RSSOpera browser now has its own alternative to Firefox' Firebug
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 7, 2008, 6:29 PM
Recently, Opera's developers have been touting it as the most compliant browser with Web standards. Now they're using that as leverage to help introduce Dragonfly, a tool they hope will promote Opera as a kind of standards watchdog.
Easily among the most useful and well thought-out extensions to Mozilla Firefox has been Firebug, an add-on by independent developer Joe Hewitt which instantly converts any active Web site into a fully-fledged JavaScript/XHTML/CSS/DOM diagnosis studio. You can see why an element is parsed and laid out the way it is by pointing at it, and letting Firebug take you to the code in question. Up until now, no tool with similar functionality and reliability has existed within the browser context; Microsoft's Web development tools are centered around Visual Studio and Expression.
Today, it's Opera which is changing that picture, with the introduction of its own live development environment add-on called Dragonfly, whose alpha version was released yesterday. It's produced by the Opera team itself, is recommended for recent builds of version 9.5, and is being billed not only as a Web development environment but also as a standards conformance tool.
With Opera reportedly scoring very high or perfect in recent Web Standards Project conformance tests, its creators may see Dragonfly as a way to build Opera into more than just a browser, but a development tool in itself.
According to a blog post from Opera developer relationship manager Chris Mills yesterday, Dragonfly makes use of monitoring tools that are now actually built into Opera itself, called Scope. Like Firebug, Dragonfly includes a JavaScript debugger and CSS and DOM inspectors in a separate Developer Tools window, which also includes a command line that lets you interact with a JavaScript parser in immediate mode.
The script window permits line-by-line execution stepping through individual instructions or between procedures, with variable breakpoints. Once execution of JavaScript has reached a breakpoint and pauses, the window can give you a full report of the state of the page's DOM and the contents of any active JavaScript variables.
Perhaps most importantly, Dragonfly is capable of providing a very detailed error and warning report within its Console tab.
The early reviews are mixed, with some impressed by how quickly Dragonfly responds, others depressed with how slowly it can load. The developer of the Python Web site framework Django, Simon Willson, expressed on his personal blog a viewpoint that's currently somewhere in-between: "Out in alpha and it shows (slow to load and the interactive console leaves a lot to be desired)," Willson wrote, "but still looks incredibly promising, especially the remote debugging tools for working with Opera on phones and games consoles."
Dragonfly's Web site is also promising that, in order to keep it adherent to the latest standards at all times, its final release versions will be self-updating, without user intervention. It will be distributed freely under the BSD license.
Outstanding! I've long promoted Firefox on my websites and used it as my default browser on my PC. But now that I've finally upgraded to a Mac, I've made Opera my default browser. I'm also encouraging visitors to all my websites to use multiple browsers - Opera and Firefox and Safari, if they have a Mac.
Each browser has its pros and cons; together, they're an awesome combination.
I'm also launching a new website - Browsers 101 - that I want to use for promoting quality browsers. To h*ll with Internet Explorer. I'm sick of Bill Gates' rampant corruption and increaingly bizarre games, which now have victims...er, customers...BACKGRADING to earlier operating system and browser versions both.
I'll definitely check out Dragonfly soon.
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|guys stop kidding.....IE is good MFx is better but opera is best.and safari is promising.. opera has lots of features .only problem wth opera is some sites can nt opened properly on opera AND Google has no promotion for opera
1.small setup file 4.7MB
2. quick installation
3.fastest
4.uses less memory
5.safest-no security hole unpatched,phishing filter included
6.1-click tabbed browser,excellent popup blocker
7.mouse gesture,voice control,support for themes/skins, support of opera widgets and javascripts.1-click Picture on-off option
8.inbuilt bittorrent cilent,superb downld manager wth pause-resume option.RSS reader.notes for taking notes,9 SPeed dial
9.Search engines can be added manually and so easily,shortcut google search 'g xyz'
10.WAND password managr, Cookie control
can save a session,can restore a tab if it was closed (provided opera is nt closed)
11.excellent support of W3C standards
12.can open WAP sites too
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|Opers should consider the possiblility of reaching any page coded for Firefox. It would mean a big jump ahead for this browser.
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|Ppl shouldn't be coding for one particular browser. Those are the kind of habits that screw us all. In my experience, if it's standards compliant, it looks great in Opera.
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|But the problem is IE and Firefox are the only browsers with real market share. If you are developing a site, you need to target those two browsers.
In a perfect world, yes, all browsers would be 100% standards compliant and you would only have to code a page to the standard.
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|You're right. It's said to notice, that f.e. a big Company like Google just ignores Opera: f.e. GMail and Picasa don't work to 100% with Opera.
It's a shame.
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|That is odd...you would think Google of all companies would be more thorough. Well, with the advent of FF3 and its attention to standards, and even IE 8, hopefully we will finally have the write once panacea.
However, still need to support all the legacy browsers as the updgrades are not going to happen overnight....
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|Opera the most compliant browser...yeah right....
I have a dozen + browsers installed and Opera has the highest number of incidences of not being able to render sites/pages properly or not at all.
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|@horsecharles
I use all mayor browsers, IE7,IE8B1 FF2, FF3B5 Safari3, Opera 9.2 and Opera 9.5B2...and yeahh, Opera 9.5B2 is the most and best STANDARDS compilant browser. If Opera have problems rendering sites it's because most of those sites are coded for IE and FF only, not following W3C web standards..."street HTML"
So please...think !
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|I've got to ask... is your brain on?
If a crappy "webmaster" makes a crappy website for IE, not bothering to test if it works with other browsers, of course it will look broken in Opera!
Opera complies with the standards, that doesn't mean that it will fix all the crappy websites out there.
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|Its opera's job to comply with the majority of sites. You must be kidding with this comment. If over 90 percent of users are using IE and Firefox, why in the world would they change anything. Typical Opera user pushing there browser.
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|no,
typical opera user pushing standards that all browsers should be following. and good on him for that.
sure ie and firefox are the top two browsers. but there are other web browsers out there. what you are is a typical firefox fanboy taking the backwards approach to web design. pages should never be coded to a specific browser, they should be coded to ALL browsers. its opera's job to render webpages and its not opera's fault if someone doesn't know how to code a webpage properly. ever wonder why opera hasn't been exploited as much as ie or firefox? perhaps its because the other two browsers cover up those errors made by improper programming.
a standards compliant browser is a more secure browser.
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|Yes, except to survive you have to live in the real world, and in the real world, webpages do get coded incorrectly, tested only with IE, perhaps Firefox and/or Safari.
--->pages should never be coded to a specific browser, they should be coded to ALL browsers. its opera's job to render webpages and its not opera's fault if someone doesn't know how to code a webpage properly
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|Then work on getting people to code websites properly! Don't coddle them or the bad habits will continue and we all suffer. 99.9% of websites have shoddy code and the webdevs should be fired, if not whipped. I've been a webdev and a webmaster, and the quality of code on the majority of websites is enough to make one shiver.
Any serious web developer should be following standards as much as possible as it simplifies the code, makes it easier to follow (especially for others that will be working on it), less bloat, downloads faster, is more responsive, and is accessible to people with visual difficulties.
Learn more about the subject.
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|@andrewdownloader
Which sites are breaking in Opera v9.5b2?
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