Tech Forum

I'm confused: what, exactly, is the intended purpose of the Journal and Notebook in this app?

The Journal is set up so that each Journal is for a particular date only. It appears that the update date appears at the bottom of each Journal. Were I to use this as a regular journal, wouldn't each entry within the Journal have a date attached and shouldn't it be the create date? Also, if I were to keep a daily journal here, I think it would get pretty cumbersome to search and load after a short while. How big can a journal entry be? How many journals can there be in the app? What are the memory limitations? Should I create a Journal for each day or should a single Journal contain many days of entries, say one Journal a year? Is this the intended use in the first place?

The Notebook appears to be, not a "notebook" but more of a place to put Journals and Annotations in one place, perhaps in preparation for a talk. There is no way to write in the Notebook - you must write in a Journal and attach the Journal to the Notebook. What is the intended purpose of the Notebook?

ShadeDad,

There are many limitations to the Notebook as you have posted here. The best way to get feedback to the developers is to click on the feedback link and offer the feedback in that system.

At this point all we have is our own guess-work as to why some of the online apps seem to have quarterly updates, continually improvements and others languish in their initial 1.0 form.

My guess is that updates to the Notebook app are waiting on other developments to come forward. There is a new app being developed called 'Gospel Media' which in its initial thoughts might tie into the Notebook online app, but may not, that was several years ago thinking.

I'd love to see this resource developed as well. A Journal entry can't even be edited with basic text editing tools, it would be nice to see some of that in there at least.

ShadeDad,

First, the terminology varies depending on the OS you're using (iOS, Android, Windows, or LDS.org) and you didn't say which you're using, so I can only guess. And journals and notebooks are areas where the terminology differs greatly. I use Android and have used LDS.org, so the below uses Android terminology.

Second, IMO, play around a little, ponder, and then come up with your own use for the features - there's a lot of overlap in functionality, so you can really adapt it to your own preferences.

Journals: The "Journal" collection contains Journal Entries. The menu option for "Add Journal" really should be "Add Journal Entry". Think of each entry as a page in the journal. As you've noted, the date displayed is the most recent date (create or update), so if you want your entry to include the create date, you should add that as (part of) the title or text. To assist in finding entries, you can use both tags and notebooks. (E.g. you could use one Notebook per year (named for the year), and tags for topics; or vice versa; or your own combination; or just use one of them.)

Notebooks: These could be thought of as a journal (put your Journal Entries in one of these and it's now a Journal). (You could also think of Journal Entries as pages in your notebook.) You can have multiples of all these and give them whatever names you want. As you noted, it's a good place to mix your own writings (journal entries) with annotations (highlights from other books in the Gospel Library), sort them as you wish, and then use that to give a talk or teach a lesson. You can also just use it like a 3-ring binder - add stuff into it, sort the stuff, keep it until you're done with it, then delete it.

As far as limits, only the development team know that, but as a developer (not on any church projects), I suspect I know basically how they've designed it, and if I'm right, the only limit would be the amount of free space you have on your device (or some other resource-related limit). And that should put the limit high enough not to worry about it (the guy who made the iOS videos I mention below had *boatloads* of notebooks and journal entries in those notebooks).

I'm not aware of a size limit on a journal entry (it's larger than you want to type on a mobile device - I know that). I doubt there is a size limit.

As for finding entries, I recommend some up-front pondering and planning. Also, note that the journal entries appear to be indexed, so you can search them, and I don't know why that would be any more cumbersome than searching the scriptures (or worse, a paper journal). You can also export journal entries (or entire notebooks) on LDS.org, which would put them in MS Word or XML or whatever other options they have. This might make searching or archiving easier for you. (The iOS journal video below shows that.)

Finally, if you have iOS, there are excellent training videos at the link below - even if you don't use iOS, his Journal video does have some good thoughts on why you might use a journal / journal entry:
http://gospellibrarytraining.blogspot.c ... y-and.html

If you have Android, I've done training videos, and blog posts with some extra thoughts. The introductory article is at the link below, which links to each of the posts in the series, each of which links to the video:
http://www.lizmcguireonline.com/index.p ... y-training

FWIW,

Liz

Liz,

Thanks for the info - it was very comprehensive. I am using Android so all your info was pertinent.

I asked the question because I didn't want to run up against any arbitrary limitations - for example, using "New Journal" for a new journal entry, then finding out that only 64 Journals are allowed and having to redo everything. As you yourself noted, the terminology they're using is somewhat awkward.

Hopefully, you are correct about memory being the only limitation. Unfortunately, they have created the app in such a way that it can't be moved off the tablet onto my SD card, so I only have the room on the tablet for entries and such. I will need to send them some feedback on all this.

Thank you both for your thoughtful replies - they were both very helpful.

Glad to help, ShadeDad!

(I'm wondering if Lollipop will change whether you can move the library onto your SD card. If not, then they really should let you specify where the database will live, cuz otherwise, what's the point of buying a device that accepts an external card?)

Liz

Lollipop seems to be going the other direction.... No more external sd cards

That was version 4.4.something (kit kat upgrade), where they blocked practically all meaningful access to the SD card. With lollipop (v5), you can enable that access again so that, for example, I can open a PDF that's on the SD card, highlight it, and save it again (right now I can't do that - still waiting for lollipop, but my brother has it, and SD card access is back).

Liz

I'm referring to flagship products from Google and Samsung that no longer have SD Cards as an option, so it makes the conversation irrelevant. It won't matter if you can move stuff to the sd card, if the hardware doesn't have sd card. App design will follow this trend as well. Why code an option that will not really be around in the future.

Ah, got it now. Yes, that's why I've never seriously considered a Google device (and why I was highly suspicious of the KitKat upgrade that essentially killed use of the SD card). Both my Samsungs have external SD card slots, and I haven't looked at new ones recently. Unless the cost of internal storage space drops significantly (and the amount offered increases significantly), I'll always stick with devices that support external SD cards (until and unless that's no longer an option).

Liz

A quick search shows that 5.x will have SD card access.