Journler
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Journler hits 2.5.4, goes shareware
We at TUAW love Journler (OK ... we love a lot of things; but that's beside the point). Journler was recently updated to version 2.5.4, giving many fixes to the note-taking, Swiss Army Knife journaling application. Some of the fixes include: Leopard compatibility Improved Tiger performance Token based tagging Built-in blogging removed (added support for 3rd party weblog apps) MailTags keyword support Importing PDFs got faster In addition to these features, Journler also became a shareware application. What this means is that when Journler 2.6 is released, you will need to buy a license to keep running Journler; otherwise, you will be limited to a 60-day trial, after which, you will need to buy it. Version 2.5.4 is meant to be a "transitioning version" where you can buy a license now, but these licenses will not be enforced until 2.6. The developer's blog has the complete details. Until version 2.6, Journler will remain free to download from the Journler/Sprouted website.
Journler's licensing shift means next version is paid-only
When Phillip Dow first introduced Journler, the accessible yet remarkably feature-deep journaling and personal information repository app, he made a distinction between commercial licensing and personal use. Journler users who wanted to make money or do business with the program would pay, and anyone using it for its core functionality (personal journals) could donate what they saw fit for the program. Unfortunately, as is often the case with things that can be had for free, Phil didn't see the revenue from commercial licensing + personal donations that he needed to support the program. To allow him to continue developing Journler, with the forthcoming 2.6 release, the app is moving to a paid-only license: a single use license will be $34.95, with no more free rides (but a generous 60-day evaluation period). Yesterday the educational & family pack pricing for the new license was announced: $19.95 for students, including K-12, undergrad and graduate use; $99.95 for a 5-license family pack. Both special purchase options are a 40% savings over the standard license.I've come to appreciate Journler as I've used it over the past few weeks, and I think this is the right call for this capable tool. We'll be looking at Journler in more detail soon, along with some of its competitors, but you should check it out now.
Mmoires: simple journaling
Mémoires is a modest piece of software with modest ambitions, but this simple journaling software brings off those aims with style and aplomb. It's basically a diary program with a calendar that helps you keep track of the entries. In many ways this approach is more or less the opposite of the excellent Journler, whose developer seems to take a kind of "kitchen sink" attitude toward features. Nonetheless, if all you want is a simple and stylish program to keep a journal this might be just what you need.Mémoires is in beta and available for download from Coding Robots.
Journler beta gets proper tagging abilities
In case you missed TUAW Podcast #24, I've gone gaga for Philip Dow's Journler. It's a phenomenal donationware app that offers robust features for keeping a diary, storing files you need to keep track of, recording audio/video entries and even blogging. One of Journler's cruxes, however, is that its UI for tagging entries wasn't quite up to par; tags were separated with spaces or commas (your choice), but aside from searching, there was no decent way to really grab hold of and utilize your tags. Fortunately, a beta posted by Dow in the Journler forums offers a glimpse at how the app's tagging paradigm is changing for the better - much better. As you can see, tags are now 'officially' recognized by Journler, and pressing return invokes a satisfying blue bubble around them, securing their entry in Journler's database. As you work with these new tags, Journler will also begin to auto-complete them, saving you more and more time as you continue down the path to Journler goodness. [Update: I didn't even realize this, but Dow built in an even cooler, killer feature with these tags - you can click on then in an entry or in the entry browser and view a list of other entries using that same tag. I'm in love.]If you decide to check out this new version though, be sure to read through the entire forum post. Dow had to make some changes to the way Journler stores and creates your tags, so he had to create an AppleScript you only have to run once to help get the new version up to par and convert over all your old tags for the new system. Naturally, you should back up your Journler folder in Application Support before trying any of this, but I happily performed the upgrade with nary a bump on the trip. Don't forget: Journler is donationware, and Philip Dow sure would appreciate a few bucks for his excellent work.
TUAW Tip: get more control when creating new Journler entries
While poking around at my favorite new app for getting a lot of my writing done, I found a way to enable a bit more control when creating new entries. By default, Journler has this 'Use quick entry creation' preference checked under the Advanced pane, which allows you to create a new entry using the date as a title and the cursor inserted in the body of the entry, ready to rock 'n roll. Unchecking this pref, however, will instead present you with the dialog you see pictured, prompting you to edit the title, category, tags and other aspects of the entry before you get down to work. It all depends on how you want to get writing, but toggling this option can definitely give more power over creating entries to those who are using Journler for more than, well, a daily Journal.
TUAW Podcast #24: Journler
[Update 2: The direct download link is working fine now, and I pinged the iTunes Store to check our podcast feed again, so it'll take a little time for them The iTunes Store feed has updated so we're good to go. I hope you enjoy the podcast - and of course Journler if you give it a whirl - and please leave feedback as I hope to make a lot more of these in the future (with podcast releases going far more smoothly, of course). Thanks again for your patience.]This week's podcast is a screencast of an app that I finally 'get' and have subsequently gone nutty for: Philip Dow's Journler. It's an app very much like Yojimbo, Mori and SOHO Notes in that it's a journal/digital junk drawer for your work and life. For roughly fifteen minutes I cover some of the coolest features in Journler that both grabbed my personal attention and caused me to chose Mr. Dow's excellent app as my new blogging tool of choice for penning most of my TUAW and Download Squad posts.As usual you can pick up a copy of our latest podcast (weighing in at 36MB and 13 minutes on the dot) from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. I'm also please to announce that I finally did some research into why my previous video screencasts weren't iPod-friendly and have fixed the issue. Even though this particular screencast might look a little tiny on a 5G iPod (I captured the entirety of my 1440 x 900 MacBook Pro display, then re-sized to 640 x 398 for this one), you should nevertheless be able to take it with you on that commute you're packing up for. Enjoy![Update: We are indeed having trouble serving the podcast at the moment. Hang in there, we'll get this fixed as soon as possible and I'll update this post once we stamp out the issue. Sorry for the trouble.]
Journler 2.1 beta previews massive upgrade
Philip Dow has announced a significant update to Journler, his feature-packed writing/digital junk drawer app that topped my list of apps that help you get organized. As far as what's new, Philip stated in the beta download forum thread that there are simply too many changes to list (hopefully he means 'for now'), so he's taken the 'push some buttons and have fun!' route. At first glance, the app has obviously joined many others in the new realm of the Unified toolbar, and the rest of the UI has received a lot of polish. Unparalleled iLife integration is better than ever with a dedicated button for calling various media browsers in the bottom right of the window, and a new in-line resources panel on the right helps you to keep track of all the images, audio, video and documents you have linked and embedded in the present entry.I'm sure a lot more has been added to an already excellent app, and the discussion is ensuing in this Journler forum thread, where you can also download a copy of the beta. Lastly, Journler's license has also received an update. It's still donationware for personal use (and I highly encourage you to show Philip some love for all his hard work if you're using it), but a $24.95 license - a steal at that price, especially in comparison to Yojimbo or SOHO Notes - is now required for any institutions, businesses, organizations or individuals who are using Journler in their daily routines and/or simply making money with it. It's a pretty straight-forward request, and more information is available in either a Journler preference pane, or on the web here.Journler is an excellent app that I highly recommend if you're tired of leaving text files and images lying around. Check out its extensive feature list, and keep in mind it hasn't been updated for all the new goodies in the 2.1 beta.
Get organized: a survey of digital junk drawer apps
A while ago I decided to bring some sanity to the way I do things and organize all my stuff. I'm working on a design thesis in my multimedia undergrad degree, I'm constantly doing research for my blogging work, and I have countless other projects and ideas that were growing in both size and disorganization in my Home folder. When I decided to finally start getting organized, I realized I might not be the only person in this position, and I figured I would turn my research and testing experiences into a post; a sort of survey of what some call 'digital junk drawer' applications.What follows is a pro and con summary of four of the most popular junk drawer apps I looked at, but read this post with a few of my criteria in mind: I like keyboard shortcuts. I like them a lot. Being able to highlight a chunk of text in a browser or a PDF I'm reading and hitting a couple of keys to send it to a junk drawer app is far more efficient and less workflow-intrusive than having to use a mouse to drag and drop it to some far corner of my display. I decided not to touch apps that employ entirely different paradigms such as the wiki-like VoodooPad; I'm not denying the usefulness of these other ways of working, but adding that entirely new level to this survey would've meant putting this post on the back-burner for longer than I would like. I'm using a MacBook Pro 2.0 Ghz with 1.5 GB RAM, and while I synced my notes library across these apps to gauge performance 'n all that jazz, my library is a mere 500 notes (URLs, PDFs, etc.) strong, so your mileage may vary. With that said, check out my survey of some Mac OS X apps that could help you bring order to your digital chaos, and feel free to post your thoughts or mention apps that should've made this list, and why.
