Related
Thanks to XDA-Developers forum member TalynOne, I was directed to the new Java MIDlet-based browser Teashark. It is also mentioned in THIS blog post too.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Availability
You can download the JAR file HERE. Just deploy it under either the Jeodek or Jbed MIDlet Manager. (Do NOT try to deploy it under TAO Intent because the browser is entirely incompatible with all TAO Intent versions!)
Please note that, if the words Jeodek, Jbed, TAO Intent and MIDlet Manager sound Chinese to you, don’t despair: just wait for my long-promised MIDlet Manager Bible, where I explain everything you’ll ever need to know about these programs. In the meantime, feel free to follow the links in the above-linked MIDlet Manager Bible announcement for forum posts and other remarks.
Compatibility, problems, bugs
As I just love Opera Mini 4 (OM4 for short; see review HERE), which I use almost exclusively for Web browsing, I’ve tested the new browser at once to see whether it’s, as mentioned in the above-linked blog post, indeed a decent alternative to Opera Mobile.
I’ve tested the browser with the three most common MIDlet managers out there: TAO Intent (both the 10 and the 11 series), Esmertec Jeodek and Esmertec Jbed. (Haven’t tested it with IBM J9.)
TAO Intent (tested on the HTC Wizard Pocket PC (TAO version 11.1.7.1029 default), the HTC Universal Pocket PC (11.1.7.1036 Risidoro) and the HTC s310 / Oxygen Smartphone (10.1.7.680 default)): absolutely useless. The menus aren’t accessible (neither the hardware nor the software, on-screen keys work) and there’s no way of even navigating on the page – neither the D-pad nor the on-screen / hardware 2/8 or up/down buttons work. Finally, as with the other MIDlet managers, the touch screen can’t be used on Pocket PC’s.
Esmertec Jbed (tested on the HTC Universal): a bit more usable. While it still doesn’t support any kind of touch screen operation, at least it allows for accessing the menu (via a hardware key only). It has the following pros / cons (under Jbed):
Pros
Upon entering an already-entered URL, it has an automatic address completion feature, unlike OM4b2
It displays both italic and bold characters, unlike OM4b2 (OM is totally unable to render italic text and, depending on the actual font size used, it may refuse to render bold too).
The in-page text search works just great (examples: 1 2 3) – I wish Opera Mini had the same feature!
Cons
The rendering of the text is VERY bad: wherever there is a style / color change, the text overlaps as can clearly be seen in THIS screenshot
Scrolling (in full page view mode) is FAR better thought-out in Opera Mini 4 - it takes far less D-pad presses to navigate to a link without annoying screen scrolls.
There is only one character size, unlike with OM4 – no font size setting capabilities as can be seen in this screenshot taken under Esmertec Jeodek on the s710. This is REALLY bad: Java MIDlets have access to, in general, three different font sizes by default.
The default mode is a no-one-column (that is, showing the original layout) mode. On VGA devices, this, in most cases (there are exceptions; for example, the page HERE is rendered almost unreadable because of the need for horizontal scrolling – for comparison, HERE is the same under Opera Mobile 4 beta 2 without using the one-column mode and with Extra large fonts (!) – see the difference? OM4 is WAY better in this respect too), isn’t a problem. In order to enable the default one-column mode, there’s a “page start with mini view” checkbox in Preferences, I couldn’t check it in under Esmertec Jeodek v20070115.1.1 on my s710 (while it worked under Esmertec Jbed v20070802.2.1).
Again, it doesn’t make use of the touch screen in ANY way – not even at selecting from the menus
History doesn’t work at all, unlike with OM4, where you can quickly switch between the visited (and still in-memory!) pages
Generally, it loads pages definitely slower than OM4, while it uses more bandwidth
It doesn’t let for scrolling through the links of the main (home) page: it only scrolls down to the third or fourth (depending on the actual screen orientation) and, then, start from the beginning. On other pages (including the “Visited” page list), there’re no similar problems. Note that this seems to be only a problem with Jbed; with the (older) Esmertec Jeodek (the one, v20070115.1.1, coming with the HTC s710 / Vox Smartphone), I could scroll through all the homepage items
It uses its own text entering method when entering the URL to navigate to or the search expression for text search. (Fortunately, this is NOT the case with in-page text fields/ areas like the Google textfield at the top, where the default one is used. That is, if you absolutely must use punctuations in the URL you need to enter, fire up Google so that you have access to the default, MIDlet manager-provided text input area; there, you’ll already be able to use all the punctuation marks – including the ones on hardware keyboards OR phone dialpads; for example, the one on the HTC s710 / Vox). This means the following:
if you have a built-in hardware keyboard to enter text you will only be able to enter alphanumeric characters but nothing else – not punctuation marks only accessible via a Symbol key (fortunately, the dot, “.”, isn’t one of them – at least on the Universal) or “/”! Think of it: you can’t even directly enter URL’s like www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs because of the inability to enter /! This GREATLY reduces the usability of the app, particularly if used together with Jbed (which, being run always in full-screen and, consequently, hiding the SIP icon) doesn’t allow for bringing up the SIP and entering special characters on it. Note that I don’t know if entering “special” characters (like /) works on a SIP as Teashark is completely useless with the TAO Intent Manager (one of the MIDlet managers to support bringing up the SIP any time).
On Smartphones, the dialpad works in the standard mode (without xB9; the # and * buttons, however, just can’t be used to enter anything else. That is, even if you keep # depressed, you won’t be presented a list of the usable punctuation marks (including for example /), only the # will be repeatedly included.
Still as far as Smartphones are concerned, it’s absolutely unable to make use of the slide-out keyboard of the HTC s710 / Vox.
Verdict
While this browser certainly has some advantages over Opera Mini 4 beta 2 (the in-page text search and the ability to render italic / bold being the most important), in general, this browser is, currently, in no way recommended for Windows Mobile users because of the really bad bugs. That is, just stay away from it.
I let you know as soon as a usable version is released.
UPDATE (09/14/2007 14:15 CET): I've also tested the browser under IBM J9 6.1.1 on a Dell Axim x51v. While, unlike with TAO Intent, you can move around with the D-pad (and click links), the softkeys don't work (not even with hardware buttons), which means you don't have access to the menus at all. That is, it's useless under IBM J9 too.
Hmm... will try. Is it for PPC Phone or SP?
Minimo v0.2, I find that it is very slow.
CWKJ said:
Hmm... will try. Is it for PPC Phone or SP?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both as it's a MIDlet.
CWKJ said:
Minimo v0.2, I find that it is very slow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it's VERY slow. Use for example OM4 b2 instead, if you absolutely must use a free browser.
Cross-posting this from a post I made on the Opera Mini forums, since this community is more likely to understand my issues with this browser...
There is something fishy with Teashark.
THINK ABOUT IT.
1) They appeared out of no where with a Java app.
2) There is NO linkable parent company on their site. Can't look up domain registration, can't find out ANY other information AT ALL about them and who they are.
3) They have absolutely NO way to relate back to the community. They have a "blog" run on a wordpress backend. That right there should throw up some red flags. Why would a "company" or WHATEVER they are that is developing a Java browser (with no ads in it mind you), use Wordpress as a blog backend? That just makes no sense to me
4) How exactly does this company make their money? Something tells me you don't want to know if you've been using their browser. They have no advertisements on their site or in the browser. They have to be making money somewhere, because they wouldn't have these proxy servers serving up loads of bandwidth for free. Where is their money coming from? A parent company? Who?
5) Their whole website is fishy. Aside from complete lack of information, why do all links on their site link you to port 8080 on their server? Why aren't they running over standard port 80? Something is odd about that alone.
6) The vendor tag in the app is labeled as "Vendor". Ummmm... what?
Their website traces back to: "IP 69.72.142.98 is from United States(US) in region North America"
That is about the only traceable information I can figure out.
It creeps me out that this mysterious company pops up out of no where and throws this "browser" app out there, with absolutely no effort to disseminate who they are. What is even creepier is that people have downloaded this app and are using it with ZERO knowledge of who this company is or who is behind them!
A review of the latest version has just been published: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3571856#post3571856
A lot has happened in the last month on the Web browser scene. Let’s go over the news!
1. Opera Mobile 8.65 Final released!
Since this March, there have been two beta versions of Opera Mobile, without doubt the BEST, fastest and most standards compliant Web browser for the Windows Mobile platform. Now, almost half a year after the release of the first Beta, the final version has, finally, been released, of which I was also a (closed) betatester, working closely together with the developers and decision makers of Opera.
Compared to the 8.65 betas, which I thoroughly elaborated on in the Web Browsing Bible (and, therefore, in here, I don’t elaborate on these new features – make sure you read my roundup above), there are only few changes. There, on the other hand, have been several bugfixes; for example, the really annoying DEFBROWSER bug I’ve, independent of some other people doing the same, discovered and reported HERE).
Design decisions
Single column layout removed. This is a design decision I don’t really agree with. Particularly if you have a VGA device, you MAY find the lack of the single column mode annoying, particularly with sites / pages that, otherwise, would work much better with a well-working One Column mode. An example: a Wikipedia article in PIE’s One Column mode on a VGA device in Landscape mode (Largest charsize, High Resolution enabled) (the same with Fit to screen – as can be seen, it’s pretty much useless) and the same in Opera Mobile (Minimum font size: 8; Zoom: 100%). As can clearly be seen, One Column modes will ALWAYS be able to present more information. You can, of course, use zoom facilities so that the horizontal screen estate is fully filled in but, then, the character size will also grow and, what is worse, the images will also become pixelizated. (Also see THIS thread for more info / discussion.)
Desktop view, which has been made the default (!) viewing mode, has been made much friendlier. Now, it’s using a bit smaller characters than before. Should you still find them too big, switch to the default (fit to screen) viewing mode because setting Menu / Tools / Settings / Minimum font size to even 8 doesn’t seem to do the trick. Thanks to the, most of the time, excellently working new wrapping functionality, makes it possible to live without having to scroll around. This is shown in the following (VGA Landscape) screenshot with the View menu shown:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Now, the cache is stored on the same drive as the executable program itself. While this is what many people have been asked for (particularly with devices only having 64 Mbytes of Flash ROM, meaning only 10-11 Mbytes of it available to the users – for example, the HTC Oxygen / s310 Smartphone is one of them –, you will definitely like this.
Note that, however, this approach might have negative consequences. As has been explained in my Web Browsing Bible, storing the browser cache on a slow-to-create-files-on storage card (most non-high-end cards are like this) may result in the slowdown of the page loading. If this is a concern to you (because you visit pages that contain a LOT of different images, which are all cached), make sure you manually (!) relocate the cache to somewhere else – or, for that matter, completely disable it in Menu / Tools / Settings / History / Cache Size as can be seen in HERE. To relocate it back to the main storage (or even a RAMdisk, if its being completely deleted each reset and the decrease of RAM memory isn’t a problem either because, for example, you use a 128M RAM model), just follow my previous Opera cache relocation tutorial.
Problems I’ve discovered and/or fixed in the meantime
On MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) phones, when you have really low RAM memory (you’re running out of it), problems may occur with keyboard shortcuts. Namely, no matter what hardware shortcut button you press, the same functionality (in general, Reload and / or Back) will be executed. This can lead to confusion – at first, it caused me a lot of headache too until I’ve understood how this all works.
All in all, if your hardware dialpad buttons don’t do what they’re supposed to do, you may want to shut down (some) other apps and / or Opera Mobile tabs. This will free up some RAM, which will result in the buttons working again.
There’s still no hardware application button support (you can only tie button shortcuts to dialpad / keyboard buttons), but now that I’ve published a FULL tutorial and explanation of all decent Windows Mobile button enhancers, including how you can configure your hardware buttons to simulate the pressing of numeric (dialpad) buttons, this isn’t that big an issue. Just make sure you read the Button Enhancer Bible and do what’s there.
There had been a problem with non-English operating systems because of the wired-in (English) directory names with the initial release. This, along with manually fixing it, has been fixed in the meantime; that is, current builds no longer have this problem.
Verdict
Opera Mobile is and, as it seems, definitely remaining the best browser for both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones. While there still are some glitches (the worst of them, the lack for hardware app buttons, having been fixed by me), these problems are nothing compared to the generic sluggishness and/or Web standards incompatibility with (most of) the other browsers. Make sure you get at least the trial version.
2. New (1.0.5) Picsel version released!
There is (see THIS) also a new version of the Picsel Web browser. To get it, download the CAB file here (mirror HERE). You only need to download the CAB file; you do NOT need to install the previous Picsel version first, no matter what is stated HERE
As opposed to some XDA-Dev folks, I haven’t found much improvement. For example, the CSS compliance is still very bad (the result of the Acid2 test is HERE; that of the CSS1 test is HERE). The Ajax compliance isn’t a tad better either (tested with THIS and THIS test suite).
All in all, there isn’t much improvement. You may still want to give it a try if you are a big fan of the GUI. I, myself, would still stick to either Opera Mini or Mobile. Don’t necessarily believe the hype
3. New Spb Pocket Plus
Spb Pocket Plus has always been one of the best Pocket PC (Windows Mobile Pro / Classic) system enhancers. The brand new, just released 4.0 version boasts, in addition to a lot of new functionalities, a, compared to the much less significant changes during the 2.x-3.x version jump, considerable
(screenshot showing the four tabs, all populated, and the drop-down list (now, only having one element) of the invisible tabs in the upper right corner. For comparison: a screenshot of the context menu of the old, 3.x-series version HERE, also showing there haven’t been any new buttons / any tabs in it.)
It has received the following niceties:
screen dragging mode; note that the autoscroll can be a bit of a pain in the back; it’s sometimes the best to disable it
tabs (with a pretty welcome context menu – very few other products have the same, as can also be seen in the “Tab context menu (if any)” row of the chart of the Web Browsing Bible)
adding the ability to switch off / on keyboard dragging in the context menu
a separate quick access button, next to the “Action” button of the address bar; note that “Search” here makes a quick Google search with the text you enter in the address field.
The settings screen has remained similarly simple – as you can see, there isn’t much to choose from. The same stands for Menu / Spb Pocket Plus, which didn’t change either as can be seen in HERE. As far as saving Web pages is concerned, you can still only save them as simple HTML files – no MHT or full HTML page saving is possible. Incidentally, as can also be seen in the last screenshot, the new SPP version has a system-level (not only available when saving pages, but from every app that would, otherwise, use the system-level, default, very dumb file dialog) file dialog box like that of Mad Programmer, whose FileDialogChanger I’ve often recommended. HERE’s a screenshot of the Setup program where you can en or disable it. (note that, as opposed to Mad Programmer’s FileDialogChanger, you can’t define exceptions – there’re no configuration capabilities of the new “File Open/Save Dialog”).
Compare this to the immense setting / menu options of PIEPlus or even MultiIE and you understand why I still recommend either of these for the serious Internet Explorer Mobile user, as opposed to Spb Pocket Plus. Not that SPP would be THAT bad any more.
It also has some bugs, but, knowing how great the Spb folks at bugfixing are, I’m pretty sure they’ll be fixed VERY soon:
clicking the cross in the upper right corner (to close the IE window) doesn’t work if there are more than one tabs open. You MUST manually bring up the Start menu and switch (in cases, re-run so that the execution is switched to it) to the program you want to. Of course, if you use a third-party task switcher (for example, the highly recommended Magic Button, PHM’s Alt-Tab or almost all the hardware app button enhancers reviewed HERE)
the smooth scrolling mode isn’t really doing what it’s supposed to: in Landscape mode, it’s, in general, scrolling more than it should or even scrolls multiple pages. Some people have also reported other problems with it; see for example THIS.
4. New version of jb5
In the MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible, I’ve elaborated on the brand new web browser jb5, which, back then, only had a Smartphone version. Late August, a brand new, 5.0.79 version has been released for both the Smartphone and, now, the WM5+ Pocket PC’s. While it’s still having problems and I still consider it much inferior to Opera Mobile / Mini, if you need the special features (for example, in-page text search, which, on the Windows Mobile platform, is only supported by the currently unavailable NetFront and the memory hog & on several handheld models super-slow Minimo) jb5 offers, you might want to check it out. I’ll let you know as soon as it receives a really useful and recommended version.
5. Web Viewer for WM5
There is a brand new multitab IEM plug-in, “Web Viewer for WM5”, HERE.
Unfortunately, this title still has a lot of problems and, consequently, I don’t recommend it. As with jb5, I’ll announce when a useful, bug-free version is released. I also recommend the comments HERE.
6. Other stuff
In some of my earlier articles, I’ve already elaborated on two not really recommended newcomers: TeaShark and UCWEB. IMHO, it’s, currently, pretty useless to bother about these browsers. I’ll let you know when a considerably better version is released.
Menneisyys said:
All in all, there isn’t much improvement. You may still want to give it a try if you are a big fan of the GUI. I, myself, would still stick to either Opera Mini or Mobile. Don’t necessarily believe the hype
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it doesn't have any of the cool updated stuff found at the following link?
http://www.picsel.com/flash/uploads/index.html
May not be the best web browser ever, but the pdf and Office viewing is superb. I mean really, was adobe kidding with that awful LE edition?
NS
NotShorty said:
So it doesn't have any of the cool updated stuff found at the following link?
http://www.picsel.com/flash/uploads/index.html
May not be the best web browser ever, but the pdf and Office viewing is superb. I mean really, was adobe kidding with that awful LE edition?
NS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've only compared the Web browsing fcuntionality.
When using Picsel on my phone and the rotate option, it rotates the browser window 90 counter-clockwise. Does anyone know how to change this to 90 clockwise? I ask because I use a P4000/Titan and it rotates the image away from the keyboard.
I've tried some of the registry entries, such as rotatedirection, but they didn't do anything.... or I put the wrong values
Opera Mini, particularly when used under a decent MIDlet manager, has always been one of the best choices for the Web browsing on any current handset. The new beta version of the forthcoming, 4-series Opera Mini, exactly two months after the last beta (see THIS) has just been released, and boasts a lot of goodies.
Getting it is done the same as before: navigate to HERE with either a mobile browser (or a WAP-capable desktop one, if you're ready to transfer the JAR file to your handset in a way explained in the MIDlet Bible), click the link in the middle of the page and it'll be automatically downloaded and deployed. After that, you can start it in the same way as other MIDlets (or, with Symbian, other programs).
1. Most important bugfixes: cookies, fonts
First and foremost, the cookie problems have all been fixed. These, in the previous, version 2 beta, caused a lot of problems under the, otherwise, excellent and most recommended Windows Mobile Esmertec Jbed MIDlet manager, along with a lot of non-Windows Mobile platforms. These problems are all gone – I’ve never encountered any cookie problem with any sites I use under the most common Windows Mobile MIDlet managers (IBM J9, TAO, Esmertec Jbed). The same (no cookie problems at all) stands for the Symbian-based Nokia N95, Nokia’s current “consumer” flagship model.
Second, some of the font problems have also been fixed. For example, beta2 was unable to render bold typeface with “extra large” characters and, in general, there was abolutely no support for different character sizes in, for example, headers. These problems have all been fixed. For example, as far as the bold + largest font size combination is concerned, see THIS screenshot (showing bold works with the largest chars). When it comes to different font sizes (headers etc), with my standard charsize test page, the tests resulted in excellent results (the following three screenshots have all been taken on a QVGA WM2003 HP iPAQ h2210 running the current (6.1.1) version of IBM J9; as can be seen, there’s no font smoothing with the smallest fonts under J9, just like Jblend, and unlike all the other KVM’s): 1 2 3.
Unfortunately, there’s still no italic support. I don’t know why the Opera Mini folks don’t implement the support for these.
2. High-quality picture support added
So far, it wasn’t possible to see the images inside a Web page in their original glory (unless you downloaded them, that is). Now, with the introduction of the “High” quality image mode, images will be fetched and presented at their original size and quality. This is certainly very good news. Some real-world examples of this and its consequences:
QVGA screenshot (IBM J9 6.1.1 running under WM2003) of a 640*480 pic in non-one column mode (original HERE)
VGA screenshot of a graphics-based chart I’ve posted to HERE: HQ (High Quality) mode; MQ mode and LQ mode. Pretty much different, eh? You’ll want to stick to the HQ mode when you really want to read for example image-based charts in my articles.
3. Opera Link support added
This is one of the best and most innovative new features in OM4b3. So far, even the desktop Opera (let alone the mobile versions!) has been pretty much neglected in this regard; now, this has changed. Please read THIS article for a generic overview of all these questions, along with most of the favorite synchronizer solutions released so far.
I’ve found this pretty intuitive and easy-to-use. You only click the “Synchronize Opera…” link on the startpage, fill in your Opera username / password (or, alternatively, quickly sign up for the service – it can be done right from the Opera Mini GUI!) and click / press Login (left softkey). After this, OM4 announces it has successfully synchronized your bookmarks as can be seen in the following screenshot:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Also, there’s a decent tutorial HERE explaining all these steps on both the desktop and Opera Mini.
Note that, as opposed to the desktop Opera browsers, it’s only links created in any (!) Opera Mini clients (they’ll show up under the “Opera Mini” folder in desktop browsers) that are loaded / synchronized in a way so that they become available locally, without Opera Mini’s having to connect to the central link service and do. Favorites under “More bookmarks” (favorites added in the desktop Opera will be behind this) will always be accessed online. If you find this too slow (I do), make sure you re-create the given links in the main folder of your Opera Mini. One of the easiest way is mass drag-and-dropping (with keeping Ctrl down if you don’t want to move, just copy them) the favorites in the desktop Opera (Bookmarks / Manage Bookmarks…) into the Opera Mini folder there. After a (forced) synchronization (Manage / Synchronize) , the changes will be seen in Opera Mini too and they will be available locally, not on the Web (and not in the “More bookmarks” folder, which, in addition to the lengthy download, also means a screen tap or navigating there).
I had no problems with my synchronization tests between my two desktop Opera browsers (you’ll need the latest, just-released 9.5 version of Opera for this!) and several Opera Mini clients running under both Windows Mobile (tested under several different MIDlet managers: Esmertec, TAO, IBM) and Symbian.
I’m absolutely sure you’ll LOVE this feature. And, of course, consider switching to Opera on the desktop too, in order to make the synchronization flawless and the easiest. Of course, you can access the online favorite repository with a non-Opera desktop browser too, but only in HTML mode, which also means mass-operations like quickly migrating a lot of favorites into Opera Mini (by just moving / copying them between folders) will be impossible. You’ll need a native, local client (that is, the desktop Opera and its Manage Bookmarks… dialog) to do this.
4. RSS Feeds
Feeds, which have also been added in this version, are pretty easy to control / use, albeit are a bit simple; for example, there’re no auto-download or notification capabilities. Its being integrated to the browser has a VERY nice consequence: whenever you’re on a Web page with an RSS feed, you will promptly be notified of RSS feeds being available. In addition, the RSS feed of these pages is pretty easy – again, thanks to the RSS feed integration to Opera Mini.
Subscribing to feeds is pretty simple in the new Opera Mini 4. When a page contains compatible feed(s), on the page, the type of the feed will be displayed. This is a link, which you can follow. Then, you’re shown the contents of the feed. Here, if you click “Subscribe” (again, a link the top of the page), it will be added to the pool of subscribed feeds. This screen can be easily accessed via the “Feeds” link on the start page (or, by presing * and, then, 0 - a new shortcut). As feeds need to be manually refreshed, you will need to click Refresh to see the changes . After it has downloaded the results, their number will be displayed (in parentheses).
Note that with pages having more than one (compatible) feed (for example, XDA-Developers), after clicking the “Feeds” link at the top, you’re shown the list of the feeds as can be seen in HERE. You can, then, select the one you’d like to see and maybe subscribe to.
5. Additional tips - Tables with inner tables
With tables containing inner tables like the one HERE and HERE - as opposed to charts without inner tables like the one HERE), OM4b3 will, at first, provide a map view without any horizontal scrolling. An example screenshot is HERE, as opposed to the way it renders tables without inner ones (see THIS for an example of the latter). With the latter type of tables, it’s not possible to zoom out to minimap view.
6. Some problems you need to be aware of
6.1 No “Fullscreen mode” shown in Options on Windows Mobile
Under all the major (Esmertec’s products, IBM J9, TAO; note that I do NOT recommend Aplix’ Jblend for Web browsing because of the very strict security model continuously prompting the users for authorization) Windows Mobile MIDlet managers, the “Fullscreen mode” is completely missing in the Settings menu (IBM J9 screenshot). This is visible on the Nokia N95 (screenshot HERE) – even using exactly the same high-quality version of OM. The latter means it’s in runtime that OM decides whether to display this checkbox or not. It seems upon realizing it’s running under Windows Mobile (as opposed to the Symbian case), it just hides the checkbox.
Note that this isn’t that big an issue. If you don’t have hardware numeric keys, Ctl + * and Ctl + * works in all the three on the SIP. With hardware keys, it’s even easier: for example, with the built-in keyboard of the Universal, a simple Fn + 8 will make it work. Also see the MIDlet Bible for more info on these questions.
6.2 Gmail problems on Windows Mobile
As is also reported HERE, under Windows Mobile, if you add the main Gmail homepage (NOT Inbox – that is, after logging in!) as a favorite, upon subsequent browsing attempts, the page won’t be shown as can be seen in this TAO Intent .1036 and this Jbed 2.2 screenshot.
Strangely, it does work under Symbian (tested on Nokia N95).
A quick and always-working hack is NOT putting the Gmail homepage directly in Favorites, but your Inbox (after you've logged in). Then, if you need to switch to another account, you can just sign out (link in the top right corner); then, the log-in (main) page will be displayed OK.
6.3 Still no non-Western fonts in smallest charsize
In order to keep the size of the JAR file down, the developers of Opera Mini have chosen NOT to include any non-Western character in their custom, (in most MIDlet manager) edge-smoothed Small font set. Only a rectangle will be displayed upon encountering characters like this. This is pretty much similar to how Thunderhawk, the famous (IMHO, Opera Mini is far more recommended), albeit, for long not updated Windows Mobile Web browser did: it also uses a custom fontset and it also refuses to render anything non-Western.
This means you MUST use at least the Medium font size on your handset (because it uses the native charset of the device and not that of Opera Mini), should you want to read pages using the non-Western alphabet. This is a problem on Symbian devices (tested on the Nokia N95) because of the HUGE charsize of even the “Medium” fonts. Just compare THIS (small) and THIS (medium) screenshots. The latter indeed uses HUGE fonts, and the additional smoothing (not available under Windows Mobile) doesn’t really help this.
Windows Mobile devices fare far better in this respect (example screenshot HERE of a QVGA MS Smartphone running OM4b3 under Jbed. BTW, as can also be seen, no “Full screen” checkbox is visible here, either.)
6.4 Other user-reported problems (I haven’t encountered them)
Some people reported (see THIS) Mobile view (fit-to-screen; renamed from “Fit to width”) doesn’t work as good as under the OM 3.x series. In my practice, I prefer reading pages in non-Mobile view (because, as with Nokia’s browser on S60 3rd devices, Opera Mini does a GREAT job of showing the actual text without the need for horizontal scrolling); therefore, I can’t really comment on this bug.
Opera Mini 4 beta sometimes uses wrong form in webpage
7. Recommended links
The MIDlet Bible (Cross-posts: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, XDA-Developers - 3, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PocketGaming.de)
Beta 2 review
MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible
Pocket PC Web Browsing Bible
It's a "must" for a feature phone...it's a "meh" for a WM PDA phone.
Croak said:
It's a "must" for a feature phone...it's a "meh" for a WM PDA phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, let's agree to differ
Pretty good
I've never thought much of it before but this is actually okay. It's good to see the whole web page. I think it loads some pages faster than IE.
I can drag scroll (sort-of). Text entry a bit of a pain with the menus etc.
Thanks for letting us know.
Just installed it on my 8525 (it told me I had a HTC 8500 and that it had no java...LOL!) and it works fine. I need to learn some details, but pretty cool in my limited playing with it.
JETninja said:
Just installed it on my 8525 (it told me I had a HTC 8500 and that it had no java...LOL!) and it works fine. I need to learn some details, but pretty cool in my limited playing with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO! Mine did the exact same thing. I just goot figure out some of the functions though, but so far so good.
clearly beats picsel browser and ie. actually, the automatic zoom and auto-align of the text make it much more comfortable to read long pages. and its about ten times faster than (at least my) ie and two than picsel.
also, i always hated the degenerated view of the content while scrolling in picsel. opera has managed that very well.
adjusting font boldness
I am using Opera Mini beta 3 with Esmertec on the Athena which has a large screen and the font is very thin and can be hard to read.
The settings allow font size but not thickness changes. Does anyone know if there is a way (via registry) to alter the font thickness? I know you can on Tao but have not figured out if you can for Esmertec.
Thanks,
apap said:
I am using Opera Mini beta 3 with Esmertec on the Athena which has a large screen and the font is very thin and can be hard to read.
The settings allow font size but not thickness changes. Does anyone know if there is a way (via registry) to alter the font thickness? I know you can on Tao but have not figured out if you can for Esmertec.
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To my knowledge, impossible, except for TAO.
However, as the largest fonts now also support Bold, you can safely use it without losing a lot of additional info (coming from the lack of Bold).
The new 4.1 beta of Opera Mini has just been released with TONS of new features. Get it at http://www.operamini.com/beta/ . Features include:
* Download and upload files directly in Opera Mini (wowz! UPLOAD!)
* Save pages for offline browsing (another WOWZ!)
* Autocompletion when entering addresses directly
* Find in page (WOOOOOOWZ!)
* Increased server speed during the last months
* Signed versions of Opera Mini (good news too)
Don't forget to download the latest, 3.1 version of Jbed (reviewed & linked to HERE at the bottom.)
(BTW, some of you have asked what I've been working on because I've been quite quiet. I'm
working on my Digital TV Bible, after having read dozens of related books and tons of online documents (I'll post a detailed review of them too)
I need to do some real work too
I'll make another W3C conference speech this month (on multiplatform mobile browsers) and need to update my related Windows Mobile / Symbian / BlackBerry stuff
All in all, I've been pretty busy
Opera Mini 4.1: FULL multiplatform tutorial & review
I don’t need to introduce Opera Mini for any serious mobile device user – it’s been one of the best browsers ever since the release of version 4.0 with all its goodies like favorite synchronization and full layout mode, the latter being excellent on (W)VGA Pocket PC’s and high-resolution Symbian devices like the Nokia E90. Note that I’ve written a review & full comparison to other browsers HERE – please DO read it if you don’t know what Opera Mini is or how it compares to other browsers, in which cases you might want to prefer it to native, fully-fledged browsers like Opera Mobile. Also, make sure you read my two Web Browsing Bibles, linked from the OM4 article, for additional info & comparisons. Finally, note that the linked article only discusses version 4.0; 4.1 is even better and more featureful.
The just-released 4.1 beta takes things even further and implements a lot of long asked-for functionalities. It’s REALLY worth upgrading; note that it can coexist with older versions (including 4.0) on the same handset. That is, if you, for some reason, find it useless, you can easily switch back to the older version without having to reinstall / reconfigure anything.
1.1 Availability; which version to go for?
Navigate to http://mini.opera.com/beta either with your phone’s WAP browser or, if you have Opera on your desktop, with it:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41DownloadPage.png
(mobile browser)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41DesktopOperaDL.png
(Opera on the desktop)
and select any of the upper three links. On the next screen,
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy1.png
just press the left softkey (Continue); then, unless you want to put it in a self-created category, just click OK while it’s on root:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy2.png
On the following dialog,
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy3.png
just press OK; do the same on the one that follows:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy4.png
The file will be compiled and you can start it right away by answering Yes on the final screen:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy6.png
After this, everything is done in the already-known way: accepting the license, pressing buttons for generating a pseudo-random sentence etc.
Note that the 4.1 beta page linked from operamini.com, http://www.operamini.com/beta/, doesn’t contain the signed versions, only the unsigned ones. Therefore, if you only have Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer on your desktop, make sure you download the file from inside your Web browser on your handheld. The only exception is BlackBerry, where there isn’t a separate version on the only-handheld or desktop Opera page; then, you can safely download the ZIP file from http://www.operamini.com/beta/ with any desktop browser and use the BB Desktop Manager to quickly install it on your BlackBerry.
If you have a Windows Mobile device with Jbed 3.1, any of the signed versions will do. Note that some people state you need to go for the all-certificate version; that’s not true with Jbed 3.1. Make sure you DO download a signed version and not the unsigned one so that you can easily (without any hacking) can get rid of the security prompts.
Note that, should you still not have Jbed 3.1, read the second section of THIS for more info & the download links.
1.2 What’s new?
1.2.1 Custom text input field
With the new URL input field, address autocompletion works just great:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41AddressAutocomplete.png
Note that
1, unlike with Opera Mobile 9.5 (and just like any other browser, including pre-9.5 versions of Opera Mobile), the titles of these pages aren’t displayed, only the URL’s
2, copy / paste doesn’t work. If you do need it (and you do have a compatible JVM – it’s only the non-recommended TAO that isn’t), you’ll need to switch to the regular, native JVM URL editor by pressing Delete (right softkey, shouldn’t you have a device with a built-in hardware back key like MS Smartphones) once and, then, go down to highlight "Insert Symbol":
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/om4insertsymblhighlight.png
Then, just press Action on it to get into the traditional URL input field, with the traditional menus.
3, textual input may be problematic on keyboards with combined numeric and alphabetical keys; for example, on the HTC Vox. In there, the numeric keys will always be considered as keypad numeric buttons; that is, they’ll input a for 1, d for button 2 etc. However, as they’re treated EXACTLY the same way as keypad buttons, you can still input any character or (with long-pressing) number with them. You’ll need to know the latter for numeric input with devices that have a separate numeric row (like the HTC Universal).
4, the Input Address field being new also results in the old system-level browser invocation script not working any more. To fix this,
either switch off the new direct input by just unticking the, by default, enabled "Direct address input" checkbox in Tools / Settings:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41disabledirinut.png
or, alternatively, go for a modification of the current script version available HERE. (Incidentally, note that, now, there’s a full C++ implementation of the invocation script HERE. It’s still not compatible with 4.1 unless you untick "Direct address input" as explained above.)
1.2.2 Signing
First in Opera Mini’s lifetime, it comes signed. What does this mean? When deployed under a capable, compatible JVM (for example, Jbed 3.1), it’ll, upon trying to access the Net / the local file system for saving pages / downloading / uploading files, it’ll prompt you for permission:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PermissPrompt1.png
(reading the file system)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PermissPrompt1W.png
(writing the file system)
In there, you’ll notice a (compared to the unsigned case) new "always, don’t ask again" menu item (I’ve highlighted it in the following screenshot):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PermissPrompt2.png
Make sure you do select this before pressing OK. This will make sure you won’t ever need to answer this question any more.
Upon trying to saving pages, it even prompts you to switch to the signed version, should you still have a non-signed one:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion.png
The link indeed takes you to a tutorial:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion2.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion3.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion4.png
(as can clearly be seen, there is not a single word on Windows Mobile. Note that the tutorial is also directly available HERE)
1.2.3 Page Saving
The new page saving feature allows for saving the current page, along with all its resources (images), to a file. The file is in the native (condensed HTML in textual mode + JPEG images) format of Opera Mini currently not readable by other applications. Should you still need some of the contents for copy/paste operations, you can still directly copy from the file with a text viewer. This also means this also allows for some kind of rudimentary copy/paste functionality if you use an external file viewer like that of Resco File Explorer. Then, based on the (latest) timestamp of the saved page (the saved pages have cryptic filenames; however, you can easily recognize them based both of their timestamp in the file system and their header, which contains the title of the page), you view it and look for the info you wanted to copy to clipboard (and, from there, to, say, Notes or Word Mobile). As you can see, it’s in no way so easy than, say, copying and straightforward than copying the full / the visible textual contents of the page into a text input field, where a user could already highlight anything and copy to the clipboard (unless she uses TAO Intent), though. Hope the Opera coders also implement this, otherwise, very simple-to-code feature.
Note that the page saving target dialog is only displayed once (upon the first page saving attempt) and is pretty much far away from being pretty and/or intuitional (and, of course, it has missing functionality present in, say, the standard OS file save dialog like creating subdirectories) but it still does the job. Just select the directory you’d like to save your pages to. Again, remember this can’t be changed later so select a directory with sufficiently large free storage.
First, you’ll need to select the storage type you’d like to save your pages to. In the following screenshot, I’ve selected Storage Card:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41SaveTarget1.png
After pressing Action, you’ll be shown the directories in there. You can select any of them (and, then, iteratively, any of its subdirectories etc.). Just press Select (left softkey) on the directory you’d like to save your stuff in. For example, in the following screenshot, I’ve stayed on Storage Card when pressing the key; this means it’ll store the pages in the root of the card:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41SaveTarget2.png
(note that, as the storage card roots can only have up to 128 files, this isn’t the best thing to do unless you’re absolutely sure you only want to save some pages.)
Finally, you’ll be prompted a "Page saved." message:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41SaveTarget3.png
Get rid of it with the Action button.
After this, all the saved pages will be listed in Tools / Saved Pages (and the latest three on the startpage):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41StartpageSavedPageList.png
A VGA screenshot with more than one saved page:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41ListOfSavedPages.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41ListOfSavedPagesVGA.png
1.2.4 Finding text in pages
Tools / Find in page implements something I’ve been asking for years: in-page text search. It not only iterates over all the occurrences of the searched-for word (see the "Next" left softkey), but also conveniently highlights all the occurrences. In the following screenshot, you can see the results of searching for the word "Opera" in the Opera Mini forums:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/41FindInPagesOpera.png
1.2.5 In-app file up/download
A lot of users have been asking the Opera folks for allowing for in-browser download and, even more importantly, upload.
1.2.5.1 Download
In-browser downloading, for Windows Mobile users, isn’t that important. It’s probably mostly MS Smartphone users that will find this useful because, as has also been explained in my MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible (see section 1.1.1 Fixing the binary file download problem), the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile only downloads certain types of files. For Symbian users with, say, a Nokia N95 with a pre-20 firmware version, it’s more so because Symbian often killed Opera Mini when loading up Nokia Web for handling the download. This isn’t an issue with the new firmware version any more, of course – neither is with N95 8GB, N95-3, N82 or the soon-to-come, new, DVB-H enabled N-series models.)
Note that, while file system access is supported in the latest and most recommended Jbed 3.1, this isn’t necessarily the case with other MIDlet Managers. Therefore, you’re strongly recommended to upgrade to Jbed 3.1.
The new in-Opera download looks like this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download1.png
If you select Save As, you’ll be presented the usual file selector; here, I instruct it to save the contents on the storage card:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download2.png
Then, the download will start:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download3.png
If, instead of Save As, you select Open:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download4.png
you’ll be taken to IE:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download5.png
which downloads the file:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download6.png
Unfortunately, if you go for in-process download, you can’t do anything else during downloading – as is the case with regular page loading. That is, you end up staring at the download screen. If you absolutely hate this and/or the download takes too much time (for example, during fetching a looooooong MP3), go for downloading within Internet Explorer Mobile and switching back to Opera Mini for browsing. You can safely do this: IEM will just download the file in the background without problems. (Unless, of course, you haven’t registered the file type with the system. Then, you’ll need to stick strictly with the built-in downloader of OM4.1.)
1.2.5.2 Upload
With Jukka "Yucca" Korpela’s excellent article & tester suite File input (or "upload") in HTML forms:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload2.png
Then, the usual Opera file handler will be shown (not that of the OS). Let’s upload some text file:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload3.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload4.png
and the results are as expected:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload5.png
(note that it the (later?) 4.0 series it is rendered as can be seen in HERE but, of course, the "Choose" file chooser couldn’t be activated)
In this regard, Opera Mini (along with the commercial (!) Opera Mobile and [the, currently, severely crippled Technical Preview] NetFront) is the only browser to support file upload on the MS Smartphone platform. Let me point out that the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile (still) doesn’t support upload.
2. What’s still missing / problematic?
Now, in addition to direct copy/paste of textual contents, I only miss navigating (switching back) to any already-downloaded page while loading a new one. You can only navigate on the current page while fetching a new page but can’t use, say, #5 to quickly bring up the list of currently open pages and quickly switch to another page. There isn’t a "download page in background" feature either, which would be able for allowing this. This can be a nuisance, particularly on inherently sloooooooooow platforms like the current crop of BlackBerries.
Also, on Pocket PC devices with a built-in keyboard could benefit from some similar keyboard layout than on BlackBerries. On the latter, you can use the (wide and easy-to-reach) Space button to scroll a page down. I wish you could do the same on Windows Mobile devices. (In there, you still must use the "8" button, which is pretty much out of reach in two-hand, "bedtime" operation.)
The problem of "flashing", non-displayed pictures, particularly with pages heavily loaded with them, is still present.
Finally, the lack of italic support is (still) a big pain in the back. I don’t understand why the Opera folks don’t implement this (must be related to the additional storage the custom, smallest character set would require with added italic support, I don’t know – if that’s the problem, at least non-smallest characters should have this support) – after all, ALL major KVM’s do support rendering text in italics. (See my related tests in my MIDlet Bible.)
3. BlackBerry
The BlackBerry version doesn’t support signed versions; that is, as has already been pointed out, you MUST go with the unsigned one. I haven’t encountered any problems with it; page saving / loading, the new address autocomplete etc. all worked just great. I haven’t encountered the common bug with all OM 4.0 versions: that is, the BlackBerry (at least my T-Mo branded 8800) completely locking up upon loading pages. However, this doesn’t mean these bugs have been fixed: I "only" played with the new version on my BB for two or three hours and the aforementioned bug only turns up, say, once a day or two days, assuming actively using OM for at least 2-3 hours a day.
4. Symbian
I’ve also (quickly) tested the new (unsigned) version on my Nokia N95 v20. I haven’t really run into problems so far; neither have my fellow N95 users in the Opera Mini forum. I’ll later report on whether Opera Mini 4.1 still exhibits the well-known, but, fortunately, pretty rare problem of completely locking up the handset, which, as with the BlackBerry, can only be fixed by removing and reinserting the battery.
UPDATE (later the same day):
1. MoDaCo frontpage
2. note that the above-recommended Jbed 3.1 is NOT compatible with WM5 (or with even older operating system versions), only WM6. If you're still on WM5, use the old, "Cloudyfa" 2.1 version instead; or look around at XDA-Devs, where, according to THIS post, the 20080222 version of 3.1 is WM5-compatible.
i don't like the fact that opera mini is java.. which requires to launch java first before launching opera...that only makes the browser startup slower.. i can get to a website much faster with PIE because it launches faster.. sure it has a bunch of cool features but i guess im the only one that dislikes the fact that it's java emulated..
i'll wait for the REAL mobile opera version.
wow this new version of opera mini is great. i love the url input method. file download works great too. works perfectly on the kaiser. in fact im writting from it right now. go opera!
one thing-- the shortcuts method cooked up in the midlet bible doesnt work anymore. ill look into this at a later date. could be as simple as removing the old opera mini.
tft said:
i don't like the fact that opera mini is java.. which requires to launch java first before launching opera...that only makes the browser startup slower.. i can get to a website much faster with PIE because it launches faster.. sure it has a bunch of cool features but i guess im the only one that dislikes the fact that it's java emulated..
i'll wait for the REAL mobile opera version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read my 4.0 review - there, I've elaborated on crating shortcuts to OM so that you can avoid having to start up Jbed first.
UPDATE (04/05/2008):
1. I’ve tested the above (in the previous update) mentioned Jbed Java 3.1 20080222 (available HERE; mirrored HERE for your convenience). It runs flawlessly under WM5 (not only WM6). It supports 3D (tested with Need for speed carbon and Night Fever; neither of them run under the non-3D-capable Cloudyfa 2.1), (as usual, excellent) sound. It can’t be directly installed onto a storage card, however. (As with some older versions, it’s possible it can be hacked there, though, with some manual file copying and registry / start menu link rewriting – I haven’t tested this.)
I’ve also thoroughly tested JBed_20071119.3.1_3dMod_HeapSizeFix_v2_wm6(lovetz1) linked from THIS MoDaCo thread. As a plus, it can be directly installed on a storage card, as opposed to the version above. It, however, doesn’t support sound at all. Otherwise, it seems it’s pretty much the same as the version above – except for WM5-compliance: I haven’t tested the WM5-compliant subversion. I’d stick with the 20080222 (the first) version unless you really need every single byte in your built-in storage.
Note that neither version was able to run the s60v3 (Nokia) version of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, the latest-and-greatest real-time strategy from EA Mobile – upon loading the mission (and displaying the progress bar), it just locks up. (Needless to say, it’s working flawlessly on the Nokia N95 v20). It seems no Jbed version is compatible with this excellent game.
2. XDA-Devs user JZ SmartMort has released a very promising title making Opera Mini the system-level browser much simpler and offering a LOT of additional functionality. See his thread HERE. Note that he also posted a somewhat shorter post HERE (in THIS thread, should you also want to read the possible, future discussion of his app).
I've installed 4.1 and it looks great, However, a few points are anoying me.
When I start Opera and I type a new adres, the foll msg apear
"Untrusted application Opera Mini 4.1 wants to send or receive information from.... This will use airtime. Do you allow net access?"
Then the options to choose are:
o Yes, but ask me next time
o Yes, but ask me next session
There is no option: o Yes, dont ask me again ??
When I recall a saved page, I get the next msg "Untrusted application Opera Mini 4.1 wants to read data located on this device or removabl emedia. Do you allow read user data?
The only options are Yes or No. In the security option of Opera, there are settings about reading data. But there are only 2 options
o Ask
o Never allow
Also here, I miss the option: o Dont ask me again !
The next thing is the text input field. I have a HTC tytn (virtual and real keyboard). When I switch the option 'direct addres input' tot ON, I can only type the input via the real keyboard and not via the virtual keyboard (its dissapears).
If I can fix those items, I would be very happy.
I have reinstalled the same file and now the first 2 points are working fine !!
Leaves me to solve the text input field and the virtual keyboard...
UPDATE (04/06/2008): I have some very good news for you all.
1. Several of my readers have asked (see for example THIS) whether it’s possible to change the page save directory in Opera Mini 4.1 after you’ve set it first. Contrary to the popular belief (you must reinstall it from scratch), it’s actually very easy to do this:
a. if you have originally selected a removable storage card as the target media, you only need to remove it before trying to save any page on it. Then, you’ll be prompted an error message and, on the next page saving attempt, you’ll be offered the chance of setting the new save directory. That is, if you’ve originally given Opera Mini a storage card, you can change the save path without any need for hexediting files.
b. if you have provided it with a movable / deletable directory in the built-in storage (or, for that matter, on the storage card), just move (cut / paste) the entire directory somewhere else on your device – or on your storage card. That is, if you’ve given \My Documents to it, just cut it with the built-in File Explorer and paste it to in any other subdirectory. (Of course, you’ll need to paste the directory back once you’re ready with the – failed – page saving attempt if it’s a directory used by other apps too – like \My Documents.)
3, if, for some reason, neither of the above-listed ways works, you’ll need to do some hexediting. To do this, search for the in the name of the directory in the \Windows\appdb\s?__d?.db files with, say, Total Commander (Alt-F7) on the desktop Windows and just change this occurrence to another directory with a hexeditor. An example showing changing \My Documents to \Storage Card with a hexeditor:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Again, it’ll be FAR easier to temporarily remove / move the directory than hexediting – only do the latter if you simply can’t (temporarily) delete the directory because you’ve given it, say, \Windows or some other, undeletable directory.
2. the native C++ version of the invocation script has been updated to be compliant with 4.1. In addition, badbob001 has updated his MortScript to be compatible with 4.1 and he is also doing automatic (!!!) descriptor parsing & discovery to automatically find the current position of the OM deployment (just like the JZ SmartMort's brand new script I've reported on above), which, so far, needed to be done (once) by hand. See his updated script HERE. Both advancements are discussed HERE, starting with page 10 (post #91).
Menneisyys said:
2. the native C++ version of the invocation script has been updated to be compliant with 4.1. In addition, badbob001 has updated his MortScript to be compatible with 4.1 and he is also doing automatic (!!!) descriptor parsing & discovery to automatically find the current position of the OM deployment (just like the JZ SmartMort's brand new script I've reported on above), which, so far, needed to be done (once) by hand. See his updated script HERE. Both advancements are discussed HERE, starting with page 10 (post #91).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure if I understand this correctly. Does this make mi device able to use the virtual keyboard, even if the direct adres input is selected or does it has nothing to do with it?
Quatz said:
I am not sure if I understand this correctly. Does this make mi device able to use the virtual keyboard, even if the direct adres input is selected or does it has nothing to do with it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean the SIP? You can always assign it to a HW button so that, upon a keypress, it's briught up. If this is what you meant.
Read my Button Bible for more info.
Menneisyys said:
You mean the SIP? You can always assign it to a HW button so that, upon a keypress, it's briught up. If this is what you meant.
Read my Button Bible for more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, dont know the term SIP!
Where to find this Bible?
Quatz said:
Sorry, dont know the term SIP!
Where to find this Bible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A SIP is a software (on-screen) keyboard. SIP stands for 'Soft Input Panel'.
The Button Bible.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=337602
(Google search: "xda dev button bible".)
Thanks, this helps a lot.
I have installed HBsettup and indeed, now I can toggle the SIP on and off when i use Direct Address input.
I am very happy now with Opera Mini !!
having issues with setting up the shortcut to start OM
I have as follows:
"\windows\jbed.exe" -run s1_
OM is the only midlet installed.
also there are NO .jar files in the /windows/appDB/ folder
thanks
EDIT:
did a quick reset and everthings working excellent
Hey thanks for the share. Its really good, I am waiting for the stable version.
Apart from the intense marketing campaign of the moderator posting this thread, can someone give a brief comparison between this Opera Mini and the other Opera ("Opera Mobile"?) that runs on WM5/WM6? I don't get why I would want to run a java, stripped down browser when I can run Opera Mobile. Is it that Mini is intended for phones that can't run the full version, or should Mini be considered as a replacement for the other Operas that run on PDA phones (touchscreen phone/PDAs that run WM5/6).
Ideally an impartial perspective that isn't 5 posts long would be great
While there are very-very few new releases for Windows Mobile (almost all of the games and a lot of app/utility developers seem to have jumped ship and went straight for the iPhone), Web browsers seem to continuously receive love from app developers. At MWC (where I was also present), there have been even two major, new releases (the new Opera Mobile and BOLT).
I didn’t bother with looking up the links for my reviews of the previous Web browser versions listed. You may still want to take a look on them – just look around HERE.
Let’s start with Opera.
Opera has (lately) come out with new versions of their two browsers with largely the same interface (at least on touchscreen platforms; the non-touchscreen Opera Mini is vastly different; note that, with the new Opera Mobile beta, the touchscreen-less MS Smartphone aka Windows Mobile Standard has also received official support):
Opera Mobile 10 beta 3
It, now, also officially supports Flash Lite (up to now, this was only available through manual hacking and using unofficial versions), with an additional twist: it only shows them when they’re really needed; that is, a Flash-heavy web page won’t bring your phone to its knees. (See THIS for more info - linked from HERE)
Should you need an XDA-Devs one-tap installer with Flash Lite built-in (and a lot of other goodies like automatic rotation on some newer HTC phones with built-in accelerometers), download version 1.1 HERE (linked from HERE; official thread HERE). I’ve tested it (as with the official Opera Mobile 10b3) and found it excellent. If you need prompt support for Flash Lite, go for this distribution in the first place. Nevertheless, don’t forget that Flash Lite has pretty bad performance on everything not having an 1 GHz Snapdragon – don’t bother with, say, watching YouTube videos on a WinMo phone / PDA with a, say, 624 MHz XScale CPU. Use the alternatives – there are quite a lot – I’ve explained in my YouTube bible. Nevertheless, it can still be of great help with Flash sites otherwise not compatible with any other players (see my Flash Lite compatibility list HERE).
Opera Mini 5 beta2
The new, beta 2 version of Opera Mini 5 was released on 12/02/2009; see THIS for more info. It already supports a lot of goodies and is much-much better than the pretty much useless beta1.
There is a one-step all-in-one download package HERE, which, in addition to beta2, also has Jbed 20090216.5.1 bundled. Just start the CAB; it’ll set everything up – it’s an absolutely hassle-free install great for newbies. (On phoneless PDA’s, you will, of course, need the “dumb” Phone / SMS DLL’s for it to work.) After installing, a new Opera Mini icon will be displayed in Programs, along with the Java icon. The former can be used to even more quickly start the browser.
Note that, despite the bundled Jbed version is meant for QVGA devices (that is, it doesn’t have the necessary Registry hacks to make character sizes larger) works – with the largest chars – just great on large-screen WinMo VGA phones too. Now, on my test HP 214 VGA WinMo PDA, it’s working flawlessly (except for the still-lacking italic characters), unlike the first, barely-working beta of version 5. Even Opera Link is supported and working great. It also has a large on-screen keyboard taking up more than the bottom half of the screen, even in landscape mode, and pretty well usable with fingers on larger-screen devices.
Copying text from web pages also works great. Should you want to paste your text into an external program (e.g., Notes), do the following:
- Tap-and-hold the screen anywhere
- Select “Select Text” from the pop-up menu
- Select the text (with the stylus / your finger) you’d like to copy to the clipboard; when you finish selecting (raise the stylus / your finger from the screen), a context menu will appear. Select “Search With” from it.
- Tap-and-hold the text input field until the context menu is displayed; from it, select Fullscreen Edit.
- In the Fullscreen Edit (that is, the native text input / edit area of Jbed) mode, make sure the cursor is at the very end of the text (by default, it will be). Now, activate both Ctl and Shift on the on-screen keyboard (tap them once to change color) and, with the stylus, tap the beginning of the text. It’ll then be highlighted; now, on the on-screen keyboard, deactivate Shift and just tap C (while Ctl is still active) to copy the currently (!) selected text to the system clipboard. With this, it’ll become available for other apps, not only Opera Mini. (Note that Ctl + A, to select all text, doesn’t work; neither does the standard, stylus-based, standard text selection.)
You may ask why so many steps are needed. The answer is simple: we needed to switch to the full screen mode (native) editor because the in-app text copy didn’t make the text available for external apps, only Opera Mini itself. It was only by re-copying it from the full screen mode (native) editor that we could make it available for all the other, external apps.
Note that this method only works with MIDlet managers that do support copy/paste in their native text editor. Not all of them do (for example, the outdated TAO Intent couldn’t), as can also be seen in the “Text input: cut/paste?” row of THIS chart.
SkyFire 1.5
SkyFire has just come out with the new version of their excellent Web browser, SkyFire. (Press release HERE). The new version, among other things, supports high-resolution, that is, (W)VGA devices in that the text /images are no longer “blocky” or “pixelizated”, az opposed to previous versions.
I’ve thoroughly tested it on my HP iPAQ 210 and found it excellent. Even YouTube streaming went on acceptably over a 128 kbps DSL connection way-way away (in Finland). Now, I can only recommend the new version – if the lack of tabs isn’t a problem with you, you may like the new version very much. Of course, in my opinion, it isn’t better than, say, iCab Mobile (the best Web browser on the mobile Apple platforms) on an iPhone 3G S, despite what some pundits state.
NetFront 4.0 Concept Version
While Access no longer plans to offer their NetFront web browser to the general public (NetFront, officially, can only be purchased bundled with a phone), I have still tested the “concept” version (available for download HERE) of the latest, 4.0 version.
It, now, has six tabs, which is way more usable than the two of the previous concept (trial) versions. The Browser Settings has really been redesigned (most of the previous settings seem to have been completely removed). It also has a new “PC View” mode, which may be something similar to the “Desktop view” mode of Internet Explorer Mobile.
Unfortunately, unlike with the two Opera’s (both Mini and Mobile) or SkyFire, its usage is still very awkward with finger-only usage – it uses standard menus to, for example, switch to full screen mode. I’ve also continuously run into memory outage problems with large forum pages (say, with 500 posts) – NetFront has always used more memory to render Web pages than even Opera Mobile, let alone the even more memory-conscious Opera Mini.
Therefore, particularly given that the previous tree browsers are way better, quicker etc., I don’t recommend NetFront 4 at all – its days are simply over (as opposed to the “good old” PPC2k2 days, when it was the only alternative browser, along with Thunderhawk), it seems.
Bolt 1.70
This now-excellent Java-based browser has received a lot of goodies lately:
- Support for Russian has just been implemented; however, there’s no support for other non-Western languages (for example, Middle/Far-East or East-European) languages at all
- Widget support
- Copy/paste support. To make use of this, tap-and-hold the screen (or select Menu / Page Tools / Select Text) and select the text. (Note that you don’t need to make sure all of the text is inside the selection box – you can just draw a vertical line, it’ll still select all the surrounding text.) After finishing highlighting the text block, select Menu / Search (NOT Copy!). From then, do exactly the same as in the case of Opera Mini (Ctl + Shift – highlight; Ctl-C: copy to the system clipboard).
I’ve tested it, just like Opera Mini, on my HP iPAQ 210 running Jbed 20090216.5.1.
You can download Bolt from HERE.
This browser is also highly recommended – particularly if you don’t need multiple tabs (which it, unfortunately, still doesn’t support) and/or non-Western / Russian languages (Opera Mini is compatible with every language as long as you don’t use its “smallest”, custom and Western-only character set) and/or you absolutely need italic support, which Opera Mini isn’t capable of.
Firefox (Fennec) 1.0 alpha 3
I’ve also tested the latest (released in Sept 2009) alpha 3 of the official Firefox port, Fennec - which has nothing to do with the now-abandoned Minimo project. The browser is available HERE.
I’ve found the browser far from usable. In my tests done on the HP iPAQ 210, the browser always crashed (requiring a reset) after loading a page. The other, reviewed browsers didn’t exhibit this problem. Moreover, it was considerably slower than the other browsers. In a word, I in no way recommend this browser – for the time being, just stay away, there are waaaaay better browsers out there, some of them even for free. (Note that there may be different opinions on the usability of this version; see for example THIS).
netfront 4.o sucks......
i cannot even download a thing from it...
like 3.5 instead
Thanks Menneisyys!
Nice to see you around
Good old Web-Viewer v1.2.3 (30 March 2009)
Web Viewer for WM5/6
http://www.anbsoftware.co.uk/viewproduct.php?id=11
[C/P from the above webpage]
This program has been developed to give Windows Mobile users the facility to have a very useful and functional tabbed web browser. Other tabbed mobile web browsers are either bulky, slow, or not free. This program is entirely free to use and uses Pocket Internet Explorer to display the web pages.
v1.2 Features
Screenshots;
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
* Option to save open tabs when closing
* Rotate screen
* Clear cache and cookies buttons
* Clear cache and cookies on exit options
* Increased 'F' (file menu) size for easier access
* Web page receives focus on selecting associated tab
* Added cut, copy, and paste to address bar
* Option to hide tab when only viewing one page
* Option to turn off acquiring title of page (speeds up page loading time)
* Save options on exit: full screen, view tabs, screen rotation, etc
* Multiple language support using an editable language file. Now supports Unicode.
Features
* Tabbed Browser
* Standard Navigation Buttons (Back, Forward, Refresh, Stop)
* Open links in new tab
* Duplicate tab
* View Source (customise external viewer/editor)
* Remember closed tabs
* Remember typed URLs
* Full Screen mode
* Hide Tabs Option (to increase viewing area)
* Various Tab Options (Close, Close Others, Reload All)
Notes
This software is NOT supported on Windows Mobile for SmartPhone.
This program has been developed using Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0.7045.0, which is required to run it. Only this version will work as there are numerous bugs in previous versions, as well as this one, but this is the one that is most stable and enables the functionality to open new tabs.
Favourites are managed by Pocket Internet Explorer.
There is a known issue when navigating, the back/forward buttons do not function correctly (device dependant). For example, when you click on a link for the first time you should be allowed to "go back". However, due to bugs in Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0 and the device this may not register correctly that you can "go back". However, there is a workaround, which is to go to another tab and then return. This then registers correctly. Alternatively, you can use the context menu to select 'Back'.
:END
I set Web-Viewer to \Windows\Favorites\
and use iexplore.exe to handle new favorites.
Have fun with this stable (103.5 Kb) superfast tabbed browser,
Senax
Great stuff Menneisyys. Opera all the way for me.
orb3000 said:
Thanks Menneisyys!
Nice to see you around
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've been very-very busy lately...
any info about UCWEB? it's a good browser too and come in windows mobile native so no need jbed anymore
Personally, I am happy with Opera 10.0 mobile... Like it a lot!
Scott
What about XScope browser...? The first thing that comes to mind when I use it is "Firefox mobile better be damn good or else."
This browser is one of the fastest out there for Android currently (some say it actually IS the fastest). It has tabbed browsing, ability to mod theme, a new way to zoom (dbl tap and move finger) and much much much more... Oh yeah it actually has FULL screen browsing. It hides the notification bar unless you enable it and hides the address bar unless you need it too.
If no one has used it I'd write a review with a few screenshots to post in here.
Let me know.
Enndr said:
What about XScope browser...? The first thing that comes to mind when I use it is "Firefox mobile better be damn good or else."
This browser is one of the fastest out there for Android currently (some say it actually IS the fastest). It has tabbed browsing, ability to mod theme, a new way to zoom (dbl tap and move finger) and much much much more... Oh yeah it actually has FULL screen browsing. It hides the notification bar unless you enable it and hides the address bar unless you need it too.
If no one has used it I'd write a review with a few screenshots to post in here.
Let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it have a native WinMo version? I coulnd't find any track of it...
Right now its for Android only. I don't think this guy has plans to cross it over to other mobile operating systems but who knows.
Like it a lot!
good resource.
General
Hi everybody, I am a new member just joined the community
to share my knowledge with others.
opera is the best guys
General
Hi everybody, I am a new member just joined the community to share my knowledge with others. This is the best place to share our opinions. Good resource.
-annasmith
--------------------------------
Browser
Thanks to Menneisyys about the info, I'really lika opera and firefox by asianbraindotcom
:laugh: ucweb maybe:good:
---------- Post added at 08:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:44 AM ----------
Novice
learn :fingers-crossed::fingers-crossed:
opera is the no. 1 in my opinion
Personally, I am happy with Opera 10.0 mobile... Like it a lot!