14 DAY TRIAL // Mac users and fans of Opera Software's feature-packed web browser should know there's a new update on the horizon, which delivers tons of fixes and improvements to the Alpha version. Just three Mac-specific changes are mentioned in the release notes for Opera 10.0 Alpha Build 6466, the latest version of the software currently available.
One Windows-specific fix revealed by the changelog is related to a problem that would prevent the previous Opera instance to be registered for uninstallation on the Windows side, along with skinning improvements, stability tweaks, improvements to the mail and chat clients, and fixes in Opera Link for all versions of the software (Mac, Linux, Windows). On the Mac side only, Opera Software has included fixes for showing print preview, the possibility to insert non-images using Insert > Image, and sub-menu items replacing menu items in the Opera menu.
The Opera Mail client has been tweaked quite a bit as well. Opera Software's developers have fixed threading of reopened drafts, improved error handling to avoid duplicate mails, and added more relevant context menu when using the context menu button in compose windows. Other Opera Alpha 10.0 changes include:
Stability
· Mail: Crash fix for opening sent message that didn't have body. · Spelling checker: Crash fix for dictionaries that seem installed, but do not get picked up by the spellcheck module for some reason. · Spelling checker: Fixed crash if the dictionary is downloaded, but the check sum is not correct. · Fixes based on automated crash reporting.
Skinning improvements
· Made the splitter dividers separately skinable with the sections [Splitter Horizontal Divider Skin] and [Splitter Vertical Divider Skin]. Remember their height/width is always 3px. · Text-shadow ability in the skin.
Opera Link
· Link queue not sent when exiting Opera.
NOTE: Opera 10.0 Alpha is an alpha version of Opera: it contains the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes and data-loss situations. It is advised to use this build only on properly backed-up computers. Users should not install this Alpha version over previous Opera versions. Additionally, this release uses a database format for Opera Mail (and feeds) incompatible with Kestrel. One will not be able to downgrade to a previous version of Opera and use Opera Mail after upgrading to Opera 10.0.