ODIN blog 2012
HTML5 canvas performance: Drawing circles
As it's nearly Christmas, I was playing with HTML5 canvas to draw baubles on a photo of a Christmas tree. Wondering what was the best way to do it, I came across this answer on Stack Overflow about drawing circles with just radial gradients.
A few tips on TV web development
Over the past few days I've been lucky enough to give a couple of talks on web development for TV. It seems there's growing interest and enthusiasm in this area, which I'm pleased to see, because although it can be frustrating, web on TV also offers…
Graceful User Agent Sniffing
A common sad story in the world of user agent sniffing. This time it is with Alto, a mail service from AOL. Note that it is a widespread issue, not specific to AOL and altomail, which could easily be avoided. This post is not about altomail specifically.
The State of Vertical Range Inputs (as of Nov 2012)
Yesterday I found myself needing to write a silly demo to sketch out some code (to be used in a larger project). The idea was to dump a ton of <input type=range> elements on a page, alternate between horizontal and vertical orientations, and manipulate the…
Opera Mobile Emulator 12.1 is out
Opera Mobile Emulator is a fine tool for creating and testing responsive web designs, as explained in my recent Smashing Magazine article. So it's my pleasure to announce that, today, we've released version 12.1 of our Opera Mobile Emulator for Mac, Windows…
Competition: show us the shiny for a chance to win a ticket to Full Frontal 2012 in Brighton, UK
If you're serious about your JavaScript and fanatical about web app development, you should already be familiar with the Full Frontal conference. Missed your chance to grab a ticket for this year? Don't fret, we may be able to help...
Introducing Device-Stock-UA: a new request header and proposal
Our latest releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini will include a new header: Device-Stock-UA. The value of this header matches that of the stock user agent bundled with the operating system on which Opera Mobile or Mini is running. Below is an example of…
The web standards curriculum is dead; long live webplatform.org!
Around a year or so ago, I was approached by Doug Schepers of the W3C with a request for help — they wanted me to get involved with a collaborative documentation project, which would be comprehensive, complete, and more importantly, vendor neutral. I loved…
Postcards from TPAC
Every year, the top Standardistas of the world jet off to TPAC: a glamorous foreign location where they drink Daquiris, dance the rhumba til dawn, build sand castles and talk about standards. It's like being James Bond, but with a License to Spec rather than…
Changes to the behavior of innerHTML in XML documents
In the run-up to the next stable desktop release, you'll notice that a lot of changes are being made to our browser's core engine. Although here on the Developer Relations blog we usually just cherry-pick and explain some of the shinier new additions that…
Educating Bangladeshi schoolkids about the Web
I've written before about our Bangladeshi version of Opera Mini, in which we partnered with Grameenphone which is owned by Telenor and a non-profit sister concern of Grameen Bank - a Nobel Prize-winning Bangladeshi institution that gives microloans to the…
A colourful Opera 12.50 snapshot
As work steadily continues on our next stable release, this week's Opera 12.50 snapshot provides a colourful mixed bag of new features and improvements. As ever, we've cherry-picked the ones we find most interesting for developers.
CSS vendor prefixes in Opera 12.50 snapshots
Vendor prefixes have been useful, but they have arguably caused as many problems as they've solved, both in CSS and DOM APIs. So, in the run up to Opera 12.50, we're removing as many -o- prefixes from stable CSS properties as we can.
A hot Opera 12.50 summer-time snapshot
Summer is usually a quiet time in the Opera offices, but looking at the latest Opera 12.50 snapshot, you'd be forgiven for thinking that our developers have never heard of vacation time.
W3C HTML5 Chinese Interest Group
The folks in W3C Korea organized a HTML5 Asia Day last week. The CJK community gathered to discuss some of the common issues and interest we share. One might wonder why there are only three locale/language-oriented interest group in W3C, namely China, Japan…
Viewport meta tags used on the "top 20 responsive sites"
Last week, Social Driver listed 20 sites that are supposedly best-in-class when it comes to responsive design techniques. I had a look at the viewport meta tags used in these sites and have posted them as a gist.
Opera Software on GitHub
At Opera, we've been using GitHub for quite a while for a number of projects, including but not limited to OperaDriver, Shiny Demos, RoboHydra, Emberwind, Browser JS and since last week, also the Opera Dragonfly project.
devicePixelRatio in Opera Mobile
I've been enjoying PPK's recent look at devicePixelRatio and More about devicePixelRatio, but one detail in the latter post caught my eye: discussing the devicePixelRatio on the Galaxy Nexus, he notes that Opera Mobile goes for a ratio of 2.25, while other…
Introducing RoboHydra - Opera's open-source HTTP client test tool
We'd like you to meet RoboHydra - a web server designed to help you test any kind of HTTP-based client. RoboHydra is easy to configure to return the responses you want, mimicking any server behaviour needed to test your clients.
Animatable CSS properties in Opera 12
CSS3 transitions and animations don't just provide eye-candy for fancy demos — they also improve usability and enhance the user experience (when used in the right places). Although still at an experimental stage and not meant for production sites yet, they…
Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 2, and the X-Widget Challenge
Opera today announced that the second beta of Opera Mobile 9.5 for Windows Mobile has now been released. This is joined by the first beta of Opera Mobile 9.5 for Symbian UIQ. The notable absence is Opera Mobile for Symbian S60, which will be released some…
Hello Opera 10.60
We're very pleased to release Opera 10.60 for all platforms. Linux users will notice that we're skipping 10.5x Final, as we want to get all platforms in step again.
Public consultation on browser standards for public sector Web sites: Opera's response
19 January 2009: This post contains a formal response to a superseded consultation document. The revised browser testing guidelines are now available. The remainder of this post is for historical purposes only.
Smartphone show: Opera Widgets in 5 minutes
Yesterday at the Smartphone Show 2008 I did a five-minute presentation about Opera Widgets (and the $10,000 prizes in our challenge to find the best new widget).
A quick look at what's in Opera 12 beta for developers
This morning, we've released Opera 12 beta and as always, a new release comes with improved standards support and other developer features — a quick overview of the shiny:
Camera access from a web page in Opera Next
In 1969, we were told that someday, you'll be a star, and after great efforts from the open web community, that time has come! Access to the camera from a web page through JavaScript (getUserMedia) is possible. Grab the latest Opera Next version from the…
What's new in Opera Development snapshots: March 26, 2012
This build introduces initial support for HTML5 Drag and Drop. With DnD, Web pages can natively drag elements, selections and microdata from one page onto another, or drag files from the operating system and drop them onto a Web page. Have a play with this…
Opera Mobile Emulator 12 update
A few weeks after our Opera Mobile 12 release for Android and Symbian, we're happy to announce that there now also is a corresponding update of the Opera Mobile Emulator!
SXSWi: the aftermath roundup
The SXSWi 2012 festival is over, and the merry men and women of Opera have returned to their castles, caves and dungeons. We didn't have much of a chance during our visit to Austin to write intermediate reports and post interviews, as we were far too busy…
Singing an Opera at SXSWi 2012
As the SXSWi 2012 festival draws near, it's our pleasure to talk about what we're doing at the event. A number of Opera folks are converging on Austin Texas to have fun, say hi to y'all, talk geek, and give some great talks. Come along and catch us presenting…
standards.next - "Mobile and devices", Manchester
Saturday 3 March saw our biggest-ever standards.next event, organised by Chris Mills of Opera and Richard Eskins of the Department of Information and Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University.
What's new in Opera development snapshots: 28 February edition
There is a new Opera Next out! Download it from the links in the Desktop team's blog post or wait a while for it to show up on your Opera Next updates (Browser Identification section should show Presto/2.10.269 in opera:about).
Opera Mobile 12, and introducing Opera Mini Next
So now's the time to download the Opera mobile browsers and test your sites.
Implementing Do Not Track and the work at W3C
On the Opera Desktop Team blog, there is a new experimental build available which includes support for the "Do Not Track" feature. Last year, in April 2011, the W3C invited the industry and the user alike to participate in a workshop on Web Tracking and User…
What’s new in Opera development snapshots: 10 February 2011 edition
The new Opera Next snapshot is out with a whole slew of fixes. Download it from the links in the Desktop team's blog post or wait a while for it to show up on your Opera Next updates. Here are what would be of interest to web developers:
Interview on W3C Blog
IJ: Any advice for W3C? Where to focus? What to change? DM: I'd like to see specifications become standards more quickly. I understand why they take time but but it would be great to speed things up. Also, I'd like to see more developers and designers learn…
HTML5 Please
Several months ago, Paul Irish and I got an idea to create a service that would give out recommendations on which HTML5 features to use and how to use them. Finally, yesterday, we pushed that site live: html5please.us.