Take a look here:
info: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=127518
Dload: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/
New features in this build
- tabs
- support for http upload
- keyboard shortcuts:
tab (next form element)
space (scroll down one page)
Have fun
MaX
A review:
Even the first beta version of Opera was a real relevation for the Pocket PC community. Much as it had several bugs (particularly on pre-Windows Mobile 5 devices), it has quickly become the browser of choice for many Pocket PC users (including me), at least on Windows Mobile 5.
The new version is, speed-wise, clearly the best browser I've ever seen for the Pocket PC. It's much-much faster than the alternatives. You'll certainly love it!
The good
* The WM2003(SE) version seems to be working great: I haven't encountered the infamous Opera-is-stalled bug under pre-WM5 operating system any more. I've tested the new version of Opera with all the test pages (the search facility at http://www.europe.com/en/ - screenshot here; RedHotPawn) that make the previous version stall at once. No problems encountered so far.
This may be related to the fact that now Opera senses some Web servers' not answering – see this and this message.
A iPAQ 2210 screenshot can be seen here and here (the latter taken at 25% zoom level so that the entire chessboard is visible) – as can be seen, as opposed to b1, I could log in and play on my iPAQ 2210 as well.
* It feels much faster than beta1, which is a feat in itself because beta 1 was already much faster than any alternative browser.
* There's tab support! (See the screenshots provided for examples.)
* The bug related to not being able to display loooooong pages is fixed. It worked great with all the pages I've thrown it at; an example screenshot of Tero Lehto's blog is here.
* Much as the new version is still using custom (non-native) GUI components, one of the biggest problems, that is, the text areas hiding the last characters in each row behind the scrollbar, is fixed as can be seen in here.
* The "You have XX days left of your trial period" dialog is no longer displayed at startup.
(There must be tons of other bugfixes, as far as previous beta1 bugs are concerned; these were the ones I've explicitly tested and compared to beta1.)
The bad
* After scrolling a page with any amount (or going to a new page), you will not be able to directly tap-and-hold a link to bring up the context menu (so that you can open the link in a new tab) without the need for at least partially highlight it (or the text that contains it). Fortunately, this is a minor annoyance and you'll quickly learn how to highlight (part) the link without clicking it.
* The new version is still using custom GUI components, which makes it impossible to use any kind of common Windows keyboard shortcuts. This is a mayor annoyance to anybody using an external keyboard to enter a lot of texts and wanting to use the traditional Windows shortcuts to quickly navigate through / highlight / copy/cut/paste text in the text input components.
* On some Pocket PC's (for example, the Pocket Loox 720) the new version still uses non-proportional Courier New fonts in the address bar / in the tab titles. This is a minor annoyance, though.
* Unfortunately, the settings dialogs (screenshot 1 and 2) are as simple as in beta1. The latter, however, now has a new checkbox, " Set Opera as default browser", which makes it unnecessary to manually import a registry file (please see the articles in the Recommended links section for the registry import file I've created for beta1 to revert the default browser assignments) in order to revert back to using Pocket Internet Explorer (if you make Opera the default Web browser on your Pocket PC).
Nevertheless, the lack of detailed settings dialogs are not a problem – with manually editing (or, downloading my sample configuration files) the main configuration files of Opera, you can fine-tune it (scrollbar visibility, proxy usage, scroll behaviour etc).
* Under WM2003, Menu/Display/Landscape still doesn't rotate the viewport. Again, this would be pretty easy to implement because Opera, unlike for example the Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) plug-ins or almost all ( uBook and Mobipocket Reader being the most important exceptions) e-book readers, doesn't need to rely on the Portrait-only, underlying PIE engine. This is a minor problem though and "only" affecting WM2003 users – screen rotation works great in post-WM2003 operating systems.
* Still no advanced context menus (copy link, save image), no in-page searching etc. These are, however, only minor annoyances, which don't have a negative effect on the browsing experience itself.
* Still no " One Column" view mode like that of PIE starting with WM2003SE or the PIE plug-in PIEPlus (see this review on the latest version of latter, including a detailed comparison of the "one column" modes offered by PIE and PIEPlus). This would be very useful to maximize the usage of the available screen estate on many pages; for example, the XDA-Dev forums (example screenshot of Opera 8.5b2 rendering the latter here – as can be seen, the useful contents of the page only occupies about 65-70% of the available horizontal screen estate. With a real "One Column" mode, it'd be close to 100%).
* Still no support for system-level favourites. This would also be really easy to implement as there's nothing particular about the .url files in \Windows\Favorites – they're really-really easy to process. (I'd say a hour's work for an average C++ programmer.)
Verdict
I can only use superlatives when speaking of this application. Despite its (still) missing functionalities, its speed and compatibility is just phenomenal.
Recommended links
The following articles/tips all discuss/are all related to the previous, beta 1 version. Note that some of their contents is now that they are fixed are outdated. They may still be worth checking out - particularly the ones on manually editing the Opera configuration files. You'll find a lot of information in these articles never published by anyone else.
ESSENTIAL (NEW, UNIQUE BUGFIXES!!!) to know about the great Web browser, Opera beta! - I haven't run into the same problem with the new Opera version – yet. This doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist any more – therefore, if the address bar auto-completion crashes your Pocket PC with beta2 too, make sure you read this article.
Modify the default scrolling behaviour of Pocket PC Web browsers. Note that even the beta 2 of Opera uses jump-by-link by default (on all operating systems, not just WM5), as far as its D-pad navigation is concerned; you will most probably want to override this and switch to the 'scroll a page at a time' behaviour. Note that the new scroll a page feature (invokable via the Space key) only works on devices with a built-in keyboard; for example, on the HTC Wizard (screenshot of Opera running on my HTC Wizard here).
Opera 8.5 beta on WM5 - it is certainly different from the WM2003(SE) version and is working GREAT!
WM5 compliance report: the bandwidth reduction service OnSpeed works pretty good; additional Toonel information – this article will be useful for everyone that wants to configure his or her Opera to access the Web sites through a HTTP proxy.
Pocket PC version of Famous Web Browser, Opera 8.5 beta Officially Released!
link is broken. Could you upload it. Thanks
Do you mean this one? http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/
It's working OK with me.
From a Skyfire Employee at the Skyfire Forums
I am happy to announce that we have just released Skyfire 0.8 Beta.
We have been working hard on this release over the last few months, and we are happy that we were able to integrate many of your suggestions into this release.
This forum has been a amazing resource for us at Skyfire, and we are grateful for the effort that has been put into this forum by all members.
You can easily get the newest release by logging into your account at http://www.skyfire.com/users/login from your desktop. You will be able to download (SOON - making sure that the download link works first) the newest release via your PC or send yourself an SMS.
Thanks for all the support and the enthusiasm that you have brought to this product. We hope that you will enjoy this release.
Additionally I would like to introduce 'omahadave' (he is actually Dave from Omaha), who will be our new ears and eyes to help you in this forum. Feel free to say hello - you will see in the forum from today onwards.
Thanks, your Skyfire team.
(Robert Oberhofer, Product Management)
----- official release notes start here ----------
Skyfire 0.8 Beta Release Notes
Released: September 24, 2008
Skyfire is a new experience that brings the full internet to your mobile. Watch videos on YouTube or Hulu, connect with your friends on Myspace or Facebook, shop on Amazon or listen to music. Can you do it on your computer at home? Then you can do it on Skyfire on the go.
Skyfire is fast, easy to use and available for free on many smart phone models.
Skyfire 0.8 Beta is a new beta release of Skyfire for Windows Mobile (version 5 or 6). This release has been enhanced with both requests from our active community and new additions that we think will make Skyfire a better experience.
We greatly appreciate our beta community. Their support, active participation and feedback on the forums at http://support.skyfire.com/ helps us to constantly improve the product.
What’s new in Skyfire 0.8 Beta:
Skyfire 0.8 Beta has been under development for the past 4 months, integrating more than 1000 fixes and enhancements. The major focus of this release was to enhance usability, make the experience smoother, increase responsiveness, and improve audio and video quality.
* Contextual Zoom: Let’s you simply and quickly get to exactly where you want to be on the page. Skyfire’s zooming capability has been improved, and now the camera corners feature shows you a match with major screen elements within its view.
* Super Bar: Use our handy new SuperBar to perform a search or enter a URL from a single field – it’s a great time and space saver that is easily accessible.
* Content sharing: You can now share web content by SMS. We even make the URL short enough that it will fit easily into a SMS text message. Especially useful for the really long URL’s used by many sites. You can now also share Skyfire itself with friends by SMS or email.
* Faster application launch: Skyfire launches much more quickly so you to get your content quicker.
* Video and audio: We’ve improved the quality of both video and audio, so you can enjoy a smoother playback experience.
* Reconnect - Skyfire will automatically reconnect, so you don’t need to restart when your wireless connection is dropped.
* Default browser: Now you can set Skyfire as your default browser. Clicking Web links in SMS or Email messages will automatically start Skyfire.
* Enhanced text entry allows you to more easily complete web forms right within a page. First you can enter the text right on the page. Plus you automatically move to the next form element (text field, list, radio button, or checkbox) after you have made a form entry using the ‘OK’ or ‘Enter’ keys.
* Content download: Allows you to download images and other content from most web pages.
* Home screen integration: Allows you to add a Skyfire search and URL bar to your Windows Mobile Today screen, so you can enter what you are looking for right away without first starting Skyfire.
* Mobile site support: If a website also has a mobile version, Skyfire can optionally hint to you about the availability of a mobile alternative. With the new mobile site indicator, you’ll get a quick link to access the mobile version – then you can decide if you want the mobile or full website.
* Bookmarks have been significantly enhanced – giving you much better control.
* Additionally we enhanced the start page: have the top news items accessible immediately via a headline widget.
Downloading and Installing:
To be able to use Skyfire, you first need to sign up for a Skyfire account at http://www.skyfire.com/register. Additionally you need a supported phone, e.g. Windows Mobile 5 or 6 (for Skyfire Beta 0.8) or Symbian (S60 3’rd Edition, for Skyfire Beta 0.6). Please note: We currently only the US is supported.
If you are already registered then simply log into your existing account at http://www.skyfire.com/users/login and download the installation file, or request a SMS to be sent to your phone. Download the file and start the installer. There is no need to uninstall Skyfire first – simply overwrite the existing installation during the process. No worry: your cookies and bookmarks will be preserved.
If you are new to Skyfire and you need to register, provide at your Name, Email and Phone number on http://www.skyfire.com/register. You will be sent an Email and SMS with a URL to complete your registration. Follow this URL (on your phone or PC Browser), and complete the registration. Once registered, you can immediately download the correct installation file for your device. If you downloaded the installation file on your PC you must first transfer it to your phone. Start the installer on your phone and follow the instructions. Once you start Skyfire you will be prompted for your Email address and the password you provided during registration. This will be just once, and you will not have to enter it again (remember the password though to log into your account!)
Known Issues:
* Installation: When the client receives an upgrade notification after resuming from the background it might not successfully resume (Issue 2923). Please exit Skyfire and start again.
* Uninstall: Skyfire uninstall might not be successful or complete when Skyfire is active at the time of uninstall (Issue 1861). Please exit Skyfire first before uninstall.
* When leaving the phone idle for more than 5 minutes Skyfire will display the start page (Issue 2892)
* Downloading files with long filenames might truncate file extensions (Issue 2726)
* Myspace.com: Have to zoom in to 100% to be able to click the log-in button (Issue 2115)
* Mobile site hinting and support: some ‘mobile’ sites are rendering similar to a full web page (e.g. zoom and horizontal scroll). Often this is due to the web page not reporting itself as being mobile. We are looking for a solution.
* Playing video for a long time (> 5 min) might disconnect Skyfire (Issue 2827).
* Non standard SIP’s (Soft Input Panel, e.g. on-screen keyboard) might interfere with Skyfire operation and showing artifacts
* Very long web pages might get cut off at the bottom (Issue 2800)
* Back and Menu soft-key buttons might disappear from screen (Issue 2793). Please use the right soft-key, it usually will bring the on-screen keys back onto the screen.
* In some cases the page might scroll to a different location when entering text into a text entry field (Issue 2678, 2729)
* When Skyfire is in the background the toolbar may become visible on Windows Home screen when switching programs in windows, or locking the phone. (Issue 2732)
* Skyfire URL bar becomes unresponsive when device was in standby mode. (Issue 2892)
* Links to media files (MP3’s etc) currently only play back, and do not initiate download.
* Scrolling through very long list boxes has slow behavior (Issue 1202)
Not supported:
* VGA phones not supported yet (e.g. HTC Touch Diamond etc).
* DivX and XviD Video formats are not supported.
* Quicktime movies which require playback external of browser not supported (Quicktime clips embedded in page are supported).
* FTP browsing and access is not supported (e.g. URL’s with ftp:// )
* Anchors (In-page links) not supported
YOU MUST BE A BETA TESTER TO BE ABLE TO USE THIS SOFTWARE
currently there has been issues with loggin in with this new version...it has been mentioned and will be fixed soon
*yawn*
I'm not an impatient soul by nature but this experience has been one long frustration. It's been months since I registered, haven't heard one peep out of these people since the SMS message I received. Tried accessing their website today and many pages are just missing, and the titlebar says "Welcome to Skyfire!, Error"
Tried logging in to "my account" and was helpfully told that my email address had not been verified yet (!) - basically a polite way of saying "screw you."
I was really looking forward to trying this browser, and although I totally understand the idea of limited public beta testing, being in the software test field myself, the almost complete unresponsiveness of this group to "unverified" users is awfully irritating.
Meanwhile, Opera 9.5 is already a fantastic browser, and I just can't imagine what features Skyfire is going to have that is going to make me overlook my feelings of being ignored and forgotten by a company I wanted badly to support.
It's been a long time since a company has put me off quite this badly. Even MS communicates with the users once in awhile. I don't yet really hope this effort fails, but at this point it could hardly be said it deserves to succeed.
AJ
Finally INTERNATIONAL users can use this app???
Don't Like The Idea Of The Sms .. Login.... What Is Gold?
I Prefer Opera
I installed the new version and when i open Skyfire it ONLY shows the top Unibar, Back, and Menu. Nothing else, just a gray screen. I did manage to get the home page to come up once, but that was it. It's wierd. it thinks a page is loaded cause it will let me double tap and then if i get lucky and click on a link(i assume it's a link that i can't see) it will attempt to load the page...
Have already rebooted. Will try a reinstall...
joshrys said:
I installed the new version and when i open Skyfire it ONLY shows the top Unibar, Back, and Menu. Nothing else, just a gray screen. I did manage to get the home page to come up once, but that was it. It's wierd. it thinks a page is loaded cause it will let me double tap and then if i get lucky and click on a link(i assume it's a link that i can't see) it will attempt to load the page...
Have already rebooted. Will try a reinstall...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that they are having some issues with the authentication process, so be patient. You got further than I did though
opera is still more of a desktp browser. the text input for skyfire and loading speeds are still faster, but navigating the pages inskyfire is no where near as smooth as opera. good improvements.. but the major features skyfire were lacking are still missing:
still get the checkerboard when scrolling through a page
smartfit is not very smart.. columns are used in thumbnail view which doesn't really make sense
when you press up and down on dpad while typing text entry, it closes out of the box.. so how do you see wat you were typing before?
overall this versin is better.. but opera is still winning... especially since now it is supporting flash
good stuff though hope to see navigation improved!
htctoucher
Disregard post.
htctoucher said:
opera is still more of a desktp browser. the text input for skyfire and loading speeds are still faster, but navigating the pages inskyfire is no where near as smooth as opera. good improvements.. but the major features skyfire were lacking are still missing:
still get the checkerboard when scrolling through a page
smartfit is not very smart.. columns are used in thumbnail view which doesn't really make sense
when you press up and down on dpad while typing text entry, it closes out of the box.. so how do you see wat you were typing before?
overall this versin is better.. but opera is still winning... especially since now it is supporting flash
good stuff though hope to see navigation improved!
htctoucher
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn so you downloaded the .80 version?
I downloaded and installed .80 with no problem. I could log into the web site and download.
However, when my Skyfire tries to connect on the handheld it tells me that the username/password are not correct.
I don't get it.
balane said:
I downloaded and installed .80 with no problem. I could log into the web site and download.
However, when my Skyfire tries to connect on the handheld it tells me that the username/password are not correct.
I don't get it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its a server side error, they are working on it as we speak
new users that sign up should have no issues
mike21pr said:
its a server side error, they are working on it as we speak
new users that sign up should have no issues
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see. Thank you.
Please upload the cab.
IRREAL said:
Please upload the cab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It won't work outside of the US.
i cant login!
M2D users?
A newbie question...
Can anyone tell me how to make M2D internet widget run SkyFire rather than Opera?
The new 0.8 release is da*n quick, presents all websites great, and I like it more than Opera, however I don't want to lose the widget and put SkyFire in the launch area only...
Thanks
BigE
Can't login
Hi all,
What I want is to have the same Gmail interface than the iphone, and not the poor m.gmail.com interface ....
Opera does not do that, and Iris Browser not anymore (it worked but now it does not work anymore).
I live in France so Skyfire is not for me fr the moment....
How should I do then ?
Thanks for replies.
Regards
zlebandit said:
Hi all,
What I want is to have the same Gmail interface than the iphone, and not the poor m.gmail.com interface ....
Opera does not do that, and Iris Browser not anymore (it worked but now it does not work anymore).
I live in France so Skyfire is not for me fr the moment....
How should I do then ?
Thanks for replies.
Regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
look for GC's Java pack, it has a gmail java applet that i would bet is what you are looking for.
Pocket Wiki is an application used to take notes and link pages together. One of the goals I had was to make this easy to type information on my AT&T Tilt keyboard, and not have to use the stylus to link pages and add mark-up. The result was a new syntax that I created that uses "/" to indicate a markup tag.
I use it to create pages for my clients, and then each client page has linked pages to project, contact, documents pages.
A long term goal is to support other wiki syntax via a plug-in. There is another wiki project at Basic4PPC that is more robust that uses a different wiki syntax, but it supports my "/" syntax as well (I was a contributor to that project) Possible future wiki syntax would be one that Dokuwiki or picoWiki uses.
This software may/may not be useful to anyone else, but since I have gained so much from using xda-developers from everyone else I wanted to give something back.
Features
- Open source written in Basic4PPC (code posted in forums)
- Markup uses "/" tags, stylus not necessary, quick to type
- Themes
- PC and Windows Mobile versions (same code)
User Guide
The wiki has a wiki page with help on the "/" slash syntax. It also allows you to use pure HTML mark-up.
Latest version is 1.0, code maintained at http://pocketwiki.codeplex.com
Hi Everyone -
One of the best things about the Android platform is the wide availability of QR Coding applications - such as zxing and ixmat.
We've released a Firefox plugin (at http://tandot.co.uk/scandot ) which embeds QR codes on the page are you're browsing, as well as embedding them in pages that are printed out. We think we've closed the QR loop with this - you can scan the page you're browsing on your phone and take that page elsewhere much easier than by messing around with email, retyping, bookmarking.
Would be interested to hear from anyone using it!
Regards
Dave / TANDOT
One function that Mobile Barcoder can perform that SCANDOT can't is to create a QR of a link from the right click context menu. That can be pretty handy to create a QR of a download link. Also it seems a bit buggy as well. Sometimes I click the generator button and no QR pops up. Another little cosmetic flaw is if you change the QR size and then close and reopen the dialog, it remembers the size but forgets the slider position.
On the plus side, occasionally Mobile Barcoder will trip up on a URL and not generate a QR. I haven't seen SCANDOT do this yet.
Thanks for the links, very useful!