Journaling with DTPO

Hi Guys and Girls!

Trying to figure out if I should use a separate app for keeping journals (projects, customers, personal) or stick with DTPO for this.

Someone mentioned using DT and MacJournal together quite successfully. Anybody else here is using the same combination?

I was trying to use the template ‘Journal’, but can’t find a way to jump from one field to another (Date, Time, Entry by, Made where) using just keyboard.

I like the UNIX idea “one task, one app” as oppose to “all-in-one app” :wink: But if there is a solid way of using DT for journaling, I’m all ears.

I can’t say that I have much to add here, but after viewing your post and the link to MacJournal, I am wondering if MacJournal might be a good tool for writing and blogging.

I find that my personal notes and random thoughts and such tend to get lost in DTPO. And sometimes my ideas don’t fit neatly into one of my database categories, making the decision of where to put them rather difficult. Perhaps I should add a “mics” or “personal thoughts data base”? I do have a private password-protected Wordpress blog that I use as a ??? psychological journal of some sort, posting thoughts about where I am at in life, what I am missing and what I need to focus on (etc.)

I like the idea of having a separate writing space apart from DTPO.

Are you currently using MacJournal?

  • Ryan

I too am on the quest for a perfect Journal. I find MacJournal on the Mac to be one of the more workable alternatives, with a variety of ways to get entries and web clippings in. However, I often use my iPad to read and make entries and this is one area where MacJournal is currently lacking. Although they have an improved iOS version in beta, (no idea what is being improved) currently their iOS apps don’t even allow rich text to be viewed, let alone entered, and links are lost as well. DEVONthink to Go is a much stronger alternative if you want cross platform access to your journal.

I have also found that I prefer to format my journal with one page per month, rather than the classic one entry per day. That makes it easier to see connections and to develop ideas across days. The ability of MacJournal to view multiple days on one screen is limited to the beginning of each entry only.

I also have used Circus Ponies NoteBook at times. The strength of this program is that each day’s entry, or even a paragraph from a day’s entry is in a separate cell as part of an outline. Each cell can be tagged and if I search across all my entries for a specific topic, only the relevant paragraph is found. An entry can also be collapsed, which can id is seeing connections. The iPad version of NoteBook is robust in using text formatting, albeit a bit cumbersome.

So I have a separate DEVONthink database which is my journal. Entries are by month, with each month having a file for clipping, related to the ideas that I am developing in my journal. The sync across to DEVONthink to Go is good. I can read my entries as formatted, although I enter new ones separately to not lose any formatting and copy them over to the main monthly page when I return to my Mac. DEVONthink has great clipping and entry options, for sure. In both NoteBook and MacJournal web clippings are text based rather than true web archives.

Hope this is helpful. Someday it would be great if their was a DEVONjournal application, building on the strengths of DEVON technology.

Regards,

Mark