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Preferences

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This page discusses the options you can set in Opal’s Preferences window. To summon the Preferences window:

Editing

Return key...

Smart quotes. If checked, then when you type a double-quote character or a single-quote character it will be converted automatically to the correct “curly” version of that character. You can type a “straight quote” (single or double) by holding the Control key as you press the Quote key.

Font

Click the Change button to bring up the Font palette, where you can set a default font.

Miscellaneous

Auto-save outlines... If checked, Opal will save a copy of your open documents every so often (you determine how often by the number you enter in the “seconds” field). This auto-saved copy is deleted when the document is closed. The idea is that if the document is not closed in good order (because there was some kind of catastrophic failure), the auto-saved version will not have been deleted, and so may be used to recover changes more recent than your last explicit save.

Bullets in Clipboard. If checked, bullet labels are inserted at the start of each topic in the text representation of an outline on the clipboard. This text representation is used, for example, when you copy topics and then paste into another application (or when you drag and drop topics from Opal into another application). The bullet labels used are those shown in the Bullets field above, or in the Labels dialog (the latter overrides the former).

Startup

Check for update. If checked, Opal will attempt, each time you start up the application, to go online and see whether you have the latest version of Opal.

Create new outline. If checked, Open will open a new empty outline document when the program is launched. Otherwise, when the program is launched, nothing happens (and you can then create a new document, or open an existing document without having to dismiss the automatically created empty document).

Interface

Combine Collapse and Expand menu items. If checked, the menu commands Topic > Collapse Topic and Topic > Expand Topic will be the same menu item. Similarly, the menu commands Topic > Shrink Topic and Topic > Grow Topic will be the same menu item. If a single topic is selected, only one command of each pair is possible, and that is the command that the corresponding menu item will express. If multiple topics are selected, Expand Topic and Grow Topic will be used unless all selected topics are already expanded / grown.

Outline current topic.

New Outlines

Settings that you make here apply to future new outlines as a kind of base setting, but each of them can be overridden for any individual outline.

Background Color. This is the background for odd-numbered rows and for the outline as a whole. To override for an individual outline, choose View > Outline Info.

Alternate Row Color. This is the background for even-numbered rows. To override for an individual outline, choose View > Outline Info.

Line Color. This determines whether a horizontal line is drawn after each topic and, if so, what color it is. To override for an individual outline, choose View > Outline Info.

Bullets. The sequence of characters you enter here is used in two ways:

To override the sequence for an individual outline, choose View > Labels. For an explanation of how the characters in the sequence are applied to individual topics, see here.

Check spelling as you type. Toggles real-time spell-checking. To override for an individual outline, choose Edit > Spelling > Check Spelling as You Type.

Single ancestress. Determines whether an outline should be limited to having no more than one top-level topic. To override for an individual outline, choose View > Outline Info.



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