Text Wrap / Text Reflow

dmitrik

This is another feature request for Vivaldi Mobile. Please, implement Text Wrap option (like Opera Mobile implements it, for example). It forces browser to reflow text of web page after zooming so that it completely fits into browser window without horizontal scrolling.

This is killer feature, IMHO. I'm really looking forward to Vivaldi Mobile with Text Wrap option.

areynaldos

For the longest time this is what kept in Opera Mobile rather than anything else. I tried Firefox, Chrome, Chrome Canary, Brave, Dolphin, etc., etc., and only Opera Mobile implemented it right.

sirien.neiris

Yes - I was surprised to find out this is not yet implemented, it is really critical UX feature. Opera Mobile is perfect to stea- copy- ...inspiration how it should be done

wordsworth

For me, text wrap, or "reflow" is crucial. I haven't done the rounds of Android Browsers for a year or more, so I don't know who other than Opera still does this. It's night and day to be able to zoom a page to any size you like and have the text reflow to fit. That and Force Desktop View are all that keep me on Opera, very very hopeful for this new Vivaldi though, it's lovely.

fauthd

+1
Indeed the most important Feature in Op.

areynaldos

I am testing the new Vivaldi Beta for Android, and text reflow is not implemented...

I would love for the Vivaldi team to take over this, as currently only Opera has it.

Zsul

Totally agree! This is the single most important feature you can add over the stock browser or any other browser. Opera is now doing nasty things with user data, but this one feature is still keeping me using it combined with some firewall rules that I hope can eliminate data leakage. It would be really nice to have similar text wrap feature in Vivaldi, a much fairer browser.

goedl

Yes, I'm quite negatively surprised not to find this in the new mobile Vivaldi.

Ayespy

@goedl It's special coding and not at all trivial to implement. It must be written from scratch by the crew, and has to not accidentally violate copyright. There are two methods to do this of which I am aware, both of which are the property of another company. Vivaldi has to devise their own solution.

wordsworth

@Ayespy Thanks for that post, that's new information to me. I think most of us out here in End User Land never give a thought to the possibility that coding methods themselves can be copyrighted. That makes it a lot clearer why wrap seems to be so absent in mobile browsers across the board.

What's needed is for some kind coder to write a unique method and open-source GPL it! Anybody?

I guess the question for now then becomes; Would you speculate our guys will be able to do it at some point? It's SO unique to Opera Mobile at the moment it would surely bring a lot of new users in.

Zsul

@Ayespy Well, I'm not a professional programmer and I hate to deal with copyright issues. I think they are just ridiculous. But I'm pretty sure this kind of text reflow feature was once part of the AOSP stock browser. As far as I know the AOSP source is published under Apache licence, so probably it is not illegal to use some code included there. Unfortunately I can not show you the exact code part related to this feature, but here are some related links I found:
https://www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/3sii8q/browsers_with_proper_text_reflowwrap/
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36983738
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19986305/no-more-text-reflow-after-zoom-in-kitkat-webview

bigbighill

+1 support

davebath

@dmitrik - totally the thing that keeps me using opera on my phone over any other browser - and totally understand how it is a column or cell edge detection thing so non-trivial. It makes the difference between usable and not.

pointofview

Without this feature i can't use Vivaldi or other browsers. Critically useful feature. Also this feature exist in UC

rluik

@Ayespy Can't they just use the same method as Opera? Opera Software always touted itself as an anti-copyrights company specially in comemorative anniversary posts it was always "look at all the features we invented over the years and never worked to prevent other browsers from adopting them". I remember the sentiment against Apple patenting stuff that made it difficult to implement modern UI/touch interactions on web standards, the whole case of H.264 vs Ogg Theora (later WebM) for HTML5 video, and so on...

No text wrap in a browser is a deal breaker to me.

Ayespy

@rluik Opera owns its text wrap - just because they never enforced such a right doesn't make it legal to steal. But then, Opera and Vivaldi are based on totally different architecture and building blocks, so I could not say if the pilfered code would even work in Vivaldi. I suspect not.

rluik

@Ayespy I'm not saying to steal the code (it may not be so different though, the also Chromium-based Opera and Yandex mobile browsers have it). I'm saying that apparently there's no copyright on the method as I've never seen any news reporting of "Opera sues other browser company over text wrap patent" yet many continue to provide and implement the feature. It was removed from Android's AOSP browser without any legal justification AFAIK.
Unless you have more information on the contracts than the general public/journalist, I can't see that as a reason.

vinczej

The most important feature I missing! Opera won't be exchanged until implementing this text fitting.

Marvelicious

I've gotta put myself in this camp as well. I go on a browser hunt a couple of times a year, and no one else seems to be able to pull it off. In my mind it's an essential part of the zoom feature and I can't understand how that doesn't seem obvious to everyone.

mhandze

I agree. Its critical feature for content consumption on mobile devices. We need to zoom in text very often and scrolling left to right on each line is pain in..