The Journal 4.0
Posted by zeoli
on 12/6/2004
zeoli
12/6/2004 9:37 pm
A few weeks ago, I asked this group for recommendations for journaling software because I was fearful that the application I have been using, The Journal by DavidRM Software, was losing its nimble editing ability in a major upgrade. I am pleased to let you know that the developer responded to my comments are restored extended selection ability in the editor... albeit in a little unorthodox way, but nevertheless effectively.
The reason for this note is that I think some of you may be interested in exploring The Journal for its intriguing and extensive information categorization methods. Like so many programs, items are stored in a tree hierarchy, but you can create many different information trees, each of which is stored in its own category. Each category can have sub-categories, and these can have have sub-categories and so on. So, essentially, all information is stored in one large hierarchical "tree," but you don't see it that way. The categories are accessible through tabs (which, because of their placement on the screen, mistakenly look as if they apply to the
editor item and not to the tree). In function, then, each category or
subcategory (or subsubcategory...) is like viewing sub-outline in hoist mode, where you only see the items subservient to a certain headline. This in itself makes dealing with the mess of information you can accumulate much easier to deal with, as you never have to view a tree that is too extensive, which, in my view, is the major drawback with most tree-based data managers.
But the developer has added a new feature called TOPICS which helps to cross-categorize your information. In any entry, you can select an amount of text and assign a topic to it, which also color-codes the information for visual identification. You can then search for topics, and get a nifty report listing all the items in which your topic occurs (even across categories), which you can then click to quickly and easily. (FYI, you get the same kind of report when you
search for a text string.)
The program has many other enhancements from the previous version (the new version is 4.0), such as a countdown timer and stop watch, ability to insert tables into your entries, and the ability to do outlining within an entry.
A few caveats: The Journal is first and foremost a writing environment for recording your daily activities. It comes with thesaurus and dictionary. It is not made for quickly capturing text from the web or other sources, though you can do this with cut and paste operations, of course. It does have something called "Get Web Page," which will grab the contents from a web page if you type the URL into the dialog box. Also, I do not know how snappy the search is in really massive files.
If you're looking for a dynamic, feature-packed program for storing and categorizing your own writings, The Journal is well worth looking into. (www.davidrm.com)
Steve Z.
The reason for this note is that I think some of you may be interested in exploring The Journal for its intriguing and extensive information categorization methods. Like so many programs, items are stored in a tree hierarchy, but you can create many different information trees, each of which is stored in its own category. Each category can have sub-categories, and these can have have sub-categories and so on. So, essentially, all information is stored in one large hierarchical "tree," but you don't see it that way. The categories are accessible through tabs (which, because of their placement on the screen, mistakenly look as if they apply to the
editor item and not to the tree). In function, then, each category or
subcategory (or subsubcategory...) is like viewing sub-outline in hoist mode, where you only see the items subservient to a certain headline. This in itself makes dealing with the mess of information you can accumulate much easier to deal with, as you never have to view a tree that is too extensive, which, in my view, is the major drawback with most tree-based data managers.
But the developer has added a new feature called TOPICS which helps to cross-categorize your information. In any entry, you can select an amount of text and assign a topic to it, which also color-codes the information for visual identification. You can then search for topics, and get a nifty report listing all the items in which your topic occurs (even across categories), which you can then click to quickly and easily. (FYI, you get the same kind of report when you
search for a text string.)
The program has many other enhancements from the previous version (the new version is 4.0), such as a countdown timer and stop watch, ability to insert tables into your entries, and the ability to do outlining within an entry.
A few caveats: The Journal is first and foremost a writing environment for recording your daily activities. It comes with thesaurus and dictionary. It is not made for quickly capturing text from the web or other sources, though you can do this with cut and paste operations, of course. It does have something called "Get Web Page," which will grab the contents from a web page if you type the URL into the dialog box. Also, I do not know how snappy the search is in really massive files.
If you're looking for a dynamic, feature-packed program for storing and categorizing your own writings, The Journal is well worth looking into. (www.davidrm.com)
Steve Z.
100341.2151
12/7/2004 2:14 am
Steve -
I've been on the lookout for journal software, too, and have been surprised by the comparative lack of good programs. Maybe EverNote could be used for journalling purposes.
I think the Journal 3 is a neat little program (I haven't looked at v4), although pricey at $40. What puzzles me, though, is the absence of combined journalling/(auto)biography programs. Given the popularity of genealogy, you would think that people would be getting interested in documenting their own (or other people's) lives as a basis for developing fuller accounts of them for future family historians.
Since most people don't keep a journal consistently over the long-term, such a program would need to combine a conventional journal program with some means of documenting critical life events after the fact for those periods that are not covered by existing journal entries.
The only program I know that goes some way to doing this is The Life Journal - http://www.lifejournal.com/ . This is a rather too "New Age-y" therapy-centered program (although many of these aspects can be turned off or just not used: daily "pulse-graphs", etc). But it allows one to record critical events as dated journal entries, and then to view them as "nodes" on a series of graphical time-lines, and as lists of such events.
This provides a very useful way of helping to sort out - for example - how one spent the 1980s. Since I have a memory like a sieve, this provides a useful way of building up - via checkbook stubs, credit card statements, and sparse journal entries - just what on earth I was doing then.
Like The Journal, the Life Journal has also recently moved to a rather clunkier (IMO) new v2, and costs $40. If anybody knows another program with similar capabilities, I'd like to know about it. Genealogical programs like The Master Genealogist - http://www.whollygenes.com/ - can produce chronological lists of events in individual lives, but are not really designed for mapping single lives, and don't have any graphical component.
I'm afraid this is all rather off-thread, but perhaps Life Journal's timeline feature and its ability to categorise topics brings it just within the boundary.
Derek
I've been on the lookout for journal software, too, and have been surprised by the comparative lack of good programs. Maybe EverNote could be used for journalling purposes.
I think the Journal 3 is a neat little program (I haven't looked at v4), although pricey at $40. What puzzles me, though, is the absence of combined journalling/(auto)biography programs. Given the popularity of genealogy, you would think that people would be getting interested in documenting their own (or other people's) lives as a basis for developing fuller accounts of them for future family historians.
Since most people don't keep a journal consistently over the long-term, such a program would need to combine a conventional journal program with some means of documenting critical life events after the fact for those periods that are not covered by existing journal entries.
The only program I know that goes some way to doing this is The Life Journal - http://www.lifejournal.com/ . This is a rather too "New Age-y" therapy-centered program (although many of these aspects can be turned off or just not used: daily "pulse-graphs", etc). But it allows one to record critical events as dated journal entries, and then to view them as "nodes" on a series of graphical time-lines, and as lists of such events.
This provides a very useful way of helping to sort out - for example - how one spent the 1980s. Since I have a memory like a sieve, this provides a useful way of building up - via checkbook stubs, credit card statements, and sparse journal entries - just what on earth I was doing then.
Like The Journal, the Life Journal has also recently moved to a rather clunkier (IMO) new v2, and costs $40. If anybody knows another program with similar capabilities, I'd like to know about it. Genealogical programs like The Master Genealogist - http://www.whollygenes.com/ - can produce chronological lists of events in individual lives, but are not really designed for mapping single lives, and don't have any graphical component.
I'm afraid this is all rather off-thread, but perhaps Life Journal's timeline feature and its ability to categorise topics brings it just within the boundary.
Derek
ureadit
12/7/2004 2:04 pm
Steve Z,
It sounds like the latest version of the Journal has some of GV's category/assignment features. What's your impression?
-sc
It sounds like the latest version of the Journal has some of GV's category/assignment features. What's your impression?
-sc