How do I learn how to use Opera?
Every keyboard navigator should memorize this shortcut first:
CTRL-B
calls up the help page with all the other keyboard shortcuts on it.
How do I remove the window bar icons? by; tranquilo
Here is the relevant section from my buttons.ini file, standard button set. This works for me in MDI mode.
[WINDOWBAR] Width = 3 Height = 0 Border = 0 ; Unknown = windowbar_unknown.png ; Unknown = windowbar_doc_complete_unread.png ;Hotlist = windowbar_hotlist.png ;Transfers = windowbar_transfers.png ;Mail Box = windowbar_mail_box.png ;Mail Compose = mail_compose.png ;Mail Search = windowbar_mail_search.png ;News Article = windowbar_news_article.png ;News Group = windowbar_news_group.png ;News Group List = windowbar_news_group_list.png ;Document Complete = windowbar_doc_complete.png ;Document Complete Unread = windowbar_doc_complete_unread.png ;Document Incomplete = windowbar_doc_incomplete.png ;Messaging Normal = windowbar_messaging_normal.png ;Messaging New = windowbar_messaging_new.png lines begining with ';' are commented out.
How do I remove icon from personal bar? by; Hallvord R M Steen
Close Opera and open your buttons.ini - file. Find the [PERSONALBAR] section and comment out the line Bookmark = personalbar_bookmark.png by putting a semicolon (;) in front of it.
Where can I find information about the HOSTS file?
You can find information in the Microsoft Knowledgebase
How can I set multiple home pages to open at start-up?
On a work computer I have a saved set of three windows. When I start Opera, I get the three windows with three home-pages. I keep these windows open and mostly reuse them during the day. At any time, I can get to my webmail or another of these pre-set sites by Ctrl + Tab to the correct window (they are always in the same order in the 'window bar' and if the tabbing order gets changed I can fix it, so I always know how to get to a particular window), then Ctrl-Space. At home, I also have a standard three window set (different home-pages), but set to 'Start session where I left off previously'. I save pages when Opera exits, and then I can get to each of those three pages very quickly (much faster than using bookmarks). I have a global home-page set to the Opera main site. This global page is used in windows, where a specific home-page is not set.
How do I make a local file to remember links? by; Sandy Archer
Make a local-file called url.htm , with notepad, or your favorite editor, and set that as your home-page. And in this file place your entries like this:
<A HREF=" "></A><BR>
When you get a URI that you want to visit later, open up this file, copy the URI inside the " " and then write a short comment, or the site's name between the > <
When you open Opera to browse the web the home-page opens, and you just have to click the link to get to any of those sites. Once you have seen enough click on the home-page icon on the tool-bar, and if you choose, go to the next site.
When you have seen enough, or have logged off, and you would like to see those sites again, but 'off-line', just open Opera, (if you have not emptied the cache on exit) click on the sites on the home-page and they will open from the cache.
This way you need never bother with the 'History', or the 'online/offline' toggle. Using this method, you can read the pages off-line at your leisure. :-)
How can I make links in my history file a different color? by; Sue Sims
Links are the same color because in the file history.css, in the 'opera\styles' folder, doesn't differentiate between a:link and a:visited, assigning the same rules to both.
You can replace the existing rules with something like:
A:link{
color: blue;
text-decoration: none;
}
A:visited {
color: red;
text-decoration: underline;
}
Or whatever styles are more suited to your taste.
The same css seems to be used for cache.css, so you might want to make that change too.
NOTE:
A new installation will probably overwrite these changed css files, and I haven't investigated the relationship between the 'visited' cache links and preferences options.
How can I add text to the Title bar? (Opera 6); by Ken
Edit the opera.ini file to insert the line
"Title=Opera Version X.xx - Build xxxx"
in the section [USERS PREFS]
Then the various versions of Opera can be displayed on the Title bar.
How do I manage the fonts in Opera?
The standard Windows font selector dialog is used for all settings. But for generic CSS fonts, only the font face value is needed.
Examining the various cases:
The 'normal' font:
Size, font face, bold/italic and color are used as the base values for all text on a page, unless these properties are overripen by document layout.
Headers <Hx>:
Size, font face, bold/italic and color are used for headers, but *only* when 'My fonts and colors'
are selected in the Page style properties, and unless these properties are overripen by document layout.
Preformatted text:
Font face is applied to all PRE, TT, CODE, SAMP text, unless these properties are overripen by document layout.
Size, bold/italic and color are *only* used when 'My fonts and colors' are selected in the Page style properties.
Form elements choices:
Size, font face and boldness are always used for the various form elements, unless these properties are overripen by document layout. Color is taken from the Windows system settings. Italic style will follow the setting for the 'Normal' font.
The various CSS font-families:
Only the font face you select is used. These fonts are applied in case a style sheet (either from the page author or an user style sheet) calls for a generic font family. This is a recommended technique, but not all CSS authors use it.
Such style sheet rules look like this:
BODY {font-family: Georgia, "Bookman Old Style", serif;}
DIV {font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;}
So in case your system doesn't have Georgia and Bookman Old Style, the user choice for a serif font will be used.
Page Style preferences:
As you can see above, some settings are only applied when 'My fonts and colors' is checked, other are always used as base values to be overripen by page layout supplied by the author. But in the Page style preferences, you can choose to have these settings applied *always* by disabling the fonts and colors supplied by the page author.
Choosing to apply 'Page fonts and colors' at the same time as 'My fonts and colors' can lead to unpredictable results. This is caused both by inconsistencies in Opera priorities when choosing between the styles, and by incompletely specified page layouts. So most users find it more comfortable to have an "either my fonts and colors, or the page's fonts and colors" choice, which is achieved by the default setting.
With Ctrl-G or the button on the apress bar you can easily switch between; 'Author mode' or 'User mode'.
The default settings look like this:
Author mode User mode
X 0
X 0
0 X
0 X
X X
X X
How can I set Opera to use light text on a dark background in user mode, without having it also use the light text in author-mode on web sites that don't bother to specify the text color? by; Jonathan Murphy
One way to do it is to leave default settings in; 'my fonts and colors' dark on light, and then define your own stylesheet to use in user mode.
Here is what you would need to make a User stylesheet. It is a plain text file, just give it a name like kk.css
and put it in your special Opera Custom directory. (which every user is advised to have if you use *any* custom settings)
@media screen{
body{color:white; background-color:black;}
}
Opera includes an audio control panel of three buttons (Stop, Play, and Pause), a slider for volume control, and a row of simulated green LEDs that simply (although redundantly) indicate the position of the volume slider.
Here is the code tested:
<embed src="test.wav" height="60" width="140" autostart="true"> </embed>
How can I add a sound file to play automatically?
The sound file plays automatically every time the page loads. The autostart function works even if size is set to width="0", height="0" and hidden="true". This was true whether loading from a local file or loading files placed on my ISP's webserver.
However, the <embed ... > tag is not a part of any W3C HTML standard, and personally I wouldn't write any new code, hoping support for it will be continued.
The "right" way to do this would be to use the OBJECT tag, the EMBED tag has been deprecated, but this will work in most currrent web browsers.
I read that I needed a Windows Medial Player security update: Where do I get it? by; Jonathan Murphy
Here's a direct link to the security up-date patch.
I've got problems trying to install Java 1.4. What can I do? by; Joseph Segur
There are quite a few people using the 1.4 JRE with Opera, but some have found that the installation doesn't set up the registry key Opera uses to find it. Check the KB article to see where Opera is looking. You might want to export that while you have the 1.3 version installed, then edit and re-import it after you've installed 1.4 again.
What are the mailto paramenters used by Opera? by; Axel Siebert
The complete list of parameters Opera can pass from a mailto:
%t = To %c = Cc %b = Bcc %s = Subject %m = Message
And, for compatible use with an old friend, 'Opera'(32 bit) v3.62
"%" = To
How can I change the color of the windows bar for updated windows? by; Ralf Kammerer
Add this un-documented code to 'opera6.ini'
[Winbar Attention] Red=0 Green=64 Blue=0
How can I send multiple e-mails to a group? by Axel Siebert
Use the Contacts Tab in the Hotlist. You can select multiple recipients there Explorer-style by holding down the CTRL key and selecting them one by one, or select a group by selecting the first recipient, holding down the SHIFT key and selecting the last one. Then use the context menu (right-click) item "Compose e-mail" on the selection, or "To:", "CC:" or "Bcc:". If you want to add them to a currently open mail. You can also use those on a whole folder, and all apresses in that folder will be added.
Mouse-gesture hints by; Rijk van Geijtenbeek
To access the mouse gesture help file, provided it is the first gesture of a session, any gesture will bring up a short dialog box, with a button to open help.
You can also enable/disable this dialog by editing 'opera6.ini' to:
[User Prefs] Showed Gesture Info=1 (enable) or 0 (disable) [edited into this line]
Hot-key hints by; Dag Olav
The most common sequence of browser commands are 'Back' then, 'Page Down'. You can access these with Opera using Alt/Page Down
You can also have easy access to:
Cycle active links with the hot-keys; 'q' & 'a' or by using; 'Ctrl/Up' and 'Ctrl/Down'
You can also use the following listed hot-keys:
3 to cycle between frames 4 to minimize 5 to restore/maximize
Ctrl-(Shift)-Tab or 1 & 2 to cycle through current windows. Ctrl-(Shift)-Space to open links in new windows (in background). and Ctrl-w to close a window.
E-mail icon definitions by; Axel Siebert.
Star = unread
Tick = sent
Arrow pointing left = has been replied to
Arrow pointing up = queued
Arrow with a sharp bend, = has been redirected
pointing to the upper right
Arrow pointing right = has been forwarded
Paper clip = has an attachment
Two red triangles pointing up = highest priority
One red triangle pointing up = high priority
No triangle = normal priority
One blue triangle pointing down = low priority
Two blue triangles pointing down = lowest priority
Secure web sites and Opera by Axel Siebert.
Unicode and HTTP encoding in e-mails
In my email setup I've selected utf-8, as recommended by W3C. This is the most often encountered universal encoding, encompassing the whole Unicode set, thus any conceivable character you can type, yet remaining compatible with ASCII in the lower range. But it is also most likely to cause problems on the receiving end as it is not widely implemented yet. If you need some characters outside the ASCII range from time to time, I think you should stick to the ISO 8859 charsets for now, -1 and -15 in particular.See This overview. So why, I wonder, does my header read:
'Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"'?
The default encoding is used when you compose a new message, or reply to one which hasn't specified an encoding. Otherwise, replies will always use the character set of the original message, to minimize the chance that the receiver will encounter encoding problems.
*About using non-ASCII characters in general*
At the time ASCII was devised, it may have been justified to ignore the needs of the rest of the world. But to continue expecting everyone to be content with that handful of letters today, as if English was the only language in the world that counts, is hopelessly archaic if not arrogant.
Although the number of people reading mail on old systems shouldn't be underestimated, software which can't cope with 8 bit characters is practically extinct. Software that is still around which can't interpret the encoding will display some other characters instead of the desired ones outside the ASCII range, but that's all that will happen and is hardly a reason not to use them at all.
How do I install Adobe's SVG Viewer?
To install this plug-in, follow the instructions offered by Opera's KB article.
How can I force text to wrap? by; Rijk van Geijtenbeek
To force wrapping of preformatted text at the window edge, write a User style sheet with this; (*proprietary*) CSS:
PRE {white-space: -pre-wrap !important;}
Put this code in a simple plain text file, select this file as 'User style sheet' (in the Document preferences), and enable 'User style sheet' in Document mode.
How can I find e-mail or news IDs, and view them? by, Axel Siebert.
<U61A9MJVPN96ID8QL7441pTRM.3cpa2c5@tosh>
These are the unique message ID's for each e-mail or news posting. To get the msgid of an e-mail you can click on "Display all headers" and look for the "Message-Id:" header item. In news clients there are various ways to access these ID's too. In FreeAgent just click on the keyboard letter-key 'H'.
If you think you have the e-mail in question in one of your folders, simply do a, "Find..." on them, searching for the msgid. As Opera also scans the headers when searching mail, it will show you the message you're looking for.
If you want to find an older posting in the archives of a list, like the opera-usersmailing list, use the "Downloadable version, Gzip'd Text", in which the msgid is archived which each message, so you can do a simple text search for it.
BTW, to view the Gzip'd Text directly in Opera, you have to configure the MIME type application/x-gzip to "Open with Opera" in Preferences/File types. Opera can decompress gzipped files itself and will thus be able to
show the text inside. Remember to revert that setting if you want to download gz files for other purposes, usually you'd want to save them somewhere, instead of seeing their content in Opera.
How can I adjust the size of my network buffer? by; Axel Siebert.
The purpose of this network buffer is to store data, if the network provides it faster than Opera can process it.
If you exchange data with an IP apress using Opera or whatever program, it will go out to the internet if the apress points there, or go out into a LAN if it is a local URI address. The browser or program will not differentiate at all, it is just accessing a network.
The network buffer, which can be set in 'File/Preferences/Connections', is used to cache data retrieved from the network.
A change in the size may increase the speed in some systems. The default buffer size was previously 6 KB in older versions, as of Opera 6.02, it is 32 KB.
*Network Buffer size* Q. If a typical web page is say, 30 KB, should I set a bigger buffer? A. If you have a very fast connection and a not-so-fast machine, it makes sense to set a larger buffer, because the chance that data arriving faster than it can be processed increases.
Also, because faster broad-band connections are getting more common now, the default size in Opera was increased to 32KB, which should be enough network buffer for nearly everyone. At this stage, I believe higher values do not make much sense. A big buffer is useless if only the first few KB of it are ever filled.
How do I adjust the proxy for different sites?
You need to write an automatic proxy configuration file to do this. It should look like this:
function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{if
(dnsDomainIs(host,".google.com") || dnsDomainIs(host,".yahoo.com"))
{return "PROXY proxy.server.com; DIRECT";}
else { return "DIRECT"; }}
Don't forget to replace the proxy server name, then save this text in a plain text file as googleyahoo.pac, and enter the address for this file like this:
file://localhost/c:/googleyahoo.pac
How can I use nultiple news servers with Opera 6? by; Rijk van Geijtenbeek
You can book-mark news servers. The news servers scheme is nntp:// or news:// but Opera, being primarily a web browser, won't automatically prepend those. Either nntp://news.somewhere.net/ or news://news.somewhere-else.net/ will work to get the root of the news server. You can also bookmark individual groups, like news://news.somewhere-else-again.com/alt.comp.tools&stuff and that saves having Opera download the entire list of groups.
URL filtering for Opera 6 by; Mark Schenk
URL filtering is now functional, and the exclude list *has* precedence over include. The example below will block loading of , jpg, gif and png images.
[include] http://*.* [exclude] http://*.gif http://*.jpg http://*.png
The URL filter file is defined in opera.ini [Adv User Prefs]. URL Filter File= which is a standard ini-file with [exclude] and [include], supports * and ? as wildcards. * added priority flag to url include and exclude lists in the filterblock ini-file: [prefs] prioritize excludelist=0. If prioritize excludelist=1 is specified exclude rules will have precedence, which is the default.
You have to be careful with the URL filtering to prevent blocking things you want to see. Furthermore the URL filtering is quite basic. For real good filtering use something like Proxomitron or another external filter.
How can I add search engines to Opera? by Ola Embretson
To add extra search engines to the search.ini file, continue with the next available number in the file, or swap the details in one of the un-used search engines.
The search types are:
2 is Super ( [Search Engine 1] + [Search Engine 2] ). 12 is Find in Page 50 is Dictionary 51 is Encyclopedia. 52 is Currency Converter 100-117 are Translations
The search icons in the personal bar is now defined by search type, and not by search engine number. You can define icons for search types 0 through 15. Any type after 15 produces a seemingly random icon, but you can use the same type for many searches. Apart from the special types listed above, this is the only purpose of the search type.
I've also noticed that if I remove the "Key=" from a default search engine (those listed in Prefs/Search), then that and all following search engines don't get detected.
Removing the key should hide a search (useful for hotclick type searches). The engines after the first hidden search are available from the address bar, and should be available from the personal bar.
More Info: "Opera 6 Search.ini Editor" homepage. or the German mirror. Please also have a look at Opera's search.ini illustrated, which contains http://www.schrode.net/opera/search/search_ini.html
in-depth information on the search.ini format.
How can I hide Opera's splash screen?
Add the following line to Opera6.ini:
SHOW SPLASH SCREEN=0 (under [User Prefs])
What are the search engines in Opera?
Here is the complete list search engines in Opera 6 and their shortcuts.
Name=&Google Name=&AllTheWeb Name=&Super Name=&Lycos Name=Ama&zon.com Name=&Ebay.com Name=&News Name=Do&wnload.com Name=&Domain Name Name=&Image Name=&Video Name=&Mp3/Audio Name=Google g&roups Name=&Price Comparison Name=&Opera support Name=&Find in page
In many cases the short-cut "Key" entry equals the "underlined" ("&") letter for these searches, e.g., Name=&Google Key=g/
Note: These "Keyword" values can be found in "Preferences | Search".
The remaining 20 entries are translation (17 entries), encyclopedia, dictionary, and currency converter.
They have neither Key nor mnemonic ("&").
Without changing anything, you can access these 20 searches by using the Hotclick menu (right-click menu).
How can I open external links or appications in Opera? by Henk ?
When using a custom button or link several people have mentioned that the URI is always put into an address field, with a new blank window, even if the resource is not going to be displayed or handled by Opera. If you have the preference 'reuse windows', un-checked, Opera will always open an empty window, i.e. when you start a download, or open a program using the '.lnk' method as discussed. If you prefer not to reuse existing windows, here is a simple way of having bookmarks or toolbar buttons open an external program, without getting any left-behind empty windows.
Suppose you have a bookmark or a custom button that opens Calc.exe using the ".lnk" method, for instance it may point to; "file://localhost/C:/Path/Calc.lnk
Now instead of directly referring to that shortcut, have the bookmark or button refer to a local html file, like: "file://localhost/C:/Path/Calc.html" Your html file should have this simple content:
<HTML> <HEAD> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=file://localhost/C:/Path/Calc.lnk"> </HEAD> <BODY onLoad="setTimeout(window.close, 5000)"> </BODY> </HTML>
This will still open Calc.exe, while auto-closing the empty window that Opera left behind. NOTES:
How can I copy file information from the transfer window? by; Rijk van Geijtenbeek
Can I restore my e-mail? by Rijk Van Geijtenbeek
It should be possible to import this to a fresh installation of Opera. A safe method:
How can I change the default window size? by; Phil Burns
You need to edit the file Opera6.ini found in Opera's directory.
In the [USER PREFS] section:
NewWinSize=400,400
Substitute 400 for your sizes. Additional information
How can I export my bookmarks?
Use one of these entries.
What can I do about problems with financial institutions?
If you experience such problems with your online financial service, we suggest that you please contact the organization and let them know that you are facing difficulties accessing your account information using Opera and refer them to this URL:
http://www.opera.com/why/test/index.html
Please be so kind as to send an e-mail in English, if possible, to: web-compliance@opera.com
*Including the following information*:
If/when you receive a response from the service, please make sure to forward it to web-compliance@opera.com. For additional information, please see the KB article.
How can I make the alt text appear as a single line? e.g. <p>So far, <img src="counter" alt="an unknown number of"> people have loaded this page.</p>by Tim ?
You can make the text line up by aping the HTML attribute "align" or using the CSS property 'vertical-align'.
<img src="counter" alt="an unknown number of" style="vertical-align: people"> <img src="counter" alt="an unknown number of" align="people">
How can I import my contact list?
Try these options:
"Address book conversion" (online bookmark conversion tool)
Dawn(660kB download)
How can I change the 'notification' color, i.e. when you load a page in the background, you can tell it is loaded when the font on the tab turns blue. It is this color that I am trying to change.
Add these lines to your Opera6.ini file (while Opera is closed):
[Winbar Attention] Red=0 Green=0 Blue=255
Change the color values as you wish, this uses the RGB scheme with values from 0 to 255 for the colors red, green and blue.
How can I get rid of the text on the "Go" and "Search" buttons?
Edit the following locations in your .lang file:
21197=" " 21198=" "
Under 6.03 I used a line in the history.css file which showed me the URLs of the pages I had visited (as well as their titles). by Karstan Mehrhoff
td.address a:after {content: attr(href) " - "; color: ;999;}
This is what I'm using:
td.address a:after
{
content: " [ " attr(href) " ] ";
color: ;008B8B;
font-size : 8pt;
font-weight : normal;
}
My complete zipped "history.css" file.
How can I force Opera to show the alt text, even when images are enabled? by Homeric
Use a script that enumerates all images and assigns the value of alt property to the title property of that image.
<script>
for (i=0; i < document.images.length; i++)
{
if (!document.images[i].title)
document.images[i].title = document.images[i].alt;
}
</script>
This script is inserted at the end of each page by using Proxomitron:
Name = "Alt to Title (JS version) [EAH]"
Active = TRUE
Limit = 256
Match = "<end>"
Replace = "<script>"
"for (i=0; i< document.images.length; i++)"
"{ if (!document.images[i].title) "
"document.images[i].title = document.images[i].alt; }"
"</script>"
Requirements: JavaScript must be enabled to display alt text in yellow tooltips and the option to display element titles must be checked in Opera.
How can I switch back on a JavaScript alert for a particular page after I have checked the 'Do not show this dialog again' box?
Edit the file jswarn.dir or urlwarn.dir, depending on the type of warning.
How can I change the name of my bookmarks file? by; Samuli Lintula
This is what you should do:
How can I repair (or replace) a security certificate?
Close Opera, delete the opcacrt6.dat file, restart Opera. It will create
a new opcacrt6.dat file containing the needed Authority certficates.
Site certificates must be chained to valid Authority certificates. The Authority certificates in Opera 6.04 are all valid now, the first one to expire will be in October of 2003. Most of those are by default set to 'Allow connections to sites certified by this authority' and the 'Warn before sending data to sites certified by this authority' is not checked. You can of course change those settings as you prefer.
You didn't say exactly what warning you were getting; for some cases it may offer you the option of installing
an additional Authority certificate and that would seem to be what you want. The 'Accept' option only applies
to the current session.
How can I exchange bookmarks and favorites?
Apart from Opera's built in ability to import these files, there are some excellent external applications available too. Perhaps you could try one of these:
'Bookmark Manager'
'Bookmark Priest'
The page download stops and the message at the bottom is "Looking up host name "some name". This is one: www.loot.com of them. What could be wrong? by Harald Holmqvist
This sounds like the DNS bug in Winsock2, rather much discussed here. (If you have W95 with Winsock upgraded to Winsock2, you have to check the Synchronous DNS checkbox in Opera to be able to use the DNS.
And if you do that, Winsock2 will hang for a long time waiting for a reply from nameservers that don't reply).
Do a search in Google Groups for more info.
If you have no programs requiring Wsock2, you can downgrade it. A simpler, partial fix might be the following:
You can ap an entry to the Windows Registry, in HKLocalMachine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP.
Ap a new DWORD (according to MS Knowledge Base) there, with the name NameSrvQueryTimeout, and give it the value 200, to try with. It defaults to 750, and the minimum value is said to be 100. Before I tried this, Opera would be inresponsive for minutes in the situations you describe. With the new value, the system has been released after about 40 seconds in the situations that have occured. I'm not absolutely sure that it isn't a coincidence, but it seems to be working, and is much easier to live with.
The MS KB article has the number Q158474.
I can't get Opera to call my dial-up connection. Why?
You need to read the KB article.
Copyright (c) 2003 by Sue Sims, all rights reserved. This FAQ may be posted to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, web site, or BBS as long as it is posted in its entirety and includes this copyright statement. This FAQ may be distributed as class material on diskette or CD-ROM as long as there is no charge (except to cover materials). This FAQ may not be distributed for financial gain. This FAQ may not be included in commercial collections or compilations without express permission from the author.