Opera 9 Beta 2 Released
Published May 23rd, 2006 9:53 AM EDT By Daniel Goldman
Beta 2 of Opera 9 was released today.
This version contains mostly bug fixes and minor changes.
As we reported last week, the Widgets User Interface (UI) has been changed. Widgets are no longer displayed on a faded screen. A “Widgets” menu in the menu bar has replaced the “Opera Widgets” button, which used to be displayed on the top-middle part of the screen. Also new is a Widget management window, which provides options to add, open, and manage widgets.
The default behavior of Widgets has also been changed. When a Widget is opened, it is displayed in TaskBar. One problem I noticed with it, is that you can’t right-click the Widget in the TaskBar and close it, there isn’t even a close button on the Widgets itself, which makes closing the widget a bit difficult.
I’ll be sticking with beta 1 for now, since beta 2 seems to have broken the WYSIWYG editor of Wordpress, which is the publishing tool I use for Opera Watch.
The final version of Opera 9 is scheduled to be released in June.
P.S. Take a look at this week’s poll on Opera Watch.
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using
Is it true that Opera 9 beta 2 is based on build #8414
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zimmi, it appears so.
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Au, why is there a tray icon on KDE? I don’t like to have my browser there.
Damn wigets - I’m sure
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Is there any other way to bring widgets back for us who use customized menus?
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It’s not just beta 2. I have problems in wordpress with previou versions of opera too. Allthough they dont break the formatting, but if it is a long article then it isnt saved properly most of the time. Paragraphs goes missing.
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Just hope that they have time to kill the bugs. Current Opera beta 2 still has couple CSS regressions that broke layout of my current site at work.
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Dado: use the widgets panel, or edit your custom menu.
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Just an update on the Wordpress bug. Opera is aware of this bug, and I’m told that it’s been put on a high priority.
I certainly hope Opera fixes it before the final release, I don’t think it would be a good idea to piss off all the Wordpress bloggers.
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Daniel. what else have changed in Beta 2 ? I’m at school so I can’t download it.
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Sairam, not much changed visually except for the way Widgets are handled. Other than that, multi-tracker support was added to BitTorrent.
Keep in mind that beta 1 was released just a month ago, and Opera is focused on squashing the bugs rather than introducing new functionality.
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zimmi the there has been some discussion on the Desktop Team Blog and it appears that Beta 2 is last weeks weekly (8414).
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Thanks. Just downloaded, looks pretty good so far.
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There still isn’t a way to move search engines up and down, but I bet that functionality will come later on.
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I was gonna say the samething Ryan, and maybe to extend the Search Box.
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I like the way widgets cam have favicon’s (at least the comics widget does).
Why is it that widgets do not have memory? The one’s I use - weather, comics, and some more do not remember setting, is it a mistake on widget developer’s part? If so, Opera ASA should put up a tutorial on “How to make widgets remember settings” on their website.
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BTW, will the weekly builds still be released after Opera 9 final is released? Or will Opera ASA put that on hold till they start nearing Opera’s next version?
About the Poll, the results can be taken to mean -
1. Opera 9 solves a lot of problems for several people.
2. Opera 9 beta is already pretty stable.
I personally do not know any Opera user who uses Opera 9 as his primary browser (I’ve come across only one woman who uses Opera). So the poll results could also mean - those who come to your website are more informed Opera users and more daring too.
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@Ankur:
Read the release notes:
http://www.opera.com/docs/changelogs/windows/900b2/
Especialy this part:
The widget.setPreferenceForKey method is not able to store widget preferences in this release.
M.
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Ankur, if I recall correctly, the Weekly Builds are just a trial.
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@Daniel
Weekly builds do make using Opera quite exciting.
@Jonspencerbx
I downloaded IP Address widget today and if I change the colour the widgets remembers the setting!!?
http://my.opera.com/community/customize/widgets/info/?id=4095&rtype=widget
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It seems more stable than 8.54
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I noticed that since Preview Release 1 the so called “stable” realese ws more unstable then 9.00. The frit 4 or 5 weekly’s were about as stable and now the weekly’s are more stable.
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@Jonspencerbx
This might not make sense, but recently I installed Opera on a network drive that my university provides, and on that installation of Opera (where I first checked the IP address widget) the colour settings are not changed even after reboot. While now that I am checking it at home, the setting are forgotten on restarting Opera!!
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Should i upgrade?
Take a look at my version
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Wow Ramunas, are seriously using that version or is that a joke.
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Yeah, Opera 9 beta 2 is great, eventhough I do not like the new Widgets management and I had to change my blog’s template to make it compatible.