The old fashioned journal was a trusty tool over the course of many years, but, with the computer, like so many other things before it, it became obsolete. Today we have a host of notebook and note keeping applications, packed full of many powerful options, however, not all of them are specifically designed to be a powerful yet easy to use journal, but Journler is.

What it does

Journal is in essence a note keeping application, that will store notes, let you catalog them, and search through them, as well as let you link notes to each other and to external files.

While there are many applications that do this, what sets Journler apart is its date centric approach that makes it similar to a pen and paper journal of old in terms of familiarity and feeling. Of course, while the program might be similar to a paper journal, it still takes advantage of all the modern day capabilities of the computer.

More than words

While words are the traditional meat and bones of journals, that need not be the case with Journler. While writing is still present, much of it takes place on keyboards nowadays, and if people can type as fast as they can write, then speaking would be even faster, right?

Journler looks simple enough at first sight, but, behind the scenes there are a lot of tools and options, chief amongst these being the media integration. The program can record sound input into your computer and save it. As such, you are no longer restricted to typing, but can also keep audio records and notes, which can be taken much faster and easier. While this is pretty good, it’s not exactly groundbreaking. However, because a picture is worth a thousand words, Journler also makes use of any camera connected to your computer, or the built in iSight to record videos. In short, you can keep written, audio and video logs of whatever it is you do on a daily basis.

Buy Journler is not all about recording media for use in your notes, it can also make excellent use of any media you may already have. It has very tight integration with the iLife suite, letting you quickly import and link to anything in your music, photo or movie library. Furthermore, you can also link to any file on your computer, web links, bookmarks, you name it. Everything is as simple as drag and drop or the media search window

Organized

While all entries in Journler are assigned to a certain date, that is not really the best approach when it comes to fining something and keeping your notes and records organized. Fortunately, Journler lets you create folders and subfolders that can go as deep in terms of hierarchy as you like. Furthermore, it also makes good use of Smart Folders, with an implementation that is better than in almost all other applications.

Smart folders, just like regular ones, can have as many levels of hierarchy as you want. And a smart folder can be the child of another one, and it will have its own rules for determining what goes inside it, but it will also respect the rules of its parent. This lets you create complex smart folder hierarchies that are simply amazing.

While smart folders are a great way to organize data, they are by no means the most efficient ones to find data. As such, you can also search for entries within Journler. The search is a typical one, however, you can combine it with the power of a smart folder by using smart folder rules to narrow down your search, and, after you have located what you were looking for, you can even save the search as a smart folder, to have in case you need to do a similar search in the future.

Complex

Journler is by no means a simplistic application. While you can use it without ever going near the advanced functions, there are still a lot of menu options and buttons that litter the interface and give it a ‘this is not a simple program’ look. Still, the interface is very well thought out and all of the advanced options, although present are tucked away at the sides of the window, out of your way.

For those looking to get the most out of it, the learning curve is not steep, but it is long, as even a skim through all the documentation takes a while and there a lot of other features and option hidden in there that are not instantly apparent.

The Good

Powerful journal tool that takes advantage of all the capabilities of a computer.

The Bad

While not exactly a hard program to use, its complexity does take a little getting used to.

The Truth

If you want a simple program to use as a journal, you can use this but you are probably better off with something a little more bare-bones. On the other hand, if you want a beast of a journal tool that can handle anything and everything you throw at it without breaking a sweat, this is the program for you.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge: