Introducing Opera 15 for computers

We present you a new Opera 15 for computers - fast, secure and convenient browser. As we have already written , Opera 15 is launching a new frequent release cycle, so get ready for updates in the next versions very soon. In the near future, Opera Next and Opera Developer will be released.

What is new?

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First of all, you will notice a simplified interface tightly integrated with the platform. We want your browser to be as familiar as possible - this is probably the most frequently used program, after the OS itself. When you first start you will be waiting for the window to explore new browser features. This version is installed separately from Opera 12.15 and does not affect its settings.

Express panel

As in Opera for Android, we have integrated bookmarks into the express panel, which gives you a visual representation of your favorite pages. When migrating from Opera 12 to Opera 15, you will be asked to convert your bookmarks into an express panel - just click on the orange icon in the express panel to start importing. Please note that now you can group the tabs of express panels into folders by simply dragging and dropping one onto another. If you wish, you can name the new group - right-click on it and enter the name.



To add a page or extension to the express panel, simply click the large plus button. You can do it right while browsing the page - just click on the “Add to Express Panel” icon in the address bar and the page will immediately appear there without any noise.

You can also save all open tabs to the folder of the express panel (if you have been looking for something for a long time or planning a vacation) - just click on the bookmarks bar and select “Save tabs in a group ...”. right click on the folder and “Open all”.

If you have a lot of bookmarks in the express panel, you can quickly filter them - put the cursor on the search icon in the upper right corner and start typing keywords that may be relevant to what you are looking for. Icons of sites in response are filtered in real time.

Bookmarks and Bookmarklets

Despite the fact that most users do not use bookmarks (this is a fact, we checked), some of our long-time users told about a lot of their bookmarks grouped into complex multi-level trees. We love our users, especially the devotees, so we, along with Stuart Langridge , Bruce Lawson, and your humble servant, developed the Bookmarks Manager extension to return Opera 15 bookmarks to those who are missing them.



How to use the extension:

1. Export bookmarks from Opera 12: Bookmarks → Manage Bookmarks → File → Export as HTML ...
2. Open Opera 15 and install the Bookmarks Manager extension, which will be able to import a structured HTML file and create on its basis the IndexedDB database, which can be controlled from the extension. You can also import and use bookmarklets.

The extension is available on Github , so we will be glad to see your purikvest. This is only the first version, we will develop it further, see the nearest plans in the Readme.md . Please note that you can also convert bookmarklets to extensions for Chrome and add them to Opera 15 through the extension manager.

Moneybox, recommendations, compression mode, expansion mode and much more ...

We have already talked about the new features of Opera in the previous post and will not be repeated. Try it yourself, if you still have not had time. Since the first announcement of Opera Next, many interesting things have appeared in the extensions directory : Pinterest, Pocket, Wunderlist, Evernote, Feedly, Disconnect, LastPass, WOT, Ghostery, cottonTracks - try it.

Linux

In short: the Linux version will be released, it’s just not ready yet. It is difficult to rewrite the whole browser from scratch, so we had to choose priority platforms on which the most users. But we are not leaving you, do not be discouraged.

What was done

Opera 15 runs on the new Blink web engine and the V8 JavaScript engine and is based on the Chromium project. We decided to explain what the new browser consists of and what work was done on it. First of all, we rewrote the entire browser interface layer:

• System UI
• Express panel
• Piggy bank
• Recommendations
• Compression mode (formerly known as Opera Turbo)
• Theme support
• Reopen closed tabs
• Component browser.js
• Mouse gestures
• Popup and download button
• Search engine switch
• Menu with a red "O" on Windows
• System context menus

We also modified some of the components of Chromium:

• Type and behavior of controls
• Download manager
• Settings
• Extensions (including API for express panels)
• Tips in the address bar
• Error logging

In addition, we regularly work on the Chromium project itself and the Blink engine, improving it and sending patches. On this page you can read more about our patches, so if you are interested, subscribe to updates of the project operasoftware / upstreamtools .

This release is only the beginning of a long and interesting way, we still have a lot of interesting things.