Opera 12 Alpha: HTML5 Parser, Radial Gradients and WebGL

Our development team has been hard at work readying the next version of Opera. We're proud to announce the release of Opera 12.00 alpha, which is packed with all sorts of lovely things. Here's what's new.
<ul class="bullets"><li> Lightweight Themes: Opera 12.00 introduces lightweight themes. We introduced our Featherweight interface with Opera 11.50, and with Opera 12.00 we have introduced a simplified theme development mechanism. Read Chris Mills' dev.opera article about developing lightweight themes for more.</li><li> HTML5 Parser: Opera 12.00 is our first official release to ship with Ragnarök, our HTML5 parser. The HTML5 specification details specific rules for handling markup, particularly malformed markup. These rules help impose a consistent DOM across browsers. Ragnarök means that improperly closed tags (such as <a href="#" />), and mis-nested tags will no longer break pages or the DOM.</li><li> Radial Gradients: Yep, another huge addition to Opera. We now have full support for CSS3 radial gradients, including explicit shape settings and multiple keywords. Millsy again has you covered with another dev.opera article — about CSS3 radial gradients.</li><li> WebGL: Before WebGL, 3D in the browser required a plug-in to produce any kind of reasonable experience, which was further stunted by lack of processing power. But browsers — including Opera — have now caught up. With our WebGL-enabled build, which draws directly upon the power of your graphics card, you can now create powerful 3D rendering, directly inside the browser! Learn more about WebGL at dev.opera with our newest Dev Rel team member, Luz Caballero.</li><li> Hardware Acceleration: As hinted above, Opera 12.00 also includes hardware acceleration, which serves to save 3D graphics from a slow death. And as a bonus, 2D <canvas> rendering and animations also get a performance boost.</li><li> Full ES5.1 Support: We've also implemented support for the ECMAScript 5.1 specification. In addition to it, we also now have native implementation of ECMAScript typed arrays. We have previously blogged about it on the Opera Desktop Team Blog and on the ODIN Blog as well, which you can read to find out more information on it.</li></ul>

Previously-mentioned improvements featured in Opera 12.00 alpha include support for rem units and a fix for a <style> parsing bug.

KNOWN ISSUE: You may find that (repeating) radial gradients render oddly, or not at all in this build. We have discovered a bug whereby our hardware acceleration clashes with radial gradients. We are aiming to get it fixed by the next release.