Hi!

When the Atlas begin to run on Opera browser? Or may be you don't like Opera too? :)

Currently there are no plans to support Opera.

That being said, we're always open to feedback.  If enough people say that Opera support is a blocker for them, we could take a look at cutting some other features in favor of supporting Opera.

Everywhere we go, we ask people what browsers are important to them.  So far, not very many people have said Opera.  (IE, Firefox, and Safari are always the big three.  Opera is consistently the fourth, but it's way behind.)

Thank you, Steve!

Please, take a notice that here, in Russia, there are many users who use Opera. :)

Steve Marx:

Everywhere we go, we ask people what browsers are important to them.  So far, not very many people have said Opera.  (IE, Firefox, and Safari are always the big three.  Opera is consistently the fourth, but it's way behind.)

I vote on opera! i've dropped IE and firefox for personal use a long time ago (unfortunatelly, you're right: at work, IE gets all the attention - and i can understand why :) ). I couldn't stop voting on this one though...

Well, I'm a developer and the fact that you have no inclination to make Atlas truly cross-browser is extremely disappointing. Opera may have a low market share, but that market total is huge - billions of people. For instance, on day of release Opera 9 had well over 750,000 downloads (in just one day), with many more still continuing. There are literally millions of people who use it.

Even if the percentage of users is small, why alienate those? What possible business sense is there in disenfranchising millions of potential users?

I develop websites for clients who want to maximise their reach to customers and alienating even just 1 or 2 percent of users can result in significant sales loss. As a developer I simply cannot afford to creates sites that don't always work for everyone. How do I explain to a customer when they get complaints about the site not working in their browser? Do I tell them those potential customers don't matter? What kind of ethic is that to promote?

There is also a myth that Opera is somehow backward and not compatible. This is simply not true. For instance, Opera actually has the best support for web standards of ANY browser - it is the only browser to currently meet the Acid 2 test. Opera supports AJAX fine - if Google maps can work and other AJAX libraries work then there is no excuse for Atlas not working.

Microsoft have made great steps forward with ASP .NET 2.0 in having proper cross-browser support that meets recognised standards. So why go backward with ATLAS to the "bad old days" when Microsoft had such a bad reputation for ignoring web standards and promoting, instead, it's own closed-minded proprietorial view of the Web? So, please, continue the good work and keep supporting all browsers so that developers like myself can continue to have faith in you.

I too have to hold off on using ATLAS due to the lack of Opera support. Our company (Stardock) is making an initiative to support ALL major browsers. I'm not sure who you're talking to, but web stats don't lie. Opera is indeed one of the major browsers.

+Me = 1million carpool over 520 with a bunch of opera users

I vote for supporting Opera.

Version 9 is a great release with many new features and very thorough support for web standards.

Don't underestimate it.

"we could take a look at cutting some other features in favor of supporting Opera." - Steve Marx

Frankly I believe you will not need to cut much for supporting this great browser. Even Gmail runs smoothly in Opera.

The latest version is free and its popularity is increasing steadily. Keep in mind that there are countries where Opera is more popular than in others.

hello guys.

well, i have a suggestion: how about adding opera support instead of wasting time with the development of new controls for the atlas toolkit? that would be great, wouldn't it?

Gigalon:

Frankly I believe you will not need to cut much for supporting this great browser. Even Gmail runs smoothly in Opera.

Exactly. With well written code there should be minimal changes needed to support Opera. Nearly every other .NET Ajax implementation is supported by Opera, so why not Atlas? Eg. Ajax.NET Professional, ComfortASP, Magic Ajax .NET, PowerWeb Controls, ZumiPage etc. etc. Are Microsoft really telling me that all these independent coders (some of whom are amateurs) can achieve what Microsoft cannot? C'mon...

Opera has full native support for XMLHttpRequest (unlike IE6 which needs to use Active X, meaning that NO Ajax sites will work on IE if ActiveX is disabled).

I also find it strange that Microsoft use Page Flakes as the showcase site for Atlas and yet this site manages to work with Opera? How come, ummm?

I would also like to see Opera support

Steve Marx:

Currently there are no plans to support Opera.

That being said, we're always open to feedback.  If enough people say that Opera support is a blocker for them, we could take a look at cutting some other features in favor of supporting Opera.

Hi, Steve!
This is a really disappointment! No need to say - our company can't afford to loose those visitors with "wrong" browser, and now (when we know there is no plans to support Opera) we forced to find alternative solution... :(

Wow, i just got a nice rude roadblock thrown in front of me when it comes to Atlas and the Accordion Toolkit control

I swear that somewhere I read that Atlas will downgrade to "low level/unsupported" browsers and just not give the user the AJAX-like experience, but that at least the control would still work even if it had to postback/refresh-the-page

What a dissapointment to see that even that is not the case......

Sorry, but "Currently there are no plans to support Opera" (or anything else but IE, FF, and Safari) simply is not acceptable and makes Atlas and it's corresponding Toolkit absolutely useless if it won't even work in some sort of "limp along mode"

Since nobody else has posted this, there is some background that can be found out on the Opera websites that explains why Atlas has a problem with Opera.

First, visit http://operawiki.info/PatchingStartCom to read an article explaining what was wrong with Atlas's ancestor.

The base problem is that the browser compatability layer uses __defineSetter__ and __defineGetter__ to modify the browser's built in JS engine to conform to IE's non-standard JS implementation. Unfortunatly, __defineSetter__ and __defineGetter__ are themselves are non-standard additions to JavaScript made by Mozilla which are not supported by Opera and Internet Explorer. In addition,

Hi,

Why has Microsoft changed its position on providing support for Opera?

When we (the Assemblix dev guys) interviewed Scott Guthrie on his visit to Finland this spring, he explicitly told us that "Opera support will come in the final version, which is scheduled to arrive later this year".

When I showed your comment to MVP Phil Winstanley last Thursday on his WebDay visit to Helsinki (he's a Brit and probably knows the nuances of words better that a Finn like me), he commented saying that it didn't necessary indicate that MS would not support Opera, referring to the word "plans" (e.g. not planning something doesn't necessary indicate that you are not implementing it alread - and my apologies Phil, if I interpreted you incorrectly).

So could somebody from Microsoft give us a clear statement: If I as an ASP.NET developer choose Atlas as my development framework, will I get in trouble with the Opera user base?

Harri