Improving functionalities, is as good as making new functionalities

As users, we love when new functionalities come to Vivaldi, and the long awaiting Sync that will come soon, is one of them.

However, when it comes to existing functionalities, we are so used to use them that we do not even think how to improve them.

My aim here is to analyse somes of existing Vivaldi functionalities, compare it to its competitors (if the competitors have the functionality, of course) and what should be improved or added.

Screenshots

Photo by Marc Mueller on Unsplash

In my opinion, screenshots really need a lot of refresh since Opera and Firefox integrated it. I will only talk about Firefox, because Opera has a lot in common with Firefox,  which be only repetitive.
To be very clear, Firefox has the best screenshot tool on the market : I really mean it.

Firefox can  capture the HTML elements on the page by flying over with the mouse, which is very convenient to capture specific elements on the page instead of selecting a rectangular area. If think this is a must have feature to have in Vivaldi.

Firefox can also capture areas outside the viewport by scrolling with the mouse wheel (Opera can do that too), which is convenient if you want to take only a part of the page.

Firefox has also a much more simple interface. Let see how it works, and then we will compare it to Vivaldi.

Actually, you only press the screenshot button in the address bar, then a pop up appear in the upper right corner :

It contrasts with Vivaldi, where you have to click on the screenshot icon, selectioning if you want to take a full page screenshot or only a selection, then choose if you want to download it or paste it in the clipboard. It is far more simple in Firefox.
Notice also, opposed to Firefox, that you cannot make a capture of the viewport, and you want to download the image, you cannot choose the location where it should be located. This is bad.

I think that the Vivaldi team should take a test in Firefox to feel what I describe here : I think they will agree and that adding these functionalities will make a new fresh to the screenshots.

Notes

                 

With Vivaldi, notes are making a comeback since Opera 12.
However, a lot of applications for taking notes are now common, like Evernote or OneNote for example. Why not(e) taking example of them ?
Let’s check OneNote & Evernote functionalities that can be added :

Tags

Addings tags (just like in bookmarks) for note will be a cool way to keep things organized. Adding tags to the search bar will also be great.

Differents notebooks

In OneNote, you can have several notebooks, which is cool if you want to make different categories to separate some notes from others.

Last but not least : why not making a Vivaldi note app for the web and mobile devices, just like Evernote and OneNote ? It will be lighter that launching Vivaldi Browser everytime you want consult your notes.

Window Panel

In version 1.13, Vivaldi added the long awaited window panel, which was available in Opera… 12.

However, it misses one cool functionality : the ability to see all the windows with their tabs, like in old Opera :

It is very convenient to manage tabs and windows.

Quick commands

Opera, in version 53 added “instant search” which can preview your research before making a new tabs containing all the results.
It will be great if Vivaldi can also a quick preview like that (in quick command, obviously ?)

With all of that described, I think that it will be a nice new additions to Vivaldi, and also making users happy to see that the Vivaldi continue to support existing functionalities.

 

 

Vivaldi, the swiss army knife of browsers

Hello everyone ! My name is Daivy, and I am a newbie web developer, currently learning node.js at the moment. I am from Liège in Belgium , a city you know for the  “Liège Guillemins” train station :

© Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash

Today, I will show my main uses of Vivaldi, both personally and professionally. I want to make you discover a lot of new features from your favorite browser, because Vivaldi has a lot of possibilities and mastering them can really turn it into a swiss army knife for all your needs. I hope you will love them !

Quick commands for quick users.

If you are a web developer as I am, quick commands in Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text or any of your favorite text editor can save you a lot of time.

“Then, why not taking it to my browser ?” you should say. Well, that’s exactly what Vivaldi’s developers had in mind : just press F2/CMD + E, and type anything you want to discover endless possibilities. I use it all the time for quick searching in my history, toggle notes, make a search, and taking screenshot. This functionality is a very must have for keyboard lovers as I am, and it does the job very well.

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Not enough search engines ? Add your own !

Lazy users like me (I am a developer after all) love to use what  I call engine shortcuts to search things quickly from a particular source. For example, typing “g vivaldi website” will toggle a Google search for Vivaldi website, while “w vivaldi” will toggle a Wikipedia search for all results implying “vivaldi”. However, this is a bit limited in nowadays browsers because you can only use it on particular websites : what if I could quickly search on any of my favorite website without first having to navigate to their main page ?  Well, with Vivaldi, you can do that ! In my case, I added Amazon, YouTube, Stackoverflow and npm with their respective shortcuts :

A lot of tabs, a lot of mess ? Not anymore !

As a beginning web developer, I made a lot of web search which leads me to a lot of websites… which in the end, also means a lot of tabs.
Take my research about React and Babel as an example :

Everything is disorganized, and all the tabs surcharge the UI. 

However, with windows panel and tab tilling, you can group your tabs the way you want, here I subdivided React, npm and Babel into 3 groups :

Simple, clean and a lot of space recovered. Perfect!

Love reading ? Vivaldi is for you.

If you read a lot on various stuff as I am, you need things to be organized: welcome Inoreader + Pocket + Vivaldi web panels.

Inoreader keeps your RSS’s fluxes into categories (sciences, news, politics, web dev … etc),  while Pocket keeps articles for you to read later. However, instead of  a full tab, it would be nice to have a tiny window just for reading : you can use web panels which are great for that.
Cherry on the cake, Vivaldi has also a reader mode included, here is an exemple with The New York Times:

Great light ambiance, great experience.

When using my browser during daytime, I like the use the default light theme, to be in adequacy with the ambiant light.  However, when the dark knight night rises, a light theme is hurtful for your poor eyes, and you bill grateful to have a dark theme instead. Vivaldi fixes the problem by providing scheduled themes : I use this functionality to have a dark theme at night, when having a light theme for the day :

Vivaldi goes even further by providing support for Philips Hue, and impact of the light have a concrete effect on your humor. We call that “luminothérapie” in french, you can have more info on Philips website.

Not only a browser, but a community.

In this post, I told you about my specific uses of Vivaldi browser. However, Vivaldi has been developed with a very concrete element in mind : by the user, with the users, for the users. Actually, the “community” term is very important,  and using the Vivaldi.net blog is a concrete example of that : users can share everything easily and quickly. Without it, I would not be able to share my love letter to Vivaldi with you !