Vivaldi 1.11 – Focus on accessibility

We at Vivaldi strive to make the Internet accessible for all by building a browser that adapts to the user. Today, we bring you the latest version of the Vivaldi browser with improved accessibility features – advanced Reader Mode, an ability to easily turn off GIF animations and more control over Mouse Gestures. We have also rolled out a new application icon to freshen up the browser’s look.

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Advanced Reader Mode

Vivaldi’s Reader Mode lets you have a clutter-free reading environment, undisturbed by unwanted advertisements, videos and other distractions. You can now adjust the settings right at the top of the page you’re currently viewing in the Reader Mode. Without having to navigate away from the page, you can choose the font type and size of the text, set the column width and line height, as well as select either dark or light background.

You can also let your Custom Theme do the coloring by applying it to the Reader Mode. Custom Themes in Vivaldi have programmatic support to enforce minimal contrast, which makes the browser more comfortable for people with visual impairments.

Easy way to turn off animated GIFs

We have added a convenient option for people who react to flashing images and want to avoid them. If you’re one of them, you can now easily deactivate animated GIFs right from the Status Bar. Click on the Toggle Images icon and you’ll see three options for loading animations to choose from – always, once or never.

Adjustable Mouse Gesture sensitivity

Editable Mouse Gestures in Vivaldi let you execute a command with a simple movement of the mouse – which you can create at your convenience. Now, you get even more control over this feature with the ability to set the minimum stroke length for the gesture to be registered. The default minimum stroke length is set to 5 pixels and can be increased to up to 100 pixels, all controlled with a slider in the Settings.

More options for the Speed Dial thumbnails

In our previous release, we’ve given you the option to use custom thumbnails for your Speed Dials. Many of you loved this, but rightly complained that it was very easy to accidentally clear your carefully crafted thumbnail by clicking on the reload button. There’s also that little “X” there that’s quite annoying to click by mistake and end up deleting a Speed Dial altogether. To avoid all this, we’ve now added an option to hide these actions when hovering over thumbnails in Speed Dial. Go to Settings > Start Page > Speed Dial to activate this option.

Meet the new V

Last but not least, we’ve updated our application icon. Our goal was to modernize the icon to reflect Vivaldi’s quirky side. We had, of course, to make sure that the original “V” that you know and love was still at the heart of the new design. As a result, we are proud to bring you our fresh new icon with a rounder shape and a cleaner contemporary look. By the way, the image right below is an animated GIF, so feel free to take the new option for controlling these for a spin.

The new Vivaldi icon signals our first step in the direction of a much larger visual overhaul, so make sure you watch this space.

Enjoy and let us know what you think.

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Changelog from 1.10 to 1.11

New Features

• Reader mode configuration (VB-29002)
• Configurable gesture sensitivity (VB-30408)
• Disable GIF animations by setting (VB-16320)
• Optional Speed Dial buttons (VB-13687)
• Update Vivaldi application icon and Windows installer backgrounds (VB-29965)

Fixes

Platform

• [Mac] Add “Show|Hide” to View menu items (VB-28941)
• [Mac] Gestures don’t work in Settings in a tab (VB-20258)
• [Mac] Media crash (VB-29267)
• [Windows] Context menu after gesture on SD page (VB-20743)
• [Windows] “Open file with… ” message on start-up (VB-28604)

Address Field

• Ctrl+Z does not reverse cutting content (VB-29135)
• Improve search in URL field for drop-down filtering (VB-18556)
• Paste and go does not work if the address bar is hidden (VB-29759)
• Sometimes deleted characters get autocompleted (VB-29692)
• Text selection cursor position is wrong (VB-29755)

Media

• [Windows] Audio stops playing after a while (VB-29546)
• [Windows] Audio takes ages to start up (VB-29699)
• [Windows] Support video/mpeg4 (VB-27459)
• Proprietary media served with wrong unsupported mime type fails to play (VB-29504)
• Permission dialogs for media and notification fails to open (VB-29799)

Themes

• Allow more fine-grained Themes color control (VB-29456)
• Color changes does not auto-save when edited by keyboard (VB-29581)

Developer Tools

• Restore the title of the undocked developer tools due to external tools (VB-29386)
• Undocked developer tools do not work for internal pages (VB-29360)
• Developer tools shortcuts are conflicting with Vivaldi ones (VB-27893)

Installer

• Selecting standalone install mode does not always work (VB-30397)
• Completed standalone install can open all user install (VB-30001)

Spatial navigation

• Spatial navigation does not remember last position (VB-28965)
• Spatial navigation cursor ↓ moves focus (VB-30263)

Tab bar

• Tab bar disappears in fullscreen video (VB-29418)
• Tab bar resize performance (VB-29510)

Other fixes

• [Notes] Content does not display and can be lost (VB-29658)
• [Bookmarks] Search in bookmarks does not find extra characters like brackets (VB-29588)
• [Search Engines] Update moves modified engines towards end of list (VB-29828)
• [Settings] Going from Display All to Keyboard doesn’t change the settings content (VB-29771)
• Settings search is not working for Toolbar (VB-29332)
• Search nicknames should be lowercase (VB-30642)
• [Speed Dials] If custom thumbnail has been used and cleared, it does not revert back to the generated thumbnail (VB-29384)
• Accept text/plain as drag type for web panels (VB-29303)
• Back button drop-down does not appear on Speed Dial (VB-30052)
• Changing extension icon problem (VB-22413)
• Find in Page covers scrollbar (VB-29921)
• Have Popup in Tab off by default (VB-29742)
• Hidden control has focus in App Updater (VB-29273)
• Missing Windows 8 icons and tiles (VB-29965)
• Permissions are not asked for when a permission is used (VB-29930)
• Provide a way to unfocus a select field by keyboard (VB-28140)
• Sort typed history based on time, not length (VB-28939)
• Suppress autocompletion if typed matches domain or ends with a slash (VB-27956)
• The update notifier should check for updates when it’s launched (VB-29339)
• Unread tab indicator contrast adjustments (VB-12813)
• Vivaldi does not update search engines nor does it add new ones on previous installations (VB-28151)
• Vivaldi installed on a virtual drive cannot be updated correctly (VB-29793)
• Web panel context menu (VB-23465)
• Wrong extension behaviour between private and non-private window (VB-28010)
• % becomes %25 when searched from address bar or field (VB-30266)
• Updated translations
• Updated Chromium to 60.0.3112.91