Presto

Presto

Developer(s)	Opera Software ASA
Stable release	2.10.229 / 6 December 2011; 4 months ago (2011-12-06)[1]
Written in	C++[2]
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Application framework / Software component
License	Proprietary
Website	dev.opera.com

Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser (developed by Opera Software). After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response to DOM and script events. Presto is available only as a part of Opera browser or related products; the source or binary (DLL) forms of the engine are not publicly available. Subsequent releases have seen a number of bugs fixed and optimisations to improve the speed of the ECMAScript (JavaScript) engine.

ECMAScript engines

A succession of ECMAScript engines have been used with Opera. (For the origin of their names, see Cultural notes below). Pre-Presto versions of Opera used the Linear A engine. Opera versions based on the Core fork of Presto, Opera 7.0 through 9.27, use the Linear B engine.^[3] The Futhark engine is used in some versions on the Core 2 fork of Presto, namely Opera 9.5 to Opera 10.10.^[4] When released it was the fastest engine around, but in 2008 a new generation of ECMAScript engines from Google (V8), Mozilla (TraceMonkey) and Apple (SquirrelFish) took one more step, introducing native code generation. This opened up for potential heavy computations on the client side and Futhark, though still fast and efficient, would not be able to keep up.

In early 2009, Opera began to use the Carakan engine. It features register-based bytecode, native code generation, automatic object classification and overall performance improvements.^[5][6] Early access in the Opera 10.50 pre-alpha showed that it is as fast as the fastest competitors, being the winner in 2 out of the 3 most used benchmarks.^[7]

History and development

Presto-based applications

Web browsers

• Opera
  • Opera 7 and above
  • Opera Mobile
  • Opera Mini
• Nintendo
  • Nintendo DS Browser (based on Opera)^[19]
  • Nintendo DSi Browser (based on Opera)^[20]
  • Wii Internet Channel Browser (based on Opera)^[21]
• Nokia 770 Browser (based on Opera)
• Sony Mylo COM-1's Browser (based on Opera)^[22]

HTML editors

• Macromedia Dreamweaver MX to Dreamweaver CS3 (CS4/CS5 use WebKit)
• Adobe Creative Suite 2^[23]
• Adobe Creative Suite 3^[24]
• Virtual Mechanics SiteSpinner Pro^[25]

Cultural notes

The ECMAScript engines used with Opera have been named after ancient and traditional writing scripts, including ancient Greek Linear A and Linear B, Runic Futhark, and Javanese Carakan.

References

External links

• Opera Developer Community - Presto 2.1 - web standards supported by Opera’s core
• Opera Developer Community

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