Welcome to Opera 5. For information on the new features in this version of Opera, see "What's New?" in the Help system, accessed through "Help | Contents..." or by pressing "F1" on your keyboard.
When you purchase a license and register Opera, the advertising banner window will disappear, freeing additional space on your screen.
Try the new and improved Fullscreen mode. Pressing "F11" will toggle the mode.
Opera 5 comes with a full-featured e-mail client. Go to "File | Preferences | E-mail..." to tune the settings for this feature.
Opera Software offers a free Web-based e-mail service called OperaMail. Please go to http://www.operamail.com/ if you wish to open an account.
A quick and useful shortcut is "G," which toggles your graphics on and off. You may also choose to see only the graphics on a page, that's already been loaded into the cache.
Under "Navigation | Set home page..." you can define a Global home page, as well as a home page for the active window.
Opera's "File | Preferences | Default browser" is much more customizable and user friendly than the default browser feature in Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator. Here, you get to select exactly which protocols and file types you wish Opera to be the default browser for.
You can zoom in and out of an entire Web page using the "+" and "-" keys on the numeric keypad. Pressing "*" returns to your default state of 100%, or whatever you have set to be the default state in "File | Preferences | Windows".
A lot of the most popular plug-ins around work with Opera when installed correctly. Please view the Help or http://www.opera.com/support/instplug.htm
If you want to disable scripting languages, you need to uncheck the box "Enable JavaScript" in "File | Preferences | Plug-ins".
To add a bookmark, just press "CTRL" + "T" or select the option from the "Bookmarks" menu. The bookmark will be added to the currently active folder.
If you want to let Opera tell you when it's finished with the loading of a page or a file download, go to "File | Preferences | Sounds". There you can determine which sound should be played.
If you experience that images flicker when loaded, please go to "File | Preferences | Windows" and enable "Avoid flicker" to negate the problem.
Opera stores its history in a file called "global.dat". Visited links are stored in "vlink4.dat". Cookies are stored in "cookies4.dat". Delete these files if you want to start anew with Opera.
The preconfigured bookmark list that comes with Opera already provides hundreds of interesting links for you to enjoy. If you have a site you'd like to suggest we add to it, please let us know.
Did you know that by pressing "F1", or by going to "Help | Contents...", you can access Opera's Help System with a wealth of information?
You can import your Internet Explorer Favorites by clicking on the bookmark list's context sensitive menu (CTRL + M in the Hotlists pane) "File | Insert Internet Explorer Favorites...".
You can import your Netscape Bookmark files by clicking on the bookmark list's context sensitive menu (CTRL + M in the Hotlists pane) "File | Insert File...".
"CTRL" + "J" shows all links in a frame or document. You can then cycle between them, and also copy them to the clipboard or insert them as a separate folder for the bookmark list.
If you enable "Offline browse mode" in the "File" menu, Opera will not try to go online but will retrieve the documents from the cache.
A right-click and "Open" on a folder in the bookmark list opens all bookmarks in that particular folder.
If you'd like to change the position of your status bar, you can set this under "View | Status bar" in the main menu. You can relocate your window and address bars also.
Web developers may appreciate the option to display the window size. To enable this function, go to "File | Preferences | Document window".
To open a document in the background, press "SHIFT" + "CTRL" + "Enter" or hold "SHIFT" and "CTRL" and use the mouse to click on a link.
Windows 95/98/NT 4.0/2000 have built-in "Dial-Up Networking" to help you connect to your Internet Service Provider.
You can open HTML documents by simply dragging them from your file manager, such as Windows Explorer, File Manager and others, onto the Opera workspace.
You can use the docked bookmark list to drag and drop bookmarks. Dropping them on a window will open the document in that window. Dropping them on empty space will open a new window.
You can save your Opera desktop state - including open windows and their individual history - in Opera's ".win" files. These files can also be loaded while Opera is running. To save your window settings, go to "Window/Save windows".
If you know your system and really want to get down to the bone with getting Opera to perform at its very best, you can fine tune a lot of stuff in "File | Preferences | Cache and History".
If you're concerned with your privacy on the Internet, please take the time to read the files concerning security in the Opera Help guide. Also, read about what you can do to keep others from monitoring your Web usage patterns in the section marked "Privacy."
Under "File | Preferences | Personal Information" you can enter personal information for quick retrieval in forms via the right mouse button.
If you think you have discovered a bug in Opera, please report it to us here: http://www.opera.com/bugreport.html
"ALT" + "1" sorts bookmarks according to name. Repeated pressing cycles through "Ascending", "Descending" and "User definable".
If you are in need of technical support, please visit our Support Desk at http://www.opera.com/support/
If you surf Search Engine listings and want to load lots of pages, disable graphics loading in "File | Preferences | Multimedia". Also, hold "SHIFT" + "CTRL" while you use the mouse to click on links, to load them in the background.
Press "CTRL" + "B" to gain quick access to all of Opera's keyboard shortcuts. This can dramatically speed up the way you navigate in documents.
To toggle the docked Hotlists window, press "F4" on the keyboard or click on the Hotlists button in the toolbar.
Try the new "Print preview mode." Either press "P" on your keyboard or access it through "File | Print preview mode...".
"CTRL" + "G" toggles between "Document mode" and "User mode", and can be a great way of making badly designed sites legible by using your own preferences rather than the document's preferences.
Press "H" to see the current window history, or check your cache in "Window | Special Window | Cache".
To turn off this window, uncheck the box marked "Show tips at startup". To enable it later, go to "Help | Tip of the day..." and check the box again.
Opera's e-mail client allows you to manage multiple e-mail accounts, and its advanced filtering system can organize your mail for you automatically.
The contact list is a handy way of storing names and addresses of friends and colleagues - including their e-mail addresses, instant messaging numbers, and Web sites.
Use the "Find" feature in Opera's e-mail client (select "E-mail | Find..." in the main menu), to search your e-mail for specific words and phrases.
Opera's instant messaging client uses the same network as the popular ICQ, allowing you to keep in touch with friends who aren't yet Opera users.
If you installed Opera with Java (the 9-megabyte version), you don't need to download the larger version again when future updates appear. Download and install non-Java models (about 2 meg); these will use your current Java environment.
