Database Users

Opera & the back button

Is there a way to make the back button work in Opera the same way that it works in EVERY other place on the OS?
It bugs me that I can't simply switch from Opera to the last tab I had open. If I'm listening to music, for example, I might have Opera open in the background. If I then use the quickmenu to switch to Opera I have to use the home button to go to the home page, and then scroll back to the music tab. I just want to press back. It works for every other app.
Is there a way to "switch it off" in opera?

You could install the new Opera Mobile 10 beta, that doesn't yet use the Back button as back in the browser

fredskis said:
You could install the new Opera Mobile 10 beta, that doesn't yet use the Back button as back in the browser
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Yeah, thanks for that, but pinch-to-zoom doesn't work in Opera 10. If you enable it with zooomer (or registry hacking) then it just does the system style zoom, which is just ugly compared to something that's actually developed to use pinch-to-zoom.
I did try Opera 10, and really liked it, but it felt like a step backwards at the same time, so it's gone and won't be back (unless it gets an upgrade to include zooming, as per the earlier version.)

Yeah, the zooming is problematic. I'm trying not to let it deter me, it seems much speedier and has some nice features otherwise

That behaviour is hardcoded I believe.
A slightly faster way than what you're curently doing though is to either disable full screen/tap the menu button each time, and then just hit the X in the top corner. That still works as expected.

2 Browser Questions (option setting or root tweak?)

First of all, I love my phone and I love the stock Android browser.
With that said, I see two ways the browser could be slightly improved.
I often find myself managing multiple tabs in the browser (4-6 at any given time). I find that when I go to my open tabs (Menu > Windows), it's very hard to tell which one is the active tab. I think they're listed in the order in which they're opened, but that doesn't help me when I constantly jump back and forth between them. There's no indication which tab is active, and the fact that the font is so large and you have a truncated URL and page title makes it difficult to tell what's what.
Is there an option or tweak that allows the active tab to be bolded/colored differently, font size to be reduced, display to be thumbnailed rather than listed, or to arrange the tabs in a different way (ie; last viewed on top rather than first viewed)?
My second question has to do with locking the orientation of the browser to either portrait or landscape. This would be useful if I'm laying in bed on my side reading webpages. I'd want the orientation to "stick" to portrait so that I'm reading like normal rather than have the browser switch to landscape and have to angle my phone so that the accelerometer switches back and stays on portrait.
Is there an option or tweak to force the browser to "stick" to either portrait or landscape mode for a given period of time?

Browser > More > Settings and check Landscape-only display.
Not sure about the other question though.

Dougefresh91 said:
Browser > More > Settings and check Landscape-only display.
Not sure about the other question though.
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Hmm, what I actually need it to do is lock into portrait mode, not landscape.

You should check out Dolphin Browser HD. Tabbed browsing, orirntation settings, add ons, tons more. Just search for it in the market.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Here is a screenshot if how it looks. The tabs at the top can be scrolled to the left or right if you have a few.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

HTC did a much better job at tweaking the browser in Android than Samsung. (myTouch slide is my other phone).

southpaw773 said:
HTC did a much better job at tweaking the browser in Android than Samsung. (myTouch slide is my other phone).
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I agree to an extent, feels choppy when you choose a window on the slide though, and you're stuck with 3 tabs Max on it, I actually like HTC sense more than espresso.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Solution: An app called "AutoRotate Switch."
Works flawlessly! Tapping the icon toggles between locked and unlocked orientations. Amazing.
I read about it here: http://lifehacker.com/5621959/autorotate-switch-toggles-screen-rotation-on-your-android-phone

Still in search of a solution to problem #1 which was:
Is there an option or tweak that allows the active browser tab to be bolded/colored differently, font size in tab overview page to be reduced, display of thumbnail overview page to be thumbnailed rather than listed, or to arrange the tabs in a different way (ie; last viewed on top rather than first viewed)?

Opera Mobile

Opera Mobile 10.1 for Android was released on the Market today.
Works on the Tab and seems pretty good so far - however on my Tab it won't start in portrait mode. If you have the same problem, switch to landscape and you'll be fine. Once it's loaded, you can switch back to portrait.
Regards,
Dave

Oh, I didn't try landscape mode ! Thanks for the tip (off to re-install the app now...)
EDIT: it worked. However I find the font spacing/kerning excessive, the blurry text transitions whilst zooming are highly distracting, and the small text size + lack of adaptive layout rendering (column width auto resizing) means that I am promptly uninstalling Opera now (on the plus side, it loads pages pretty quick...albeit without any Flash capabilities as far as I can tell). Dolphin HD and xScope remains my favorite web browsers, by a long way.

Yep, no flash, few settings, no text wrapping, dodgy Java rendering... a dissapointing beta.

crashed on startup

It just crashes on startup here.

Have you tried switching to landscape before starting Opera as I said in my original post?
Regards,
Dave

Another Tip:
Type "opera:config" in the address bar to access advanced settings for this browser.
I'm currently working on increasing the display cache as it scrolling around shows too many squares...
I want to see if I can reduce that...

Does honeycomb no longer resize text?

Example. On an android phone navigating to a site ( for example wikipedia) when you zoom in text either automatically reformats to fit the screen, or you can double tap and it will happen.
On honeycomb I can't get this to work. I'm currently reading a long article on the web and zooming in ends up with an ios like result where text dies nit reflow.
Any idea how to get this back?

I just realized clicking *single column rendering* brings this back. I'll see if there's a downside.
Getting really annoyed at necessary features being buried in debug.

Use Opera Mobile and it will do it without even needing to double tap.
But yes, it seems that is not like before, because dolphin, miren browsers etc. don't do it.

I would. But the quick controls have me glued to default browser :-(.

Where are the Zoom button images located? And Naked Browser Talk

Hey all, I like using the phone one handed and zoom buttons are essential. I also like being able to zoom with just a tap, as opposed to more convoluted methods (xScope/Naked Browser, I'm looking at you...). But the stock Android zoom buttons are ugly and less functional than the ones I had way back when on 2.2 (Bionix for the Samsung Vibrant).
Could anyone tell me where in could find the images for the Zoom buttons? I'd like to replace them with the ones from an older ROM, mentioned above. Think it would be somewhere in the SystemUI.apk?
If anyone is curious, the buttons I would prefer are transparent circles with a black outline. They're a good bit easier to press and you can see elements that would otherwise be obscured.

I'm the developer of Naked Browser. Naked Browser has the option to enable/disable the zoom buttons. It also has the option to enable/disable one-finger zoom. It also allows zoom with just a double-tap. Am I missing something?

aminaked said:
I'm the developer of Naked Browser. Naked Browser has the option to enable/disable the zoom buttons. It also has the option to enable/disable one-finger zoom. It also allows zoom with just a double-tap. Am I missing something?
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Oh snap. No, it's just that one-finger drag zoom has poor performance (just isn't as smooth as it is on xScope). But I love your browser. It's why I mentioned it specifically. My niggle isn't to do specifically with Naked Browser or any other app, it's a system conflict. I think the stock zoom buttons are ugly and I want to swap them out with the zoom buttons I used on a different browser. It's easier to tap a round circle than it is to hit a little tic-tac. Also, the zoom buttons sometimes obscure elements in the bottom right and I have to wait until they fade out, so the transparent zoom circle buttons I mentioned in the first post would solve both of these issues. Rather than having you bloat up your fantastically minimal app, I'd prefer to do my own tinkering and fix the zoom buttons across my system.
I just wanted to say, your browser is fantastic. I found out about it just randomly perusing the big Android Themes and Apps forum and gave it a try. It's my default browser now. While I have your attention, if I could make a suggestion: you know how you have the swipe-from-edge toggle so the menu bars don't appear with unexpected frequency? It works great for making sure the bookmarks bar only opens with deliberate swipes. However, if you could provide a separate toggle for the address and tab bar, that'd be great. I never had a problem with the top bars appearing unintentionally. It's not much of a nuisance. However, in one-handed use, I have to reposition the phone in my hand and then swipe from the top to bring down that bar. On a big phone like the Nexus 4, you can understand how that extra little bit of effort adds up over a long browsing session.

Very cool. Thank you very much.
Let me address what you brought up:
One finger zoom in Naked Browser isn't as smooth as it is on xScope because:
- xScope is for newer devices. Naked Browser supports Froyo and newer and so far I've found that that kind of zooming isn't easy on older devices. That's really not much of an excuse because I could work on it. However, it could take days to figure out. I'm focusing on other features and bug fixes right now. Furthermore,
- I haven't used xScope in a long time but one finger zoom seems to work good enough in Naked Browser (no?). For comparison, it seems to work like crap in Google Maps, last I checked.
Regarding changing the zoom button pix, I use a smaller screen than you so I don't like the +/- buttons in a browser. I pinch zoom and I do it with one hand: small phone / big hands. Regardless, I'm adding your request to my list of items for the pro version.
Regarding adding the separate option for the menu gestures, I added those options (double swipe & swipe from edge) as afterthoughts. I feel that an experienced user of Naked Browser should turn both of these off because they've developed a feel for the menus, knowing instinctively how to avoid opening the bookmarks sidebar and top menu. For me it took about a week to get comfortable with it. Now, I think it is very efficient.
That being said, I may have messed up the gesture settings for larger screens as I don't have a tablet. What do you think about all this? Is it very hard to avoid opening the bookmarks menu? Tell me more about it, please.
Anyway, I hope you have luck changing the +/- on your devices and I do appreciate your feedback on Naked Browser. You're one of the few people I've seen mention stuff like this. Got my attention!
This is hijacking your thread for my app, so if you want to PM me or join me in the xda naked browser thread the feel free.
Thanks again, man. :good:

Hey, you've got a great app and I certainly don't mind helping it get more exposure. I know it's not a priority for you right now, but if it gets really popular, I'm sure you'll add a ton of lightweight features. That's how xScope became the best browser on Gingerbread!
On my Nexus 4, I've found that the bookmarks menu shows up by accident much more often than the URL/tab bar, and it's much more obtrusive when it does. It'd be nice to disable the bookmarks bar. I actually use the bookmarks menu a ton, so perhaps a better option would be to incorporate the menu button menu with the the bookmarks menu.
Also, I'm not sure if my options are causing it or its an inherent behavior, but it's inconvenient to have to scroll all the way to the top to bring up the URL/tab bar. I really wouldn't mind if it appeared every time I made any downward swipe. Maybe to accommodate other users, make the top half or quarter of the screen a zone that can pull up the URL/tab bar when the user swipes down from that region.
I basically want the navigation features of xScope but with the minimal, clean appearance of Naked Browser. I stopped using xScope because it's so bloated and unstable now. Naked Browser is 90% perfect for me. The 10% is just the menu behavior and tab navigation. xScope, for example, uses double tap and left/right to navigate between adjacent tabs while double tap and up/down to zoom. But if this decreases performance as it did on xScope, I'm happy with Naked Browser the way it is.

Maybe I need to optimize the swipe sensitivity for devices like the Nexus 4. I need to check one out, but for now the next update will reduce sensitivity somewhat. Regarding the separate gesture options, I had thought about adding them but I was resistant because I don't want to clutter the options view. However, I think it is the right thing to have and you've convinced me of how sorely it is needed. The next update will have them! I've tried it out and I like it.
If you press the device menu key it should show the top menu from anywhere on the page. Devices without a menu key should have 3 dots in a row that act as the menu key. Making it appear for every downward swipe is an interesting idea. I think that this would be more suited for larger screens though. I will make a note of this idea. There already is an option to start gestures from the screen edge for both URL bar and sidebar.
I haven't used xScope in years and it doesn't run on any of my devices. I think that if you give Naked Browser some time (about a week) you'll start to become accustomed to the menus. If you can get past the frustrating phase I think that you may find that the menus are very efficient. Of course, if the gesture sensitivity is wrong for your device then that's a different story. I really need to check this out.
Double-tap and swipe to change tabs shouldn't cause much of a performance problem (although I'd have to try it out to know for sure). I was going to allow customizations of this sort of thing in the pro version. For example, double tap and swipe to go quickly to the very top or bottom of the web page. The volume buttons could be used in the same way.
Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it!

I figured out where the zoom buttons are. They're in framework-res.apk/res/drawable-xhdpi.