The OPML Editor is an outliner -- an editor that works with chunks of text that slide around on rails. You can control the level of detail you look at, and reorganize according to structure. #

It's great for writing technical notes, presentations, program code, legal briefs, product plans, to-do lists, blog posts, entire websites, anything where ideas need organization. #

See the outliner cribsheet for an idea of how outlining works. #

The OPML Editor is a distribution of the open source (GPL) Frontier programming environment. #

It can run apps written for Frontier, but it's unique in that it boots up as an outliner, ready to edit OPML documents. #

1. Download OPML.zip, extract the OPML folder.#

2. Copy it where you want it, be aware that it can't be moved after you install. The obvious choice: your Program Files folder.#

3. Open the folder and launch OPML.exe. A dialog should appear asking if you want to update to get the latest code. Please do. It's a "hot" install, you don't need to quit the app to keep going. #

1. Download OPML.dmg. #

2. Drag the OPML folder to the Applications folder.#

3. Open the folder and run the OPML app. As of August 2018, you will probably get a dialog asking for the location of opml.root. Newer versions of Mac OS are trying to protect you. Ted Howard has notes on how to get past this. #

4. A dialog should then appear asking if you want to update to get the latest code. Please do. It's a "hot" install, you don't need to quit the app to keep going. #

You can download the latest OPML app from Ted Howard's site. Ted has been maintaining the kernel for the last few years. Thanks Ted! He also maintains a GitHub repository with the latest releases in reverse chronologic order. #

Important: If the app has trouble finding opml.root at startup, there is a workaround, documented here. #

As of October 2011, the app in the OPML folder is a Universal app. You don't need to find Rosetta to run OPML. #

The OPML Editor is available as an Amazon machine image. The EC2 for Poets tutorial walks you through setup. #

Use this download if you want to run EC2 for Poets on another platform.#

Download this folder onto any Windows 2003 Server platform, running on Amazon, Rackspace, Windows Azure, or in your living room. #

http://static.opml.org/opmlEditor/poets/OPML.zip #

You will get the almost-full EC2-For-Poets experience. #

If you're already using the OPML Editor...#

1. Choose Update opml.root from the File menu.#

2. Quit the app and relaunch (this is needed to be sure the menubar refreshes).#

That's all you need to do. You might want to visit the Preferences and Tools Catalog at the top of the Misc menu.#

It boots as an outliner, but it's also a rich scripting environment, with a built-in web server, content management system, multi-threaded runtime,. It's also a development environment with a full debugger and built-in object database. #

All of it is organized by the outliner. We noticed that hierarchies are all over computer systems, so having it all organized with a rich hierarchy editor made a huge amount of sense. #

It's also a rich environment for running apps, which you can find on the "Tool Catalog" page.#

You can leave questions or comments below.#

There's also a rebooted Frontier-user list on Google Groups. #

To read about the OPML Editor, see the main howto.#