Back, in October, I wrote a blog post detailing how to shorten URLs using the Opera address bar. I use Twitter, and most of the time I use the Twitter Opera widget to do it. (Here is the newer version of the widget.) The widget will shorten URLs for you, but you have to be inside of the 140 character max or the “tweet” button is grayed out.

In that case, you must shorten the URL yourself before tweeting, which is a pain. Your next step will be to browse to a site like tinyurl.com, shorten your URL, then paste it back into your Twitter client. This can be a pain. And now there’s a better way!

Method 1: Shorten URLs via the Opera address bar using custom search

It’s easy to create a custom search in Opera. But here I prove you can use it for more than searching! Create a custom search that posts to http://is.gd/create.php using URL=%s as your query string. Click OK, and you can now create a shortened URL directly from the Opera address bar by typing u <URL> and hitting Enter, assuming you used “u” as the shortcut key.

Here is my original blog post with more detailed instructions:

http://my.opera.com/BAMAToNE/blog/2009/10/04/how-to-shorten-urls-from-the-opera-address-bar

Method 2: Shorten URLs via custom Opera button

After my blog post became famous (thanks, Espen!), Opera Community member mistressEVIL furthered my idea and showed us a way to shorten URLs using a custom button. I think it’s a great idea because not everyone is comfortable customizing Opera the way I have shown. But using a custom button is easy because it just takes a click.

Here is mistressEVIL’s blog post with more detailed instructions on how to create custom buttons:

http://my.opera.com/missevilat/blog/2010/01/15/shorten-url-with-a-button

There are several ways to open multiple web pages.

• Bookmarking web pages to a folder, navigating to folder from bookmarks menu and clicking Open All Folder Items.
• Bookmarking web pages to a folder, giving nickname to folder and entering nickname in address field or setting nickname as home page in Tools > Preferences… > General > Home page.
• Opening web pages, saving them as session File > Sessions > Save This Session… and opening it File > Sessions.

The advantage of sessions over bookmarks is it can store several settings (zoom, fit to width, images, etc.) per tab.

Sessions can be opened quickly by assigning it to a Speed Dial slot.

• Open web pages.
• Save them as session File > Sessions > Save This Session….
• Assign it to a Speed Dial slot.

The path to session file should not contain space. If path has space use DOS name. To find DOS name of a directory/file, open Command Prompt, change path to parent directory of directory/file and type the following command.

dir /x

Command Prompt to find DOS name

Speed Dial edit dialog with path to session file

Speed Dial with session

Opera will show above thumbnail but you can replace it with any image.

[Eric J. Goers via forums]

The height of toolbars in current default skin is large compared to previous default skin and it can be reduced to increase browsing space.

Create a backup of your current skin# or the skin you want to change the height of toolbars.

1. Extract skin.ini from zipped skin file.
2. Reduce the values of Padding Top and Padding Bottom under the sections mentioned in the following table. You can also specify negative values.
   

   Toolbar	Section
   Menu bar	[Menu Button Skin]
   Main bar	[Mainbar Skin]
   Personal bar	[Personalbar Skin]
   Tab bar	[Pagebar Button Skin]
   Address bar	[Addressbar Skin]
   Navigation bar	[Navigationbar Skin]
   View bar	[Viewbar Skin]
   Status bar	[Statusbar Skin]

3. Update skin.ini in zipped skin file. You can’t update an active skin.
4. Activate modified skin from Tools > Appearance… > Skin.

See Opera Skinning article to know more about basics of skinning Opera.

^# To see path to current skin file, select opera:config#Button%20Set and click go to web address from right click menu.

User JavaScript is a powerful tool and it can be used for many purposes, including:

• Fixing broken scripts on Web pages. Opera uses browser.js to automatically fix incompatible Web pages, out of date scripts, and pages that inadvertently block Opera.
• Enhancing Web pages by changing or adding your own content to the page.

Installing/Uninstalling User JavaScripts

If you don’t have UserJS directory, create a directory with name userjs (preferably inside profile directory) and enter path to it in Tools > Preferences… > Advanced > Content > JavaScript Options… > User JavaScript files

Path to User JavaScript files

• To install, place User JavaScript file (*.js or *.user.js) inside User JavaScript directory.
• To uninstall, remove corresponding User JavaScript file from User JavaScript directory.
• To disable, change corresponding User JavaScript file extension from *.js to *.js.x

You can also use UserJS Manager for Opera to perform above actions.

Download

Download all the following User JavaScripts in a single zip file, unzip and place it inside User JavaScript directory.

1. Autosizer
2. Breadcrumb URL
3. Clean URI
4. Cooliris alike
5. Gallery crawler
6. Get feed link
7. Image thumb
8. Link alert
9. Power drag
10. Linkify URL
11. View Selection Source
12. Ultimate Search Highlighter

Useful User JavaScripts

1. Autosizer
   Autosizer will enhance image viewing in Opera by adding five different sizing modes to images: “Original”, “Shrink to Fit”, “Maximize”, “Fit to Width” and “Fit to Height”. “Shrink to Fit” is enabled by default. Simply click on the image to view in next mode or hold down Shift key while clicking to view in previous mode. Move cursor to top right corner to view the menu. See help for more information.

   

2. Breadcrumb URL
   Breadcrumb URL will place link to each directory of current URL at the top left corner of the page. Useful if you browse without address bar or browse in full screen mode.

   

3. Clean URI
   Clean URI will recognise links that use redirected URLs (example: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/ ) and replace them with the direct URL.

   

4. Cooliris alike
   Similar to Cooliris extension for Firefox and helps to preview links without leaving current tab. Hold Ctrl key and hover any link to open preview window in top right corner of current tab. Size of preview window can be changed to 3 heights by clicking “Restore” icon.

   

5. Gallery crawler
   Gallery crawler adds link to next and previous image so pictures numbered sequentially can be viewed without flipping through links, ads and poor page design.

   

6. Get feed link
   Get feed link will place feed icons at the top left corner of the page. Useful if you browse without address bar or browse in full screen mode or if you need feed link URL.

   

7. Image thumb
   Image thumb will show thumbnail in bottom left corner when you hover an image link. Hold Ctrl key to view in original size.

   

   This UserJS breaks functioning of autosizer UserJS.

8. Link alert
   Link alert identifies links to specific file types, and displays an appropriate icon when the link is hovered.

   

9. Power drag
   Power drag will help you to resize textareas, select boxes, iframes, objects, images or input fields by holding Shift key and then dragging lower right corner of an item. Double click lower right corner to restore the original dimensions. You can enable the dragging corner always, or use another modifier key.

   

10. Linkify URL
    Linkify URL makes text http/https/ftp URLs clickable.

    

11. View Selection Source
    View Selection Source allows you to see HTML source of any part of a page, it’s very useful for web developers. If you don’t know how to edit menu setup see this and add the following under [Hotclick Popup Menu].

    Item, "View selection source"="Go to page, "javascript:opera.getSelectionSource()""

    

12. Ultimate Search Highlighter
    Ultimate Search Highlighter will show search bar at the top and can show number of search results, jump to next instance of highlighted term or previous (hold Shift key and click on term in toolbar) and supports RegExp highlighting. Move cursor to top to show search bar after timeout period. Get USH button or search field from here or create a search engine with the following.

    javascript:opera.USH.run(opera.USH.check='%s','newSearch');

    

If you want to search for same thing in different search engines, Search panel is convenient compared to integrated search field in address field.

When you add a search engine to the Search panel, Opera will add search field instead of a button. The problem with search field is you have to enter the search term again if you want to search for already entered search term in global search field. Search field can be converted in to a button easily.

1. Add required search engine to the Search panel from Tools > Appearance… > Buttons > Search
2. Open toolbar configuration^# file and under [Search Panel Toolbar.content] replace SearchX, Y with ButtonX, “Search Engine Name”=Search, Y
3. Activate modified toolbar setup from Tools > Preferences… > Advanced > Toolbars > Toolbar setup to see the changes.

Acronym Finder search field

Acronym Finder search button

Toolbar content before modification.

[Search Panel Toolbar.content]
Search0
Button1, "Google"=Search
Button2, "Ask"=Search, 1
Button3, "Yahoo!"=Search, 2
Button4, "Amazon.com"=Search, 3
Button5, "Wikipedia"=Search, 4
Button6, "Ebay.com"=Search, 5
Button7, "Yahoo!Shopping"=Search, 6
Button8, "BitTorrent"=Search, 7
Search9, 31

Toolbar content after modification.

[Search Panel Toolbar.content]
Search0
Button1, "Google"=Search
Button2, "Ask"=Search, 1
Button3, "Yahoo!"=Search, 2
Button4, "Amazon.com"=Search, 3
Button5, "Wikipedia"=Search, 4
Button6, "Ebay.com"=Search, 5
Button7, "Yahoo!Shopping"=Search, 6
Button8, "BitTorrent"=Search, 7
Button9, "Acronym Finder"=Search, 31

^# To see path to toolbar configuration file, select opera:config#Toolbar%20Configuration and click go to web address from right click menu.

One can locate a menu item easily and quickly by seeing an icon rather than text.

To add/change icon

1. Create/find an image in any image format (GIF, JPG, ICO or PNG but PNG is recommended) and resize it to 16 x 16 pixels. If you use large size, Opera will show resized icon. For example, we will add Google favicon as icon for Google Auto Translation menu item.
2. Place icon image inside a folder (for example, custom_buttons) and add folder to zipped skin¹ file after creating a backup.
3. Open skin.ini from zipped skin file, add relative path to image with icon name as shown below under [Images] section and update it in skin file.

   google = custom_buttons/google.ico

4. To add/change icon for menu item, open menu configuration^2,! file, find menu item and specify icon name. For Google Auto Translation menu item, change

   Item, Google Auto Translation = Go to page, "http://translate.google.com/translate_c?u=%u"

   to

   Item, Google Auto Translation = Go to page, "http://translate.google.com/translate_c?u=%u", , , google

5. Activate modified skin and menu setup or restart Opera.

Similarly, you can add/change icon for custom buttons by editing toolbar configuration³ file.

Google Auto Translation menu item without and with icon

The general syntax for a button/menu item is

Button/Menu item = Command, parameter-1, parameter-2, button tooltip, icon name

If there is no parameter-1 or parameter-2 or button tooltip leave them blank.

To remove icon

To remove icon from menu item, remove icon name and if there is no icon name then you have to specify a dummy name to override the default icon as shown in the following example.

To remove icon for Go to Web Address from hotclick menu, in menu configuration^2,! file under [Hotclick Popup Menu] change

Item, M_HOTCLICK_POPUP_MENU_GOTO_URL = Go to page, "%t"

to

Item, M_HOTCLICK_POPUP_MENU_GOTO_URL = Go to page, "%t", , , Dummy

You can use existing skin images as icons without modifying skin file.

¹ To see path to skin file, select opera:config#Button%20Set and click go to web address from right click menu.

² To see path to menu configuration file, select opera:config#Menu%20Configuration and click go to web address from right click menu.

³ To see path to toolbar configuration file, select opera:config#Toolbar%20Configuration and click go to web address from right click menu.

^! You should not modify defaults\standard_menu.ini file as Opera will overwrite it during update. Create a copy of standard menu and edit it.

By default, full screen mode doesn’t have any toolbars but you can enable them by

• using custom full screen button
• modifying action for keyboard shortcut, F11
• modifying right click full screen menu item action Enter fullscreen | Leave fullscreen under [Document Popup Menu]
• creating a new mouse gesture in Application section

Full screen mode with tab bar & address bar

^! If you want scroll bar in full screen mode, add & Delay, 10 & Enable scroll bars to the end of action code.

You can get buttons from here as Opera button links won’t work in Opera Watch.

This tip will help you to resume a download (especially large size) in the following cases.

• Accidentally removed transfer from the transfers tab.
• Closed Opera with an intention to resume download next day but transfer is missing when Opera is started.
• Resuming download with an another high speed mirror.

The following will work when server allows resuming of broken downloads.

1. Start download again and save with another name.
2. Stop transfer after few seconds.
3. Delete new download file.
4. Rename old download file with new name.
5. Resume transfer.

[gun via Opera Desktop Team blog]

Update: arnymars has proposed this earlier in forums.

You can change default hotclick dictionary site & encyclopedia site with preferred site.

Hotclick menu

If you don’t know how to edit menu setup, see this.

To change dictionary site, under [Hotclick Popup Menu] replace

Item, MI_IDM_SELDICTIONARY = Hotclick search, 50

with

Item, MI_IDM_SELDICTIONARY = Go to page, "Search URL"

To change encyclopedia site, under [Hotclick Popup Menu] replace

Item, MI_IDM_SELENCYCLOPED = Hotclick search, 51

with

Item, MI_IDM_SELENCYCLOPED = Go to page, "Search URL"

Go to your preferred dictionary/encyclopedia site → Right click on search box → Create Search… → Details >> → Copy address → Cancel. Replace Search URL in above code with copied address and change %s to %t.

From Opera 9.50, cache files no longer use file extensions. The following will add advanced search, thumbnails and sorting to opera:cache.

1. Copy language file (*.lng) from Opera installation directory to your profile (Help → About Opera → Paths → Opera Directory).
2. Open language file in any text editor and replace string for -1713924769 with modified one.
3. Go to Preferences → General → Language → Details… → Use Interface language → Choose… and select modified language file.
4. Restart Opera.
5. Type opera:cache in address field to see extra features.

Advanced search, thumbnails & sorting in opera:cache

Note: You have to update modified language file, whenever you install major version of Opera.

[via A.Ruzanov]

You can paste the contents of clipboard to any text area in Opera with middle mouse button using this mouse gesture.

Create a new mouse gesture in Advanced → Edit Widget section with Button3 as input context & shortcut and Paste mouse selection | Paste as action.

Now you can paste clipboard contents to any text area in Opera by clicking middle mouse button.

Note: Paste mouse selection will work only in Linux.

You can auto-hide any toolbar in Opera after enabling it via keyboard shortcut or mouse gesture or button.

Keyboard shortcut / Mouse gesture

Create new keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures in Application section with following action codes.

To modify auto-hide time, change Delay, X value (time in milliseconds) in above code.

To hide/show a toolbar without auto-hide use the following.

Button

You can add buttons to any toolbar (main bar, tab bar, address bar, navigation bar, view bar, status bar, start bar or panels) except menu bar & personal bar simply by dragging button links to required place. Clicking on the button links without dragging will add the buttons to Tools → Appearance → Buttons → My Buttons for later use.

When you try to add a button, a dialog box with following message will popup. Press OK to add button.

Adding new button with action

[Action]

Do you want to proceed?

To remove a button, right-click on it and select Remove From Toolbar.

Get buttons for above from here as Opera button links won’t work in Opera Watch (WordPress).

Opera has 9 Speed Dials by default but you can add more in Opera 9.50.

1. Note the path to Opera directory (Help → About Opera).
2. Close Opera.
3. Open speeddial.ini file in any text editor from Opera directory.
4. Add the following lines and adjust number of rows & columns to your requirement. If you use widescreen monitor, increase number of columns.

   [Size]
Rows=4
Columns=4

5. Start Opera.

Click on image to view fullsize

Keyboard shortcuts CTRL+1 to CTRL+9 will open Speed Dials 1-9 respectively.

To open extra Speed Dials using keyboard shortcut, create new keyboard shortcuts in Application section with action Go to speed dial, X where X is Speed Dial number.

Set opera:config#UserPrefs|SpeedDialSearchType to 0 to remove Speed Dial search box.

[via RemcoLanting]

Opera’s preferences window (keyboard shortcut: CTRL+F12) provides access to preferences the are most commonly adjusted. There are many more options that are available for you to adjust, however, they are hidden and can be found in the built-in preferences editor.

To access the hidden preferences editor, type opera:config into the address bar and press enter. To learn more about each opera:config entry, click the help link at top right side in the preferences editor.

Opera Preferences Editor

The following are some useful opera:config entries.

^# = Copy & paste in address bar or select entry, right click & click Go to URL
^! = Requires Opera restart
^* = Available in Opera 9.50

I recently made a video showing off WinGogi (the Windows version of the preview build available at Opera Labs) scoring 100/100 on the Acid3 test and passing the Acid2 test. In that video I also mentioned that it was a lot more efficient on Google Maps. I said that current weekly and stable builds of Opera have a hard time with Google Maps. While I was testing out some stuff in a virtual machine running Vista x64 (the same version I made the video on, and the same version I normally browse on) I found that this was not entirely true. The latest weekly build at that time (Windows build 9864) of Opera 9.5 runs Google Maps much better than I thought.

With Opera, the most common cause of performance and stability issues (not only like the one I ran into, but crashing issues as well) are related to a single file. This file is opera6.ini and it is where Opera stores all of your settings. The issue is believed to be caused over time as you update from version to version of Opera (due to this reason, weekly build users like me tend to experience this issue much more frequently), or when system crashes and such cause corruption to the opera6.ini file. When there are discrepancies in this file, it tends to cause problems in Opera ranging from lowered performance and hang-ups to crashing.

Fortunately for those of us suffering from opera6.ini related issues, the fix is as simple as deleting/renaming the opera6.ini file. The down side is that you will have to reconfigure Opera as if it were brand-new, as Opera will create a new opera6.ini file with the default set of preferences the next time you launch it (note that just a re-install of Opera cannot fix this issue). The plus side is that you can simply rename opera6.ini to opera6.ini.bak (or any other name you want) so that your old opera6.ini file is still there in case generating a new opera6.ini didn’t fix your problems.

So, how do you go about deleting opera6.ini? It’s simple. Just follow these instruction:

• Open “About Opera” (click help, then click on “About Opera”).
• Find the path to the preferences file.
• Copy and paste that path into the address bar in “My Computer”.
• Make sure that Opera is no longer running at this point, otherwise this will not work.
• Find the file named opera6.ini (or a file called opera6 that Windows claims is a “Configuration Settings” file).
• Rename that file to something like opera6.ini.bak or backup_opera6 so that you keep a backup copy of it.
• Close “My Computer”, and open Opera.
• Now you just need to set Opera back up the way you like it.

To make it easier to assimilate these instructions, I’ve also made a short video detailing how this works. The video can also be downloaded in WMV (7.7M) and XviD (9.5M) formats. Both are 800×600 pixels in size, and were recorded in Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 running in VMWare.

You can remove all typed-in addresses using delete private data (Tools → Delete Private Data… → Clear history of typed-in addresses).

To remove a (mis)typed-in address,

1. Note the path to Opera directory (Help → About Opera).
2. Close Opera.
3. Open opera.dir in any text editor from Opera directory.
4. Remove the line containing unwanted entry & save. Never delete first line as it contains number of typed-in addresses. Opera will update first line automatically.

To remove an entry, delete that line in opera.dir file

If you also want to remove site from drop down list of suggestions, see How to remove specific webpages from your browsing history?