Changes of Vivaldi Mail, Calendar, Feed since its first Technical Preview

Faster search with subtext string search supported (sqlite now used for storing search data)

We’ve switched to a new and more powerful search system that supports fts5 that supports substring searches, logical operators like AND, OR, NOT (have to be upper case) to name a few things. You can also specify from:, to:, cc:, body:, subject:.

A few examples:

  • United States (messages having both words)
  • United NOT States (message have the first word but not the second)
  • United OR States (messages having either word)
  • nite OR ates (emphasizing that substring search also works)
  • to:“[email protected]” NOT cc:“[email protected]
  • subject:Vivaldi OR body:browser

Import from Opera M2 (mail and contacts)

Since the last release we’ve added support for importing mail from Opera’s M2. Knowing that a lot of you have waited and want to switch over from Opera’s M2, we now support importing all your contacts and email into the M3 client. Restoring your M3 from your database is in the works, and will hopefully be in soon.

Added “Compose New Message” and “Reply All” shortcut and quick command

We’ve added a few shortcuts to the mail and the mail quick commands are context specific so that they’ll only show in your mail tab, and won’t flood your quick commands outside of that.

Custom Mailing List Groups (and ability to turn off all or specific auto generated mailing lists)

A lot of people have been asking for how to have better control for the mailing list groups. Automatically generated mailing lists can now be grouped or even completely ignored. Under the settings you will now see some Mailing list groups as examples. These rules group mailing lists based on whether they have a common mailing list-id that starts with or ends with a certain phrase. This should stop the mailing list panel from being flooded with mailing lists that end with something like “xt.local” or “groupon” like before. You can add to these rules to make new groups if you see some mailing lists grouped that you don’t want there anymore.

Another feature of these changes is allowing you to ignore selected mailing lists or groups altogether or even ignore all the uncategorized mailing lists (which are all auto generated mailing lists that are not part of a group). Before you do that it might be helpful to make some groups if you’re noticing some trends of lists with something in common.

To get started making mailing list groups, you simply go to settings. 

  • Find the Mailing List section and press the [+]
  • List-id Starts With or Ends With “example.com”
  • Click Add Mailing List Group

As simple as that

You can even choose whether the subfolders of that are the Host , Sender Name, Title or no subfolders.

Another added feature is to right click on the mailing list root and choose Regenerate. That will run all the mailing list rules again AND get rid of any leftover empty mailing lists.

Support for STARTTLS on other ports than 587 for outgoing mail (smtp)

If you have a STARTTLS port on something else than the default 587 port (or even have SSL/TLS on the 587 port) for outgoing mail then you can now add those manually in the server settings when setting up your email.

Faster startup (and fixed hang on startup after the progress bar is full)…

We’ve fixed the startup time for a lot of you that were seeing a hang at the end of the startup period. We’re continuing to improve this. If you’re still seeing issues with this we’d really like to know so we can fix them.

Gmail OAuth working (along with App specific password) 

Google has finally accepted our mail client as a ‘Secure App’ (after a ridiculously long standing request). Gmail is therefore finally working for OAUTH for more than 100 users. One thing to note is that using OAuth will log you into accounts on your default profile. If you don’t want this there are three options. 

Option 1 (separate profile with OAuth): You can simply add a new user profile specifically for your mail client to keep everything separated. Then you can simply carry on using OAuth and it won’t leak into your other profiles. You can read more about user profiles here

Option 2 (with two-factor auth): For this to work you will need to set up an App Password. For this to work I believe you have to have two-factor authentication set up.

Option 3 (without two-factor auth): Alternatively, you can go to myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps and allow access to ‘less secure’ apps to use your normal password.

Other noteable bug fixes for mail:

Flags/labels weren’t always being added on setup

Fix for contacts messages that were not showing up when saving contact from message

IMAP/POP/SMTP login fails if password contains non-ASCII characters

Feeds:

If you haven’t tried feeds, now might be the time. The ability to finish reading your feed updates instead of scrolling through an endless, repetitive list might be the closure you didn’t know you needed. 

A working feeds panel (VB-18767)
A very raw initial feeds panel has been added, especially for those who want to have a separate panel from mail. Currently, it has the relevant add and refresh feeds buttons and when you click on a feed notification or feed, it will show the feeds view in a tab.

Support YouTube feeds (and embedded YouTube links use the nocookie URL)

You can now follow your favorite YouTube channels without visiting YouTube. You can now subscribe to a feed any time you visit a channel. We extract the video content (using a no cookie URL) from the feed and display the video inline, rather than linking to the video.

Any updates, like “1 person liked your video”, will also not trigger feed updates.

Podcast audio player invisible

Have you tried signing up for podcasts through feeds? You might want to try again if you tried before and didn’t see an inline audio player for it. Some feeds had applied random default styles to <video> elements, which caused embedded audio/video to be invisible (shrunk to 0px high). That issue should be fixed now, so any podcast you sign up for should have a working player.

Add Show-original button to XML preview and renaming feeds

You can now take a look at the raw XML data behind a feed that you were served with just a click of a button. We also added a context menu item to rename feeds straight from the mail panel.

Other notable Feeds fixes

Fix for deleting feeds

Feeds with forward slash in the title create subfolders

Feed parser creates wrong feed title

Calendar

Since the first TP of Vivaldi Calendar we have added a number of new features, improvements to online calendar server support as well as a whole bunch of bugfixes.

Copy – Paste of events

Now it is possible to cut or copy events and paste them into a different date or time. Just use your preferred standard method; keyboard shortcuts, context menu of event or the edit menu.

Create event by mouse selection of time

For those users who prefer the mouse to interact with Calendar there is a new way to create events. Click on start time, hold the mouse button and drag to end time.

Quick Command to create a new calendar event

Just remembered that appointment you cannot miss, don’t have the calendar open. Not to worry, just open Quick Commands and search for the New Calendar Event command which will show a dialog for quickly adding the event to your calendar. Doesn’t get easier than that!

Creating a new calendar in your online account

Previously Vivaldi Calendar only supported adding a new calendar for local use. Now you can add new calendars on your server, whether it is Google Calendar or any other CalDAV server, as long as it will allow calendar creation.

Fast navigation to future or past time

Need to set up an appointment far into the future, or look up what you were doing that long gone day in the past. Just click, or navigate with the keyboard, on the date heading in Calendar Panel or Page and quickly locate that exact point in time. We try to save you time and hassle the best we can.

Keep track of your tasks

Tasks are now more clearly distinguished from normal events. They have a convenient tick box next to the title where you can check them off your todo list. Vivaldi Calendar supports tasks both with and without due time. If a task has due time then it will show in each of the views. If it on the other hand does not have a specific deadline it will show in a special task list under Agenda view. We have ourselves also a todo list for tasks, so please stay tuned for more ways to manage your duties.

Online calendar support

We have put a lot of effort into more stability for working with online calendars. We have added or improved our support for; Google, Fastmail, Zimbra, Mailbox.org, Horde, iCloud, caltrics.com, GMX.com and probably some more I’m forgetting.

More options for customization

Vivaldi is all about customizability and Calendar is no exception. We have added display options; Start day of week and Displaying week numbers or not, editing options; Default event duration and reminder, and Customization of Date / Time editing. You can also choose a sound, or none, for Vivaldi to play when showing reminders.

Interoperability

An important part of any calendar is the ability to schedule events with external participants. We have improved support and fixed some bugs with handling of invites. Most notable is the addition to accept or reject suggestions for changes from participants.

Other notable fixes

We have considerably improved editing of Time values and to some extent Dates. Some issues remain there high on our list of fixes to do.

Editing of recurring events has seen a lot of bugfixes, especially for online calendars. And also better handling of reminders for recurring events.

Authentication failures on CalDAV servers where password uses non-ASCII characters

Changing event timezone would change event time.

And a lot more…