Nov 23, 2010 08:03 GMT  ·  By

The first fully-fledged Beta development milestone of Opera 11 is here, and Build 1111 brings to the table an innovative new feature that takes tab management to an entirely new level.

I don’t often say this, but Opera 11 Beta is a must try, just to test the new Tab Stacking feature of the browser, while bearing in mind that the Build is pre-release software not meant for deployment into production environments.

Tab Stacking in Opera 11 is bound to be a Godsend for users that have a massive number of tabs opened at any given time, such as myself.

Innovation in terms of tabbed browsing is somewhat to be expected from Opera Software since the Norway-based browser vendor was the first to introduce this feature 15 years ago, back in 1995.

Tab stacking is about offering additional flexibility when it comes down to Tab management. Essentially, users are now able to build Tab sets by stacking tabs on top of one another.

The new feature works seamlessly, is extremely intuitive, and dare I say it, it’s superior to the solution that Mozilla presented to Tab management in Firefox 4.0, namely Tab Sets, previously Tab Candy.

“We introduced tabs in Opera 1.0 back in 1995 and we've continued to add new revolutionary things ever since. Visual tabs was just another step leading up to tab stacking. To try Tab stacking, simply install the beta and drag one tab over another. Release with your mouse. This will create your very own tab stack,” revealed Opera Software’s Aleksander Aas.

Customers should check out the video embedded at the bottom of this article in order to get an idea of what Tab Stacking in Opera 11 is all about ahead of actually trying out the new release.

“Tabs are the most popular feature in browsers today,” revealed Jan Standal, VP of Desktop Products, Opera. “Because so many of us wrestle with tens or even hundreds of open tabs, we needed a way to simplify tab management. Just like stacking papers for future reference, stacking your tabs is an intuitive way to organize and collect your open Web pages.”

Testers following the evolution of Opera 11 are undoubtedly aware of the new visual interface that the browser vendor has introduced, designed to highlight Mouse gestures and to make them more discoverable.

All that users have to do is long press the right-click button to get a visual guide of how they can leverage the mouse in order to gesture commands to their browser.

“Mouse Gestures is an addictive feature in Opera. With Opera 11, we've made it even easier to get started. Hold down the right mouse button and you get a visual feedback what you can do with mouse gestures,” Aas added.

Of course, Opera Software continues work on Opera 11 extensions, allowing users to kick up a notch their browser experience. According to the browser vendor over half a million extensions have already been downloaded for version 11 since the new feature was introduced.

At the same time, Opera Software managed to attract the attention of developers with tens new items being submitted each day.

“Introduced in the alpha version of Opera 11, extensions allow you to customize Opera like never before. You can add additional feature to your Opera experience. We have now more than 160 extensions available in our extensions catalog,” Aas explained.

Opera 11 Beta for Windows is available for download here.