FAQ
FAQ
Functionality & technical
What languages and protocols does Opera support?
Opera 3.62 supports HTML 3.2, Javascript 1.1, CSS Level 1, Frames, JPG, GIF and XBM. It also supports HTTP 1.0, HTTPS, FTP, Gopher, WAIS, SSL 2/3, TLS 1.0, certificates, and allows use of separate proxy servers and Web-caches for each protocol. Opera 5 builds on this considerably.
What image formats does Opera support?
Opera 3.62 for EPOC only really supports GIF and JPG formats. It can also load and display individual XBMs but is unable to use them as inline images or backgrounds in documents. Unlike Web 2.0 it does not recognise MBM files, and it has no support for BMP or PNG like it's Windows counterpart. It also has various options for rendering JPG's which optimise for speed, RAM overhead or image quality depending on the method selected.
Does Opera support multiple windows?
No, Opera 3.62 for EPOC cannot do this so any links using the target attribute to open a new window will instead open the page in the current (and only) window. Using the back button will reload the previous page. The lack of multiple windows also affects Javascript support with new window functions being ignored. This can cause problems for certain links as explained here.
Can Opera display frames?
Yes it has frames support which in some ways is better than Web 2.0. You can alter the appearance and colour of frame borders or even remove them completely if required, options that Web 2.0 ignored. Opera sets the frames to the correct sizes too so a frame set to 97 pixels wide is displayed at exactly that. This said many of the display options in Web 2.0 aren't included in Opera and although you can turn frames off you can't look through one frame at a time or display links to the other frames at the side of the screen. Also Opera can only display scroll bars for all frames or none at all unlike Web 2.0 which as well as having independent control over vertical and horizontal bars can increase display area by only showing scroll bars for a selected frame.
Does Opera support Javascript?
Yes, it currently supports Javascript 1.1 in it's entirety apart from the functions to open new windows. As Opera 3.62 for EPOC doesn't support multiple windows these functions aren't recognised. Links which only use Javascript to open another window will not work, even though they still appear as links in the page.
Depending on the way the page was written, it is sometimes possible to disable Javascript from the Multimedia menu and then follow the link successfully, however some links totally rely on Javascript and won't work at all. If you do really need to follow these links you'll have to look at the source and find the name of the linked-to file.
Does Opera support cascading style sheets (CSS)?
Yes, it has near complete support for CSS Level 1 though it has no support for CSS2 (unlike Opera 5). Although CSS1 support is excellent there are a few properties that were never implemented in Opera 3.x, the most notable being the property that allows you to remove the underlining from links.
Can Opera run Java applets?
Yes it supports Java though like Web 2.0 it requires you install the EPOC Java Runtime Environment first. If this isn't installed and you load a page containing an applet, a message will appear in the top right-hand corner telling you that Java is not available. Also since Opera itself has a far greater RAM overhead than Web 2.0 you may require more memory to run the same applets. If there isn't enough RAM, or available memory drops too low after the applet is loaded it will simply disappear. For more information on EPOC Java please see the Psion ER5 Java FAQ
Can I use plugins with Opera?
Yes, Opera supports plugins though currently only Java is available. There are others in development including Macromedia Flash player though it's not clear if this will work with Opera 3.62 or only Opera 5 on ER6 devices.
Does Opera allow me to use Email or instant messaging?
No, the Email client that is included in the Windows and other versions of Opera is not included in the EPOC version. As all EPOC devices come with a well featured Email application users should use this instead. At the moment the mailto function does not work in Opera so Email addresses must be manually copied to the Email app.
There is no instant messaging software with Opera either though there are several clients available for the popular networks. ICQ users should use nICQ from Neuon and MSN, Yahoo and AOL chat clients for EPOC are available from Ruksun Software.
Can I access Usenet newsgroups with Opera?
No, the newsreader that is found in the desktop versions of Opera is not included in the EPOC port. Anyone wanting access to Usenet on their EPOC device should either use Google News with Opera or RMRnews, a dedicated newsreader application for EPOC.
Can I access Hotmail with Opera?
Yes, Opera supports secure connections (SSL) and cookies which are required to access Hotmail. Once you've logged in, Javascript is also used for some minor features like selecting multiple Emails or automating form elements. Opera's Javascript 1.0 implementation should allow much of this to work, and since these are nonessential features you can even use the service with Javascript completely disabled.
After submitting the login form you will receive a warning that your ability to use Hotmail is limited because your browser isn't supported however you can safely ignore this nonsense and click on the Continue button. The contents of your Hotmail inbox is then presented within a large table so it usually takes several seconds to appear, especially if there are a lot of new Emails to read.
Does Opera allow online banking and shopping?
Yes, Opera supports SSL, TLS, Javascript and cookies which are usually required for such services so technically there's no reason why Opera 3.62 cannot be used for online banking. Unfortunately some users are still unable to access their accounts however due to various problems with the service itself such as non-standard coding or poor browser sniffing. Many banks will only allow the use of specific versions of certain browsers, regardless of the fact that other browsers like Opera may in fact be more secure, or at least equally capable. Without identifying itself as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator banks often refuse the browser access. Other services may also require a later version of Javascript or multiple windows, neither of which are supported by Opera 3.62.
Problems like these will hopefully disappear in the future with the arrival of Opera 5, an incredibly well featured browser, and as the banks are forced to cater for wireless users.
Can I access WAP sites in Opera?
No, Opera 3.62 supports neither the WAP protocols, the WML markup language or any WAP scripting languages so it cannot display WAP content. WML pages accessed over HTTP will either not be recognised or will be treated as plain text files and have their source code displayed instead. Opera 5 for EPOC has a partial implementation of WAP 1.0 and will allow you to access many WAP sites however the lack of WMLscript or WTLS means you probably won't be able to access banking or other secure services via WAP. Eventually, Opera 6 will have a very good implementation of WAP 2.0 however this is still a long way off. Depending on what EPOC device you have, there are a wide range of features present in dedicated EPOC WAP clients from Ericsson, Psion and Symbian.
Can I use Opera with a Web-cache or proxy server?
Yes, you can set separate caches for HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Gopher and WAIS. Additionally each setting has independent on/off and port settings so you could set Opera to get web pages from a Web-cache but any FTP downloads from those pages would come directly from the host server. Or you could only disable the cache for SSL transactions for better security.
Does Opera allow me to browse a website offline?
You can view web pages stored locally on the machine but there is no option to spider a site and make a local copy to be read later. There is an option to save the current page and all it's images but this unfortunately doesn't work, and only saves the text. Any user wishing to download sites to read offline should try the Webgrabber application.
Can I print out Web pages from Opera 3.62?
No, however if you have Web 2.0 installed you can copy the text content into the Word app and print from there. This will preserve most of the style information (font styles, colours, margins, sizes etc.), but will not copy images or other objects. Tables will be converted into paragraph's since Word does not support real tables. Because Opera does not use the EPOC text rendering libraries you cannot copy formatted from the screen and paste into another app. If you do this everything will be pasted into one large paragraph with all spaces and line breaks missing, however it is possible to save a webpage as plain text and filter out all the HTML. To do this press Ctrl+S to save the page but give the file a *.txt extension. If you now open this TXT file, or import it into Word, you will have clean ASCII text that you can format. Opera 5 for EPOC will support full printing directly from the browser when it is released.
