. (I don't really understand the logic for it disappearing.</li>
    </ol>



    *Tip: One of the best means of closing pages is to shift-click the tab (hold either shift-key while left-clicking the page's tab. It needs two hands which makes it almost impossible to perform accidentally, and the target area for the click is much larger. Plus more space on tab=better chance of understanding what's there.

  • Martin: indeed it does. I’ve talked about MDI several times before, but since Opera ASA seems to be moving away from using that language (which was always fairly technical), I did as well. I should have mentioned it for clarity, especially for the power users out there who might have wondered what happened to it :-)


    Thanks for reading.

  • "Show close button on each tab"


    Switching this feature on and off disables/enables the classical MDI. The meaning's a little hidden, but that's the real difference.

  • James Pulver

    I think that there is still a slight difference between pages and tabs. At least as I've seen it used on the forums, pages are the windows inside opera, whereas tabs are just the selectors on the page bar.

  • Iggi

    I,m old Opera lover from Russia

  • FataL

    Small misprint: "Opera has done a good job or dividing the Preferences..." or > of. {{ thanks -- Fixed -- TjL }}


    Great site! Great work!


    I have read all your OperaLover tutorials, in spite of the fact that I'm using Opera since version 3.6


    {{ Thanks for the kind words -- TjL }}

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