Journler 2.5.4 beta 2 - Right Proper Tags (RPT)

[phildow]

Download
http://homepage.mac.com/philipdow/Journler2.5.4beta.zip
(or beta autoupdate)

Right Proper Tags
What used to be called tags are now called comments. Journler 2.5.4 does not change your data in any way, it just changes the interface. Your comments are your old tags, a text based entry attribute that you can stick whatever you want in (urls, notes, whatever).

2.5.4 does add to your data though. The good stuff is of course the new tags field.You'll need to show it in the entry table by choosing the View menu > Entries List > Columns > Tags. Edit the new tags just like you did your old ones, but separate them with a comma. As you build a list of tags autocompletion becomes available as well as the pop up menu that shows every other entry with those tags (pretty cool).

You're going to need some help converting your old tags/comments into the new token base tags. I've created an Apple Script that does this. Check below for the details.

The change to token based tags affects a number of Journler's components: smart folders, the drop box, filtering, the quick link browser, the entry header, etc. I've done my best to implement a thorough changeover, so every system in all of the currently available translations should be working as expected. Of course it's possible I missed something somewhere, so do please let me know if you run into any problems.

All Beta 2 Changes

• right proper tags!!!
  
  
• fixed an issue with the 2.5.3 updater losing the icons for folders with slashes in them (/)
  
• fixed an issue with the escape key registering the Edit Image button instead of the Cancel button in the Folder Get Info window
  
  
• fixed an issue only new users would encounter, journler tries to upgrade the journal although it's a brand new journal
  
• fixed a problem with the importer's interface in the German version
  
• translated the words used for highlight colors in the toolbar in the Danish version

Handy Comments to Tags AppleScript
Get the Apple Script

Use this script to convert your old text based tags to the new token based tags. Select a range of entries that use the same delimiter, run the script and specify the delimiter. Journler and AppleScript do the rest.

A delimiter is simply the character or word you used to separate your tags from one another in pre-2.5.4, for example a comma or a space. If your comments field looks like "science, physics, einstein, relativity" when you run the script specify a comma by itself as the delimiter and Journler will produce four individual tags in the new tags field.

[NovaScotian]

Downloaders should not be using the linked AppleScript prior to installing the 2.5.4 beta. For one thing, one of its properties will not compile in 2.5.3 - you'll get:

set the «class pTAG» of anEntry to the newTags, because 2.5.3 doesn't have a «class pTAG» to compile from.

[shuyi]

Hi Phil,

Very happy to see the addition of tags. Are we going to see tag clouds soon? :-) Journler just keeps getting better!

So far, they work great and the AppleScript you provided worked flawlessly for me (I followed NovaScotian's advice and waited until after updating Journler before installing the new script).

I did find, however, that, at least in my case, it was necessary to reset Journler's index before I was able to search for the newly created tags. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not (I assume not and that this is expected). Just a heads up in case others run into problems searching.

Also, and I'm not sure if this is related to moving comments to the new tag field, but I'm unable to see the cursor when trying to insert the cursor into the comment field or the title field in the main Journal window. After moving tags from the comment field to the new tag field, I tried editing some of the comments, but I was not able to see the inserted cursor at the point I'd specified and thought initially that I could only highlight existing text. I found that I am still able to insert text and edit as usual, so this is only a minor issue. I tried this with titles, too, and found the same issue. Again, this is minor since text can still be edited as usual. It was just a little confusing and threw me for a minute. Is this a bug or is this expected behavior? I don't recall now whether or not this was how things worked before the 2.5.4b2 release.

Update: After restarting Journler 2 more times, the problem I had not being able to see the cursor in the title or comments field of the main Journal window has disappeared. Nothing in the console log, so I think this issue can be disregarded. Sorry, Phil.

I'll add this to the feature requests section, but would it be possible at some point to have access to a window of some kind that lists all existing tags, something along the lines of, say, the 'tag inspector' in EagleFiler?

http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/manual-ah/show-tags

Just a thought. At any rate, the tags work and look great!

Chris

[Reinard]

For me it's a problem with these tags: the need a lot of space (even on 17 or 20" !). And I am never shure I see them all. Phil, can the be made like they where (now in comments)? But I think it's a system feature where you cannot change anything.

Is it ok. just to use the comments like they where for searching? The comments line should be above the article. Perhaps put Date and Category in one line?

In the moment there is too much on the screen what I dont want to see. No place for the text or pictures...

[Reinard]

I've been playing around with this new feature. For me it is not practical. Is should be at least be possible to key in the comment field as it was before when you start a ne post. It needs much more time to make a new post even i you do not use the tags. I am happy without them - but I need the comment field...

I am afraid that Journler gets more and more difficult and slow. I was very happy when I started with Journler because it was easy and clear in the UI. I easily changed from Macjournal. In the moment I compare and try to decide to go back.

Perhaps it is possible to make these things more configurable ?

[justG]

Whoa. Okay, this is amazing. Thanks so much, Phil, and thanks also for the AppleScript. I don't think I've ever used one before. It was extremely easy and worked flawlessly.

[phildow]

[Birgitt]

I've just downloaded the new Beta to try the tagging feature. Great! However, all upper case words are converted to lower case tags as soon as I hit the separating comma. For a German speaking user the distinction between upper and lower case words is quite important. Perhaps I'm missing something or doing something wrong?

Birgitt

[Reinard]

I measured the pixels used in comment and in tag typ: tags need 75% to 100% more place on the screen.

It's more easy and much more quicker just to type in the old style than to wait for the letters to come for this autocompletion.

But of course: If most people want & like it this way you have to go there. I try if I can go the old way. One solution could be to configure whether you want to have the comment line or the tag line. Or put the tags in some extra tag window. So you can fetch it or hide it.

It's true, many of the possible features can be hidden. But once more: If you would position the category field just behind the date fiels there would be place for the comment line :-) If it is too complicated to have it in the input dialogue windows too - that would be good enough.

Seriously spoken: Perhaps someone can explain to me the need of these tags. I was following the discussion but I only understood that people like it...

[phildow]

[NovaScotian]

Whenever something new is added to a GUI, usually for the benefit of a subset of users, all of those who were perfectly content with things as they were, will immediately feel some discomfort as they decide whether they want to (or should) integrate this new feature into their habitual way of using the application.

Part of the discomfort arises because many of us don't understand the significance of the new Tags relative to the new Comments. I understand that the new Tags are embodied in a list, and that smart folder conditions now permit "contain", but not "contains". The old tags were a string and you could sort them out with "contains", the condition that now applies to Comment.

Since entry headers no longer display Comments, but only Category and Tags (the basis of some complaints above) your script was required to convert comments back to tags. It does so, however, without removing the old tags from the comments column, and like others, my nested folders don't seem to work as expected, so I've gone back to comments; no tags

[Reinard]

[phildow]

Smart folders should be simple enough to set up with the new tags, and there is actually an advantage to the token based tags where there was a problem with the text tags.

A smart folder that says "comments contain 'note'" will include entries whose comments include 'note' and anything else with 'note' in it, including 'noteworthy' 'notebook' and 'notepad'. This is usually unwanted behavior. Now, with tags, when you say "tags contain 'note' you will only get the entry whose tags include the whole, individual 'note' tag. This is usually wanted behavior.

As for rebuilding smart folders, could you describe the problem you're having? It should be a straightforward reconstruction. If it isn't, maybe there's a bug I need to know about.

[phildow]

[NovaScotian]

I couldn't resolve the problem; it was simply a matter of nested smart folders behaving as they had before I converted both the folder conditions and their entries to tags from comments. I couldn't find stuff, or it appeared where I didn't expect it. I was very careful to check spelling and syntax.

After an hour or so of experimenting I reloaded the backup I made before installing the beta and went back to 2.5.3 (2.5.30).

Warning, btw, to other folks - you cannot just revert to 2.5.3. Journler hangs.