Title: Welcome to Journler
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags:
Introduction
Journler is the premier journaling and entry based information manager for the Macintosh®. Whether you're looking for a straightforward diary or a full featured PIM or GTD system, Journler has the flexibility to meet your needs.
For the writer Journler is a simple, intuitive program. Type your thoughts and attach pictures and songs using the iLife integration. As you compose your entries take advantage of Journler's writer-in-mind features such as spell checking and auto correction, live word count and smart quotes.
For the GTD fans or project and information managers, Journler is a flexible and powerful tool. Journler's nested smart folders system is the most capable smart folder implementation of any Macintosh program, period. Auto-tagging puts your data where it belongs, while a blazing fast search engine and advanced, on-the-fly filtering helps you find it when you need it. Put anything in Journler, including contacts, email messages, pdfs, web archives, web sites, audio, video -- almost anything -- link it effortlessly and discover implicit connections using the embedded Lexicon.
Have a look at the sample entries in the folders at the left for examples of how you can get the most out of Journler. For help with specific features browse the Journler Help files at your leisure.
Enjoy.
Created in Journler, March 2007
Copyright © 2005-2007, Philip Dow
Title: Smart folder example: flagged entry
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags: Smart Family
Smart families are a Journler first and a powerful way to organize your entries. The idea is a familiar one. Folders have subfolders. In Journler the same goes for smart folders: smart folders also have subfolders. Creating a smart family is as easy as adding a smart folder to one you already have.
Smart families are special because the subfolders in a family take on the conditions of their parents, permitting complex organizational hierarchies without the need to repeat conditions. Let's use the folders at the left as an example.
The folder title Smart Family has a single condition, "tags contain smart family." As a result it automatically collects any entry whose tags include the phrase "smart family." That folder then has two children, Flagged and Checked. The Flagged folder has a single condition, "marking is flagged", and the Checked folder also has a single condition, "marking is checked."
Normally the subfolders collect any entry that is flagged or checked, but because they are also children of the Smart Family folder an entry's tags must include "smart family" to appear in them. The subfolders only collect those entries that match their respective conditions as well as those of their parents.
For more information about smart folders, auto-tagging and smart families, refer to the Smart Folders Help page.
Title: Smart folder example: checked entry
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags: Smart Family
This is a checked entry. Find out more in the flagged entry (Journler Link).
Title: Entries may belong to many folders
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags:
Just like in iTunes with your music and iPhoto with your pictures, in Journler your entries may be placed in more than one folder. When you drag an entry to a folder the entry is not moved to the folder. Instead, the entry is added to it. In a sense folders don't have any real existence. They are simply a way for you to group your entries, with the entries potentially belonging to more than one group.
For more information about folders have a look at the Folders Help page.
Title: Organize entries by the media they contain
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags:
Journler's ease of use and straightforward interface mask a powerful flexibility. Journler was originally designed with the writer in mind, but the program may also be configured as a personal information manager.
An Audio Addition
The written entry takes center stage in Journler. Most organization will occur around it. But you may also add media of almost any kind to your entries. Include Mail messages and Address Book contacts as well as any kind of file. Your bookmarked websites, images, video and audio are all instantly accessible thanks to Journler's iLife integration. Journler includes built-in viewing support for all of this media as well as web archives and text, rich text, PDF and Word documents.
When you use Journler as a personal information manager you'll want to organize your entries by the media they contain. The PIM: Audio Entries smart folder is an example of this kind of usage. The single condition for that smart folder is "resources include items of type audio file." The smart folder automatically collects any entries that have audio associated with them.
Because the associated media has priority over the written entry in a personal information manager, you may also want to bypass a file's owning entry and view the media directly when you select the entry. The media still belongs to a text entry, as it must in Journler, but you won't notice that. In Journler's media preferences check Select imported media by default. Manually set the default resource for an entry by checking the Make Default for Entry item in the media work tool button at the bottom right of the window.
Title: GTDing with Journler
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags:
Journler's flexible interface provides fast access to your action lists, projects and reference information. Features such as folders and smart folders, the bookmark bar, due dates and the Services menu make Journler an ideal tool for GTD.
Fans of GTD will want to pay special attention to Journler's smart folder system. Create an Inbox folder set to collect entries with the Drop Box category or that are not tagged and categorized. You'll also want a smart folder to look at entries whose due date is within the next week, like this one, keeping your focus on upcoming events. Other smart folders can target flagged or checked entries.
Regular folders also play a significant part in the setup. A Projects folder with subfolders for individual projects may be used to keep your current activities close at hand. Next action entries, reference information, your own thoughts about the project and related media all become instantly accessible. During your weekly review everything is organized and ready for a quick scan.
Almost any GTD category can find a home in a folder or smart folder. Someday/Maybe items, References, the Agenda and Contexts may each be established to group your entries in a way that best fits your specific needs. As you build your personalized system make sure to use of a range of entry attributes such as label and tags. Auto-tagging will automatically place your Next Actions in the selected Context.
With a system in place you're ready to take advantage of Journler's many way of getting stuff into your Inbox. Journler provides a PDF Service for printing directly to the program. A services menu item is also available for importing data of various types and may be combined with Quicksilver for the most effective use. The Journler Drop Box may be placed anywhere on your desktop. Files and clippings dragged to it will go straight into Journler so you can access them later.
Title: First Snow
Date: January 20, 2008 3:22 PM
Category: Journler
Tags: Pictures
Because the written word isn't always the best way to say something, Journler makes it easy to add images and other kinds of media to your entries. Click the Media toolbar button to see all of your iLife pictures, songs, movies and bookmarks. Placing a picture in an entry is as simple as dragging it from the media window to your entry's text. Once it's there, click on the image to zoom to a bigger version of it. You may return to your entry with the back button or by selecting it once more from the entry list.
