Opera One: first look at the new dynamic themes feature of the browser

Opera Software has launched a new Opera One developer update that introduces a new feature in the browser.

Called Dynamic Themes, it is adding animation to themes in the Opera browser.

Opera explains:

The new dynamic Themes are built using the Shaders technology and are rendered using your device’s GPU. You can configure each Theme using the configuration page’s multi-dimensional color picker – meaning you can play with endless combinations to find your favorites.

The initial version launched with three dynamic themes:

• Classic
• Aurora – dark mode theme.
• Polar Winds – light mode theme.

The Classic theme is the only one that has not shaders. As such, it should have “zero impact” on the computer’s performance, according to Opera. The two other themes do use shaders.

Here is how Aurora looks like:

And here is Polar Winds:

Note that you can customize the theme when you select it. Here is how that works:

• Make sure you have the latest Opera Developer build installed.
• Open a new tab in the browser.
• Click on the “Easy Setup” icon in the browser’s address bar.
• Select Choose Theme.

Here you get to choose one of the three themes. Remember, the only one supporting light and dark mode is the classic theme.

Once you have picked a theme you are taken to the configuration screen. Here you can modify certain parameters and use a slider to pick a color theme.

Other options may include disabling animations, or, in the case of Polar Winds, keyboard and browser sounds. The classic theme gives you options to set a custom wallpaper.

Opera saves the custom themes automatically and displays them as options whenever you launch easy setup again. It is an easy way to switch between different themes in the browser.

To make things even easier, you may also use the keyboard shortcut Alt-Shift-T to switch between the last ten theme configurations on Windows (Alt-Shift-T on Mac).

Opera plans to launch more themes before the feature gets released to stable builds.

What is your take on sound, animations, and other visuals in web browsers? Is that something you like and (would) use, or turned off immediately instead? Let us know in the comments below.