Customize Start Page Background Theme and Number of Columns in Opera

This tutorial will help you in customizing following stuff in Opera web browser:

• Customizing Start Page
• Changing and creating background theme of Start Page
• Changing number of columns of tiles at Speed Dial page
• Enabling Bookmarks bar (previously known as Quick Access Bar)
• Accessing advanced settings (Hardcore Mode) in Opera

Yesterday Opera team updated its web browser to version 19 which comes with some cool new stuff such as themes support, new favorites bar and new options available for advanced users in Settings page.
In this tutorial we'll tell you how to use these new features in Opera web browser. So without wasting time lets start the tutorial:

1. Enabling Bookmarks Bar in Opera

Opera team has added the much awaited Bookmarks bar or Favorites bar to Opera web browser. Actually it already existed in previous versions of Opera with the name "Quick Access Bar" which could be enabled using advanced configuration page "Opera://flags".
Now Opera team has renamed it to Bookmarks bar and made available for all users. By default its not activated but you can enable it using Opera Settings page as mentioned below:
1. Open Opera and click on Opera button and then click on Settings option. Alternatively you can directly launch Settings page by pressing Alt+P keys together.
2. Now scroll down a little and enable "Show the bookmarks bar" option given in "User interface" section.

It'll immediately add the bookmarks bar below the addressbar.

2. Changing Background Theme of Start Page in Opera

Now you can customize the background image of Start Page in Opera. You can either choose from the built-in background images or apply one of your desired images available on your PC as Start Page background.
Simply follow these simple steps to change or create Start Page background theme:
1. Open Start Page in Opera by creating a new tab and right-click on an empty area. You'll get "Change theme" option in the context menu, click on it.

Alternatively, you can directly open Themes page by clicking on Opera button and then clicking on "Themes" option.
2. On Themes page, you can click on any available image and it'll immediately apply it as Start Page background.
PS: If you are visiting a webpage which contains an image, you can right-click on the image and select "Use image as theme" option to directly set the image as Start Page background.
3. If you want to apply any other desired image as background, click on "Create your theme" link given in the sidebar.

Now you can select your desired image by clicking on "Choose file" button. After selecting the image, give your theme any desired name and adjust the alignment of the image file. You can align the image to top, bottom or center of screen. You can also choose the text color for Speed Dial tiles. If you want, you can turn on or off text shadow effect as well.
At last click on "Create" button and it'll immediately apply your newly created theme as Start Page background.
4. You can manage your themes using "My themes" link in Themes page. It allows you to switch between custom themes as well as deleting unwanted themes.

3. Changing number of columns of tiles at Speed Dial page Using Advanced Settings

Now Opera also allows you to change maximum number of columns of tiles shown at Start Page or Speed Dial page. By default the maximum column number limit is set to 5 but you can increase or decrease it according to your requirements. The option to change the number of tiles can be accessed using advanced settings in Opera as mentioned below:
Open Opera Settings page and scroll down to bottom and you'll see a new checkbox "Show advanced settings".

Enable this checkbox and you'll see some new options added to Settings page which are as following:

• Disable tab bar's top spacing when browser window is maximized
• Maximum number of columns
• Use hardware acceleration when available

"Disable tab bar's top spacing when browser window is maximized" option is present in "User interface" section. It allows you to remove extra spacing from the top of tab bar. Its a very small UI change which is hardly noticeable.

"Maximum number of columns" option is present in "Start page" section which allows you to change maximum number of columns allowed on Start Page or Speed Dial page. You can choose any number between 2 and 7.

"Use hardware acceleration when available" option is present in "System" section. You can disable this option if you are facing any font issue in Opera. Some users might get blurred fonts in webpages while using Opera. Most of the times such kind of issues occur due to hardware acceleration (GPU Rendering) feature of the web browser. We have covered guides to disable hardware acceleration feature in Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office in past. If you are facing similar issues in Opera, you can turn this option off to fix these issues.