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Date Written: 11/10/06 Last Updated: 2/3/13

I like Opera because I can customize it so much.  Sometimes I forget how I did some of the more complicated tweaks, so this page is designed to explain how to duplicate what has been done, so that I don't repeat mistakes and waste time.

Discover Opera  An easy to use educational tool that teaches some of the tricks that Opera can do.  There was another tutorial, but this is much better.  Opera also has a youtube page.

Synchronize Opera

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Custum Buttons and Toggle menu bar.  File ––> Toggle menu bar.

Generate a custom button  This link will generate a custom button.  It requires a little practice and is limited by your creativity.  I used it to create a button that would toggle the scrollbars.  I created another that would enter into full screen with the address bar still there.  I would combine all three, but there is a bug or regression with the latest version of Opera where the scrollbars can't be added to other commands.  I also have the toolbars narrowed down to one bar for maximum screen size viewability and usability.

Delete Typed in Addresses This will give you a button that will only delete typed in addresses.

Find in Page Highlight every occurrence of a word.  Right click menu bar ––> customize ––> buttons tab ––> search ––> find in page.  Then drag it onto the menu bar.

Button Maker and forum post To alter and add keyboard shortcuts go to menu ––> settings  ––> preferences ––> advanced ––> shortcuts ––> edit (the one for the keyboard) then double click on what you want to change.  I have it set up on my computer so that F11 will leave the address bar on the screen when entering full screen mode.  I use this in the command line "Leave fullscreen | Enter fullscreen & View address bar, 2"  The 2 is the location of the bar on you browser.  For example 2 is on the top and 3 is on the right.  Play around with it to see what you like.

Stop reloading page when going to the previous page: opera:config set it to 3.

Power Buttons For fun I use a button that allows me to destroy and remove elements from a page.  You can always get them back by refreshing the page.  It is known as a power button because it allows you to alter the contents of a web page.  Others are listed there as well.

On the power buttons page is a button for a modified wand like the one that Opera has except that this one lets you see what the password is that you stored in memory.  The one that Opera has enters in the password when you click the wand icon and sends you to the next page which means that you never get to see the password once you save it to opera.  Now you can see it again

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Show panel toggle at edge of screen Appearance ––> panel ––> click "show panel toggle at edge of screen"

Disable Image Resize To disable the image resize option insert the following at the end of your image.css file:

To find your image css file go to opera:config and type image.css to find the location of the file.  Close Opera, open the file and make your changes.  Save the file and then open Opera and the image resize feature will be disabled.  This will allow you to resize images using ctrl + mouse wheel.

Migrate Opera Settings When doing a clean installation of Opera, that is, installing Opera without any cache or saved passwords or previous edits or skins or other changes (often done to get rid of unfixable or extensive bugs), you may want to transfer your old wands or favorites or bookmarks.  This  will explain how to do that.

Disable Opera Tooltips Settings ––> Preferences ––> Advanced ––> Toolbars ––> uncheck "Double–click text to display context menu"

Show Dropdown Button In Address field

Completely Remove Opera This is useful if you want to perform a clean install and want only one copy of Opera on your computer.

opera:config  The Opera config allows you to customize how Opera operates.  It determines such things as destination folder, how cache operates, fonts used, and hundreds more.  To learn more about the details of the settings go here.

display full url parameter To display the full url parameter go here opera:config#UserPrefs|ShowFullURL

NOTE: I notice that for me the skins were stored in C:\Program Files\Opera\skin  Copying the various files over to the new version of Opera didn't quite work if Opera was running.

Keyboard Shortcuts 1 and Keyboard Shortcuts 2 Opera has a lot of keyboard shortcuts.  These pages can be nice for general reading and you may learn some fun new tricks.

Hesido  I have a special javascript code to enhance the alt tags.  Actually I have them turned off on Opera and use an enhanced version.  I didn't like how they were displayed so I use another better looking one from  It seems kinda buggy though.

Opera Changelogs When working with beta versions and looking at newer versions it is fun and useful to look at the change logs to see what changes have been made from one release of Opera to the next.  You can look at them.

Twitter

Opera History A more abridged version of the changelogs listing only the significant changes.

Older Versions of Opera Here you can download older versions of Opera that you may have liked better.

Latest Opera build To try out the latest beta test version of Opera go here.

You can file a bug report here bugs.  or visit the beta testing forum.

Demonstration of Various Browser Bugs

Opera forums  Good for discussing anything about Opera like tweaking or crashes or compatibility with other websites or things like that.

Having Trouble? Often troubles with Opera come about due to too much customization.

Scroll Marker I am not a big fan of the horizontal dotted (dashed) line that pops up when you scroll up or down.  The purpose of it is to make reading easier when you scroll up or down.

Opera Cache Viewer  This is a nice program that lets you browse through Opera's cache.  The benefits of this is that you can sort and save selected images and files into your image folder.  You can save cached pages for working offline.  This can be handy when the internet connection is very slow and you just want to review some information that was already accessed online.  You can also view the cache at opera:cache.

Other options include deleting selected files and with other programs from the site you can download, save, and view flash videos from youtube or whatnot.

Bookmarklets  This feature allows you to create something called bookmarklets.  When you create a book mark you can edit it and insert javascript in place of the address thus creating something similar to addons.  This one will allow you to pull all of the images off of a page for viewing.

Favicons To show or hide favicons go to menu Settings ––> preferences ––> advanced ––> browsing ––> Page icons

Alter Scrollbar Color
1.) close Opera desktop browser.
2.) Go to C:\Program Files\Opera\skin\
3.) Copy the zipped skin that you want to modify.
4.) paste in another location.
5.) Unzip it.
6.) open skin.ini with notepad.
7.) find

and replace with

8.) Change the name in line 4 to something distinctive.  This is around line 4 of the file located just under [Info]
9.) save and close file.
10.) highlight all of the files in the folder containing the skin.ini file and zip them with 7zip.
11.) place the file in C:\Documents and Settings\MyName\Application Data\Opera\Opera\skin\ folder.
12.) Open Opera and select your new skin and you will see a darker background for your vertical scrollbar.

Disable mouse gestures Go to opera:config and uncheck Enable Gesture.

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ctrl + alt + z  ––  opens the last closed page

crtl + w  ––  closes a page

mouse:

hold right click then click left to go back a page.

hold left click then click right to go forward a page.

hold the right mouse button and then move the mouse wheel to scroll through the tabs thus eliminating the need for tabs.

type a g and a space in the address bar and then type in your search term(s) to do an instant Google search.  Terms separated by a space will also do a Google search by default.

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performance test 1
performance test 2
canvas
Take the Canvas test
canvas test results Opera currently stands at 635/788 passes or 81%.
Acid Tests

Canvas test results:

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There is no disk in drive D.  Please insert a disk into drive D.  Restart your computer and everything should be fine.

TAGS: opera, browser, tweaks