Why now, Omnioutliner?

May 8, 2008 8:01 AM

Why did Omnioutliner start bugging me about registration only after I reinstalled Leopard?

I've been using Omnioutliner since I got my MacBook last July. I seem to recall it was bundled with OS X 10.4, but I might be wrong about that. Anyway, I used it fine, dandy, and free for two semesters of law school. It continued to work even after I upgraded to 10.5 in January.

Then last week (right before exams, oh noes!), my hard drive died. I wound up reinstalling OS X 10.5 and all my software by hand, and now Omnioutliner refuses to save anything in a document of more than thirty lines. This is irritating to say the least.

I don't refuse to pay the forty bucks to register, though it's not an expense I planned for (especially after the costs of getting back up and running from my HDD crash, and especially as I prepare to move to the land of doubled prices). Also, after using it for so long, I'm really not that in love with Omnioutliner. If I know it's going to cost me forty bucks, I'll probably make the jump to a free/cheaper alternative before fall term. Until then, though, I've got three exams in the next week, and I can't change any of my notes. So, am I missing something obvious about a free Omnioutliner trial, or should I just export everything to .rtf and go from there?

posted by electric_counterpoint to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Have you tried contacting Omni?
posted by nathan_teske at 8:07 AM on May 8, 2008

OmniOutliner has never been bundled with the OS. It used to come bundled with certain machines, but I don't think they've done that for years now.

When your hard drive died, you lost your license file, which tells OmniOutliner that it's a registered copy. If you have a backup of the old drive, here's the process for recovering your license file.

Without the license file, or some documentation that you had a legitimate license (like a receipt), I don't think Omni can help you. Your best course of action is to spend the 40 bucks -- with three law school exams in the next week, the last thing you need is the additional cognitive burden of learning to work with a new piece of software.
posted by jjg at 8:22 AM on May 8, 2008

Just to be clear, was this software that came preinstalled on your MacBook? Your original system disks should allow you to reinstall such software, although I'm not sure what complications you'd have to get past since the installer probably wouldn't want to run on a new OS. Look for custom options, and barring that, check out utilities such as Pacifist, which let you extract just what you want out package-based installers.
posted by kimota at 8:24 AM on May 8, 2008

Oh yeah, in case I wasn't clear: I never registered it before, it just worked. I checked all my email accounts for a receipt, just in case I'd forgotten registering it, and nothin'. That's why I'm confused — I can't figure out why it would have worked unregistered before, and stopped now.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 8:26 AM on May 8, 2008

jjg, it came bundled on my MacBook Pro a year ago.
posted by kimota at 8:27 AM on May 8, 2008

How about a trial license to use for the time being?
posted by genial at 9:20 AM on May 8, 2008

Full disclosure: I run the support department @ Omni.

Folks have covered most of the relevant details - a trial license will get you back up and running while we sort this out. Your copy of OO came bundled with your MacBook; there should either be a separate "Software Restore" disk that came with the machine, or possibly it's an option in the OS install. Apple's used both approaches at various times.

What you want to do is use that disk to re-install the bundled copy, launch it (which copies the bundle license file to the appropriate spot on your HD), and then update to the current build.

Next, you'll want to head over to this page and enter your contact info. Once you do that, you can just send us an email from the 'lost my license' link on our store and we'll shoot an email out to you with the code.
posted by dvorak_beats_qwerty at 10:28 AM on May 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Note that the bundled copy on a Software Restore disc might not be immediately obvious, either. In the past, I've used Pacifist to get the Omni installers out of the main bundle structure, if I remember correctly.
posted by mikeh at 2:46 PM on May 8, 2008