Opal is an outliner. It lets you organize just about anything - ideas, reports, lists, notes, projects, graphics - as an outline. It stands out for its uncluttered, fluid interface. But Opal includes features not found in other organizers:
- Shrink a topic to a single line
- Alphabetic and numeric sorting
- Magnify on-screen text
- Word count
- Focus on part of the outline
- Multiple selection
- Link to other documents
- Just create notes - no need to name them
- Open Acta outlines
- Spotlight search
- Topic filtering via toolbar Search field
- Smart
What's New
Version 1.2.5:
- This version requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
- Fixed some memory leaks.
- Quit faster under Snow Leopard (10.6).
- Fixed an OPML bug.
- Added link to Facebook page.
Requirements
Intel/PPC, Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Intel/PPC, Mac OS X 10.5 or later
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| Downloads:16,340 |
| Version Downloads:3,715 |
| Type:Business : Applications |
| License:Shareware |
| Date:14 Oct 2009 |
| Platform:PPC 32 / Intel 32 / OS X |
| Price: $32.00 |
Overall (Version 1.x):  |
Features: |
| Ease of Use: |
| Value: |
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Opal is an outliner. It lets you organize just about anything - ideas, reports, lists, notes, projects, graphics - as an outline. It stands out for its uncluttered, fluid interface. But Opal includes features not found in other organizers:
- Shrink a topic to a single line
- Alphabetic and numeric sorting
- Magnify on-screen text
- Word count
- Focus on part of the outline
- Multiple selection
- Link to other documents
- Just create notes - no need to name them
- Open Acta outlines
- Spotlight search
- Topic filtering via toolbar Search field
- Smart checkboxes automatically track completion
- Open or save OPML outlines
- 'Smart quotes'
- Complete, self-contained documentation
- Japanese localization
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Squidbot reviewed on 09 Dec 2009
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P. Maxwell reviewed on 15 Feb 2009
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.
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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.
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Since we only post .dmg files, I would love to know who is changing them to .dmg.bz2 -- I always test both download links before going public, and they always work for me.
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http://unsanity.org/archives/mac_os_x/my_dmg_is_bwoken_after_download.php
A google search using the criteria .dmg.bz2 gives more info.
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funjoy reviewed on 11 Feb 2008
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Nydhogg reviewed on 04 Jan 2007
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.
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tomstraus reviewed on 23 Aug 2006
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I think the answer may be in our FAQ. Chances are the .dmg file somehow got named .dmg.bz2. If so, just remove the ".bz2" portion of the extension and try again.
If neither that nor the other possibilities in the FAQ help, contact us (bugz _at_ a-sharp _dot_ com).
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