Category: Community Services

Tip #194

— Posted inCommunity Services, Vivaldi Social, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Control who can see your Vivaldi Social posts with visibility settings.

By default, anything you post on Vivaldi Social is publicly visible for everyone to see, but you can change posting privacy both for a specific post and for all future posts.

To change post visibility per post:

  1. When composing a post, click on Change post privacy on the menu below the text field.
  2. Select the option you prefer:
    •  Public – visible for all
    •  Unlisted – visible for all, but not shown in public timelines
    •  Followers only – visible only to people, who follow you
    •  Mentioned people only – visible only to users you mention in the post
Vivaldi Social open in Vivaldi Browser. The menu for changing post privacy is open and highlighted.

To change the visibility setting for all posts:

  1. In Vivaldi Social, go to Preferences > Other > Posting Defaults.
  2. For Posting Privacy, select the option you prefer:
    • Public
    • Unlisted
    • Followers only

Tip #192

— Posted inCommunity Services, Desktop, Mail, Vivaldi Tips, Webmail — 2 min read

Pay attention to incoming emails and don’t get scammed.

We’ve listed a few tips below to help you be vigilant and not fall for email scams.

  • Look at the sender address. Be suspicious of email addresses containing misspellings, ones that are just made up of gibberish or do not look related to the sender they claim to be.
    Also, be cautious when there’s a different Reply-To address, especially if it matches the descriptions above.
Warning message in Vivaldi Mail: ""Reply-To" does not match the "From" address. Make sure you trust the "Reply-To" address before replying."
In Vivaldi Mail, you’ll see a warning when the From and Reply-To email addresses don’t match.
  • Pay attention to message content. If what the message promises is too good to be true, it’s probably not true (e.g. claiming you inherited or won a large amount of money).
    Also, when an email, seemingly from a reputable company, is written with poor grammar or your acquaintance writes in a style unusual for them, look for other clues.
    Be suspicious of emails that create urgency and ask you to act fast.
  • Don’t trust emails that ask for your personal information (ID number, bank account details, etc.). If you think that a reputable institution is asking you to update your personal information, don’t follow the links in the email, but go to their website directly to check your account.
  • You might be asked to visit a link. Don’t blindly open them. Hover over the links and check the browser’s status bar to see where it wants to take you.
Bottom left corner of Vivaldi Browser window, showing a link with mouse cursor hovering over it and it's URL on the Status Bar.
Hover over the link and check the Status Bar at the bottom of the browser window, to see which website you’ll be taken to.
  • If you don’t fully trust the sender, don’t open files attached to the email.
  • Use other means of communication to verify that the person or company really sent the message. For example, if a colleague asks you to do something (share a password, purchase something, etc.) via email, call them or ask them in person, whether they really made the request.

Tip #185

— Posted inCommunity Services, Forum, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Bookmark posts on Vivaldi Forum to find them easily later.

Whether you’ve come across instructions for something, an interesting argument, feature request you want to keep an eye on or something else, you can bookmark the post on the Vivaldi Forum. Then, when you need it, you can just go to your bookmarks to revisit the post, instead of searching through thousands of posts.

To bookmark a forum post:

  1. Make sure you’re logged in to your Vivaldi account.
  2. Below the post you want to bookmark, on the right side, click on the menu button.
  3. Select Bookmark.

The number next to the menu option lets you know, how many others have already bookmarked the same post.

A topic on the Vivaldi Forum open in the Vivaldi Browser. Post menu with the bookmark option is open and highlighted.

To view your bookmarks:

  1. Go to your Forum profile.
  2. On the bottom edge of your profile’s cover image, on the right, click on the menu button in a blue circle.
  3. Select Bookmarks.

Alternatively, go to https://forum.vivaldi.net/me/bookmarks.

Tip #179

— Posted inCommunity Services, Forum, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Light or dark? Choose the theme you prefer on the Vivaldi Forum.

Whether dark mode is easier on your eyes or you just enjoy the aesthetic, you now have the option to switch between light and dark themes also on the Vivaldi Forum.

To switch themes on the Forum:

  1. Click on your avatar in the top right corner and select Settings from the menu.
  2. In Select a Skin section, select your preferred Theme – Default (light) or Dark.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

Tip #176

— Posted inCommunity Blogs, Community Services, Forum, Themes, Vivaldi Social, Vivaldi Tips, Webmail — 1 min read

Check the status and availability of Vivaldi’s online services on vivaldistatus.com.

Whether we’re doing scheduled maintenance or servers are acting up despite all the love we give them, there’s always a chance that Vivaldi’s online services will be temporarily unavailable. With scheduled maintenance we notify our users ahead of time via email* and notifications on the website, so downtime wouldn’t come as a surprise. With unexpected outages our system administrators do their best to get things back up again as fast as possible.

If you’re having trouble accessing and using Vivaldi services, it’s good to check our status page on https://vivaldistatus.com, to confirm whether the services are operational or there’s something going on.

*Make sure you’re subscribed to Technical Updates on your account’s profile on Vivaldi.net.

Tip #174

— Posted inCommunity Blogs, Community Services, Vivaldi Social, Vivaldi Tips — 2 min read

Add alternative text to images you post on Vivaldi Social and Community Blogs.

Alternative or alt text is a short description of what is shown on the image. It is shown when the image can’t be displayed and is indexed by search engines. More importantly, alt text is used by screen reader software that helps visually impaired people browse the web. To contribute to making the web accessible for everyone, it’s strongly encouraged to add proper alt text to any images accompanying your posts on Vivaldi Social, Community Blogs on Vivaldi.net and other places on the web.

To add alt text to images you post on Vivaldi Social:

  1. Add an attachment to your post.
  2. Click on Edit in the top right corner of the image preview.
  3. Enter a description.
  4. Click Apply.

To add alt text to images in your blog posts:

  1. Upload or add an image from the Media Library to your blog post.
  2. Select the image.
  3. In block settings on the right side, look for Image Settings.
  4. Enter a description in the Alt text (alternative text) section.

Keep the description brief. If the image has text, it’s good to include it in the description. There’s no need to add alt text, if the image is only decorative and not related to the content.

Media editing window on Vivaldi Social with an example image and description.
Adding a description to an image on Vivaldi Social

Tip #170

— Posted inCommunity Services, Vivaldi Tips, Webmail — 1 min read

Toggle between Plain Text and HTML message composer in Vivaldi Webmail with just one click.

Email messages can come in either Plain Text or HTML formatting. As the name indicates, messages sent in Plain Text display the email with just text, without any additional formatting. Senders of HTML messages, on the other hand, can add all sorts of formatting (fonts, colors, text alignment, images, etc.) to their message.

In Vivaldi Webmail (not to confuse with Vivaldi Mail, the browser’s mail client) it’s very easy to switch between the two editors when composing messages. Just click on the HTML button in the top left corner of the message body box. Click on Plain Text at the same spot to return to Plain Text editor.

For a more permanent switch to the HTML editor:

  1. Go to Settings > Preferences > Composing Messages.
  2. For Compose HTML messages, select between the following options:
    • Never (i.e. always compose in Plain Text),
    • On reply to HTML message,
    • On forward and reply to HTML message,
    • Always,
    • Always, except when replying to plain text.
  3. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Tip #162

— Posted inCommunity Services, Vivaldi Social, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Share posts from Vivaldi.com and Vivaldi.net easily on Mastodon.

Vivaldi Social and other Mastodon instances are all about sharing your ideas and cool things you’d like others to know about. Vivaldi’s Team Blog as well as Blogs and Themes by our amazing Community members are definitely worth sharing.

To share content from vivaldi.com and vivaldi.net:

  1. Make sure you’re logged in to your account on Vivaldi Social or another Mastodon instance where you have an account.
  2. Open the blog post or theme you want to share.
  3. Below the blog post/theme click on Mastodon among the Share options.
  4. In the dialog that opens, enter the link of your Mastodon instance.
  5. Review and, if you wish, add something to the post.
  6. Click Publish.
Vivaldi blog post open in Vivaldi Browser with a dialog to enter one's instance's link highlighted.

Tip #160

— Posted inCommunity Blogs, Community Services, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

View post details when writing on your Vivaldi blog.

When writing longer elaborate posts on Vivaldi Blogs, it’s interesting and sometimes necessary to see information about the post you’re working on.

To view blog post details, in the post editor, click on the Details button on the menu in the top left corner.

You’ll be able to see how many words and characters you’ve written, how many headings, paragraphs and blocks the post has, as well as see the document outline.

Vivaldi Blog post editor open in Vivaldi Browser with the details menu highlighted.

Tip #155

— Posted inCommunity Services, Vivaldi Social, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Filter posts by language on Vivaldi Social.

Vivaldi Community on Vivaldi Social is an international group of people, who post in many different languages. This means that the public timelines (e.g. Local and Federated) can include posts that you don’t understand. You could use Vivaldi Translate to select and translate the texts, but you can also filter them out altogether.

To filter posts by language:

  1. On Vivaldi Social, go to Preferences > Other > Public Timelines.
  2. In the Filter languages section, check the boxes for all languages you want to see posts in.
  3. Scroll either to the top or bottom of the page and click Save changes.

Then, as long as the post author has set a correct language for their post, the public timelines will only include posts in the languages you’ve chosen. So, when you yourself post on Vivaldi Social, make sure you also select the correct language for your posts. The default post language can be changed in Preferences > Other > Posting Defaults > Posting Language.

Tip #152

— Posted inCommunity Services, Desktop, Themes, Vivaldi Tips — 2 min read

Share your custom browser theme with the community on themes.vivaldi.net.

Creativity has no limits and with the Themes editor in Vivaldi, you can let it run wild. Change the colors, add a custom background, tweak the settings and you have yourself a custom theme. Would be a shame to keep it to yourself. Themes.vivaldi.net is the place where Vivaldi users can share their creations with the community and already over 3000 themes have been published on the website.

Here’s how you can share your theme:

  1. Go to Settings > Themes > Library and select the theme you want to share.
  2. Click on Export Theme below the themes.
  3. Save the ZIP file to your computer.
  4. Go to Vivaldi Themes on https://themes.vivaldi.net.
  5. Log in to your Vivaldi account.
  6. Click Upload in the top right corner of the page.
  7. Fill in the details about the theme (in English) and upload the ZIP file.
  8. When you’re ready, click Create theme.

Vivaldi Team will review your theme and publish it. You’ll be notified once the theme has been published (also, when for some reason, the theme was rejected).

The homepage of themes.vivaldi.net in a Vivaldi browser window using a theme from a community member (vladstudio).
Themes.vivaldi.net homepage. Theme by vladstudio.

Tip #150

— Posted inCommunity Services, Vivaldi Social, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Join Vivaldi Social to connect with people from all over the fediverse.

You might be thinking, what’s a fediverse? Fediverse is an open network of communities committed to a better way of communicating online and allowing for constant improvements. Vivaldi Social is a fediverse instance powered by Mastodon. It’s similar to other well known social networks, but there’s no singular owner, no surveillance capitalism and no tracking or profiling of users. You can read more about it on the Vivaldi Blog.

To join Vivaldi social:

  1. Go to https://vivaldi.social/.
  2. Log in with your Vivaldi account.
  3. Start browsing, posting and interacting with everyone.

Your username on Vivaldi Social will be generated from your Vivaldi account’s username like this – @[email protected]. To learn more about how to use Vivaldi Social, check out the new articles on Vivaldi Help.

Tip #146

— Posted inCommunity Services, Forum, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Follow people on Vivaldi Forum to be notified when they create a new topic.

Vivaldi Forum has many active members, who write interesting and useful posts. To keep track of the topics they create:

  1. Go to the user’s forum profile.
  2. On the bottom right of the user’s profile image, click on Follow.

You can see all users you follow on https://forum.vivaldi.net/me/following and you can check who follow you on https://forum.vivaldi.net/me/followers.

Vivaldi team member Ruari's forum profile open in Vivaldi browser. His profile image with the follow button has been zoomed in on.

Tip #135

— Posted inCommunity Blogs, Community Services, Vivaldi Tips — 1 min read

Customize your Vivaldi blog’s editor to support your writing habits.

It’s not just the Vivaldi browser that’s highly customizable. You can also tweak many settings in the WordPress based blogging platform.

To customize your Vivaldi blog’s editor:

  1. Go to blogs.vivaldi.net and log in to your account.
  2. Click on Write a new post below your profile picture in the top right corner.
  3. In the post editor, click on Options in the top right corner to open the menu with some useful options.
  4. To customize the editor’s look and available components, click on the last item on the menu – Preferences.

In Preferences you can change settings for:

  • Publishing,
  • Appearance,
  • Block Interactions,
  • Visible Blocks,
  • Document Settings,
  • and more.
Vivaldi blog post editor with Preferences window open on the Blocks section.