Opera is an extremely powerful browser; it gives you a great power of customizability and configurability. Whether it’s with the ability of customizing Opera’s powerful keyboard shortcuts or configuring and customizing how Opera behaves and looks, Opera gives you almost total control of your browsing experience.
In the months or years you’ve been using Opera, no doubt you’ve come across some tips and tricks that have greatly enhanced your browsing experience with Opera. As a public service to our fellow Opera users, I ask that you answer the following 2 questions (post your answers in the comments).
- Which tips or tricks have you found in Opera that made your browsing experience more enjoyable? (List multiple)
- Name the feature or functionality that most enhanced your browsing experience in Opera. (List up to two)
Please keep each tip down to a sentence or two (short, sweet, and to the point).
I’ll go ahead and list my answers here:
#1
- Using the ‘0’ number button on my laptop to zoom in; number ‘6’ to zoom back.
- Prevent tabs from stealing focus.
- Add nicknames to bookmarks for even quicker access.
- Right-click on tab > Lock tab…
- InIE and InFF custom buttons to open the current webpage in respective browsers.
- Middle-click on tab to close.
- F11 to full screen; ESC to exit full screen.
- Mouse gestures.
- Middle-click on links to open in background tab.
#2
- Opera’s zoom capabilities, which zooms both text and images. Hold down CTRL key, while scrolling with mouse wheel.
Help make Opera users even more statisfied. 
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Part 1:
* Mouse Gestures – I never close a tab any other way nor I have I clicked a back/forward button in years.
* Speed Dial – I didn’t think I would use it but it’s always there on a new tab so I started to.
* Middle Click to open in background tab – I use Google Reader to read my RSS feeds. As I go I open interesting stories to read in background tabs then close each tab as I read the story – works great.
Part 2:
I have to agree with Daniel, my #1 feature that enhances my internet experience is the zooming capabilities of Opera. I zoom in almost every page, especially ones with a lot of text.
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1)
a. Mouse Gestures, specifically opening the same page in another tab (and Fwd and Bkwd movements)
b. Middle click to open tab
c. Links on the page in the sidebar panel
d. Keyboard shortcut for Fwd and Bkwd (is it Z & A? I forget… It’s been a while)
e. Hitting a shortcut key to be able to find on the page (”>”) or (”.”)
2) I think that a. the Speed and b. the ability to
accomplish so much with just a twitch of the mouse was very important in enhancing my browsing experience.
That is, until I learned about extensions in FF. That won me over…
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1)
Spatial keyboard navigation
links in panel + quick search field
reload all tabs
fit to width
inline find with . and ,
2)
quite stable and reasonable memory usage with more than 50 tabs open for a week without restarting… though that’s not really a feature/functionality, so I’ll have to say user css + user/author mode
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Oh buy, where do I start??!!??
1)
Mouse gestures, especially for page reloads
Fit page to width
Integrated mail client
Integrated RSS feeds
Easily accessible panels, with plenty of display options
Useful download manager
CTL + B for pasting URLs into the address bar and navigating directly to them
Browser masking (evil, but unfortunately necessary)
Open The Web project, to combat the above
Integrated search from the address bar
‘Find in page’ toolbar option
Intelligent Bookmark manager
Startup dialogue box with good options
2)
This is easy…Saved Sessions!! I have a bunch of task-specific sessions saved with numerous tabs preloaded in them. I can choose to have them open on startup, or they’re easy to access once the browser is already running.
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#1
Mouse Gestures
Nicknames for bookmarks/folders (used in combination with Shift+F2)
Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Alt+Z to open last closed tab
Middle click on tabs and links
Ctrl+B paste and go
Custom search engines
Opera Buttons (Open in IE, Toggle Menu, Kill, List Feeds)
UserJS (OSpell, noclicktoactivate, etc) and using UserCSS to block text ads in gmail
Only show tab bar when needed (i.e. > 1 tab)
in line find links (,) and text (.)
Customisable keyboard/mouse shortcuts
Fast Forward and Rewind retrieve next and previous links (useful in photo albums and forums)
Using gmail to handle mailto links
In Transfers, View -> Show transfers in background when starting download
Right click on link, save to download folder
Setting a file type to automatically download to a certain folder
Editing source and then applying changes (great for timeouts!)
Shift + Scroll Wheel allows you to scroll back and forth through your history
Holding down left click on Rewind/Back/Forward/Fast Forward shows appropriate history
Continue from last time
Setting a master password (useful on shared/public computers)
Thumbnails in tab cycle
Detachable tabs
Tiling tabs (Shift+F6)
Ctrl+F8 toggles address bar
Ctrl+H hides Opera to system tray
Ctrl+Alt+V validates the page
Pressing the down arrow in a single lined text box to show Notes it can insert
Masking as Firefox/IE (Site preferences)
Fit to Width
Using Opera to view your files (this + Fit to Width + F11 + fast forward = slide show)
Opera Show
Voice browsing
Easy way to get shockwave working in Opera: go to opera:config#UserPrefs|PluginPath and add “C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Shockwave 10;” (assuming you have shockwave installed for ie)
Opera Config
Minimising then restoring Opera significantly reduces memory usage – it does for me, not sure why
#2
Mouse Gestures
Nicknames for bookmarks/folders
Although I love Opera’s speed (and it’s pop up progress bar), I don’t think it actually enhances my web browsing the most.
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1)
- Holding right mouse button and pressing left button goes back in history (and vice versa)
- search shortcuts
- tabs can be closed fastest by middle-clicking them or by pressing Ctrl+W
2) see 1) + Content-Blocking
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1)
(among other things)
– hitting space-bar on galleries goes down the page and, rwaching it, to the next picture (also on google et al.).
– 1 and 2 to change between tabs
– right mouse button + mouse wheel to change between tabs (also note tab preview doing this)
– the beforementioned flipback/flipforward with the mouse buttons
– using middle-click to open and close tabs consistently and open it in background tabs
– being able to keep transfers in the background (also locked)
– the feed client
– create new search engine shortcuts (who can live without wikipedia?)
– use nicknames in address bar (e.g. searches, bookmarks, folders)
– session saving, especially on crash (doesn’t work in FF)
– SSP allow me to send my referrer to w3.org but noone else
2) Most enjoyable for me is the assurance that wherever I take Opera, I’ve got all the features right out of the box.
Also MDI eliminates new window(-popups)s as well as full-size popups (on FF you’ve got a choice between the two). Also pop-up blocking is more intelligent.
(closely) related to MDI are the tab options. The way you open a tab, follow a link, close a tab and how you can arrange them, using mouse gestures all the way.
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#1
* Using [.] or [,] keys to quickly search through text on a page
* Ultra-customizable keyboard shortcuts
* Quick filtering of visited pages on the History tab by just typing letters into the Quick find field
* Using the [5] key to restore/maximize current tab
#2
* Opera’s speed and its “lightweight feeling”
* Custom searches (Right click in the field of any search field on any web site -> Create search…) – and then the ability to put these custom searches on the toolbar
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1) Link panel — great for downloading media
Fit to width — no more horizantal scrolling
2) Window panel — a hundred tabs open and easy access to them all — great for research
What’s the bookmark nickname thing you mentioned? I found it in properties and tried adding one, but it didn’t seem to change anything.
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1.)
a) Mouse-Gestures
b) using + to zoom in, – to zoom out and * to zoom back to orignal size
c) using Strg + 1,2,3…9 to open Speeddial-Sites
2.)
– using content-blocking
– Speeddial
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1.- Mouse Gestures, Keyboard Shortcuts/Spatial Navigation.
The fact that most internal actions can be combined and used as a gesture, shortcut or menu item, for example: GestureDown, GestureRight=”Show popup menu, “Internal closed window list”"
Everything can be removed from the GUI so you end up with a very minimalistic browser and yet very powerful due to gestures and shortcuts.
Hold down Shift and use the scroll wheel to navigate through history.
2.-
Customizable Mouse Gestures/Keyboard Shortcuts.
Turbonicknames.
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Hm…
Well most used “features” which I use every day, are:
Ctrl + F – Find text, Enter for next result.
Ctrl + T – Browse in new tab
CTRL + Enter to automatically fill up auto-complete fields.
CTRL and + – Zoom
About features which I like.
1. Quick search, where I have listed wikipedia, google define, google, yahoo, domain whois and other stuff, not just for “search”, which makes my browsing even more faster.
2. Go to Previous Page – hold right button, click left button. Actually this started used just today, never really used mouse gestures
3. In-line spell checker, got my idea?
Well… Basically I don’t remember or know anything else which I would really use all the time, of course I love features like Feeds reaser (which should be improved a bit), Wands, etc (everyone loves), so I listed only the ones, which not sure if everyone uses. Well at least not 100% Opera users.
About zooming, I prefer CTRL + instead of CTRL and mouse wheel scroll
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Oh, I also like “Paste and Go” in the address bar.
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An idea who’s time has come. While I think about mine, are you sure this is the right plarform for it ? Prepare to see a lot of duplicates.
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1.
Userscripts.
Bookmarklets.
User CSS to change the appearance of websites.
Press “.” to start searching for text on the page.
Editing of HTML with syntax highlighting.
2.
Mouse gestures (including mouse shortcuts)
And my own Opera settings in Ctrl+F12, Shift+F12 and opera:config.
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1) Holding right mouse button and pressing left button goes back in history (and the other way around).
2) Content-Blocking
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* Mouse Gestures, Specifically, Right-Left and Left-right for backwards and forwards navigation
* Tab locking for a page i _allways_ have loaded
* Control + Z to get a Tab back after closing it acedentally
* + zoom in, – zoom out, * back to 100%
* middle click to open link in background tab
* User Scripts
* Being able to undock a Tab(Pull it to its own “Tab Window”) — I’d like to be able to drag such a tab back into Opera too though.
* Tabs being in the same order as at last close (Even during crashing)
* SpeedDial, Yep, I’ve gotten used to it and love it. I’d like to be able to have *sigh*Widgets*sigh* or a way to customise it via a user script though (Havnt looked into that too much yet)
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1.
-The ability to reopen a closed page
-Doesn’t use homepage anymore, just resume from last time
-Tiling of tabs(wish: be able to make some tabs always on top)
-inline search with .
-1&2 to move between tabs
-Custom javascript and stylesheets.
-Speech, use it for reading long texts in english
2.
Definetively mouse gestures, saves me so much time.
Zooming
Nicknames for bookmarks, in adressbar search
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1)
- Nicknames (with mapping of F1 to Go to nickname)
- key 1 and 2 to change tabs
- right-click + scroll wheel to scroll tabs (without showing list)
- ctrl-d (old behavior) to paste-and-go, and search-and-go when marked text includes spaces
- easily customization of key-mappings, I like especially mapping og | to close tab.
2)
Gestures and nicknames.
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1)
Spartial navigation
1 & 2 to switch tab
Ctrl (+ Shift) + Tab to switch tab
Links (Ctrl + Alt + L)
2)
Web Developer Toolbar
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1) a. Drag n drop buttons
b. Ctrl shift click to save image
2) a. toggle show/cached/no images button works per tab not globally(this is my favourite, ever.)
b. Address bar and other buttons INSIDE the tab
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#1
1. Mouse Gestures – specifically, closing tabs, back, forward, and refresh.
2. Open in background tab – I just right click the link and select.
3. Zoom – This I have mapped to my scroll button.
4. Page Search – Ctrl-F. Very useful!
5. Switching Tabs with right-click and scroll wheel.
#2
1. Wand
2. Mouse Gestures
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if u add a nickname to a bookmark u can type that bookmark’s nickname in the address bar instead of it’s url which is handy if the url is really long. What’s even cooler is that if u press Shift + F2 and start typing a bookmark’s nickname it’ll automatically jump to it whenever there’s no other possibility. eg. my nickname for gmail is gmail but seeing it’s the only nickname I have that starts with ‘g’, to go gmail I just need to press Shift + F2 and then press g and I’m there
But the real coup de grace with nicknames is that you can give a folder of bookmarks a nickname. So if u say visit 3 different banking sites on a daily basis u could put them in a folder and give it a nickname of say banking. So instead of individually opening each site u can just use the banking nickname to open all of them (this works with as many sites as you want). Shift+F2 also works with folder nicknames
you can’t exactly drag it back into the tab bar from the task bar but there are ways of reattaching it, see this tutorial
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1. i can right click any image on a page and copy the image address, for those images u wanna show people without them having to scroll thru a page to see it.
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Wow, there are lots of new cool features that learning here. Keep ‘em coming.
I forgot to mention a few other things:
a) Integrated search
b) CTRL+B to paste and go.
c) CTRL+Z to open a closed tab.
Dantesoft: Prepare to see a lot of duplicates.
That’s okay. It will only show the popularity of certain features.
rlc:What’s the bookmark nickname thing you mentioned?
When you bookmark a page you have the option to assign a nickname to it. Typing the nickname in the address bar will load the page. For example, I have ‘bs’ as a nickname for Google Blog Search. Try it, press CTRL+D, which will open the Page Bookmark dialog, click on the ‘Details’ button, in the ‘Nickname’ field add a nickname of your choice, done.
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#1
- ‘1′ and ‘2′ to switch tabs
- ‘a’ and ‘z’ for back and fowards
- Mouse gestures. To be able to close a page in a fraction of a second without even looking (I use left,right)
- Searches from the address bar + custom searches
- ctrl-alt-z open last closed tab
- UserJS
- Inline search (I use ‘/’. didn’t realise ‘.’ worked too but the slash habit is from using vi)
#2
- The keyboard shortcuts, and the fact that they’re customisable
- Responsiveness of the GUI
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@Daniel
“c) CTRL+Z to open a closed tab.”
Actually, Ctrl+z is undo, Ctrl+Alt+z is reopen page
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#1
Almost complete customization of O’s interface.
opera:config=>Use Thumbnails in Window Cycle [check]
Making “Google Send to Phone” page a side panel with small screen rendering to send SMSs for free at any time.
#2
Widgets!!!!!!!!
Mouse Gestures!
But, really, there is so many more!
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#1 addition: Speed Dial!
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#1, ah, that’s much, let’s say
(please 2 minutes using another browser), now:
* opera browsing !
#2, that’s even harder, i had to choose 2 or less
*session management, including the running session with undo closed tabs, window management
*all-page zoom, even with plugins rather than images
for #2, i am not sure they are my most favorite features, some of them i feel it is missed in other browsers (the meaning of browsers differ by opera), then i forget about them
for #1, i am quite sure i listed all of them
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1.
- Use full-featured MDI interface instead of Tabs.
- GestureDown to open in new Page.
- Nicknames for bookmarks and custom search (Create search since Opera 9).
- Create shortcuts U and F for User Mode and Fit to Width, and there are no more poorly layed out websites in your world
2.
- Right button + Scroll wheel to switch between Pages is just WONDERFUL, the best UI ever for switching between windows.
- Zooooooooooooooooom.
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Tips or tricks:
-Not really new unless you have only used IE6… but learn to use and love tabs.
-Learn mouse gestures… while not for everyone… if your online a lot, you can’t live without them
-keyboard shortcuts to everything… ctrl-t for new tab and ctrl-w for close tab will work wonders for you
-between these first three tips… you’ll be amazed how fast you can be.
-InIE and InFF buttons – staples for me, InIE was great for my Parents to get to an IE-only page.
-F12 is a great key… uncheck animations and plug-ins and say good-bye to the crazy dancing icons and awful flash intros, etc. If you want to watch a screencast, turn plug-ins back on and use your mouse gesture for refresh.
#1 top feature: sessions/undo/remember where I left off – THAT’S HOW SURFING SHOULD BE! Don’t use the history unless you have to. It’s why I have my parents and friends using Opera. It forgives mistakes with Undo (recycle bin), it makes it easy to just shut down and go live life… your sites will be there when you boot up again. And we can have a mom session and a dad session without different windows logons. AWESOME!
#2 top feature: content blocker – It took me a week to get 95% of the way configured. Speeds up my browsing, and I barely have to think about it anymore.
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#1
Mouse gestures
Links & Windows panel
1 & 2 to go to previous & next tab
CTRL+Click on image to save
Fit to width (CTRL+F11)
Inline find (. or /)
Paste and go (CTRL+B)
Quick preferences (F12)
Go to page (F2 & SHIFT+F2)
Reopen closed tab (CTRL+ALT+Z)
Show images/Cached images/No images (SHIFT+I)
Double click on empty tab to go to homepage
Speed dial
Reload all
Reload every
Continue from last time
Open new tab next to active
Save to download folder (Quick download)
Site preferences
#2
Mouse gestures
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#1
- (+) and (-) keys to zoom in when watching YouTube videos and 6 to zoom out
- UserJS
- Totally customizable GUI
- Mouse Gestures (close, open in background tab)
- Speed dial
- Wand (Ctrl+Enter)
- User-defined searches [g query], etc.
- Download manager (Ctrl+Alt+T)
- Download files in background tabs (Ctrl+Shift+ Click on link)
#2
- Feeds
- Auto-Saved Sessions to resume right where you left off when Opera crashes (or the cat jumps on the Alt+F4 keys)
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Quick Preferences (F12)
Simple Blocked Content (just enter an url to block)
Buttons
Paste & Go
Panels
Customizable Keyboard/Mouse shortcuts and Menus/Toolbars
UserJS
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Here’s a slightly off-topic comment since I already posted my feature list…
Is there someplace on the web that anyone is aware of that lists WHEN these features were introduced by Opera? I know Opera has had a lot of firsts – tabs, first Windows browser to pass Acid2, etc. – but it would be great to have a timelime. We could maybe even incorporate this into Opera’s Wikipedia entry (another good question – has anyone ever contributed to the article?).
I think it would be handy to have a timeline like this so that when people go ranting on about how great Firefox’s “Session Restore” is and how cool it is that you can “tear off” tabs in Safari 3 beta, I can do more than just roll my eyes – I could fire back. “Well actually, Opera has had that feature since…”
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Followup to my last post – there is an article on Wikipedia called “Features of the Opera internet suite” that has a rudimentary list of features, some of which include introduction dates.
* MDI & Tabs (since Opera 1, 1994)
* Hotclick (since Opera 6, November 2001)
* Search facilities (since Opera 4, 2000)
* Sessions (since Opera 4, 2000)
* Trash can (since Opera 7, December 2004)
I need a better list than that!
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F2 | opens URL/File dialogue
Nicknames | Bookmark/Folder short name
F4 | hotlist panels
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The best list I’ve seen is . I’m guessing you wanted something like that?
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oops. that meant to say
The best list I’ve seen is Opera Innovations. I’m guessing you wanted something like that?
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- Adding “view in Opera Mini” to toolbar.
- View download folder in the panel.
- ØØ -
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hey, this article is great…thanks!
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Yeah Rhonnysparks… that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’ll bookmark it for the next time I need some “ammo.” I’m just so sick of hearing about Firefox this and Firefox that. Thanks again.
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1)
- spatial navigation (especially on laptops)
- fast-forward when “next” isn’t always on the screen (or just press space till you get to the bottom of the page)
- inline-find with , and .
- remove stylesheets with shift-g
2)
- sessions
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“how cool it is that you can “tear off” tabs in Safari 3 beta, I can do more than just roll my eyes”
I’m new to Opera. How do you this? I’ve been trying to open an existing tab in its own window but can’t figure out how. Thanks!
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In version 8 one could save a document with or without images (the same for a frame), this seems to have disappeared in version 9. Is there a particular reason for it? How can this be re-enabled (are there certain numeric codes to be added for this to standard_menu.ini ?
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I will add in my one trick:
Today, I spent 3 hours looking for tips on how to view Fullscreen with the tab bar enabled. Yes, just Fullscreen mode with the freaking tab bar. No, I don’t want the f4 panel->windows.
Can’t find it anywhere but fortunately I was able to figure it out on my own.
.. after interpolating the tips that i have learned with some trial n error.
All you have to do is just modify your f11 shortcut key from:
Enter fullscreen | Leave fullscreen
to:
Enter fullscreen & View page bar,6 | Leave fullscreen & View page bar,6
enjoy