I have been using Opera since 5.0 but Opera 7 has quite a few new features that I have only recently discovered. I’ve been keeping track of the coolest features I’ve found and compiled this list. I may make occasional updates as I find out about new features, but here’s what I have so far.

Fast forward / Rewind
This works on any site that uses navigational aids, like Google for instance. After doing a search you can use the ‘Next’ button to get to the next link rather than clicking on the link in the page. My individual archives also work, so if you do to my driving in Spain post, you can get to the next post with the fast forward button.

You can also use this with an index of images, such as this one. Note that there are more than just images in the directory, but hitting next takes you to the next

Slide Show (F11)
I haven’t investigated this much, but if you’ve created your site correctly (here’s an example) you can use Opera for your next presentation.

Shift-F11 will show you what your site looks like on a small-screen device like a cell phone or a PDA.

Links (Ctrl-J)
Provides a list of every link on the page.

Server manager (Tools, Cookies or Tools, Wand passwords)
Create, view, edit and delete cookies or passwords.

User mode (View, Style)
You can switch to User mode which changes the layout, allowing you to view the page in plain text, or for debugging purposes you can turn on table outlines or display block level elements or even see what your site looks like in a text browser. It’s fun to play around with the different styles.

Personal Information (Tools, Preferences, Personal Information)
This could be handy if you frequently comment on new blogs because you wouldn’t have to keep typing your name, e-mail address and URL. I could also see it being useful on shopping sites for entering your name and address.

Notes (F4)
You can write notes to yourself, for a to-do list or something, but you can also paste the contents of any note into a text field on a web site by either right-clicking in the field and selecting Insert note or you can hit the down arrow in a single text field (not a text area) and items from both the Personal Information and all notes can be selected.

Info (F4, Info)
Displays useful information about the site you’re on, like the mime type, the size, the encoding from the server and what Opera is using, where that page is located in the cache and security information.

Keyboard navigation (Ctrl-B)
Displays a list of all the keyboard shortcuts.

Search (/)
Users of VIM (and less) will find this one especially intuitive. ‘/’ will pop up a search field at the bottom left corner of your browser, letting you search the page for text. You use F3 and Shift-F3 (as with the normal Ctrl-F search field) to move forward and backward through the search results. Mozilla has this feature as well.

Did you know you can drag and drop tabs if you want to rearrange them?

When your cursor is in a text field, hitting Ctrl-R right-justifies the text, and Ctrl-L moves it back. I’m not sure what this accomplishes or how it would be used, but I accidentally found this feature. You’d be surprised how many features I’ve found in applications from typos.

If you accidentally close a tab, you can use Ctrl-Z (undo) to get it back. It is extremely handy if you were typing something (I know from experience) and accidentally closed the tab.

You can save an entire session of tabs by going to File, Sessions, Save session. That allows you to continue right where you left off on a totally different computer, from Linux to Windows or vice versa.

For more cool features, check out Opera’s own tips and tricks page. I also really liked their collection of one liners which are short but extremely useful.

There’s also a helpful article if you write JavaScript on debugging JavaScript issues in Opera.