This is quite outdated information! Since Markus Obermair has created his OperaUSB project, manually hacking around in .ini-files has become superfluous. Thanks, Markus! Anyway, if you'd like to know how it worked and maybe still works (I haven't checked recently), here's how it used to be done.
Yes, you're reading right. I have installed the webbrowser on my digital camera (Fuji FinePix A303). This document will show you how to accomplish that task. You can of course also install Opera on an USB stick or any other removable device.
Restrictions:
- If you are using Win9x, you won't succeed with the %CD% method I am describing here. I have written a small launcher programme that you can use, though. See below.
- Mail does not display properly, because the mail module fails to respect environment variables.
General
Prerequisite for digital cameras: It is necessary, that your digital camera announces itself as USB mass storage. This way, you can use it just like a harddisk. My father's Canon Ixus v3 does not provide a drive letter and prohibits writing to the memory card.
The procedure I followed is simple and short:
- I took an single user installation of Opera 7.54 and copied the directory to the memory card
- I replaced any occurrences of absolute paths with %OPERAPATH% (which has become much simpler by the time of version 7.20)
- I created a small batch file to set the variable and launch Opera.
I found it very cool when I found out, that I can use my digicam as external hard disk. So if you don't want to buy a USB stick, have a look at your digital camera :) As mentioned above, the same procedure works with mice, watches, USB sticks, …
Opera
Get a recent version of Opera. This document describes how it works with opera 7.54. It should apply for all versions above 7.20.
1. Copy
When you have your single user installation of Opera, just copy the complete Opera directory to the root directory of your USB device (I'll assume U: as drive letter for the USB device). I copied my installation to U:\opera.
Sidenote: You can also install Opera to the USB media instead of copying from an existing location to the USB stick/camera. You will then have to launch Opera after doing the modifications to OperaDef6.ini to have Opera create the profile directory and patch profile\opera6.ini I will describe the rest of the document as if you copied an existing single user installation to the USB stick/digital camera.
2. Patch
Opera has two INI files that it uses when you have a single user installation: OperaDef6.ini and profile\opera6.ini.
Replace any absolute paths in these files with the string %OPERAPATH%. This environment variable will be set in the batch file that we'll create in step 3. So if your original installation resided in C:\Program Files\Opera\, replace every ocurrence of this string.
For instance, in OperaDef6.ini, there's an option for Opera's main directory or button set: it should look similar to the following lines:
MAINDIR=%OPERAPATH% BUTTON SET=%OPERAPATH%\skin\Standard.zip
3. Script
The script differs, depending on what operating system you're using. So please make your choice:
Win2k and more recent versions (XP, 2003): Once you have prepared the two .ini files, create a script called opera.bat in U:\. It should contain these lines:
cd opera set OPERAPATH=%CD% start opera
To launch Opera, simply start the script by double clicking.
Win9x and NT4 users: As %CD% is not supported in pre-Win2k operating systems, I have written a small launcher programme (18KB) that you can use instead of the script. Save the programme in U:\opera\.
Also create a script like the one above in U:\, called opera.bat:
cd opera SetCDEnv.exe .\opera.exe OPERAPATH
SetCDEnv.exe does call the programme that you pass as first parameter after setting the variable passed as second parameter to the current directory.
Notes
Using an existing multi user setup: Originally, I had a multi user setup. If you use a multi user installation with this method, it will most likely cause troubles on any computer that you use it on. In this case just set the parameter Multi User=0 in the section [System] of OperaDef6.ini and therefore change it to a single user installation.
Saving space: To save space on the memory card, I turned off disk cache in Opera. I also removed the directory UnInst from the Opera installation.
If you don't need the help files, delete the Help folder.
The Last Word: The whole installation sums up to about 5MB for a single user installation of Opera on my digital camera.
There is an obsolete version of this document available for historical interest :)
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Created: 2003-05-09 — last modified: 2004-08-11 — last update of web site: 2010-06-27
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