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Special User Sections => General Review Discussion => Other Stuff => What's the Best? => Topic started by: superboyac on May 14, 2007, 01:04 AM

Title: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: superboyac on May 14, 2007, 01:04 AM
I was maybe thinking of keeping a diary, and I looked around for the best software for this.  There are various issues with this...for one thing, a journal might not be too different from a notetaking program, so you can very well use one of those programs for it.  I think as far as a journal goes, Evernote would be the clear choice among the general notetaking software because it organizes things by date by default.  And it's easy to navigate and search.

But being the kind of person that I am, I believe that it's better to find a piece of software specifically designed for the intent of journals.  There's a software called "The Journal (http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/)" that seems to have a lot of features specifically designed for this kind of thing.  I was wondering if anyone here had experience with journals/diary software.  Please chime in!
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Grorgy on May 14, 2007, 01:18 AM
Im trialling a thing called Ideamason ( http://www.ideamason.com/ ) which at a quick look has a lot of the features of the Journal, but then i want it specifically for essay writing and research of that type, and much prefer a single organized place for things rather than a separate program for everything, so long as it does it well. (unlike everything else in my life which seems to be totally disorganized lol)


Edit  Ideamason is somewhat more expensive at $79 for a single user licence  $69 for students
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 14, 2007, 03:19 AM
But being the kind of person that I am, I believe that it's better to find a piece of software specifically designed for the intent of journals.

Being the type of person you are, you also probably want something that's "indexable" with a desktop search program (X1, copernic, archivarius...)  :)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 14, 2007, 03:32 AM
I've tried different software and I came back to Word and Ultraedit (or even jedit) (it could of course be any word-text processor)... When I write a journal, I don't want to be bothered or distracted with a thousand new fancy options. I just want to be able to insert the date and time, write, change fonts, etc., and insert various objects (pictures, graphs...). There's one thing that I'd eventually like to do though : to "mindmap" inside word, and to be able to draw quick sketches. I might buy a Wacom pad for that.

I tried OneNote at some point -- fun but I disliked the fact that none of the desktop search applications I was using could index my documents' content. I'm getting a bit tired of all these different proprietary file formats on my computer. I 'm looking more and more for cross platform file formats, if possible.


(edit : added the "ultraedit, jedit" part...)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: patteo on May 14, 2007, 04:34 AM
I tried OneNote at some point -- fun but I disliked the fact that none of the desktop search applications I was using could index my documents' content. I'm getting a bit tired of all these different proprietary file formats on my computer. I 'm looking more and more for cross platform file formats, if possible.

I think if I'm not mistaken, Windows Desktop Search does index Onenote files.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: tinjaw on May 14, 2007, 08:03 AM
I was looking for something to keep a daily journal of the stuff I do at work. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I did find DiaryOne (http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/DiaryOne/diaryone.html) which looks nice.

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: superboyac on May 14, 2007, 10:29 AM
Im trialling a thing called Ideamason ( http://www.ideamason.com/ ) which at a quick look has a lot of the features of the Journal, but then i want it specifically for essay writing and research of that type, and much prefer a single organized place for things rather than a separate program for everything, so long as it does it well. (unlike everything else in my life which seems to be totally disorganized lol)
Ideamason is a bit much for just a simple journal.  However, as far as notetaking, it seems very interesting.  I just finished watching the screenshot tour of it and it looks like it's a mature program with many research-oriented options.  I need to look at it a little more for the notetaking thread.

Being the type of person you are, you also probably want something that's "indexable" with a desktop search program (X1, copernic, archivarius...)  :)
I don't know, I don't think I need to be able to index it with another program.  After all, it is "private" so I don't want to be as accessible as all my other normal documents.  The search options in the Journal are pretty extensive, so I shouldn't have a hard time finding anything.  If people are going to snoop around in my journal, at least make them work for it!
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 14, 2007, 03:48 PM

I think if I'm not mistaken, Windows Desktop Search does index Onenote files.

True. I just don't like Windows Desktop Search very much. But, Yes, it's good to mention it does actually index OneNote files!

(I didn't specify it but I mainly use X1 and Copernic, which I find superior... And I don't want to have 3 DS programs to run at the same time.)

Edit : actually, there are many pages on the web analysing some of the problems that preoccupy me : Long-term Accessibility of files, "easiness of search", etc. `. Here's one that's pretty representatives of my anxieties  :) :
http://pigpog.com/node/1001

There are many others, of course...

(edit : added the web page link)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 14, 2007, 03:56 PM
I don't know, I don't think I need to be able to index it with another program.  After all, it is "private" so I don't want to be as accessible as all my other normal documents.  The search options in the Journal are pretty extensive, so I shouldn't have a hard time finding anything.  If people are going to snoop around in my journal, at least make them work for it!

I guess you're right. My personal journals are encrypted...  :-[ But I have many other "journals" on different subjects, less intimate, and I love the fact that everything is indexed. Anyhow : If the search options in the journal software are good, well...

I wonder : what kind of stuff one might really need in a journal that's not already in a word processor (or that's not possible to create with macros, AHK, etc.) ? i'm not saying it would be useless or anything, I just wonder...

(edit : oups, mistake)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: J-Mac on May 20, 2007, 02:03 PM
I use "The Journal" available at http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/ (http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/).  Definitely worth a look - they have a full-featured 45 day trial you can download.

I was looking for such a program for quite a while but was really limiting myself by requiring that the application have both a desktop PC and Pocket PC version available. But I finally gave up on that and started looking for simply the best PC journal software I could find - and The Journal fit the bill.  Excellent developer support with a very active Yahoo group (though I don't really like Yahoo groups!). This one gives me all that I need, plus has a lot of additional features that I am not presently using, but I hope to use someday.

It's not inexpensive, but it satisfies all of my requirements, and has some extras that are really great.

Oops - I just noticed that superboyac did mention this software in his initial post -- and he is correct in that this application is not really interactive with other applications, though you can link a number of other document types to it, as well as embed them in your journal pages.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 20, 2007, 03:30 PM
I use "The Journal" available at http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/ (http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/).  Definitely worth a look - they have a full-featured 45 day trial you can download.

I was looking for such a program for quite a while but was really limiting myself by requiring that the application have both a desktop PC and Pocket PC version available. But I finally gave up on that and started looking for simply the best PC journal software I could find - and The Journal fit the bill.  Excellent developer support with a very active Yahoo group (though I don't really like Yahoo groups!). This one gives me all that I need, plus has a lot of additional features that I am not presently using, but I hope to use someday.

It's not inexpensive, but it satisfies all of my requirements, and has some extras that are really great.

Oops - I just noticed that superboyac did mention this software in his initial post -- and he is correct in that this application is not really interactive with other applications, though you can link a number of other document types to it, as well as embed them in your journal pages.

I checked the features and compared them to EverNote. Interesting to see that the <b>free</b> version of EverNote seems to give the user almost <b>all</b> the same features. Doesn't it?

Some aspects of EverNote (like the searching capability, the tagging system, the Multiple Note Formats, The universal clipper, the support for various pen devices, etc.)actually seem even more powerful. But I'll see after trying The Journal.

Right now, I actually use EverNote in conjunction with a Word Document -- as I suggested before. But I guess I fcould rely exclusively on since it's got probably most of the features one might want for a journal (like : very very easy to see everything <b>chronologically AND sorted through the different categories</b>).

I guess I just love EverNote.  :)
Simple, free, yet very powerful.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: rjbull on May 20, 2007, 03:52 PM
There's a free add-on program for Treepad Lite, that makes a file with a node ready-named with the date for each day of a year.


Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: J-Mac on May 20, 2007, 04:13 PM
Well, using that logic, I guess you could make the claim that you could use Evernote in place of Word, Notepad, or really any application that is note/text editing related. But I think that most do not wish to do so, or the other journal/text editing/note-taking programs would be out of business!   :-\

The features that many look for are one's more specific to their needs, rather than taking generic applications and force-fitting them to do all.

Just my opinion.

I checked the features and compared them to EverNote. Interesting to see that the <b>free</b> version of EverNote seems to give the user almost <b>all</b> the same features. Doesn't it?

Some aspects of EverNote (like the searching capability, the tagging system, the Multiple Note Formats, The universal clipper, the support for various pen devices, etc.)actually seem even more powerful. But I'll see after trying The Journal.

Right now, I actually use EverNote in conjunction with a Word Document -- as I suggested before. But I guess I fcould rely exclusively on since it's got probably most of the features one might want for a journal (like : very very easy to see everything <b>chronologically AND sorted through the different categories</b>).

I guess I just love EverNote.  :)
Simple, free, yet very powerful.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 20, 2007, 04:29 PM
Well, using that logic, I guess you could make the claim that you could use Evernote in place of Word, Notepad, or really any application that is note/text editing related. But I think that most do not wish to do so, or the other journal/text editing/note-taking programs would be out of business!   :-\

The features that many look for are one's more specific to their needs, rather than taking generic applications and force-fitting them to do all.

Just my opinion.


I agree (at least... partly) with you.

But I'm not really comparing EverNote or The journal to MS word (even though I might have given that impression earlier).
And I'm comparing EverNote to the Journal because it actually does everything I want for a Journal.

Like said earlier, I like the fact that my text can be indexed with the Desktop Search software I use. This is the main reason why I brought MS Word in the picture (put it could be OpenOffice, or WordPad, or Even OneNote : if it's indexable...).

Also, too many apps for different, yet not that different, tasks, makes my life much more complicated: different formats, data scattered in different places, etc. Using the GTD approach, I try to centralize the way I gather data as  much as  I can.

But I can see why one would do that, and I totally respect that. I'm just too absent minded -- which is not very convenient when you're trying to write a thesis (don't worry, I'm not writing it in English!).
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Darwin on May 20, 2007, 05:35 PM
Armando wrote:
I guess I just love EverNote. 
Simple, free, yet very powerful.

and:
Also, too many apps for different, yet not that different, tasks, makes my life much more complicated

Here, here on both points quoted. I love Evernote as well. It's one of those apps that I barely think about anymore, and I see that as a good thing because it means that it fits so seamlessly into my Windows/Office installations and workflow that I don't notice that it's there. Every so often I go looking for something and am blown away at how easy it is...

WRT the second point about needless duplication: I am a software addict. I have five applications for every task that you can imagine. My brain tells me that this is counter-productive (and every once in a blue moon this leads me to uninstall on the order of 100 applications) but my heart yearns for choice and variety (and leads me to gradually re-install the bulk of those apps over time, along with "new finds")! We need a 12 step programme:

My name is Mike and I am a software addict.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 20, 2007, 06:18 PM
We need a 12 step programme:

My name is Mike and I am a software addict.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D

I try to have a set of essential software. But since I've got that pathology of always looking for better ways of doing what I'm already doing well (that's what they tell me -- perfectionism?), I tend to get into duplication nightmare every now and then. Anyway, I'm getting a bit better, but I still dream of that perfect system where all my data is easily accessible and where nothing is wasted.  :-[ . I know...
I OCR lots and lots of stuff (I despise paper...  :) It’s heavy and dusty), and I use a rigorous tagging system (a bit archaic though -- but haven't found a better way or software to insert "textual" tags easily in my documents ; tags I can read with any Desktop Search tool -- whether it's X1 or Beagle in Linux...)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: egreene on May 21, 2007, 11:48 AM
I've been using LifeJournal (www.lifejournal.com) for years and I'm totally hooked. (This is LifeJournal, NOT LiVeJournal.) It's one program I can't live without. It's wide range of features let you start up with the most simple of features --title, date, time. And then as I've gotten to know the program I see the richness and depth of the software. Initially I started to use it for random thoughts and feelings of the day.  Over time I use it for just about everything: business ideas, personal everyday stuff, writing about past memories/stories that appear randomly,  letters to myself. It's unique--encouraging to help you write often--see the Daily Pulse ( a quick and simple rating system.  You create up to 10 different parameters that you want to keep track of.)  This info is seamlessly integrated into the journal entries and you can see the graph of these Daily Pulse values--and open journal entries from the graph (very clever!).  What I find most helpful about the program is that you can begin to make sense of things--see trends and make changes--that I might not have seen if I didn't go back and look at my writings.  The search feature is easy to use. The program is generally really well laid out.

I'm not a compulsive journal writer, rather I write when I feel like it, but I must say that LifeJournal makes it easy for me to write and write consistently. There's a demo you can try out so you can try before you buy--something I insist on before buying software.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: turgutcaliskan on May 24, 2007, 11:04 PM
I use a software named KeyNote ( http://keynote.prv.pl ) May I have your opinions about this software?
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Armando on May 24, 2007, 11:47 PM
Keynote was (and still is, in some respect) great but it's not supported anymore and the developement has stopped.

If you want info about notetaking softwares, you should have a look at superboyac Notetaking Software Roundup #1 :
https://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/NoteTakers1/

and donationcoder's biggest thread :

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2362.0

Have fun!
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: digitalzen on May 25, 2007, 09:00 PM
I'm a professional writer.  I used to use OpenOffice, but now I do nearly all my writing in Google Docs and Spreadsheets.  I tried literally more than a dozen journaling apps, but kept going back to Wordpad and an encrypted file. 

Now I use a <a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/catalogo/default.htm">Moleskine</a> and Mont Blanc.  Much more satisfying.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Darwin on May 25, 2007, 11:17 PM
Moleskine and Mont Blanc. Nice! What version of each is your tool of choice (MS 146 Medium - although I also heavily favour my PFM I and my Vanishing Point - and the lined Pocket Journal for me...)?
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Catkintails on May 26, 2007, 01:37 PM
As a mere female, not particularly computer literate, my favourites are:
iDailyDiary http://www.splinterware.com/ for journaling. Love it. By far the best after testing quite a few others;
ReadyNotes which is fantastic for writing- I use it for writing poetry as you have endless (literally) pages and categories, Derring Technologies, and
Evernote, which is great for when you are surfing.
I also us Ywriter and Chrysanth for other writing projects.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: rjbull on May 27, 2007, 11:54 AM
kept going back to Wordpad and an encrypted file. 

Wordpad?  Rather than a good editor?

Now I use a <a href="http://www.moleskine.com/eng/_interni/catalogo/default.htm">Moleskine</a> and Mont Blanc.  Much more satisfying.

Quote from Cult Pens What's New May 2007 (http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Whats_New.html)


Pelikan make some of the world's finest fountain pens. Forget M*nt Bl*nc - if you're looking for peerless build quality and precision engineering you'll find it in our Pelikan Souveran and Toledo ranges. .


 ;)


Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Darwin on May 27, 2007, 01:03 PM
A Pelikan is high on my list of pens to own. However, I am very happy with my M-Bs, and my Pilots, Parkers and Sheaffers. There's room in my world for more than one brand of pen or watch or car... I *hate* this about western culture/values: there's always someone trying to tell you that X is better than Y, or worse, that Z is the best period and you've missed the boat if you settle for anything less. What really sticks in my craw is university rankings. How the hell is it possible to come up with a consistent, quanitifiable, and most importantly reliable/meaningful set of criteria for what makes University X better than Y? Why is it meaningful that such and such a university is ranked 67th in the world and the one that I acutally went to ranked 134th (I made those numbers up out of thin air)? Says who? So what? It (and by extension it's alumni) are better because someone else says so? What a load of bunk. Sort of analgous to people who *have* to drive a Hummer but never leave the city, never leave paved roads, never drive in the snow...

Sorry. Rant over.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: blessed1202 on May 28, 2007, 01:10 PM
I agree with Catkintails.  I've had iDailyDiary for years.  It can include pictures in your daily writing.  Hope you find what you're looking for! :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Darwin on May 28, 2007, 01:21 PM
As a mere female

?!

Anyway, iDailyDiary looks quite interesting - thank you for drawing it to my attention.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: fhayes on May 28, 2007, 10:33 PM
I've been using Davidrm's "The Journal" for years at work to keep a daily log of my activities and have been extremely happy with it.  It supports not only plain text but embedded object, images, tables, etc..  The search feature is nicely implemented as well.  A littly pricey at $40 but worth it.  On another note, for those of you who like "Keynote", I recently discovered this little freeware gem called "SeoNote" (www.seonote.info).  Very similar UI to Keynote but with more functionality, even has import/export to Keynote 1.6.5, check it out. 
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: kyrathaba on May 29, 2007, 07:40 PM
I've used iDailyDiary for the past two years.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: freznel on June 03, 2007, 10:09 PM
my vote goes to Advanced Diary :) http://www.csoftlab.com/Diary.html  :up:
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: Grorgy on June 04, 2007, 02:00 AM
hey thanks freznel, not looking for a diary as such but they have a great little pim, which looks (to me) nicer than epim so im giving it a go, have to choose soon, dont want to stuff around tooo much on a to do sheduler type thing lol, gotta get things done  ;D
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: tsaint on June 04, 2007, 03:57 AM
note that there's an "old" freeware version of Advanced Diary still floating around eg at http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page32.html
Pretty nice, but I can't decide between it and iDailyDiary
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: nosh on June 04, 2007, 05:14 PM
Thanks frenzel & tsaint. Advanced Diary seems just right for me - it does everything I need a diary software to do & doesn't carry any bloat. Looks great too. :)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: thomthowolf on June 05, 2007, 02:53 PM
Yet another vote for IdailyDiary.  I have been happily using it for years.  The ability to add sticky pages and to add pages with tabular formatting is just too cool.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: TomColvin on July 15, 2007, 04:29 PM
I also use iDailyDiary -- powerful and FREE.  I have a review with screenshots on my blog at
http://www.becoming-a-writer-seriously.com
.  Just type in the name in the Search box, or scroll down through the Archive Index to find it.

Tom
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: rjbull on July 15, 2007, 04:33 PM
For a free, fast, portable, encryptable, minimalist diary, look at the latest beta of Horst Schaeffer (http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/)'s MemPad.

Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: CWuestefeld on November 13, 2008, 04:04 PM
I've been (idly) looking into this for some time. To me, this is one place where a proprietary data format is out of the question. The whole purpose of a diary is for posterity, so you don't want to be trapped when the product is desupported. I think this boils down to an XML export of your data.

I only find two diary products that support this:

I haven't tried these, but the online descriptions suggest to me that images and stuff aren't stored in the DB, but merely referenced -- which means that any encryption isn't going to apply to them. That's bad for me.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: colorpath on November 15, 2008, 01:52 PM
Another vote for iDailyDiary.  It's stable, packed with useful features, and a joy to use.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: CWuestefeld on December 15, 2008, 11:15 AM
I decided to take action instead of just moving my mouth. I've started building a Diary app that will allow proper export of the diary so that it can be moved to future platforms.

If anyone is interested, I'd appreciate any comments about where I'm headed, or suggestions. Take a look at this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=16066.msg141162#msg141162).

[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: PPLandry on January 05, 2009, 09:07 PM
FWIW, InfoQube can be used as a powerful Journal (Diary) software. It supports multiple entries per day, easy navigation, filtering by day, week, month, etc, custom sorting and can combine multiple entries into a single output optionally with collapsable buttons to show/hide each post.

All content is saved in HTML format (in an encrypted JET4 database format and/or as individual HTML files [and desktop search friendly]). Supports copy/paste, has a decent FF clipping extension and XML exports. MSWord can create a live link to your IQ database. Editing is done using the build-in WYSIWYG editor or transparently using MSWord or free BlockNote.

Details here: www.sqlnotes.net and www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5 for the community web site

Just my 2cents

I'm the designer.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: dinesh_ms on January 09, 2009, 06:00 AM
tiddlywiki (http://www.tiddlywiki.com/) is also one option.

Regards
Dinesh
<a href="http://wakoopa.com/dineshms"><img src="http://wakoopa.com/dineshms/sig.png" alt="Software tracking" /></a>
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: journalist on October 12, 2009, 01:52 AM
An easy-to-use Journal/Diary program with powerful search facilities can be found here:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=20212.0

Or here:

http://deltabravosoft.com


I am the author of this program

Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: tomos on October 12, 2009, 07:18 AM
An easy-to-use Journal/Diary program with powerful search facilities can be found here
---------------------
Or here:
---------------------

@ Journalist -
I believe your posts here have been removed before & they will surely be removed again unless you announce your affiliation in each post where you recommend your [own] software [or software you are affiliated with]

edits in [brackets]
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: joiwind on October 12, 2009, 07:51 AM
This may have been mentioned before but there is also : idailydiary (http://www.splinterware.com/products/idailydiary.htm) which is pretty good as a diary.
P.S. I am NOT affiliated with this app....!

PPS yes, sorry it was mentioned - I'm going blind ? 
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: journalist on October 12, 2009, 08:01 AM
I believe your posts here have been removed before & they will surely be removed again unless you announce your affiliation in each post where you recommend your software.

@tomos
Sorry and thank you, didn't know that announcing the affiliation is necessary in this thread as well.
After all, most posters here do not do it.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: tomos on October 12, 2009, 08:30 AM
I believe your posts here have been removed before & they will surely be removed again unless you announce your affiliation in each post where you recommend your software.

@tomos
Sorry and thank you, didn't know that announcing the affiliation is necessary in this thread as well.
After all, most posters here do not do it.
Thanks for adding that :)
Most posters here are not recommending their own software.
If you make a post recommending your own product (or one you are affiliated with) it is necessary to state your affiliation. If you see another post that does not do this* you can use the 'report to moderater' link (in bottom right corner of all posts).

Otherwise you give the impression you're spamming which isn't much good for your product - not around here at any rate ;)

* It's usually pretty obvious who's 'advertising' and, as I said above, those posts get removed fairly promptly.

[edit] I've just reported the post previous to your's above (by mioan) so that will probably be removed shortly [/edit]
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: delwoode on November 25, 2009, 12:03 PM
As a mere female, not particularly computer literate, my favourites are:
iDailyDiary http://www.splinterware.com/ for journaling. Love it. By far the best after testing quite a few others;
ReadyNotes which is fantastic for writing- I use it for writing poetry as you have endless (literally) pages and categories, Derring Technologies, and
Evernote, which is great for when you are surfing.
I also us Ywriter and Chrysanth for other writing projects.
-Catkintails (May 26, 2007, 01:37 PM)

had a look at idiary on the web site
The free one doesnt have a spell checker, that is so impootant for mee
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: J-Mac on November 26, 2009, 01:44 PM
I use "The Journal" available at http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/ (http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/).  Definitely worth a look - they have a full-featured 45 day trial you can download.

I was looking for such a program for quite a while but was really limiting myself by requiring that the application have both a desktop PC and Pocket PC version available. But I finally gave up on that and started looking for simply the best PC journal software I could find - and The Journal fit the bill.  Excellent developer support with a very active Yahoo group (though I don't really like Yahoo groups!). This one gives me all that I need, plus has a lot of additional features that I am not presently using, but I hope to use someday.

It's not inexpensive, but it satisfies all of my requirements, and has some extras that are really great.

Oops - I just noticed that superboyac did mention this software in his initial post -- and he is correct in that this application is not really interactive with other applications, though you can link a number of other document types to it, as well as embed them in your journal pages.

I posted this originally two and a half years ago, but I am really starting to sour on this program. I am probably going to uninstall it and reinstall the previous version, The Journal 4. The latest version, 5, which was five years in the making, was a big step backwards, IMO. No new features, believe it or not. Well, there are some under-the-hood changes which I can't see as useful to me at all - like a journal file can now be >2 GB....  So.....? If mine ever gets that big I will have spent way to much time writing in it! Especially since it doesn't really accept photos in its journal entries easily.

The main changes were UI-related. Big, puffy, 3D icons on the toolbar which are so hard to read that many users are requesting the ability to return to the old toolbar styles. Also, he added skins, which in my opinion does absolutely nothing to improve the product. So what I now have is the same basic functionality that i had in the previous version but much slower and uglier.

So I am hunting for a good replacement, hopefully one that is actually developed.  :)  I did purchase the Smart Diary Suite (http://www.sdiary.com/index.php) when it was offered at a big discount on Bits a few weeks ago but I'm not too impressed with it so far. Hopefully this thread will pick back up and I can get some good recommendations.

Thanks!

Jim
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: wraith808 on November 27, 2009, 09:03 PM
I didn't bother to get 5.  Now I'm glad. :)
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: J-Mac on November 27, 2009, 11:39 PM
I didn't bother to get 5.  Now I'm glad. :)

Just for the flavor, here's the upper part of my TJ5 window:

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

What do you think? I hate it!

Jim
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: wraith808 on November 30, 2009, 10:35 AM
It's definitely different- seems like he's going for a more standard commercial view.  But yeah- I like J4's appearance.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: J-Mac on November 30, 2009, 12:47 PM
It's definitely different- seems like he's going for a more standard commercial view.  But yeah- I like J4's appearance.

The worst thing is that...  Not much else changed! No real improvements in functionality, other than your journal volumes can now exceed 2 GB in size.

No improvements in placing images within text columns; same old clunky (IMO) organization structure... I could have just stayed with TJ4 and been none the worse off.

Jim
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: wraith808 on November 30, 2009, 03:29 PM
I never had a journal come anywhere close to 2GB in size!  I can't even imagine that...
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: guoguo yong on June 17, 2014, 10:09 PM
Wow~ nice!! Thanks you all. Efficient Diary meets my all needs. Thanks for your suggestion~
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: IainB on June 17, 2014, 11:30 PM
If you're using Windows, there's actually a very good (rich text format, images, searchable, etc.) built-in journal - Windows Journal, and if you have MS Office (see MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=35950.0)) there's arguably the best PIM and journal on the planet - OneNote.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: app103 on June 18, 2014, 05:38 PM
Has anyone ever considered using a local install of Wordpress with WampServer/XAMPP for this purpose?

You could make the pages look however you like with whatever theme you want to add to it, if you don't like the included themes. And there are plenty of free themes available. And additional functionality can be added with plugins.

It's already searchable, out of the box, you can post images to it, and for a spellchecker, you'd use the one in your browser.

And since it is not being published online, and would not be running all the time, as long as you don't allow internet access to it from within WampServer/XAMPP, it would not have a lot of the vulnerability worries that a normal Wordpress blog might have.
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: 40hz on June 18, 2014, 06:07 PM
Has anyone ever considered using a local install of Wordpress with WampServer/XAMPP for this purpose?

You could make the pages look however you like with whatever theme you want to add to it, if you don't like the included themes. And there are plenty of free themes available. And additional functionality can be added with plugins.

It's already searchable, out of the box, you can post images to it, and for a spellchecker, you'd use the one in your browser.

And since it is not being published online, and would not be running all the time, as long as you don't allow internet access to it from within WampServer/XAMPP, it would not have a lot of the vulnerability worries that a normal Wordpress blog might have.

Clever idea! :Thmbsup:

(For a straightforward diary app, RedNotebook (http://rednotebook.sourceforge.net/) is pretty nice. Cross-platform too! :Thmbsup: )

For diaries however, I'd think one of the wiki apps might also be a possibility.

If you're just running locally, I'd be more inclined to use Softalicious's freebie AMPPS stack which has the ability to auto install just about any web app you could think of. It's a great way to set up and try dozens of blog/wiki/portal/framework/whatevers. They had 322 app installers ready to go last time I looked. A little easier than WAMP/XAMP to work with too IMHO. Find it here (http://www.ampps.com/). (It runs Wordpress too!)

 :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: dr_andus on June 18, 2014, 07:02 PM
For diaries however, I'd think one of the wiki apps might also be a possibility.

Here are a couple of ways to do it with the so-called "date topic" in ConnectedText:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/how-to-keep-journal-in-connectedtext.html
http://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/connectedtext-tinderbox-for-windows/
Title: Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?
Post by: n8wachT on August 01, 2016, 10:20 AM
More than just an Journal/diary keeper is the awesome (sometimes even weird) 'Makagiga.' It's the most allround
personal information organizer I have seen so far and you can extend it's functions with plugins on and on and on...
You can install it, but also use it as an portable program.

(https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/1Small/hot.gif)  (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/2Signs/signs115.gif)

Homepage
http://makagiga.sourceforge.net/index.html (http://makagiga.sourceforge.net/index.html)

'It allows you to organize all your tasks, meetings, events and other related information in an easy way.
Besides that, the program can display a visual or audio notification when a meeting or task is due. Furthermore,
it can store various multimedia elements, like website links, images and plain text. What's more, the program's
added data can be exported to a wide range of file formats.'


(http://makagiga.sourceforge.net/screenshots/makagiga-medium.png)