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Can anyone help me with Journler?

A

absurdio

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 25, 2003
380
0
RI, Chi, and/or NY.
The long and the short of it: I've used Journler happily for damn near three years. I've now finally got a glitch or two I'd really like to clear up, but development of Journler has (tragically) ended. The support-forums-that-were are now dominated by spam. If anybody is, as I am, still using Journler and happens to have some fixes, I'd love to hear 'em:

Glitch One: The "search" window in the toolbar seems to have gotten a bit flaky; it's by no means guaranteed, now, that performing a search will turn up every use of the word/phrase.

Glitch Two: My smart folders don't seem to work. If the smart folder is set to include files with a certain tag, those tagged files still won't appear in the folder unless they're dragged there manually.

I'm fairly certain these weren't always issues. I realize I may be forced into finally giving up the ghost, here, and so I'm also open to suggestions for a replacement journaling/general-thought-collecting app. If you're an ex-Journler user, especially, lemme know what you use now, kay?

Thanks, folks.
 
I used Journler happily for several years, but the discontinuation of development (and therefore no support for Snow Leopard), some stability issues, plus the inability to sync reliably, led me to reluctantly give it up.

After a long inspection (I looked at Yojimbo, Together, Evernote, Things, Notebook and a few others), I switched to MacJournal. With care, you can import your entire Journler files and simply carry on. There's some things on Journler I miss, and I do feel that MacJournal is a little bloated for what I need, but it was the best solution I could find.

The clipping via the Services menu works in a similar way to Journler, though not as easy as Evernote.

It also syncs very well Mac to Mac using Dropbox. By default MacJournal uses MobileMe to sync, but I'd advise anyone to steer well clear of that option. The MobileMe sync was unreliable and took ages; Dropbox sync is instant and dependable.
 
Thanks so much, FourCandles!

After a cursory look at the Journler alternatives you mentioned, I can see how MacJournal looks like a good choice. (I think I've tried and rejected Notebook before, and several of the other candidates just seem to want to take on too much at once...)

I'm especially interested in your method for importing your Journler files into MacJournal. I've found that MacJournal has an "Import from Journler" option, but when I pointed that function to my "Journler Entries" folder, MacJournal just adds a new "Journal" called "Journler" with no content in it.

What was your method?

[EDIT: I seem to have resolved that. I just needed to point to the "Jounrler" folder, rather than the "Journler Entries" subfolder. I'll still need to integrate the files into the MacJournal organizational scheme, rather than having those files organized in the subcategory, "Journler," but this is a good start.]

And thanks again for your help. Yours was exactly the kind of response I hoped to get.
 
Last edited:
Glad you're getting sorted.

I moved over to MacJournal just before the direct import option was introduced, but just in case you have any issues, here's what I did:

Basically, first ensure that the Journler Entries folder is "clean", i.e. no empty entries, sub-folders or broken files left by Journler.

Open MJ and drag the whole Journler folder (as you say, NOT Journler Entries) to the MJ sidebar.

This will give a journal called Journler in MJ. Within that will be some now-useless files and folders e.g. Blogs, Collections, Index Entries etc., which you can delete.

All you need is the sub-journal called Journler Entries. Within that should be all your entries, correctly labelled. So, simply drag that folder up in the hierarchy to where you want it.

Maybe the direct import is now even simpler, anyway all the best. :)
 
nested smart folders in MacJournal

when development of Journler ended i also looked for a replacement.

In Journler i heavily use nested smart folders.

MacJournal did not have such a feature.

Does any of you know this is still the case?

Or is there a suitable work around?

Thanks, Erik
 
MacJournal -
nested folders/journals yes;
Smart folders/journals yes;
nested smart folder/journals no.

But I'm not really sure why you'd want smart nested folders? If it's just multiple criteria you're after, you can achieve this within one smart folder/journal.
 
nested smart folders

i have entries with key words and comments

then i have nested smart folders (that filter on these keywords and comments) in which these entries appear.

e.g. webdevelopment
with "nested smart subfolders"
- php
- java
- tools
- etc

but also:
-computer
and within computer, the sublevels:
- software
- my mac
- etc

and this way the same entry that is for example in webdev/tools
can also appear in computer/software

all based on keywords.
this way i create "views" on the info i collect.
and it is quite easy to change change/add views on my collected info.
 
If I'm understanding you correctly, then you should be able to achieve that with a regular folder/journal and, within it, smart sub-folders/journals. Certainly you can have multiple smart folder/journals with different criteria based on tags, keywords etc. and the same entry can appear to multiple smart folders/journals.

But probably best to download the trial and have a play to see if it works exactly as you want.
 
I thought you mentioned that nested smart folders were NOT possible?

In journler i just have 1 journal.

Within this 1 journal i created lots of nested smart folders.
A lot of them are multiple levels deep:


computer > howto > mac os x > finder

computer > software > files > utilities


All smart folders.
Where the "finder" smart folder lives in the "mac os x" smart folder,
the "mac os x" smart folder lives in the "howto" smart folder,
etc.

Now i create an note/entry in the "finder" smart folder. A note about spotlight alternatives.

Later on i think the spotlight alternatives entry should also be present in the "utilities" smart folder. Just drag the entry to the "utilities" smart folder.

Voila the spotlight alternatives entry now comes up in both the "finder" smart folder and the "utilities" smart folder.

Because i just have 1 journal every entry can appear in every smart folder i like.

With the nested smart folders i define views to look at the info stored in my notes/entries.

Also i have a lot of cross references from one article to another.
Just drag one article into another.

And i also have lots of references from journler entries to:
- screenshots
- pdf's
- zip files
- etc.
that live somewhere (fairly good organized) on my mac.
 
About a year ago I bought and tested MacJournal.
But did not find a way to work as i described.

When i stumbled into this forum topic I Just hoped that some former Journler users could show me the way how to achieve this in MacJournal.

It seems so natural to me:
- 1 big collection of notes
- tag every note anyway you want
- make as many smart folders and as deep nested as you want/need
- every (smart folder) level you go deeper: the selection of notes is narrowed down (based on the keywords/tags you filter on)
- any note can appear on any level in any smart folder as long as it has the right keywords/tags

Seems so natural. But....?
 
Last edited:
erikv2 said:
I thought you mentioned that nested smart folders were NOT possible?

In journler i just have 1 journal.

Within this 1 journal i created lots of nested smart folders.
A lot of them are multiple levels deep:

...

And i also have lots of references from journler entries to:
- screenshots
- pdf's
- zip files
- etc.
that live somewhere (fairly good organized) on my mac.
Click to expand...

You can nest a Smart journal/folder within a normal journal/folder, but not within another Smart journal/folder. But I don't think MJ has the flexibility of Journler in this respect.

What Journler calls folders, MacJournal calls "Journals". Hence the references to sub-journals etc. What I believe Journler calls a Journal, MacJournal calls a Document. Confusing.

Not sure if you can reference external documents etc. on MJ. Certainly you can capture text and append to MJ entries, create new MJ entries via the services menu just like in Journler. And with web pages you can use Print>Save PDF to MacJournal.

With files in the finder I tend to just control-click and choose Open With...MacJournal to create an entry containing a copy of whatever it is. That way, everything is in the MJ package and synchronised via Dropbox.

But no, I don't find MJ as intuitive as Journler. Shame it fell by the wayside.
 
erikv2 said:
It seems so natural to me:
- 1 big collection of notes
- tag every note anyway you want
- make as many smart folders and as deep nested as you want/need
- every (smart folder) level you go deeper: the selection of notes is narrowed down (based on the keywords/tags you filter on)
- any note can appear on any level in any smart folder as long as it has the right keywords/tags

Seems so natural. But....?
Click to expand...

I agree. That is an intuitive way to work, and it's a little puzzling that MJ won't do it. The only insight I have is that you can try to rely less heavily on the "1 big collection of notes" stipulation. If you can divide your work (manually) into a few primary journals/folders, then the sub-journals/folders are still some use.

I miss Journler, too.
 
FourCandles said:
Just noticed that Philip Dow is releasing the source code for Journler, updating it for Snow Leopard and developing a new journalling app called Per Se:

http://www.journler.com/blog/index.php
Click to expand...

That's pretty exciting news. Per Se doesn't look ideal to me; I actually really liked Journler's (and now MacJournal's) interface. Still, I'm excited to hear about Journler's resurrection, and I certainly wish Philip Dow all the best with Per Se.
 
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