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Vivaldi 1.11 improves accessibility features

Vivaldi Technologies released Vivaldi 1.11, a new version of the web browser to the public on August 10, 2017.

The new version of the web browser introduces new and improved accessibility features to the user base.

Among the highlights are options to control animations on sites that you visit in the browser, Reader Mode improvements, and a new option to adjust the mouse gesture sensitivity.

Vivaldi 1.11

vivaldi 1.11

Depending on where you go on the Internet, you may be bombarded by animations, usually in form of animated GIFs, or not see a single animation in years.

Animations can be distracting, especially if they play on pages where they are don't make up the core content, or are displayed in multitudes.

The new controls in Vivaldi offer an easy toggle to control animations on the Web. The default loops animations on websites, but you may either disable them entirely, or limit animations to play once so that they don't loop anymore.

vivaldi load animations

To change the animation behavior, click on the image icon in the Vivaldi status bar. There you find "load animations" which you use to configure the feature.

The second new accessibility related feature lets users change the sensitivity of mouse gestures. Vivaldi supports mouse gestures to run actions such as going back or forward with the mouse only.

Vivaldi users may set the minimum stroke length of the mouse gesture feature in Vivaldi 1.11. Basically, what it does is reduce the likelihood of strokes being detected as part of gestures when they should not be.

The default sensitivity is set to 5 pixels, and you may change that to a maximum of 100 pixels.

This is controlled via a slider in Settings > Mouse > Gesture Sensitivity.

Reader Mode

vivaldi reader mode settings

The developers of the Vivaldi browser improved the browser's built-in Reader Mode in several ways.

The page customization settings are for instance accessible directly on a page that is displayed in Reader Mode.

A click on the cogwheel icon opens the controls to change the font size and type, column width and height, and to toggle between a light and dark background.

Another new Reader Mode options is support for custom themes. Basically, what you can do is select to inherit the theme of the Vivaldi browser so that it is used by Reader Mode as well.

You find the option to do so next to the light and dark theme toggles when you display the Reader Mode controls in the browser.

Vivaldi users may hide the Speed Dial options "delete" and "control" to avoid selecting these options by accident. The new options are available under Settings> Start Page > Speed Dial.

As usually, a new release version of Vivaldi comes with a new Chromium core as well to take into account changes made to the underlying platform.

Vivaldi 1.11 comes with a new V-logo, and new Windows installer backgrounds on top of that.

Closing Words

Work on Vivaldi continues. The company streamed a coding session live recently in which one of Vivaldi's developers worked on the upcoming Sync functionality of the web browser.

Now You: What's your take on the new Vivaldi 1.11 release?

 

This article was first seen on ComTek's "TekBits" Technology News

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