Opal

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.