Apparently Opera 9 TP2 will be released tomorrow. I'm excited about this because in numerous bug reports and emails that I've sent to Opera developers over the past 4 months, lately all I hear is "This is fixed in our current development build". Well now I'll get a chance to taste that - let's hope we see numerous improvements in the SVG implementation. Opera Widgets sounds like a really cool concept too, taking on Mozilla's XULRunner approach.
You mentioned that for the last 4 months you’ve been having problems with the Opera browser. I was wondering whether these last 4 months you were using the technical preview version of Opera 9? If this is the case, I’m sure you’re aware of this already, but I’ll mention anyways. Preview versions are not meant to replace final versions, if you do replace (like I did), you should expect problems.
Daniel,
I’m not one of those Opera zealots that use Opera 9 TP as their main browser and then complains about it. I use Firefox 1.5 as my main browser as its SVG implementation is much more complete than Opera 8.5 and Fx 1.5 is an OFFICIAL release. I hardly use Opera 8.5 at all, since its SVG cannot be scripted. I use Opera 9 TP1 to test my SVG and HTML/CSS only at this stage.
I know that Technical Previews are to uncover issues with the browser. Use and testing and reporting of the previews is the accepted way of uncovering these issues. I know you’re not intentionally insulting me, but the implication that I’m somehow an idiot and I have to defend my heavy usage of Opera 9 TP1 is not appreciated – I’m doing Opera a favour here, hopefully public awareness of issues will reduce duplicate bugs. Opera should not feel defensive if their TPs are buggy and people report as such – I did the same with Firefox 1.5 Alpha/Beta and I would hope that my readers are smart enough to deduce that this is to be expected on previews and that uncovering bugs now will improve the quality of the final release.
For the record, I’ve done my share of praising Opera in this blog too. 😉
Jeff, in no way was my intention to insult your intelligence. And yes, I have noticed your Opera posts on this blog — I usally read all posts that link to Opera Watch.