Features in Opera

What's New?

There are many new features in Opera 5.0, mainly under the hood in the form of enhancements over our previous version Opera 4.02; But here is a listing of the most important features of Opera 5.0:

Opera 5.0 is free!

Well, not entirely free as such, though there is no cost to the end user, but ad-banner sponsored. We here at Opera Software believe that this is the best way of attracting new users to our browser, and hope you all will enjoy Opera 5.0 for what it is - the fastest browser on earth!

For more information about advertising in Opera 5.0 and your security, see our Web site!.

A built-in instant messenger client

You read it! Opera 5.0 sports a built-in instant messenger based on Mirabilis' ICQ client. Head on over to the Instant messaging page in this very Help to read more!

Search the Web from inside of Opera!

Exactly as it sounds, you can now search the Web through search engines such as Google, AltaVista, HotBot and GoTo, from the comfort of the search field on the progress bar. You may also search for available domain names, books of interest, companies you are interested in and stock quotes, as well as Mp3's, images and audio and video just by selecting these options from the drop-down menu next to the "Search the Internet"-button.

Drop-down history on Back and Forward

And speaking of drop-down menus, here's one that longtime Opera users will welcome: drop-down history on the "Back" and "Forward" buttons! No longer is there any need to go back through every page you have visited to get to the one you want - simply press the arrow-tab next to the "Back" button to view a list of the pages you have visited in the current window, take your pick and you are there! Of course it works the other way - pressing the same tab on the "Forward" button will give you the option to skip forward without having to trudge through the "in-between"!

Reload every...

Are you waiting for your favorite Web site's latest news but tired of manually having to reload it every 5 minutes? We've go the answer for you! Open the Web site(s) in question, right-click and select "Reload every..." from the menu to set the time interval at which Opera should reload the page, or select "Custom..." to set the time interval yourself!

Validate HTML

For the "techies" amongst you out there, as well as basically anyone else with an interest in learning, writing or using HTML as a language, Opera 5.0 has the most nifty little feature; Simply right-click on any HTML document, local or remote, select "Frame" and "Validate HTML" to have Opera send information off to the World Wide Web Consortium's HTML Validation Service, a free, Web based validation service, for validation. The HTML Validation Service will check your (or anyone else's) HTML for validity and offers a host of tips and tricks to get HTML to validate. Impress your friends with Valid HTML™! ;-)

New Technologies

Opera has always been very conscious of the open Web standards that are made by the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force in that the technologies the browser supports have always been standards compliant. These are the latest additions and updated technologies in Opera:

HTML 4.01

Opera now has support for the latest HyperText Markup Language recommendation, HTML 4.01, from the World Wide Web Consortium, commonly referred to as the "W3C". Opera versions prior to Opera 4.0 supported the HTML 3.2 recommendation from the W3C, but now this support has been upgraded to fit the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web as it lives and breathes today.

XML 1.0

XML, the acronym of "eXtensible Markup Language", seems to be the buzzword of the day in development circles the world over, and this version of Opera has generic XML 1.0 support! HTML is a subset of a much larger and static markup language, known as Standard Generalized Markup Language, or SGML for short, which doesn't lend itself to the Internet in a flexible enough manner, so the W3C created a working group for creating a new kind of markup language, and XML 1.0 is the result. Opera 5.0 has full support of the XML 1.0 recommendation!

XHTML 1.0

extensible HyperText Markup Language, XHTML 1.0, claims to be the bridge between the old Internet, based on HTML, and the new one, which will be based on XML, as detailed by the W3C's XHTML 1.0 specification's working group. Opera 5.0 has full support of XHTML 1.0, for your viewing pleasure!

CSS Level 1 and Level 2

Building on our award-winning implementation of Cascading Style Sheets Level 1 in the 3.x series of Opera, we have now updated this support to include all parts of CSS Level 1 and most parts of CSS Level 2, which excludes only the Aural CSS parts of the W3C recommendation, as Opera is not an aural browser. The idea behind CSS is that the technology is used to separate style and layout from content, and used together with either HTML, XHTML or even XML, the results can be staggering!

WAP and WML

Opera is also one of the first Internet browsers to support Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and Wireless Markup Language (WML) all in one package. These two technologies will enable you to view the Internet on your mobile phone with Opera, and their usage cannot be belittled.

ECMA-262

ECMA-262, also known as "ECMAScript", is the open Web standard scripting language, and is build around the core of AOL's Netscape Communications Corporation's JavaScript 1.3. Opera 5.0 makes good use of the scripting module, and even lets the user easily disable this technology at will in the "Preferences".

HTTP/1.1

HTTP is the acronym for "HyperText Transfer Protocol", and is the protocol that is used for transferring text, images, sound and files over the World Wide Web. The latest version of the protocol is HTTP/1.1, which is now supported in Opera!

Select your language!

Also features is the simplest and easiest way of selecting your own language preferences in Opera! That's right, the browser may now be displayed in more than the English language at will, simple and easy. Go to the preference menus to read more about this feature.

Print preview mode

Ever wanted to check how the printout of a Web page would be before seeing the actual printout? We here at Opera Software have, so we added a print preview function. Press the P key on your keyboard to automatically go into it, or use the "File" menu and select "Print preview mode". It's as easy as that!

Window bar

Maybe the most sought-after feature, judging from user feedback on earlier versions of Opera, is the inclusion of a "window bar". Opera 5.0 now comes with this feature, allowing easy point-and-click access of the open windows in the Opera workspace. Please go to "View/Window bar" to enable it, and select whether you want it to be displayed at the top of the Opera workspace, at the bottom, in the right side of the workspace, or in the left side.

Full Screen Mode/Opera Presentation Mode

Opera has long had a full screen mode, but never before has it been more easily accessible to the user! Just press F11 to start it, and press F11 again to return to normal browsing. While in the full screen mode, you may navigate freely, and access the Hotlists pane by using F4, the URL line by pressing CTRL + F8. The menu bar, the button bar and the window bar will not be displayed.

Very much connected to this is Opera's new presentation mode. By using the CSS Level 2 media types declaration @media in conjunction with the pseudo-class projection in your Web documents, you can run a whole presentation from Opera's full screen mode by using the Page Up and Page Down keys on your computer, even clicking on links and enabling a lot of other cool media stuff!

Resuming of transfers

Something that'll please the techies and masses alike is Opera's ability to resume transfers! No, your eyes do not deceive you, it's true! Starting the Transfer window you'll now find that any transfer that's been either canceled or otherwise disrupted will be resumable through the action button's "Resume transfer" entry.