The Journal Newsletter
Introduction
Happy New Year! We have successfully navigated another full circuit around the Sun! Let there be merriment all around. =)
This month’s tip shows you some of the ways you can reformat text in your entries, and we have a new set of writing prompts.
Last month I mentioned a big announcement, and here it is:
The Journal 8 is currently in development! [1]
The Journal 8 provides greater stability, additional performance, and more security than ever before, plus a more streamlined and flexible user interface. And, you know, other new stuff. =) [2]
I hope to have The Journal 8 in user testing by February with eventual release in Q2 2018. [3]
If you would like to be involved in the user testing, email me at: support@davidrm.com I will notify you when testing starts.
Thank you for choosing The Journal!
-David
[1] I know, I know. It’s not a *mobile* version. My apologies for getting your hopes up like that.
[2] There aren’t a lot of BIG! NEW! Features, but there are many, many improvements throughout. The database is smaller (better compression) and more secure (now with AES-128). There’s more support for drag-and-drop. Menus have been reorganized. Searching is better. The entry editor has been improved. And the whole thing looks a lot better under Windows 10. On top of that (or, really, behind the scenes, where you can never actually *see* it, but take my word for it), a lot of changes in how parts of The Journal are organized.
[3] Translation: April? May? Let’s find out!
The Journal News
The Journal 7 is the current release.
To see if you have the latest version of The Journal:
- Click on the “Help” menu in The Journal.
- Choose “Check for Update of The Journal”.
If you are using The Journal 6 (or an earlier version):
Tips & Tricks
TIP: The Reformat Menu
On the Format menu, and in the right-click menu of the entry editor (when text is selected), you may have noticed the “Reformat” sub-menu. This sub-menu contains a number of commands that let you, well, *reformat* the text of your entries.
The Reformat menu was born out of the need to “clean up” text pasted from other software, especially email and the web, but has grown over the years.
Remove Both Whitespace & Carriage Returns
Remove Extra Whitespace
Remove Carriage Returns
Text pasted from emails often has line breaks in odd places and just generally needs to be made pretty again. These commands help with that by doing pretty much what they. “Whitespace” is spaces and tabs, “Carriage Returns” are line breaks.
So you can select a block of text that looks like this:
This was the first line of the email and
my email program
chose to break it into several lines. Who
knows
what it was thinking?
And make it look like this:
This was the first line of the email and my email program chose to break it into several lines. Who knows what it was thinking?
Remove Empty Paragraphs
Add Blank Line Between Paragraphs
These commands do the opposite of each other. One will *remove* any empty paragraphs in the selection. The other will *add* a blank line (empty paragraph) between the selected paragraphs.
Detect URLs
If the pasted text include links that weren’t automatically highlighted, you can select the text and apply this. The links will go “hot” again.
Capitalize Words
Each Word Of The Selected Text Will Be Capitalized.
Upper Case TEXT
Lower Case text
The selected text will be made into either ALL CAPS or all lower case letters.
Invert Case tEXT
tHE SELECTED TEXT WILL HAVE THE CASE OF ITS LETTERS REVERSED.
Apply Typographical Quotes (curly quotes)
Remove Typographical Quotes
These commands actually affect the entire entry, not just the selected text, and it will prompt you to make sure you’re aware.
One command will replace all quotes (single or double) with their fancier, curlier “typographical” version. The other command will do the reverse (like hair straightener).
Writing Prompts
Free Writing Prompt – Write for 20 minutes using the following as your starter: “Apply Boilerplate”
Journaling Prompt – What do you know that you don’t know that haunts you the most?
Memoir Prompt – What are your top 5 favorite leftovers?
Submission Information
If you would like to contribute to the “How I Use The Journal”, “Writing Exercises”, or “Tips & Tricks” sections, or would like to submit an article about journaling, writing, or another The Journal-related topic, we would love to hear from you.
Submissions for the newsletter should be sent to: support@davidrm.com
If you are submitting for a particular section, please indicate which one. Try to limit your submissions to 500-1000 words. Submissions may be edited for length and content.
If you prefer to remain anonymous, please state this in the email. Otherwise your name (but not your email) will be used in the article heading.
As always, if you have any suggestions for, or bug reports about, The Journal, please feel free to email them. Both are always welcome.
Masthead