Things to do to configure Opera browser back to a clean UI ========================================================== Ver 12.01, 20121105 ------------------- * During install select 'portable install (flash)'. Makes everything go in one tree, instead of the stupid Windows 'all over the place' crap. My case: put in C:\Util\NET\Opera * Create desktop shortcut to Opera.exe * Set htm & html filetypes to Opera.exe Windows Explorer:Tools:Folder Options:File Types: * Click 'Opera' tab, select 'Show menu bar' * Kill speed dial: about:config -> User Prefs -> Speed Dial state = 3, SAVE. Why the F*CK isn't this in the topmost Tools:Quick Preferences? * Config for 'new window per instance', never use tabs. Tools:Preferences:Advanced:Tabs -> deselect all Additional tab options -> enable: Open windows instead of tabs Allow window with no tabs View:toolbars -> Disable Tab bar (Except it still doesn't really work. Click a desktop url, and your currently open Opera window will get re-used anyway.) * Kill 'google search' thing on address bar: right click it, Customize, remove. (What's better than just typing "g " ? * Tools:Preferences: General: Start with home page, home page = about:blank Forms: disable password manager * Tools:Appearance: Toolbars: progress bar = popup at bottom. (I wish there was an option to put 'progress bar' in the status bar.) * Skin: copy opera_9_classic_skin-2_patched.zip to C:\Util\Opera\skin (assuming you installed as portable/Flash, if not, well your problem.) Tools:Appearance: Themes -> select Opera Classic skin Guess what? It's almost guaranteed that each new opera version will have an even more ugly default skin, and some features of the Classic Skin will be broken and require time-consuming threshing in the support forums to get it working right again. First try googling 'opera classic skin'. Maybe someone else has already fixed it. * Remove the visual clutter from the status bar. Right-click each icon in turn, customise:remove * Setup address bar icons: Tools:Appearance:Buttons My preference: [new window] [back, with dropdown list] [forward] [reload/stop] [search in page] [address bar] [go] [spectacles] * Turn off 'mouse flips' (aka the 'accidental page reload of death' on pressing L & R mouse buttons simultaneously) opera:config --> search: mouse flips --> untick --> save Wish List -------- Oh, how I wish it was possible to: * Entirely remove everything to do with Mail, Newsgroups, Chat, Bookmarks, Speeddial and password manager from Opera. Couldn't these be built as plugins or widgets or something, so there's a choice of whether to have them or not? * Also cutting down the code size, improving load time, and uncluttering the menus without all that crap. * Include a fundamental 'Tabs: on/off' switch. Turning Tabs off also removes every tabs-related entry from all menus, and makes Opera work in the 'one window per instance, one instance per window' mode. So if you have a window open and you click on a web icon somewhere else, you actually get a new Opera window. Not a new tab in an existing window, despite the tab bar being disabled, thus making it a pain to get your original url instance back again. * That new releases would be tested for compatibility with the Opera Classic skin, and fixed if not. I do not understand where the recent horrible black and grays color scheme fashion came from. Everbody subconsciously getting ready for megadeaths, perhaps? Feeling career envy of undertakers? Yearning for the Afterlife?