We have been hard at work over the last couple of weeks, resulting in a snapshot with many nice improvements and bug fixes. We have an initial web panel implementation, we added support for more extensions, our progress animation gets an overhaul and we have a couple of nice performance improvements.
Web panels
Today’s snapshot includes our initial web panel work. Web panels are websites loaded in the panel area. They are great for keeping an eye on news sites or social media, while you “work”.
To add a new web panel, click on the ‘+’ and enter the URL. As you add a new web panel it will gain an icon on the left hand side, below the built in panels. Clicking on the icon will open that page within the panel area.
Due to the smaller area, panels work best with pages that can adapt to mobile devices or are designed specifically for mobiles. Here are a few sample domains for you to try out and to get a feel for what is possible:
- Skype web.skype.com
- Twitter mobile.twitter.com or tweetdeck.twitter.com
- Facebook touch.facebook.com
- Hackernews (mobile) hackernewsmobile.com
- Techmeme www.techmeme.com/m/
- TollSjekk (calculate private imports to Norway) www.tollsjekk.no
Keep in mind that this is our initial implementation to give you a taste of what is to come. It still needs some polishing, e.g. to allow you open links in the main browser and easier methods to refresh the page contents—for now right click on the icon to trigger a refresh.
Extension UI buttons
Our aim is to pack as much functionality as possibly right into the browser. However, we do understand that some of you might want to supplement Vivaldi functionality with extensions. Basic extension support was already present in Vivaldi. In today’s snapshot we are expanding it further by adding support for Extension UI buttons (pageAction and browserAction). This opens up the range of extensions that will work in Vivaldi, giving you even more options.
Extensions that use page actions will place an icon inside URL field, while extensions using browser actions place their icons to the far right of the address bar.
More details in the progress bar
We use the address field to give you some idea about the progress of page loading, however the loading effect was quite subtle and basic. We have changed this to provide you more detail and a more advanced animation. Now you can really tell how quickly those pages are loading.
Performance: tabs and bookmarks
In this snapshot we have re-written some internal mechanisms in our code to optimize for speed. Vivaldi should now be quicker when opening, closing and switching tabs. You should also see an improvement in the bookmark treeview. The changes we have made also lay the groundwork for an further improvements in the future.
Smaller changes
In addition to the visual updates mentioned above, a few more areas such as the Bookmarks Bar and Notes have also received some TLC. We also upgraded our Chromium engine to 45.0.2454.43. For the full list of changes, be sure to check out the changelog below.
Known issues
- Links on the history page do not work
- Tabs on the side are broken: No thumbnails, too wide in default state and not resizeable
Download (1.0.249.12)
- Windows: 32-bit | 64-bit (experimental)
- Mac: Intel
- Linux DEB: 64-bit | 32-bit
- Linux RPM: 64-bit | 32-bit
Changelog
- VB-8062 Add an option to open URL’s in same/new tab from the Quick Commands menu
- VB-8428 No difference in disabled and blurred state for tool bar buttons
- VB-8348 Really disable Google translate
- VB-88 Web panels missing
- VB-8392 Create an Empty State for Notes panel
- VB-8387 HTML menu’s text gets cut in bookmarks bar
- VB-8378 Capitalize short-cuts in Linux menus
- VB-7686 Two selections in the address field drop-down – independently for mouse and keyboard
- VB-56 Progress info is missing
- VB-2454 Page up/Page down does not work in address bar drop-down menu
- VB-8316 Panel is rendered when it is invisible
- VB-8078 Drag and drop in bookmark tree without clicking on bookmark item first
- VB-8255 Add bookmark dialog disappears shortly after being opened
- VB-8298 Re-add web navigation helpers.
- VB-3198 [Extensions] Implement browser and pageActions
- VB-8286 Space seems missing after last character of word in menu if it’s the hot key
- VB-8285 Remove lower case “Show panel” string
- VB-8161 Replace search field’s drop-down with menu component
- VB-8261 Add support for displaying keyboard short-cuts to menus
- VB-8226 Make bookmarks bar look clean
- VB-8281 Our UI blends (too much) with web page UI
- VB-8252 native menu doesn’t show check boxes
- VB-3723 Get rid of toggle word in menus
- VB-8210 Add support for check boxes to menu component
- VB-8160 Further enhance our menu component
- VB-8209 Add support for type=“checkbox” to showMenu API
- VB-8208 “Open in Background Tab” in context menu is in a wrong position
- VB-8220 Remove appear animation from Speed Dials
- VB-8211 Select all, cut, copy, paste, undo and redo keyboard short-cuts broken on Mac
- VB-7712 [Translation] Mac strings (All languages)
- VB-6968 Upper case transform is wrong for Turkish in settings page
- VB-8035 Sound icon in tab more modern
- VB-7379 Panel switcher and scrollbars don’t adapt to light/dark themes: work in progress
- VB-8082 Strings show variables if not in translation file
- VB-5692 [Linux] Crash on import data
- VB-8141 Regression: find in page match case broken
- VB-8121 Bookmark icon should adhere to Dark UI
- VB-5321 Option to not grey UI when not in focus
- VB-7173 Browser icon is a warning triangle in task manager
- VB-3772 Ability to open links in background tab from context-menu
- VB-8180 Context menu in empty area of bookmark panel missing
- VB-8174 Unclear “Requires Restart” info text in Settings
- VB-8152 Keyboard navigation is broken in Bookmark Tree
- VB-8136 Bookmark all open pages does not work
- VB-8130 Sound icon invisible in light theme with coloring off
- VB-7248 Short-cuts window has transparency
- VB-8108 “Reveal File” should be Renamed to “Open Folder”
- VB-7799 Cannot bring the update dialog to foreground
- VB-8125 Selected Note icon, not in Focus, has wrong color (dark-ui)
- VB-7789 [Windows] Auto-update sets last Standalone install to default browser
- VB-7230 Drag and drop of URL to address bar messes up URL field content
- VB-2358 [Mac] Detect pepper flash from Chrome
- VB-7893 Every second click in address ba
r selects whole URL instead of changing cursor position - VB-8089 Vivaldi 64-bit Windows version does not update automatically
- VB-8048 Arrow down on search selector does not display list of search engines
- VB-7177 Padding of new folder button in new bookmark panel is missing
- VB-7705 [Mac] Zooming when clicking on ⌘ after scrolling with touch pad
- VB-7957 Find in page arrows have a 2px difference in position
- Update Chromium to 45.0.2454.43
- [Mac] Add more short-cuts to main menu
- Updating default favicon to have white fill
- Persist selection on single click in URL field
- Form element font definitions
- URL bar focus & drop down hide
- Fixed bookmark import dialog
- Fix for URL bar only setting focus when switching page
- Find in Page styling improvement
- Fix back and rewind button’s translations
- Alternate address bar position styling
