Notifications Preferences
Originally posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Now we’re getting into some nifty new features in Opera8. Notifications control the way that Opera alerts you when something happens. Power user features below!
Enable program sounds
This is a feature of Opera that not nearly enough people take advantage of: sounds for events.
- Opera startup
- This sound plays as soon as Opera starts (you knew that already, didn’t you?)
- Opera exit
- When Opera, um, exits
- Page loaded
- Very useful when you load pages on a really slow connection
- Follow link
- Some Internet Explorer users may like this feature, as IE makes noise by default, but most people I’ve met are annoyed by it
- Failure
- OK! Now we’re talking. This is a really good option to set, to draw your attention when something doesn’t go as you expected.
- Transfer done
- My favorite of the bunch. It’s a great way to tell when long downloads have completed, to alert you that you can now do something with the file you just downloaded
The next 3 are new preferences in Opera 8. Opera has something of a standardized little “alert panel” which delivers status updates. Usually these pop up at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. I find them helpful, but some find them distracting, so you can turn them off here.
You can enable/disable the fade in/out effect by going to the View Menu. Choose View > Toolbars > Customize... and then in the Skin Tab, check the Special Effects box to enable fade in/out. Un-check the box to have the notifications pop in and out with no fade effect.
The final option here, “Confirm exit” is helpful if you often find yourself accidentally quitting Opera (which can happen because ctrl + Q (quit Opera) is right next to ctrl + w (close window).
