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When will Opera finally work with Stack Overflow? So far it seems that this bug is simply being ignored. Come on! It's just a single JavaScript bug in the tags field. The rest of the site works 100%. And don't say that it's just

One of the many, many oddities of Opera.

Every browser has just as many oddities as any other browser, all that matters is which browsers you actually test on. And I say this as a web developer myself. Don't test on Firefox, and it will not work on Firefox.

Please!

OK, to be more constructive, here's how to reproduce it: Take the latest Opera (10.10) and just type anything from the start to the end. Write a title of a normal length, add some text, and the type several tags, possibly using the auto-complete feature. And hit the "Post Your Question" button. For me it fails in 99.99% of the cases.

However one must note that copy-pasting a bunch of tags works. Or perhaps it works if you hit "Ask Your Question" before the auto-complete kicks in.

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  • 6
    I wish they'd unblock Opera Mini.
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Feb 22, 2010 at 22:16
  • It works on Opera Mobile Beta though
    – o.k.w
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 2:08
  • Can Opera and IE go away? Please?
    – Tyler Carter
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 6:11
  • 2
    @Vilx- Opera is a great browser in my opinion, but once again, it's a minority. I think all Opera users should finally get used to the fact that some sites will simply have problems on it. Even developers from Opera are aware of that, I'm sure, as shown by the "Open With..." (with a list of browser) in the contextual menu. Keep in mind you use a minority browser, be humble about it. If something doesn't work, do it with a more usual browser, that's all.
    – Gnoupi
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 8:38
  • 5
    @Gnoupi - In most cases I agree and that's exactly what I do. But this is a site by developers (geeks) for developers (geeks) and they make a special point of being very proud of the polish they are giving this site. And I must say - they are doing an excellent job at that. This is the single black spot that I know of. And it's been there for ages too. So I think they should fix it.
    – Vilx-
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 11:47
  • 2
    Besides - let's be honest - how many sites actually do have problems with Opera? Not that many really. In my day-to-day browsing activities I rarely have to use any other browser. So if everyone else can make their sites work with Opera, why can't SO?
    – Vilx-
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 11:49
  • 4
    Opera 10.50 submitting a question seems to hang indefinitely on stack overflow.
    – wonea
    Commented Mar 5, 2010 at 16:39
  • On SO, clicking to reveal comments that have been hidden does nothing, and on meta, I can't even create an account, because the list of Open ID sites does not display properly. This is with Opera 10.60 on OSX 10.5.8. Works great in Safari, and used to be just fine in Opera 10.54, it's just annoying that it has suddenly started to fail silently.
    – Larry Wang
    Commented Jul 6, 2010 at 22:49
  • "Every browser has just as many oddities as any other browser" Except for IE!!! Did you forget something or have you just never done any web work!!!
    – 700 Software
    Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 18:22

5 Answers 5

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For Opera users: the workaround that I've found to work is to not click the tags when they are suggested. Instead just type out the tag and click "post question" without ever touching the auto complete suggestions.

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Everything works on Opera now (and has for some time).

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2

You need to be cognizant of whether you're using mouse or keyboard for tag autocomplete in Opera. Which is it?

I have little tolerance for Opera, as it's more problematic for us than IE6, and supporting these minor Opera-specific inconsistencies -- things that work fine on Safari, IE7/8, Chrome, Firefox -- is a giant timesink.

see: Not able to submit new question in Opera in ubuntu !

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  • Keyboard. (Mandatory padding)
    – Vilx-
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 11:54
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    Plus, as I said, that is your SINGLE Opera bug at all. Or at least the noticeable one (it's a total showstopper). Fix it, and I bet you won't get any Opera complaints for a loooong time. I don't think it will be a wasted time.
    – Vilx-
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 12:19
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    now that you mention it, tag autocompletition doesn't work in the lynx browser either. please fix it now, thx
    – Tamas Czinege
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 14:04
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    @DrJokepu - If you're mocking me, you missed the point. In lynx you might not have autocomplete (which is annoying, but also by design), but you can at least post. In Opera you can't post at all because of the bug.
    – Vilx-
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 17:59
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    Jeff, we're talking about a browser that has beaten IE in at least one country. Wasn't it the most important design goal of SO to let everyone ask questions?
    – György Andrasek
    Commented May 30, 2010 at 11:10
  • @Jeff - Looks like you won't have any more problems with Opera in the future: opera.com/press/releases/2013/02/13
    – Gnoupi
    Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 8:54
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    Yes I saw that @Gnoupi and I think it's smart for them to do that. They can have their own JS engine, but WebKit Uber Alles.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 8:57
  • Smart for sure. At least they will focus on what makes their browser unique (UI, features), instead of investing more time in something which was always going to have issues.
    – Gnoupi
    Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 9:02
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I suspect that you are looking at the result of a cost/benefit calculation. Supporting special cases takes developer time. Whether it is worth it depends on how many visitor they're looking at.

Now we can see from Browsers and Screen Size on Stack Overflow, that all versions of Opera taken together are mightily outnumbered by Internet Explorer 6. So you know where the special case hours are going first.

But it gets worse, because Opera users probably have another browser on their machine (at least on the desktop).

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  • I wonder if it would help if I hunted the bug down myself and pointed to them EXACTLY what and where they have to change. :P
    – Vilx-
    Commented Feb 22, 2010 at 22:50
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    Probably wouldn't hurt.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Commented Feb 22, 2010 at 23:34
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    Maybe no one uses it on SO because it's not well supported. And don't even start saying "IE6 is not well supported either"; if someone is still using IE6 there is nothing you can do to make them change browser
    – Andreas Bonini
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 2:06
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    Hack his computer? :-P
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Feb 23, 2010 at 6:24
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    Opera users want to use Opera. They don't care about the number of people using IE6, but they will be unhappy if they try to ask a question and can't (and there is no warning about the browser either, it just doesn't work). Considering how the stated design goal of SO was that the core functionality of the site should be available to everyone, I think this should be top priority.
    – György Andrasek
    Commented May 30, 2010 at 12:06
  • @Jurily: Explaining why it would be good to fix the problem---and it would be good to fix the problem---doesn't change the fact that the number-of-people-helped per developer-hour remains lower than for other projects.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Commented May 30, 2010 at 17:59
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An edge case in one browser, a browser that doesn't seem to be in particularly wide use, is probably less important than bigger issues and/or more mainstream browsers.

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    Opera's around 1-2% usage across the entire internet, is a huge population when you consider how many people are on the internet.
    – wonea
    Commented Mar 5, 2010 at 16:39
  • Fixing bugs could cause that number to grow at the expense of better solutions which could be endorsed through the development of additional functionality in the same time frame.
    – Evan Carroll
    Commented May 18, 2010 at 16:22

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