Opera 7 brings DOM and dynamic content to mobiles

Opera Software announced the details of its new version 7 for Smartphones and PDAs. The new version is already shipping on Kyocera's new ITRON-based phone in Asia, announced last week. Deployments based on the Symbian and Linux operating systems will soon be announced.

Built on the same core as Opera's desktop browser, Opera 7 makes available the "Presto" desktop core engine for the first time in mobile devices. By using Presto, Opera 7 strongly differentiates itself from any other mobile browsers. Opera 7 has a dynamic rendering engine fully capable of supporting W3C's Document Object Model (DOM), providing a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. Presto also supports Street HTML like no other mobile browser. Street HTML is the term for the non-standard code that makes up the "real" Web, authored by developers with unintended and intended bugs to look good in the non-standard-compliant Microsoft Internet Explorer desktop browser. Other highlights in Opera 7 for Smartphones include enhanced support for JavaScript, support for BiDi (bi-directional text, such as Arabic and Hebrew), more modularity and more ease to port to new operating systems.