OmniOutliner

OmniOutliner

Composing a Wikipedia article in OmniOutliner
Developer(s)	The Omni Group
Stable release	3.10.3 / 2011-08-22
Operating system	Mac OS X
Platform	Macintosh
Type	Outliner
License	Commercial
Website	OmniOutliner website

OmniOutliner is commercial outlining software for Mac OS X produced by The Omni Group. OmniOutliner has most features of a conventional outliner, allowing the user to create nested lists of topics for almost any purpose, but has additional features extending its functionality beyond simple outlining. Recent versions of the software are universal binaries. OmniOutliner received a Special Mention in the 2005 Apple Design Awards, and Macworld gave the "Professional" version its highest rating.^[1]

Feature set

Outlining

OmniOutliner provides the basic functions of an outliner, structuring content in a hierarchy of rows indented under one another to show the relationships between different items. The user can expand or collapse outline levels for easy viewing, sort topics, promote or demote the level of a topic, or "hoist" one level so only that topic is shown. It supports considerable control over styles, allowing the user to make global changes to the appearance of the outline at particular level. It also permits the user to add notes to any row, which can be displayed in-line, (i.e. within the structure of the outline) or in a separate pane below the outline. OmniOutliner documents can incorporate multimedia elements, including images, audio, and video, as well as PDF documents and web links.

In addition, OmniOutliner allows the addition of columns to the outline, so that the user can create rudimentary spreadsheets. There is limited support for summarizing columns, such as totaling or averaging, albeit not with anything close to the variety of functions provided in conventional spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel.

Notably, OmniOutliner does not support cloning, a feature of some outliners that allows one topic to appear at more than one place in the outline. The Omni Group may, however, add this feature sometime in the future. ^[2]

Extensibility

OmniOutliner supports scripting via AppleScript, and users have extended the software to export to iCal, Apple's calendaring software, and even the iPod.^[3]

OmniOutliner was updated for compatibility with Spotlight, Apple's desktop search function introduced in Mac OS X v10.4 ("Tiger"). This allows content within OmniOutliner documents to appear within Spotlight's search results. The user can add metadata to the document that Spotlight will index in its database.

Import/export

OmniOutliner's document format is proprietary, but it can export to OPML, HTML, and several text and rich text formats. It can import from several other document formats (ACTA, MORE, Keynote, and Concurrence), as well as text and rich text formats.

References

1. ^ "Review of OmniOutliner 3 Professional". http://www.macworld.com/article/45347/2005/06/omnioutliner3pro.html. Retrieved 2008-04-19. 
2. ^ "OmniOutliner official FAQ". http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/support/#7. Retrieved 2008-04-19. 
3. ^ "Flexible OmniOutliner". http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/mac/2003/12/12/omnioutliner.html. Retrieved 2008-04-19.