Back in 1986, I released an outline processor called Acta. It ran on some of the earliest Macintoshes, and gained an avid following. It continues to run fine in the Classic layer. But Intel-based Macintoshes have no Classic, and many Acta fans were worried that they would be forced to stop using it. So I've created a modern successor to Acta. Provisionally titled Opal, it's now available in preview form from our web site http://a-sharp.com/opal/ .

Opal retains the fluid ease of use of Acta, but is up to date with Mac OS X standards (it requires 10.4 and is a Universal release).

I hope to release Opal later this year. Until then, I encourage Acta fans to try this free preview, which will open 20 year old Acta documents.

And feel free to post Opal-specific comments or requests to our discussion groups:
Tips & Techniques- http://www.a-sharp.com/fogbugz?usingOpal
Wish List- http://www.a-sharp.com/fogbugz?opalFeatures
(Comments here are fine too, but I might not see them as promptly.)

David, thanks for the update.

I am no longer in the Mac world, but back in the day I was.

Acta was one of the first programs I used. I very much appreciated its speed and simplicity.

Best of luch with Opal.

Daly

David Dunham wrote:

Back in 1986, I released an outline processor called Acta. It ran on some of the
earliest Macintoshes, and gained an avid following. It continues to run fine in the
Classic layer. But Intel-based Macintoshes have no Classic, and many Acta fans were
worried that they would be forced to stop using it. So I've created a modern successor
to Acta. Provisionally titled Opal, it's now available in preview form from our web
site http://a-sharp.com/opal/ .

Opal retains the fluid ease of use of Acta, but
is up to date with Mac OS X standards (it requires 10.4 and is a Universal
release).

I hope to release Opal later this year. Until then, I encourage Acta
fans to try this free preview, which will open 20 year old Acta documents.

And feel
free to post Opal-specific comments or requests to our discussion groups:
Tips &
Techniques- http://www.a-sharp.com/fogbugz?usingOpal
Wish List-
http://www.a-sharp.com/fogbugz?opalFeatures
(Comments here are fine too, but
I might not see them as promptly.)

Looks great. It's nice to see another good single-pane outliner with multiline entries on OS X. Any comments on your future goals/directions for the program? I'll resist making feature requests because I know there are so many directions you could choose to take it. What are your interests (multiple columns, scriptability, complex filters, multiple views, text styles, etc.)? I think the biggest opportunity right now is in adding interesting, complex filters, perhaps in the form of smart folders. IMHO, that's OmniOutliner's current feature weakness; it seems most of the scripts people write for it do some kind of filtering. Though I suppose many interesting types of filters would require adding column support as a pre-requisite.

Keep up the great work.

As far as additional features go:

1. I need to finish something before expanding it!
2. http://www.a-sharp.com/fogbugz?opalFeatures is a good place to post, so others can comment too.

The architecture should support multiple columns, cloning, smart filters. (Though I'm not sure why smart filtering requires columns.)

David Dunham wrote:

The architecture should support multiple columns,
cloning, smart filters. (Though I'm not sure why smart filtering requires columns.)

That's good to hear. You're right, smart filtering doesn't require columns -- they're just a convenient way to add additional metadata, which is useful for filtering.

This little program still works and is quite useful.

I purchased this app in 1986 and used in with a double-floppy Macintosh Plus system to write my college papers and thesis. After David Dunham sold it in 1993 to Portfolio Software and they renamed it Dyno Notepad I bought the upgrade. (Which ended up being moderately problematic because the images and sound files I was now able to save into the outlines not only couldn't easily be pulled out, but those attachment formats were not supported when David re-acquired the app and re-coded/relaunched Opal.)

Opal works the same as Acta, amazingly, after all these years, but it's a little frustrating to use in 2022, especially given modern free alternatives like Zavala, and it hasn't been updated or improved since forever. (And has no iOS app.) The major annoyance in usage for me is needing to double-click disclosure triangles despite the fact that such triangles have been single-click in macOS Finder and in Mac apps since the early 80s.

But I still have old 1980s Acta outlines that open in Opal, and the app respects OPML. If I had to recommend one single outliner to someone starting out it would have to be Zavala, which is free on Mac and iOS and is really quite lovely.

I own the cross-platform Cloud Outline/Pro but its formatting is substantially limited and I dislike both the day- and night-mode views.

If I didn't already own the pricy OmniOutliner Pro, only a subset of whose features I use, I'd probably have purchased OutlineEdit 3 by now for Mac. It's everything Opal is plus themes, templates, dark mode, tags, and image attachments - more like a slimmed-down OmniOutliner, priced between Omni's Essentials and Pro products.

Agree about Zavala – a very elegant alternative to the Workflowy/Dynalist duo.

And I'd love to invest in OutlineEdit. I'll have to update my CRIMPing budget, however...

Cheers!
Bill