TobyInkster.co.uk
Opera W3-Dev Menu
The W3-dev Menu is an Opera 7–9 customisation for web developers, providing handy shortcuts to validate and check their pages and some useful links to web standards and tutorials.
- The latest version for Opera 9.x is 3.0.
- The latest version for Opera 8.x is 2.1.
- The latest version for Opera 7.5x is 1.30.
- The latest version for Opera 7.0x/7.1x/7.2x is 1.22.
Check out this screenshot of the menu in action. The menu will not work in browsers other than Opera 7.0–9.x. The menu can be manually installed in Opera 7.0x, but it is beyond the scope of this page to explain how.
ChangeLog and Archive
- 3.0
- Install 3.0, Source code. Targetted at Opera 9.0 final. Fixes problem with new “Widgets” menu, options to specify preferred paths to some manuals.
- 2.91
- Install 2.91, Source code. Targetted at Opera 9.0 beta 1 (and technology preview 2). Added full menus for MySQL 5.1, CSS 3 and DOM+Javascript. A few other nifty bits and pieces.
- 2.9
- Install 2.9, Source code. Targetted at Opera 9.0 technology preview 2. I'm preparing for version 3.0 of the menu to coincide with the release of Opera 9. Added full menus for the Apache 2.0, PostgreSQL 8.1, PHP and Perl 5 manuals.
- 2.1
- Install 2.1, Source code. Supports Opera 9.0 Technology preview. Added links to CSS 3 current work; SVG Mobile; lots and lots of new resources, including a bunch of Microsoft-related stuff (Microsoft SQL Server, ASP). New ability to allow some of the submenus to "go solo" and sit on the main menu bar in their own right.
- 2.0
- Install 2.0, Source code. Bug fix (Window menu is back) and a Javascript "Last Modified" date check (not always reliable as it goes on the HTTP Last-Modified header).
- 1.99
- Install 1.99, Source code. Yet again, Team Opera go and change their menus. Updated to comply with Opera 8's mindbogglingly silly menu format changes, but very few extra changes. This is the menu to use if you're using Opera 8.0. (It may work with earlier Opera versions, but I doubt it.)
- 1.30
- Install 1.30, Source code. Once again, Team Opera go and change their menus. This updated W3dev-menu works with the new 7.60 menu structure and adds a few new features — extra page sizes, an improved Quirks Mode detector and an improved pagebar pop-up menu. Support for Opera versions prior to 7.50 has been dropped. This menu may or may not work with Opera 7.0x/7.1x/7.2x.
- 1.22
- Install 1.22, Source code. I've been sitting on this one for a while, slowly refining it, but I figured it was about time I showed it to the world. Thanks to Adrienne Boswell, Ian Andolina and LiteraryMoose for letting me steal ideas and code.
- 1.21
- Install 1.21. Choose your favourite HTML validator during installation (choice of W3.org validator, WDG validator and the beta of W3.org's next generation validator), optionally switch off some of the submenus that you don't like, View CSS for current page (won't always work!), added VisCheck (a useful tool, although there do still seem to be some bugs in it). You can now download the source code and use it under the GPL.
- 1.2
- Install 1.2. Very few extra features, but the new version lets you choose which features you want before installing.
- 1.1
- Download 1.1: for Opera 7.1x and 7.2x, for Opera 7.5x. Version 1.0 breaks the Opera 7.5 preview slightly by hiding a couple of menus. This is really Opera Software's own fault for having such a daft menu format, but I have fixed it all the same. &x-smiley; Added "Cookies" check, "Server Software" query, link to a neat colour chooser, link to "lorem ipsum" generator, added 320x240 (PocketPC) and 544x372 (WebTV) to the Page Size menu, added ability to open a page in Mozilla Firebird for Linux users. Lastly, not very "W3-dev-related", but I have added a few helpful additions to the page bar pop-up menu. (If people say they don't like them, I'll get rid of them in the next release, but I like them.)
- 1.01
- Download 1.01: bg. Translation improvements.
- 1.00
- Download 1.00: en, bg. Added links to HPR and Ominweb browsers and renamed Chimera to Camino. Added link to CSS Zen Garden, Mark Tranchant's HTML tutorial and RNIB accessibility advice. CSS 2.1 is now a last call. WCAG 2.0 draft added. Added a link to the RFC Editor website. Numerous other minor changes.
- 0.99
- Download 0.99. Screenshot of 0.99. Added 'Show Javascript console'. Rearranged the 'Web Standards' and 'Resources' menus so that they have a similar submenu structure to each other. Added link to w3.org (duh!). Added Dublin Core. Added HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. Moved a lot of the tests into a submenu as the main menu was getting very long.
- 0.95
- Download 0.95. Improved i18n (thanks to Gargantua Blargg); added link to RSS 1.0 standard; added link to the WaSP (why the hell didn't I think of that earlier?!?); "View in" menu now works in Opera for Linux (thanks to the Opera guys for releasing Opera 7.20 Beta 1 for Linux).
- 0.94
- Download 0.94. Approaching the big 1.0. Have added links to draft CSS 2.1 and XHTML 2.0 specs. Have added a link to WML 1.1. This is just a link to the DTD. Anyone know of a good quality HTML version of the WML (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0) spec??? Have added a link to another Jakob Nielsen story I liked. Changed what the "about" link does!
- 0.93
- Download 0.93. Added scriptlets to resize the browser window to various predefined sizes (320x240, 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768) and an entry to switch to small screen rendering (yes, I know this can be done with the view menu!). On windows there are shortcuts to launch the current page in Internet Explorer and Mozilla (if installed). Currently this doesn't work on Linux/Unix — hopefully the Opera guys will fix this in 7.20!
- 0.92
- Download 0.92. Screenshot of 0.92. Added lots of links to browser home pages; renamed references menu to web standards menu; renamed tutorials menu to resources menu; moved all the server-side resources from the standards menu to the resources menu (except the CGI standard); added Tablin; added HTTP header viewer; added web optimiser; added cacheability; added source viewer; added lots more tutorials; other minor changes.
- 0.91
- Download 0.91. Screenshot of 0.91. This version included HTML and CSS validators; link checker; WCAG and Section 508 accessibility checkers; LynxView; the ICRA tester; the standards definitions for several markup lanuages, styling languages and other web formats; a few tutorials; a link to the quirks mode javascript and a link back to this page.
- 0.90
- Download 0.90. This version included HTML and CSS validators and a few other things.
Links
- Nick Wilson has written his own version of my menu with extra links to the web developer's portal Webmaster World.
- Vladimir Georgiev has created a Bulgarian version, which I have mirrored.
- Rijk van Geijtenbeek mentions my menu on his customized menus for Opera page.
- Jor's Opera customisations make mine look like the work of an amateur — I think he has customised Opera so much that he is using an entirely different browser now! Maybe "Ballet"?
- My menu has been discussed in the Webmaster World "HTML and Browsers" forum.
- And mentioned on Virtuelvis, this other weblog (in Japan), this other weblog (in Australia) and on Around the Web. It is mentioned (and deconstructed) on the stupid.boy/brilliant.girl weblog.
- A similar tool for Netscape/Mozilla is Checky, and yes, I have taken a few ideas from it for the 0.92 version.
- And for you unfortunate people using Internet Explorer, there is Favlets by Tantek Celik. Yes, that Tantek Celik.
FAQ
Why doesn't the "Page Size" menu work?
It does — just make sure that your page isn't maximized.
Why doesn't the "View In" menu work?
You need Opera 7.1x (or above) for Windows or Opera 7.20 Beta 1 (or above) for Linux.
Some other stuff doesn't work!
I'm told that some stuff is broken if the "Reuse Existing Pages" option is switched off. If you are still having problems, don't hesitate to ask.
Can I translate the menu?
Yes! Now that the "stable" 1.00 release is out, I encourage users to translate the menu. Simply open it up in a text editor (when Opera is not running!) and translate the strings within. When you are done, please send me a copy so that I can upload it here for others.
How did you get the menu to auto-install?
The trick is the application/x-opera-configuration-menu MIME type. &x-smiley;
My "Feeds" menu has gone!
Opera's RSS reader is part of the mail/news client. Make sure you tick the "I use Opera as an Internet Suite" box when installing the menu!