Opal for Mac

1.3

1.3

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I was thrilled to see a 64-bit version of Opal, which I had used a lot in its 32-bit form. Then I downloaded the new version, only to find that I can't use it because Apple won't let me install OS 10.14 on my pair of 2011 iMacs. Stuck in the middle again!

just a remark: Opal it's not free. It's 32$

Still working fine on 10.11.3.

I use this app almost every day. It's a great tool for doing "brain dumps" for software design, basically I use it as a mind mapping tool without all the graphical clutter. It's also great for taking notes in meetings.

I've been using Opal 1.2.2 for the last few days. I find this program very comfortable to use - it is easy to make it fit my needs and the way I work. For instance, I can easily enlarge the size of the text on my screen without changing font size. I can give alternating lines a different colour of my choice to easily differentiate and enclose lines of text. It is obvious that the creators of Opal have put a lot of thought and experience into making this program. They seem to know what a user like myself needs. I had occasion to contact the programers - on a Sunday! - and was quite astonished to have almost immediate responses that were both succinct and helpful. The help section is excellent. One thing that puzzled me, though, was that the part about preferences says that you can set a preference to allow you to give any menu item whatever keyboard combination you want. I couldn't find this in the preferences but would love to have it in the future. Or maybe someone could tell me how to do this in case I have just missed something. Another thing I would like to see would be a highlighter feature with a button on the toolbar - such as in Scrivener or DevonThink, among others. There is a workaround possible in Opal by using copy and past style, but this isn't quite as convenient as a dedicated highlighter. Personally, I am very grateful for Opal and look forward to using it for some intensive and constructive outlining - as I used to do with ACTA.

Whatever this 1.2 download is, it's corrupted. It downloads a .bz2 compressed file, and if you extract that you get a .bz2.cpgz file. If you extract that, you get a .bz2 file again. The only way I can get it to extract is to use BetterZip and extra the package, as the default BOMArchiveHelper app won't do it. So you get an Opal 1.2 DMG file, which when double clicked notes "no mountable file systems." FAIL. This isn't an issue with MacUpdate per se, as the downloads from the developer site (and their mirror) exhibit similar behavior. Perhaps they should try a better packaging mechanism next time. I've used .bz2 archives before and they've worked (LaunchBar is compressed this way), though frankly straight .dmg files are nicer, and they can compress as well. Maybe not *quite* as well as .bz2, but 2.6 MB versus 5 MB for a download these days is pretty trivial.

Basic outlining par excellence.

I'm very intrigued by Opal and have been using it for the past few days while comparing to OmnitOutliner. I like Opal's ease of use, detailed documentation, and small foot print.

Acta was an amazing and groundbreaking application. Opal looks like the true ancestor of Acta. Fine stuff!

Very useful for make todo lists!

Many years ago, I introduced David Dunham to Dave Winer. I caught myself saying David had created my favorite outliner and hastily changed it to my favorite desk accessory outliner. Both Acta and More were terrific products, but I've always appreciated the simplicity of Acta, which appears to have been translated in toto to the new Opal product. Welcome back and congratulations!

Please stop! I can't stand all the great deals on software I can't stop myself from buying. Argh!

looks like an interesting program. I always hated taking notes in Word, will definitely have to give this one a try.

Help me out - what are some of the things people use an outliner this extensive for? NoteTaker and NoteBook seem like they do plenty of this already for me...

I have OmniOutliner that came free with my MacBook. I will have to say that I have not really ever used it. I tried Opal out and it is a good simple outlining tool, but that is all that it does and to me is not worth $16. I use NoteBook from Circus Ponies that has outlining capabilities and much much more. I love it.

Are Opal and Omni the only outliner choices we have on the mac?

That´s perfect for me, slicker than Omni´s one a fast for my fingers :D A teacher´s pick!

This a great program. I used it in it's ACTA days but there was no upgrade price so I'm thrilled to see it here.

Opal is very fast I think and much better than OmniOutliner (and much cheaper ;) )

Used Acta back in the OS 6 days, then switched to MORE, then to OmniOutliner, then came to the realization that I don't really find outliners useful.

Wow- that is really a nice app. I have never seen such a good outliner. Providing that she is able to export the notes I think I will buy it

This looks great. I have tried a lot of applications like this but found them to complicated. Gonna give this one a try.

Can anyone give any direct comparisons of features, abilities, annoyances of this with OmniOutliner?

I've never really been able to use an outliner effectively The interface has always stood in the way. I'll have to test this one out.

Acta was my first outliner program --- it has served me well. (Thanks to David Dunham/a-sharp for keeping Acta available.) I am happy to purchase Opal for use on my newer Mac. PS: I recommend Ted Goranson's several articles "About This Particular Outliner" at URL http://www.atpm.com/Back/atpo.shtml

I kept Classic running to allow me to work with Acta for quite some time. With the move to Intel I started to work with OmniOutliner, sometimes BrainForest. Opal is Acta all over again: focus, focus, focus. With its current OPML capabilities it is a strong contender to get OmniOutliner out my Dock again. An app like this should have no learning curve whatsoever, and Opal delivers there.

I've been testing Opal and it is very fast and clean, and really feels more like an outliner than my old standby, OmniOutliner. Also, one small but incredibly annoying thing with Omni is that I couldn't find a way to edit the main topic without using the mouse and clicking to put the cursor on the topic (no keyboard navigation). This has bugged me for a long time. Well, the good news is that Opal starts you off in the main topic field, and you can navigate it like any other field. As simple as that is, it will lead me to buy Opal.

Looks good, and the documentation is incredibly detailed.

I'm a big fan of OmniOutliner, but an old MORE and Acta user. I might get this out of nostalgia.

Excellent - a worthy competitor to OmniOutliner, at a price that makes it very tempting indeed.

A tad bit too pricey with its regular price, but today's promo price sounds just about right for a good, simple outliner like this.

OmniOutliner being free for new Mac owners, I wonder how much a following it can attract. Still, it looks clean, simple and quick so I might give it a try.

Good deal! I've been hesitant about purchasing Opal because of the price, but this Macupdate promo is hard to resist.

Opal evolved from Acta. I used and enjoyed Acta when A Sharp was giving it away, but didn't think Opal worth $32. Definitely worth considering at $16!

Nice interface, nice features and easy to use. This app seems useful and I will try it.

I like this -- been using TAO but TAO is *way* more complex (and has many more features) thus Opal is oh so much easier to start with! Don't dismiss the others, but for a capable easy to use outliner, this is pretty nice.

A great, flexible and easy to use outliner application for people who like to keep things simply and don't really need the heavy duty-ness of OmniOutliner.

I've used OmniOutliner. I need to use thes a good bit more than I do.

Great app. Looks like a small and powerful app

I respect the simple approach. Much more powerful than it appears. Good, not great. Like to see better searching and selecting.

Opal looks like a fun outliner with many options that make it user friendly and customizable. It does seem like OmniOutliner to some degree, but judging by first impression it also seems tighter than that and ready to use right out of the box. Worth a shot.

Exactly what it says. Quick, light, smart! I use it for all my classes, couldn't live without it!

I will give this a try, but I am a huge fan of OmniGroup products, and OmniOutliner seems like it can do all this and more. My first impression of Opal is that it's small, sleek, and clean. There is very low overhead to use this app, and it handles images pasted into the outline. It feels nice and compact.

Except now it's called Opal. The classic early Macintosh outliner ACTA has been brought up to date without adding the bloat found in other outliners, but still adding a great new search feature and multiple topic selection, a very handy feature. The property of selecting a topic with a single click and opening it with a double click (carried over from ACTA) is a particularly big winner - I can't stand outliners that open a topic with a single click - what, do these people never reorganize their outlines?! It opens all my old ACTA outlines and runs as a Universal App providing a great bridge to the latest Macs. Kudos to David Dunham and A-Sharp - Web Heroes in my book! Jim PS: I was a beta tester, but I have no financial interest in the product.

Can't mount the 1.0.2 disk image under 10.4.8 using either the OS or Toast to mount it.

This is a "free preview." In other words once it is out of beta it will no longer be free. The price - "We don't know yet"

Opal, an OS X update to Acta, has some nice additional features and works as expected. Import of OPML permits translation of a number of other formats to Opal. It doesn't have the extensive feature set of OmniOutliner or TAO, but then, some of us taking notes just want something simple and easy that works fast. Opal does this.

Thanks! I lived on Acta for a long, long time. It's nice to see it come back and have a way to open up some of those old files.

I used (and loved) Acta for years on pre-OSX Macs and still have many dozens of outlines in Acta format. Thanks, A Sharp, for creating an OSX version of that wonderful app!