Configuring Opera for convenient work on uncomfortable devices
Sometimes I remember my first 15 "monitor, which had worked honestly for many years and died not too long ago from planting a kinescope. The resolution of 1024x768 on it seemed more than enough, and there was nothing wrong with switching to 800x600 - sometimes it was even more convenient The window of any program perfectly fit on the screen, it was quite convenient to work.
Now, for some reason, the same software doesn’t fit into the same resolutions. It is understandable - in each new version, developers add more and more new buttons, toolbars, menus and useless decorations: the sizes of monitors are growing, and to demonstrate new features of programs is the easiest way.
Naturally, on those devices whose advantage in small sizes, these extra controls only interfere. I'm talking about netbooks and similar devices - small screens and equally small resolutions do little to improve the usability of working with overloaded windows. Plus, the portability of such devices often implies the absence of a mouse - you only have to use the keyboard and touchpad.
')
Given all this, I set up many programs so that they are convenient to use on such devices. Although on the “big” laptop I use the same settings - they are comfortable and I love uniformity.
Now it goes, of course, about the Opera. It is from the earliest versions I liked my amazing flexibility in terms of interface settings. I effortlessly set it up so that it is pleasant to work with it even on netbooks, and without a mouse. I am happy to share my experience - if someone comes in handy, I will be very happy.
"Preparations" was subjected to the last build of Opera 10, but with the ninth version, everything will be identical.
Here’s what a freshly installed Opera looks like at 1024x768 resolution:
IMHO, there is a lot of excess, even for a large screen: too much space is not used at all, just cluttering the window. It is logical that to place on a small screen you need to remove all non-functional and under-used interface elements, and minimize the size of those used.
For starters, you can change the theme of the design to something minimalist. The choice of hides is, of course, a matter of personal preference, but I have been using Freestyle for a very long time. Perhaps there are more minimalist skins - but I'm used to this one.
When you change the skin immediately becomes noticeable "compression" of some panels. Unnecessary thickness of the main menu shrank almost twice, the thick lines of the border of the address bar disappeared. In absolute terms, this, of course, is nothing, but it is clearly worth the effort.
To destroy all unnecessary controls, first group all the necessary ones in one place. It is not at all clear why they are scattered throughout the Opera window, for example, there are only four really significant controls on the default Status Bar: the Turbo power button (it is only in recent versions), the Fit to width button, the display mode switch and the change menu page size. We do not consider the line of hints located on the same panel as a significant control - it may be useful to beginners, but the Opera is easy to use and intuitive. Accordingly, it turns out that because of several buttons, a huge window space becomes inaccessible.
Go to the interface settings, and drag everything that we consider useful upward — for example, to the address bar. I transferred all these controls - they are useful as identifiers, although everything that they do can be done with hot keys (see below).
I also transferred several other useful buttons from the Buttons tab - for example, the user mode buttons and the Opera Link sync button. However, this is all a matter of personal preferences, but the point is that everything you need is grouped in one place, and the status panel that has become unnecessary can be removed, thus freeing up some more screen space.
In the screenshot you can see that I not only transferred a few buttons - I nailed some more unnecessary controls. The search string is useless much more than completely - its entire functionality is in the address bar (search through key characters). The functionality of the Rewind and Fast Forward buttons is rarely used, besides it is duplicated by the Back and Forward buttons (just hold them down to display the navigation menu). The Home button is useless - the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Space is easily remembered and convenient to use. The same with the Wand button - it is duplicated by the combination Ctrl + Enter.
In principle, it was possible to get rid of other navigation elements (they are all duplicated on the keyboard), but they are useful as identifiers. Thus, the transition buttons can be used to determine the ability to navigate through the history, and the update button serves as an indicator of page loading status.
I note that in the latest builds of Opera some elements may not be removed from the panels - apparently, glitches of alpha releases. Users 9.x should have no such problems, but I solved the problem by manually editing the configuration file.
So, the window already looks visibly cleaner - but not clean enough.
First, the button to turn on additional panels, which appeared not so long ago. One gets the impression that it (like the button for creating a new tab) is designed for beginners who switch to Opera from other browsers. I think that these buttons are not needed for the same reason - there are keyboard shortcuts for them (by default - F4 and Ctrl + T, respectively). Delete, freeing up valuable tab space. Also it is worth removing the tab closing button (Preferences-> Tabs-> Additional tabs options-> Show close button on each tab) - on the small screen and even from the touchpad, aiming at it is very inconvenient, it is better to use other options, for example, click the middle button taboo (on the two-button touchpads, this is usually a two-button click at the same time) or Ctrl + W.
I left the “basket” for closed and blocked pages on the panel, also added the clock — the browser is usually full screen, and the clock on the Windows taskbar is not visible. In principle, you can transfer these elements a little lower, to the address bar, thus freeing up a little more space for bookmarks.
It seems that nothing else is removed. This is not true.
Do you often use the main menu? I - not really, only need access to bookmarks. And it's very good that Opera allows you to minimize the menu bar into one compact button, like this:
Logically, the menu can now be turned off. Through the standard settings, however, this is not done, so go here: operawiki.info/CustomButtons#menu , find the button “Toggle Menu bar on / off” or any with similar functionality, transfer it to ourselves and use it. On the same page there is a button with a minimized menu, as well as many other useful buttons that you can drag off with impunity.
Next, I placed a button for quick access to bookmarks (it is included in the standard set), and I got such a minimalist beauty. It is comfortable to work with such a window even at a resolution of 800x600 pixels, not to mention such “monsters” as eeePC with its 1024x600 =):
Opera has a very, very, very rich ability to customize the bitter keys. But this abundance leads to a lot of confusion: many combinations can work differently in different Opera windows (for example, in an integrated email client), and function names sometimes have to be chosen almost at random. Plus, for the sake of "identity" to other popular browsers, standard keyboard shortcuts that have not changed for many years have suddenly changed, which I personally delivered a lot of inconvenience. Fortunately, keyboard control is enough to set up once, save configs, and no longer worry about any changes.
If you configure hotkeys right from the start, I highly recommend using the keyboard configuration file called Opera 9.2 Compatible. Not because it, for the most part, contains the old combinations that are so lovely to me - but only because these combinations, for the most part, are single-key (in order to enable them, you need to enable the “Enable single-key shortcuts” option). One key is trivially simpler to press than two or three, all the more so on not the most convenient keyboards of netbooks.
The principle of setting up keyboard shortcuts is quite unusual, and at first there will be a lot of confusion. On top of that, the graphical user interface of the customizer does not shine with convenience, sometimes it even turns out that it is more convenient to edit the config directly.
Nevertheless, it is done this way:
Select the window of the Opera for which you want to set up management. The Application branch is responsible for global combinations working throughout the program, the Browser window is responsible for combinations working in a browser window, and so on. In theory, combinations in different windows can intersect without problems, but with the same combinations of global and internal windows, the latter will have a higher priority.
The column “Input context and shortcuts” contains the conditions for invoking an action - platform dependency (optional) and, in fact, a keyboard combination. The first condition helps to create different sets of combinations for different platforms (for example, use the meta key under Mac), and can be omitted in case of uselessness. The keyboard combination is written as follows: first, the control key is written, then, after a space, one or more modifiers (ctrl / alt / shift). If there is a platform modifier, the keyboard combination is written after it, separated by commas.
The “Action” column is used to assign an action. The list of all possible actions with descriptions is difficult to bring; I haven’t met any intelligible information on this case, so here we act according to logic and intuition. We type the proposed English name of the function of interest or part of it - in the drop-down list will be all possible actions that are suitable for the combination. For example, to switch to full screen mode, just type screen - one of the options proposed will be “Enter fullscreen”, which is the function we need. It is easier than it seems.
Configuring actions supports several conditional statements, allowing you to use one key for several actions at once depending on the conditions. Operators are placed through the space between the names of actions, for example, “Enter fullscreen | Leave fullscreen. Supported operators:
"|" - banal OR. It calls one of the specified functions according to an automatically selected condition, for example, “Stop | Deselect all | Leave fullscreen ”- stop refreshing the page (if it is done) OR clear the selection (if something is selected) OR exit full-screen mode (if it is on).
"&" Is no less banal AND. Allows you to assign several actions that are performed at the same time, for example, “Mark as read & Select previous unread” in the mail client.
">" - switch. Performs cyclical switching of functions with each call, for example switching graphics display modes is configured as: “Enable display images> Disable display images> Display cached images only”.
Examples can be peeped in standard configs, everything will become obvious in a few minutes.
From myself I can only recommend one thing: remove the combination Ctrl + Q, which closes the window by default. It is dangerously close to Ctrl + W, which closes the tab, just to miss it even on a large keyboard. Otherwise, whoever wants, as well as configures, is a matter of personal preferences and habits.
In principle, the functions described above are sufficient for convenient operation in all conditions. I didn’t stop at that, and modified the context menus for most of the controls, for example, the menu called by F12, among other things, contains a copy of the main menu - this is convenient when operating from the keyboard:
If the commentators show interest, next time I will talk about how the Opera menu is edited. Particularly inquisitive minds can figure it out on their own - there is some information on Operafan and other sources.
Behind this, otklanivayus, enjoy you surfing.
Now, for some reason, the same software doesn’t fit into the same resolutions. It is understandable - in each new version, developers add more and more new buttons, toolbars, menus and useless decorations: the sizes of monitors are growing, and to demonstrate new features of programs is the easiest way.
Naturally, on those devices whose advantage in small sizes, these extra controls only interfere. I'm talking about netbooks and similar devices - small screens and equally small resolutions do little to improve the usability of working with overloaded windows. Plus, the portability of such devices often implies the absence of a mouse - you only have to use the keyboard and touchpad.
')
Given all this, I set up many programs so that they are convenient to use on such devices. Although on the “big” laptop I use the same settings - they are comfortable and I love uniformity.
Now it goes, of course, about the Opera. It is from the earliest versions I liked my amazing flexibility in terms of interface settings. I effortlessly set it up so that it is pleasant to work with it even on netbooks, and without a mouse. I am happy to share my experience - if someone comes in handy, I will be very happy.
"Preparations" was subjected to the last build of Opera 10, but with the ninth version, everything will be identical.
Interface
Here’s what a freshly installed Opera looks like at 1024x768 resolution:
IMHO, there is a lot of excess, even for a large screen: too much space is not used at all, just cluttering the window. It is logical that to place on a small screen you need to remove all non-functional and under-used interface elements, and minimize the size of those used.
For starters, you can change the theme of the design to something minimalist. The choice of hides is, of course, a matter of personal preference, but I have been using Freestyle for a very long time. Perhaps there are more minimalist skins - but I'm used to this one.
When you change the skin immediately becomes noticeable "compression" of some panels. Unnecessary thickness of the main menu shrank almost twice, the thick lines of the border of the address bar disappeared. In absolute terms, this, of course, is nothing, but it is clearly worth the effort.
To destroy all unnecessary controls, first group all the necessary ones in one place. It is not at all clear why they are scattered throughout the Opera window, for example, there are only four really significant controls on the default Status Bar: the Turbo power button (it is only in recent versions), the Fit to width button, the display mode switch and the change menu page size. We do not consider the line of hints located on the same panel as a significant control - it may be useful to beginners, but the Opera is easy to use and intuitive. Accordingly, it turns out that because of several buttons, a huge window space becomes inaccessible.
Go to the interface settings, and drag everything that we consider useful upward — for example, to the address bar. I transferred all these controls - they are useful as identifiers, although everything that they do can be done with hot keys (see below).
I also transferred several other useful buttons from the Buttons tab - for example, the user mode buttons and the Opera Link sync button. However, this is all a matter of personal preferences, but the point is that everything you need is grouped in one place, and the status panel that has become unnecessary can be removed, thus freeing up some more screen space.
In the screenshot you can see that I not only transferred a few buttons - I nailed some more unnecessary controls. The search string is useless much more than completely - its entire functionality is in the address bar (search through key characters). The functionality of the Rewind and Fast Forward buttons is rarely used, besides it is duplicated by the Back and Forward buttons (just hold them down to display the navigation menu). The Home button is useless - the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Space is easily remembered and convenient to use. The same with the Wand button - it is duplicated by the combination Ctrl + Enter.
In principle, it was possible to get rid of other navigation elements (they are all duplicated on the keyboard), but they are useful as identifiers. Thus, the transition buttons can be used to determine the ability to navigate through the history, and the update button serves as an indicator of page loading status.
I note that in the latest builds of Opera some elements may not be removed from the panels - apparently, glitches of alpha releases. Users 9.x should have no such problems, but I solved the problem by manually editing the configuration file.
So, the window already looks visibly cleaner - but not clean enough.
First, the button to turn on additional panels, which appeared not so long ago. One gets the impression that it (like the button for creating a new tab) is designed for beginners who switch to Opera from other browsers. I think that these buttons are not needed for the same reason - there are keyboard shortcuts for them (by default - F4 and Ctrl + T, respectively). Delete, freeing up valuable tab space. Also it is worth removing the tab closing button (Preferences-> Tabs-> Additional tabs options-> Show close button on each tab) - on the small screen and even from the touchpad, aiming at it is very inconvenient, it is better to use other options, for example, click the middle button taboo (on the two-button touchpads, this is usually a two-button click at the same time) or Ctrl + W.
I left the “basket” for closed and blocked pages on the panel, also added the clock — the browser is usually full screen, and the clock on the Windows taskbar is not visible. In principle, you can transfer these elements a little lower, to the address bar, thus freeing up a little more space for bookmarks.
It seems that nothing else is removed. This is not true.
Do you often use the main menu? I - not really, only need access to bookmarks. And it's very good that Opera allows you to minimize the menu bar into one compact button, like this:
Logically, the menu can now be turned off. Through the standard settings, however, this is not done, so go here: operawiki.info/CustomButtons#menu , find the button “Toggle Menu bar on / off” or any with similar functionality, transfer it to ourselves and use it. On the same page there is a button with a minimized menu, as well as many other useful buttons that you can drag off with impunity.
Next, I placed a button for quick access to bookmarks (it is included in the standard set), and I got such a minimalist beauty. It is comfortable to work with such a window even at a resolution of 800x600 pixels, not to mention such “monsters” as eeePC with its 1024x600 =):
Keyboard
Opera has a very, very, very rich ability to customize the bitter keys. But this abundance leads to a lot of confusion: many combinations can work differently in different Opera windows (for example, in an integrated email client), and function names sometimes have to be chosen almost at random. Plus, for the sake of "identity" to other popular browsers, standard keyboard shortcuts that have not changed for many years have suddenly changed, which I personally delivered a lot of inconvenience. Fortunately, keyboard control is enough to set up once, save configs, and no longer worry about any changes.
If you configure hotkeys right from the start, I highly recommend using the keyboard configuration file called Opera 9.2 Compatible. Not because it, for the most part, contains the old combinations that are so lovely to me - but only because these combinations, for the most part, are single-key (in order to enable them, you need to enable the “Enable single-key shortcuts” option). One key is trivially simpler to press than two or three, all the more so on not the most convenient keyboards of netbooks.
The principle of setting up keyboard shortcuts is quite unusual, and at first there will be a lot of confusion. On top of that, the graphical user interface of the customizer does not shine with convenience, sometimes it even turns out that it is more convenient to edit the config directly.
Nevertheless, it is done this way:
Select the window of the Opera for which you want to set up management. The Application branch is responsible for global combinations working throughout the program, the Browser window is responsible for combinations working in a browser window, and so on. In theory, combinations in different windows can intersect without problems, but with the same combinations of global and internal windows, the latter will have a higher priority.
The column “Input context and shortcuts” contains the conditions for invoking an action - platform dependency (optional) and, in fact, a keyboard combination. The first condition helps to create different sets of combinations for different platforms (for example, use the meta key under Mac), and can be omitted in case of uselessness. The keyboard combination is written as follows: first, the control key is written, then, after a space, one or more modifiers (ctrl / alt / shift). If there is a platform modifier, the keyboard combination is written after it, separated by commas.
The “Action” column is used to assign an action. The list of all possible actions with descriptions is difficult to bring; I haven’t met any intelligible information on this case, so here we act according to logic and intuition. We type the proposed English name of the function of interest or part of it - in the drop-down list will be all possible actions that are suitable for the combination. For example, to switch to full screen mode, just type screen - one of the options proposed will be “Enter fullscreen”, which is the function we need. It is easier than it seems.
Configuring actions supports several conditional statements, allowing you to use one key for several actions at once depending on the conditions. Operators are placed through the space between the names of actions, for example, “Enter fullscreen | Leave fullscreen. Supported operators:
"|" - banal OR. It calls one of the specified functions according to an automatically selected condition, for example, “Stop | Deselect all | Leave fullscreen ”- stop refreshing the page (if it is done) OR clear the selection (if something is selected) OR exit full-screen mode (if it is on).
"&" Is no less banal AND. Allows you to assign several actions that are performed at the same time, for example, “Mark as read & Select previous unread” in the mail client.
">" - switch. Performs cyclical switching of functions with each call, for example switching graphics display modes is configured as: “Enable display images> Disable display images> Display cached images only”.
Examples can be peeped in standard configs, everything will become obvious in a few minutes.
From myself I can only recommend one thing: remove the combination Ctrl + Q, which closes the window by default. It is dangerously close to Ctrl + W, which closes the tab, just to miss it even on a large keyboard. Otherwise, whoever wants, as well as configures, is a matter of personal preferences and habits.
Menu
In principle, the functions described above are sufficient for convenient operation in all conditions. I didn’t stop at that, and modified the context menus for most of the controls, for example, the menu called by F12, among other things, contains a copy of the main menu - this is convenient when operating from the keyboard:
If the commentators show interest, next time I will talk about how the Opera menu is edited. Particularly inquisitive minds can figure it out on their own - there is some information on Operafan and other sources.
Behind this, otklanivayus, enjoy you surfing.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/54927/
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