http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=851912 http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=851912 http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=851912 Make the Font of the adressbar black again This is why I dread installing new updates of Opera. Every single time, it seems like there's some stupid new 'feature', that is a pain to disable, or can't be disabled at all. A few weeks ago, the Opera 10.xxx version I was using stopped working with flash video. Since then I've been making do with Firefox for video viewing, since I was afraid of a repeat of the hassle previously required to retain the clean 'Classic' Opera appearance. Unzipping, editing, rezipping files deep in the guts of Opera's install tree, such a bore. Well, I finally got sick enough of Firefox's many annoyances, to grit my teeth and installed Opera 11.01. Got to hand it to you guys, you really know how to come up with nasty surprises. Seriously what? Opera now screws around with the visibility of the URL of the currently viewed page? Opera programmers, HOW DARE YOU! What the F*CK is wrong with you people? Why is it that you just don't seem to be able to comprehend that what may seem like a neat idea to you, will be poison to many of your users? Please, please, please... can you at least always make your 'brilliant ideas' _options_, that can be disabled? You messed with the URL display... sheesh... I can't believe you did that. Not just a little, but you *really* messed with it. You've: - screwed up the visibility, with the grayed-out URL extensions. - Gone with 'URL shortening/hiding' which has to be one of the worst dumbing-down annoyances of the web ever. - Added the irritating 'Web security' thingy at the left of the URL bar, that changes size and so moves the URL around when you click on the area, thus pointlessly complexifying visual and UI function of the URL bar. - Even after clicking on the address bar to see the full URL, if that browser window is later deselected then the URL bar reverts to the shortened, grayed out version. So the window isn't displaying its true URL. That's a SERIOUS pain for me. Also, changing back and forth between window-topped and window-deselected involves a movement as the 'web' thingy at the address bar left changes sizes, via an animation. This distracts and annoys. Why should a window perform animations when you deselect it? This is BAD behavior, and another instance of Opera messing up 'multiple unique window-per-view' operation. What I want: - Always show the complete, true URL. In one font, one colour, no 'frills'. No 'shortening', no hiding 'ugly' parts, no highlighting or graying out bits _you_ think are more or less important. No having to click on it just to restore reality. I very often need to cut'n'paste complete or part URLs between text files and the URL bar, and directly edit parameters of URLs. With this 'cleverness' you've really messed with the convenience of doing that. I don't want to have to deal with your opinion of what parts of URLs are 'ugly', or 'pointless' or whatever. That's your opinion, you're entitled to provide this stuff to low-level web users who may agree with you - though I feel it's unwise because it habituates people to be unaware of URL details. But when it comes to forcing your opinions upon the working methods of _all_ your users, then really, it's unacceptable. - The 'web security' thingy. Good grief, what were you thinking? Sure, maybe a useful feature for some. But how is this different from all the other commonly used functions, that are presently living perfectly happily in menu bar dropdowns? Put it under 'Tools', or 'File'. Just because it's someone's great new idea doesn't mean you have to mess up functionality of basic, crucial items like the URL bar. Please, kick this off the URL bar and put it where it won't do any harm and can be ignored by people who don't want it. In the menus. On a meta level, Opera the company really should take a good look at its overall development ideology. This tendency to come up with 'clever new ideas', and get so carried away with implementing them that you just can't seem to comprehend why anyone wouldn't be grateful for your brilliance, is bad. It makes you look like shit-heads, and ultimately if you keep doing it, it will be the death of you as you turn Opera into a pile of over-complicated, over-featured, bloated garbage. Rather than the clean, mean and fast browser it once was. URL-mangling is a 'do it our way, there is no other' bad idea. Other examples: - Tabs vs unique window per view. Fine, some people like tabs, despite that they are just duplicating functionality provided by the Windows task bar. Others for various reasons, prefer the 'one window per view' model. Opera started out providing both methods, but then seemed to forget that they are both equally valid. Now Opera simply doesn't support 'one window per view' - the capability is flat out BROKEN. There is no workable way to specify that clicking on a desktop icon/whatever will always open a new window, rather than a tab in an existing browser window. Even if tabs are disabled! Instead of one single, clear user config option: 'Use tabs vs use new windows', there are a multitude of interacting tab/window options. Which aren't actually able to achieve clean operation at the 'new windows only' end. And whichever you prefer, you still have to see all the menu items for the other method. It's such a sad reflection on Opera programmer's lack of common sense... - That whole sorry saga with Opera skins, Opera's switch from the nice, clean and cheerful color and button scheme of 'Opera Classic' skin, to some gray-black themed monstrosity that looked like a calling card from a funeral parlor. Then in later versions tried to add hideous 'button outlines' to the classic buttons even if one managed to install the patches to retain the classic buttons. At least 'up'grading to 11.01 didn't break the screen appearance of Opera. No change is a nice change. - The 'creeping feature bloat'. Speed dial, Unite, Synchronize, Links, Notes, built-in mail and chat, even bookmarks (yes, some people don't use browser bookmark files at all, preferring to manage their URL records by other means, that work across all browsers, versions and multiple machines) and all the import/exports those require. I'd love to see a minimalist version of Opera with all that stuff I never use ripped out. And no, version 11.01 still doesn't fix my Flash video problem. A problem for another day, and reinstalling Flash for starters I suppose. For now I'll just keep using Firefox for video. How an old version of Firefox didn't break for a new Flash version, while even the newest Opera fails... is curious. Looking to see to what extent the URL bar mangling can be disabled, I see Tools: preferences: advanced: browsing: [] Show full web address in address field. Sigh. Not good enough. Should have been: [] Show full true URL, no highlighting, no 'web' action. If the Flash problem I have isn't easy to fix, I'll be reverting back to the last 10.xx Opera version I was using. ------------------------------------- http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=875672 There is currently no way to disable gray text in the address bar ------------------------------------- [quote=Chirpie]You forgot that Firefox is doing it too. And Chrome. And basically all other browsers. Opera decided to implement a security features everyone else was implementing as well.[/quote] Graying out parts of the URL is a SECURITY FEATURE you say? That's flat out insane. Either that or an attempt to deceive by an appeal to 'security needs'. I'd say the latter, since there's NO WAY graying out parts of the URL can possibly achieve any 'security' function. What it does do, is make it harder for people who want to know, to see what's going on. Perhaps you define 'security' as meaning 'reducing user ability to observe the reality of web processes'? It wouldn't surprise me if that is the underlying motivation here. More of the same old 'obfuscate everything', from the DRM-pushers and wannabe Web regulators. Is URL argument hiding, the 'mate' of that horrible "hash-bang URL" scheme? Because together those two 'features' will make the Web's URL navigation system completely incomprehensible to most. (http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/02/gawker-learns-the-hard-way-why-hash-bang-urls-are-evil/) Also, graying URLs breaks a fundamental User Interface convention. 'Graying out' of UI items is universally taken to mean 'not available'. Which is a completely nonsense concept when applied to parts of the URL for the page the browser is actually viewing. Unless you are trying to give people the idea that stuff really is 'not available'? Breaking fundamental conventions like that is absolutely unforgivable. Btw, thanks for telling me 'Firefox is doing it too'. It isn't on my present Firefox version, so that's a very good reason to avoid upgrading Firefox for as long as possible. [quote]If you need to view the full address, you can just focus the address field.[/quote] You're either really confused, or deliberately obfuscating. We can still 'view the full address' by turning off URL shortening in the options. Only the full URL still has parts grayed out. It's not a case of 'can't be seen', rather 'is painful to see'. Plus, you CAN'T 'focus the address field' in a window that is not in focus itself, without bringing the window to the front, which usually isn't desirable, since, if you wanted it at the front, it would already be there. Plus, since you just pointed out that you can 'simply focus the address field to view it complete', HOW is graying and/or hiding parts of it any kind of 'security feature'? A: it isn't. It's just plain bloody-mindedness on Opera programmer's part. [quote]I cannot tell on Opera 11 if a site is secure or not secure UNLESS I click on the round gray favicon.[/quote]No, it has an icon to the left that tells you whether it is secure or not. But aren't you already discussing this in a different thread? Isn't it a bit rude of you to hijack this thread when you already have your own?[/quote] Like I've already pointed out, that whole 'security level notification' feature should be in one of the menus. For indicating https, what the hell was wrong with the padlock symbol? Or the colored outline for that matter? I second the complaint about animations that can't be turned off - they are really annoying. But I'm glad you bring up the 'rudeness' point. Which is ruder- one person slightly sidetracking in one thread in a forum, or OPERA HIJACKING THE CLEAN FUNCTIONALITY OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE'S BROWSERS, with this bogus 'feature'? How rude is barefaced lying? This feature is clearly being touted as achieving a 'benefit' (security/convenience) which it does not, in order to distract attention from its real intent, which is to OBFUSCATE URLS, in order to diminish user awareness and capability. I suggest that the absence of a configuration option to turn off the graying-out, is not simply an oversight but rather is evidence the underlying intent was malicious. Yes, malicious. An intent to condition users to ignore details of URL parameters, and inhibit users from learning that they can achieve useful things by manipulating those parameters directly. That's definitely a malicious intent in my opinion. Here's a simple prediction. Opera won't ever respond meaningfully to these complaints, and won't ever 'remember' to add the 'graying-out OFF' configuration option in the next or any future Opera version. Because the graying is part of a planned progression, to gradually take away user ability to observe and manipulate URL parameter details.