I seem to remember The Journal (http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/ has one or two admirers here. Fifty per cent off at Bits du Jour on Friday.

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/the-journal/

The Journal is a nice application with lots of great features. I used it for years before switching to a MacBook for my personal writing. Here's a quick list of pros and cons (from my perspective):

Pros -
- Unlimited number of notebooks, both dated and loose-leaf.
- Unique categorizing of material within an entry (what the developer calls topics).
- Lots of tools for writing (thesaurus, spelling, word counts, countdown timer, etc.)

Cons -
- Tree-pane (the "outliner") is a bit clunky and old fashioned (you wouldn't want to use it for real outlining)
- Editor is a little clunky, as well -- doesn't have extended selection

I'm sure I'm not doing The Journal justice, but as a long-time user, I thought I'd put out a few comments for those thinking of taking advantage of the Bits du Jour offer.

Steve Z.

Thanks for your comments, Steve. I've been playing with The Journal today -- despite my addiction to writing software it's the first time I've tried The Journal. I'm impressed. As you say, lots of great features.

I think I've seen enough to encourage me to add it to my collection, although whether it will replace my current favourite notebook program (PageFour) remains to be seen. But it's certainly much more powerful and flexible than PageFour.

One query, Steve, if you don't mind. What about database integrity? Have you had any problems with it? I've searched around The Journal web site and the Yahoo group and I can't find any discussion about the database format used. I'm always reluctant to commit to this kind of program unless I know the engine is robust (in the case with PageFour, all individual entries are saved as RTF files. Simple, and maybe not the ideal, but reliable and functional for a simple writing program).

The Journal's feature set would probably encourage me to put more varied content into the database, hence my query about its reliability.

John,

I'm not technologically savvy enough to be able to tell you what kind of data engine The Journal utilizes, but I can tell you I have never experienced a problem with losing data. I haven't loaded it with a lot of photo images, but I do have quite a few text entries in various notebooks. I monitor the Yahoo forum and don't recall there being any major concerns about database integrity. The product does have a pretty good backup system and restore system, so I think you'd be covered.

I hope this meager information is of help.

Steve

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Pros -
- Unlimited number of notebooks, both dated and loose-leaf.
- Unique categorizing of material within an entry (what the developer calls topics).
- Lots of tools for writing (thesaurus, spelling, word counts, countdown timer, etc.)

To the pros I would add a rather under-advertised feature which in my opinion is quite unique, or at least very rare: The Journal can publish its content through most of the popular blog tools such as Blogger and WordPress.

It therefore operates as an offline bloging tool, something very useful for people like me who have no 24/7 internet access due to moving around a lot.

Alexander

John,

On the database question, you might find the documentation on the version history very interesting. I don't know, because I'm not a programmer either -- but you might be able to make sense. Here's the link:

http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/tjversionhistory.php

Hope this helps.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I'm not technologically savvy enough to be able to tell you what kind of data
engine The Journal utilizes, but I can tell you I have never experienced a problem with
losing data.

Release notes make it pretty clear they use DBISAM. (Whatever that is.)

David Dunham wrote:

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

>I'm not technologically savvy enough to be able to tell you
what kind of data
>engine The Journal utilizes, but I can tell you I have never
experienced a problem with
>losing data.

Release notes make it pretty clear they
use DBISAM. (Whatever that is.)

Here's a link to the developer of DBISAM:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/prodinfo.htm

Steve Z.

Steve/MsJulie/David,

Thanks for the guidance on the database. More bedtime reading...