Opera Browser on Dec. 22nd

[Reality's Fringe]

A few facts (as I type from my Wii):
1. You can go to your favs page by hitting the 1 button.
2.you can do a super zoom by hitting the 2 button. It zooms the shit out of it.

Perhaps Strell can add info on this to his faq? At anyrate, this is handy for when my little sis wants to use the intertubes.

[getmyrunon]

wooooooo wii post... not bad at all.

[bingbangboom]

A few facts (as I type from my Wii):
1. You can go to your favs page by hitting the 1 button.
2.you can do a super zoom by hitting the 2 button. It zooms the shit out of it.

Perhaps Strell can add info on this to his faq? At anyrate, this is handy for when my little sis wants to use the intertubes.

no, the 2 button changes the font size, basically destroying a web page's look. I am hopeful that they will add these features.

[rabbitt]

Tabbed browsing:

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/wii/tabbed-browsing-for-the-wii-224027.php

[BREVITY]

Cool, I am sure ppl will come up with loads of work-arounds & tricks.us

[WrestleCrap'sRD]

I take it Quicktime is not supported? Drag.

RD

[FriskyTanuki]

I take it Quicktime is not supported? Drag.

RD
Just flash video, I think.

[jah2004]

so theres not a history of visited sites? found some cool stuff earlier and now i cant remember how i found them.us

[FriskyTanuki]

so theres not a history of visited sites? found some cool stuff earlier and now i cant remember how i found them.us
Not if back doesn't get you back to them. Just favorite anything you'd think would be useful to have a quick link to prevent that from happening again.

[jah2004]

Not if back doesn't get you back to them. Just favorite anything you'd think would be useful to have a quick link to prevent that from happening again.
thats what i thought. thanks.

[JokerCard]

No history = me never looked at PrOn

[Apossum]

This thing is pretty sweet! If I didn't have my laptop right there in the same room, I'd use it more. It's great for youtube though.

[hack]

Guess what I just found? That you CAN use the D-Pad to navigate and scroll.

The D-Pad is disabled when the cursor is pointed at the screen, but works once you move the Wii Remote off-screen. It scrolls through pages using up and down, and it also cycles through active links on the page.

I do hope in the future that they leave the D-Pad active for scrolling at all times though.

[munch]

first post on the wii. it's pretty cool, but it needs some polishing. the text predictor is great.

[supershammy]

I tried loading up www.pandora.com, a flash-based jukebox that recommends music based on descriptors applied to a song you choose (i.e. Tosca results in "thin ambient synth textures, trippy soundscapes, and modal harmonies"), but it freaked the fuck out. It went to the website, loaded the graphics and showed the flash-based loading bar, but when it reached 'complete' it just refreshed the page, repeated the process, and sent me to the home menu of the browser.

The time before that, I linked to it through my Gmail so I could send myself a bunch of quick links to try out on the Wii, but it was even more finnicky. I clicked the link to Pandora, it immediately gave me a "this protocol is not supported", I hit OK and it went on loading the site anyway. It eventually froze up.

I don't think the Wii likes Gmail much. Clicking on an e-mail to view gives not 'click' sound, as it doesn't interpret it as a link, and it then takes a couple extra seconds to load the e-mail.

I just wanna send myself .swf links to try out, since they ought to resize for the screen automatically, but I've only tried sending them through Gmail and they simply won't work.

[angrywolf]

I don't think the Wii likes Gmail much. Clicking on an e-mail to view gives not 'click' sound, as it doesn't interpret it as a link, and it then takes a couple extra seconds to load the e-mail.

I noticed that too. At first I thought it was my fault thanks to having too many beers in my system:lol:. I wonder why this happens, some JavaScript code that the browser can't handle correctly perhaps?

[AHEADAMUS]

Maybe use the HTML version of Gmail?

[pop311]

I tried to log onto Opera, and it froze my system. Weird. The only way I could turn it off was by unplugging it.

[Kaijufan]

I got the USB to Ethernet adaptor that I ordered today, but Newegg sent me the wrong one, so it wont work with the Wii. :wall:

[Hibiwa]

I tried to log onto Opera, and it froze my system. Weird. The only way I could turn it off was by unplugging it.

It went off like a screeching smoke detector today when it froze on a page. Unplugging was the only way out.

I'm curious about how cookies are handled. Options to customize and block them would be nice.

Where's the cache? How much can it hold? Option to clear.

Having never typed with a Wiimote/pointer until now, it's very intuitive and easy. Whooda thought.

[soyverde]

I tried to log onto Opera, and it froze my system. Weird. The only way I could turn it off was by unplugging it.
I actually had this happen twice the first night I used it (I've only owned it one day). I guess "trial"="beta". :)

[BREVITY]

Number 1 reason the Wii browser sucks!!!

-Its to slow to minimize.



On the PC I can minimize the porn sites so fast noone catches me and with tabbed browsing I can just move to a clean tab. (I have at least one of those).

Also "Oh um... its a pop up?!" doesnt quite work on the Wii. Not as well atleast.

[Hibiwa]

If you're going to watch pron on TV, might as well go for a DVD instead. But ya know, you could always hit the power button on the television or just change the channel real quick. LOL.

[Tybee]

Number 1 reason the Wii browser sucks!!!

-Its to slow to minimize.



On the PC I can minimize the porn sites so fast noone catches me and with tabbed browsing I can just move to a clean tab. (I have at least one of those).

Also "Oh um... its a pop up?!" doesnt quite work on the Wii. Not as well atleast.

Your dick in your hand would be the other giveaway. :roll:

[lordwow]

Porn looks pretty damn good on the Wii.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Check this out.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/753/753105p1.html

[ratzombie]

Check this out.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/753/753105p1.html

I already tried using it, it didn't work very well from what I remember. Maybe now there is a "Wii version."

I wish that Vibe Streamer worked as I prefer their software more, it almost works on the Wii... everything loads, but the play button won't work!

[maccabee72]

Check this out.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/753/753105p1.html

Wow, this is really cool! I set it up tonight and everything streams perfectly to the Wii! I tested it with some movies and music on my computer and everything was as smooth as could be on the Wii. My only gripe is that the picture is somewhat pixelated compared to what I get on my PC screen and the navigation bar really gets in the way of enjoying a full screen pic. In any case, this is another great addition to the Wii feature set.....

[botticus]

Final version will be out in April, no specific date.

http://gonintendo.com/?p=14945

[BREVITY]

Thanks for the update. I really hope they improve it a lot. There is more than enough room for some upgrading.

[Tybee]

Looking forward to this. Hope there are some tangible improvements along the lines of what's listed in a lot of the comments in that post.

[botticus]

http://gonintendo.com/?p=14968

A few of the changes from the official press release:

*Improved zooming and scrolling
*Improved zoomed font
*Shortened start-up times
*Quicker access to favorites
*Ability to hide the toolbar
*Buttons that will type in ".com," "www," etc.

[evilmax17]

http://gonintendo.com/?p=14968

A few of the changes from the official press release:

*Improved zooming and scrolling
*Improved zoomed font
*Shortened start-up times
*Quicker access to favorites
*Ability to hide the toolbar
*Buttons that will type in ".com," "www," etc.
http://wii.com/jp/articles/internet-channel/story.html

The videos are the blue text links sprinkled throughout the interview. Looks really nice, very much improved.

[JohnnyDrama]

Awesome news, I'm definitely getting it when it comes out.

[Kaijufan]

The new features all sound good, though I hope they forgot to announce built in support for tabs.

[rupan_sansei]

I can forgive the no tabbed browsing. They've already shown so much good stuff coming in this update. Much better than I expected.

[sonderiaom]

Have they annonced whether we'd be paying for this or not? I do remember hearing that if you had the beta browser, you'd be getting the final for free; but I wasn't sure if that was still accurate.

[Scorch]

Have they annonced whether we'd be paying for this or not? I do remember hearing that if you had the beta browser, you'd be getting the final for free; but I wasn't sure if that was still accurate.

That's never been the case. The browser won't be free, it'll be $5 (500 points).. at least, that's what i've heard

[Kaijufan]

It will be free until June.

[snipegod]

That's never been the case. The browser won't be free, it'll be $5 (500 points).. at least, that's what i've heard

This is wrong.

It will be free until June.

This is right (from what Nintendo has previously said).

[botticus]

It's actually free until July now, they've pushed back the deadline for getting it free as a result of the final release being delayed. And once you have it, it's yours, no paying after the fact.

[sonderiaom]

It's actually free until July now, they've pushed back the deadline for getting it free as a result of the final release being delayed. And once you have it, it's yours, no paying after the fact.

That's the part that I remember then. I knew it was something like that but I wasn't sure if anything had changed or not.

All in all however, I don't really care about the browser unless it's actually a good resolution. Watching youtube, on a 640 resolution, on a 32" tv means grainy as all hell.

[FriskyTanuki]

The autohiding toolbar is the best thing I think the browser needs for the final version as it's essentially almost widescreen with that thing staying on screen at all times.

For it to be nearly perfect for me, I'd just need Orb to maybe add a little more to their flash player so that if my video stops during playback, I'm not forced to just wait for it to catch back up to where it was before.

[eau]

It's actually free until July now, they've pushed back the deadline for getting it free as a result of the final release being delayed. And once you have it, it's yours, no paying after the fact.
Does the upgrade go into the firmware, or will it be sitting in the internal flash memory where your game saves go?

[botticus]

Does the upgrade go into the firmware, or will it be sitting in the internal flash memory where your game saves go?As a downloadable and deletable channel, I would assume it will be sitting in the flash memory. Hopefully it's not much bigger than the beta, so I don't lose any extra room.

[lordwow]

I would not pay for this. It's more a novelty than anything watching Youtube videos on my TV or whatnot. But my computer is right next to my Wii and a lot easier to browse on.

[dallow]

I'll keep the beta version.

Do you think they'll disable it?
Though if they did, I suppose I wouldn't miss it.

[ArthurDigbySellers]

I'll keep the beta version.

Do you think they'll disable it?
Though if they did, I suppose I wouldn't miss it.

Why would you keep the beta version when the new and improved version will be free for you?

[ratzombie]

Why would you keep the beta version when the new and improved version will be free for you?
It's free temporarily. The beta is probably going to be free forever, as they can't really "shut it off." Perhaps Nintendo will release an update that forces an upgrade/deletion, who knows?

[evilmax17]

It's free temporarily. The beta is probably going to be free forever, as they can't really "shut it off." Perhaps Nintendo will release an update that forces an upgrade/deletion, who knows?
When the updated version comes out, they'll take the Beta download off of VC server. You'll only be able to download the final version.

If you upgrade before the July deadline, you won't ever have to pay the 500 points.

[ratzombie]

When the updated version comes out, they'll take the Beta download off of VC server. You'll only be able to download the final version.

If you upgrade before the July deadline, you won't ever have to pay the 500 points.
Ah, I see... I got a bit confused. I was thinking the full version was only going to be free until July, meaning that we would all have to pay for it after that period. Similar to how trials for PC software works.

[FriskyTanuki]

From the US Wii (http://us.wii.com/story_internet.jsp) page:

The full version will come equipped with a search button, making it even easier to look things up about what you have just seen on TV.

http://us.wii.com/images/features/story/internet/img2.jpg

http://us.wii.com/images/features/story/internet/img3.jpg

And just so people can gather around in front of the TV and have fun, the full version can display cursors of multiple Wii Remotes. You still can only control the Channel with the first Wii Remote, but now others can use the cursors to point at things on the screen, to communicate where they want people to look on the screen, or where they want the person with the first Wii Remote to click.

First, there are now two types of zoom in the full version. The first type is the same as the one that was in the trial version, where it automatically determines the zoom level and zooms the area where the cursor is. The new second type in the full version is a multi-level zoom feature, where it can zoom in on the page in set zoom levels. Customers are now able to choose the one they like better from these two zoom types.

We're using a feature called "Outline Font" in the full version, so the words will never be blurry no matter how much you zoom in on them. http://us.wii.com/images/movie_link.gif Even when you zoom all the way in on the text, the words will display clearly. (http://us.wii.com/flvframe.html?mv=internet-channel-zoom&tt=37.43&width=384&height=256)

Also, to make the words easier to read, we actually cut back on the screen size so the page width will be displayed at 800 pixels, even on a wide-screen TV. The viewable area will not be as big as it could have been because of this, but I think the screen became a lot easier to see.

So for the full product, we made about eight different prototypes of new ways the websites would scroll. We had people try them out within the company, and out of the eight, we went with the one where people had told us that was the easiest to understand for people trying out the software for the first time. The new scroll feature works by pressing the B Button, and depending on what part of the screen your pressed it, and the direction and the distance you move the cursor, it will change the scroll speed...This is really difficult to explain in words, so I really would like people to try it our for themselves.

Also, http://us.wii.com/images/movie_link.gif the new scroll feature will display a guide from the moment you press the B Button (http://us.wii.com/flvframe.html?mv=internet-channel-scroll&tt=37.43&width=384&height=256), so it's easier to tell in what direction and how fast you're scrolling.

And also in the full version, you're able to scroll using the +Control Pad. I think being able to scroll with the +Control Pad is a nice touch, since you can scroll without having to point to the screen.

The other feature that has really improved is its responsiveness. Many people had pointed out to us about how much time it took to load the Channel, and how long it took to display the Favorites. These were things that we were very concerned about as well, and improving their responsiveness was our top priority. As a result, we were able to shorten the initial startup time by more than five seconds, and the Favorites menu can be used right away once it opens, even if you added a lot of sites to it.

Regarding the Favorites and the initial startup time, we checked the program thoroughly, and we fine-tuned it going to great detail working closely with Opera Software. This is where our development experience here at Nintendo had paid off. However, I do feel that I want to shorten them even more before the release.

http://us.wii.com/images/movie_link.gif In the full version, the toolbar displayed on the bottom of the screen will be equipped with an auto-hide feature. (http://us.wii.com/flvframe.html?mv=internet-channel-toolbar&tt=37.43&width=384&height=256) We received so many request from our customers that they wanted to be able to hide the toolbar. To be honest, before we released the trial version, we had made the toolbar so that it could have been hidden. But we really couldn't justify adding that feature at the time because of concerns on how some people might not be able to understand the controls once the toolbar became hidden. But through the trial version, we felt a firm conviction that our users can definitely benefit from this feature, so in the full version, our customers are able to choose from different modes like the one where the toolbar will hide automatically after a while, and where the toolbar will hide away with a press of a button. As far as deciding on the perfect timing of when the toolbar should hide, we are spending a lot of time on it right now in deciding on its final timing.

We also received a lot of request about adding a keyboard hardware. At this time, Wii is not compatible with an external keyboard because of concerns like cost issues, but I do think it would be useful for text input, and it's definitely something to think about in the future. Also, with the software keyboard in the Japanese version, it's hard to tell the difference between the single byte and the double byte modes,1 and we had received many questions from people in Japan about not being able to figure out how to type in single byte mode. Of course, in the full version these two modes in the Japanese version will be a lot easier to figure out, and for all versions, fixed URL text that are commonly used like "www." and ".com" are displayed on the URL input screen, and they can now be easily entered. I think the usability has increased dramatically.

We were also able to resolve a lot of websites that were not compatible in the trial version. For example, the Japanese social networking site "mixi", which we received a lot of feedback from our customers in Japan about, is now compatible. But the thing is, although we are working on it daily, the World Wide Web is ever changing, and there are a lot of times where the site's feature would change as we were working to make that site compatible, so it's a time consuming process.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the release date of the full version. So far, we have announced that the full version was to be released by the end of March. However, due to the many feedback we received from our customers from the trial version, all the improvements that are to be implemented like the ones we have mentioned, and with fine-tuning the Channel to make it as compatible with as many websites as possible, the development process is taking longer than expected. Unlike the trial version, as we would like to thoroughly tune the Channel to ensure all the features that we would like to go in it are implemented, we are currently working so that the full version can be downloadable from the Shopping Channel sometime in April. I apologize that these issues have delayed its release, but I can tell you that we are working very hard on it, so please be patient while we are finalizing the full version.

[eau]

I believe once you download the final browser for free before July, it will be in you account and you can download it again to the same Wii anytime you want, just like any VC games.

If you get a new Wii after July, that's another story.

[Tybee]

From the US Wii (http://us.wii.com/story_internet.jsp) page:

Not too shabby. Sounds like they addressed many of the big concerns people were having (like hiding the browser bar), but didn't get to everything. Looking forward to using this when it comes out.

Is it weird that I think being able to see the multiple cursors is a really cute idea?

[dallow]

So let me get this straight.

There's a full version to be available soon, and if I get it before July, it'll be free.

Correct?

[botticus]

So let me get this straight.

There's a full version to be available soon, and if I get it before July, it'll be free.

Correct?Correct.

[ratzombie]

Thanks, FriskyTanuki. But I wonder why the website isn't loading?