Set the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup Page
Reader John wrote in today asking how to set Opera to open directly to the Speed Dial page… so after a bit of testing I figured it out, and am sharing with everybody else.
If you are unfamiliar with Opera's Speed Dial, it's an extremely useful page that shows you thumbnails of sites, and allows you to quickly navigate to them using the mouse or keyboard:
Set Speed Dial as Opera Start Page
Open up Tools \ Preferences from the menu, and then change the Startup drop-down to "Start with blank page". (Note that this will prevent you from loading up the tabs from last session automatically)
Next, you'll need to click on Advanced \ Tabs and then "Additional tab options":
Now just make sure to uncheck the box for "Allow window with no tabs" (it may not be checked by default)
At this point Opera should start up with nothing but the Speed Dial. I find this extremely useful, since I mostly use Opera when I want to quickly look something up.
Comments (9)
Good!
The main problem I'm having with Opera 9 is with Netvibes. It can't full fill up the browser window…
The only issue I have with this is that setting Opera this way negates your ability to restore your session the next time you open it.
Fast Dial is a Firefox extension that gives you the equivalent of Speed Dial.
I've used Opera for over 6 years, out of the box it just works, no add-ons are needed.
IE and Firefox are a joke, for speed and security.
Richard, I use Firefox exclusively and have been happily using Speed Dial for quite some time. What's cool and timely is, I got an update just today from Speed Dial that includes this little goodie:
"# Multiple website addresses can be assigned to a single dial. Works like the home page, by oncatenating multiple addresses using "|" as the separator. For instance, "http://showcase.uworks.net|http://speeddial.uworks.net" will open those addresses at the same time in different tabs".
Now I don't have to open individual tabs for my Email accounts. Speed Dial does it for me.
m havin a problem w speed dial
its not displaying the correct thumbnail (webpage) on the url i've saved to.. can anyone help me?
hey howtogeek - thx for the post. however, how do you set opera so that when you click on the home icon, it goes back to the speed dial page? I haven't had success in doing this…
Better late than never responses….
Jason: Opera does allow you to pick if you want to open the last session, your homepage or a blank page. Go to Tools - Preferences - General and pick from the drop down bar what you want to have happen at startup.
Jake: Fast Dial is just a clone of Speed Dial and is still buggy. Opera's is stable.
IFastBullet: LOL, if you are talking email then once again Opera has the others beat by being one step ahead. Opera not only can integrate ALL of your web email addresses under one page it also renders pop-ups whenever a message to any of those accounts are received. I have 3 gmail, 1 hotmaiI and 1 yahoo account all nicely packed onto one screen. If I just want to check on one of the accounts and not the rest all I have to do is click on that address and only those messages will appear. And what I REALLY love is it's new popup feature! If you get any email to any of the accounts tied into Opera's interface you will get a pop up screen on the bottom right hand corner lett ing you know what address it is to and who is sending it. I don't use Outlook at home but I know how nice that feature is at work and it is great to have it at home as well with Opera.
Heya Terri,
Can you outline for me how to integrate my email into Opera and set it up how you have described above? A link will be fine or a pointer in the right direction.
It' really exciting learning about Operas capabilities and would really appreciate any pointers you have.
Regards
Bill