Drag'n'drop buttons for Opera

Intro

It is possible to add new buttons to Opera with drag'n'drop. You can share your custom buttons as links on a web page, and visitors can drag the link to create a button on a toolbar. On clicking the link (instead of dragging it) a button will be placed on the 'Buttons > My buttons' panel of the 'Appearance' dialog.

You can also drag links from a web page to create search fields or search buttons. See the separate page for custom search fields and buttons.

Note: this page has been updated for Opera 8.5, not all buttons function correctly in Opera 7.x.

Code

This special type of hyperlink is recognized by Opera:

<a href="opera:/button/<action text>"
  title="<default button title>">
    Clickable and draggable link</a>

Replace <action text> with the button action. See the toolbar.ini and keyboard.ini files for examples of the actions that can be used (an action is the part after the = sign). Replace <default button title> with the title for the button. It is not yet possible to use custom images, but you can reuse images defined in the existing skin.

Notes

1. Lots more buttons can be found at the Nontroppo's Opera wiki.
2. Drag existing buttons around between toolbars by keeping Shift pressed, or open the 'Appearance' dialog.
3. Buttons can be dropped on the Main bar (hidden by default), the Status bar (hidden by default), the Address bar and the Navigation bar (hidden by default), and the Search panel. The Personal bar only accepts URLs (bookmarks) and search fields, so it doesn't make sense to drop buttons there. The Page bar can only contain page tabs. Dropping a link on it will open the link in a new page, which causes a 'Page not found' message.
4. Sometimes it can be hard to drag a link, and you end up selecting text on the page instead. Here's what you should do:
   • position the mouse pointer over the link
   • press the left mouse button
   • move the mouse either straight up or straight down
   • see a change in the cursor icon
   • drag the mouse cursor to a toolbar
   • a marker will appear at the insertion point
   • release the left mouse button