Jed - The Journal Editor

Version 1.3.3
 Version History
Copyright © Ted Driver 2002-2007

General

What is Jed?

Jed is a journal creator and editor.  This tool can be used to easily create and categorize many types of information.  Jed is quite user friendly, displaying dated entries by category in the left pane and allows editing of journal entries in the right pane.

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What can I do with Jed?

With Jed you can keep dated entries for any category you define.  You can have any number of categories and any number of entries per category (limited by the amount of hard disk space you have).  Here is an example journal:

click to enlarge
Fig 1

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Creating and Saving

Creating a Journal

When Jed is started, a default journal, named Untitled, is created.  You can add entries to this journal and then save the journal with a name you define.  You can then access this journal whenever you like by opening it from the File|Open menu option.

To create a new journal:

1. Start Jed (a new default journal is created)

2. Select the File|Save Journal... option from the menu. (or select the save icon on the toolbar, or press the key combination: Alt-S)

3. Select a name for your journal (the default extension of .jed will be automatically added) 

4. Press the save button

When the journal has been saved, the name of your journal will be in the title bar of Jed as well as the root of the journal tree in the left pane.

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Creating a Journal Entry

You can add an entry upon starting JED, to a new journal or open an existing journal and add entries there.

To add a journal entry in a new category:

1. Click on the root of the journal tree (it will either say Untitled or have the name you saved for the journal)
2. Select the File|New Entry menu option (or select the New Entry icon from the toolbar, or press the key combination: Alt-N.)
3. You will be prompted for a new category name.
4. Type in the name and press OK to create the new category. (Note: You cannot delete categories or entries from this version!)  Press cancel to not create the new category.
5. The new, dated entry will be created and shown in the category you specified.

Note: The instant you create a new entry, a date and time stamp is created for that entry.  Once created, the date/time stamp associated with that entry will never change.

To add a journal entry to an existing category:

1. Click on the category, or any entry within the category to which you want to add a new entry.
2. Select the File|New Entry menu option (or select the New Entry icon from the toolbar, or press the key combination: Alt-N.)
3. A new, dated journal entry will appear in the category you selected.

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Saving the Journal

When you have created a new journal and added entries to it, you can save it to disk and open it later. If the Title Bar of Jed shows your journal name with an asterisk, the journal has changed since the last save.  

To save a journal:

1. Select the File| Save Journal... option from the menu. (or select the save icon on the toolbar, or press the key combination: Alt-S.)
2. If the Journal did not have a name, you will be prompted to supply one, otherwise, the journal will be saved to the name already defined.

To save a journal with a new name:

1. Select the File | Save Journal As... option from the menu . 
2. You will be prompted for a new Journal name.

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Saving the Journal Entry

Any journal entry may be saved as an individual text file.

To save a journal entry as a text file:

1. Select the File | Save Entry As...option from the menu.
2. Select "Text Files" from the Files of Type: Drop Down Box
3. Enter a filename.
4. Press the save button.

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Opening Journals and Text Files

Opening a Journal

Once Jed is started, you can open a previously saved journal.   You can open a journal by selecting it from the File|Open... menu option.

To open a Journal:

1. Start Jed (a new default journal is created)

2. Select the File | Open... option from the menu. (or select the open icon on the toolbar, or press the key combination, Alt-J)

3. Select a journal. (a default file extension of .jed is used) 

4. Press the open button

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Opening a Text File

You can open a text file and place its contents into an new or existing journal entry.

To open a text file and place it in a journal entry:

1. First click on the journal entry you want to add the text file to.  If the journal entry does not exist yet, just click on the root of the journal tree.
2. Select the File | Open... option from the menu. (or select the open icon on the toolbar, or press the key combination, Alt-J)
3. Select "Text Files" from the Files of Type: Drop Down Box
4. Select the file to open.
5. If you selected a journal entry previously, the text in the file will now appear in the journal entry you selected.  Otherwise, you will be asked to supply a new category name for the journal entry.

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Closing the Journal

You can close a journal when you are finished with it.

To close a journal:

1. Select the File | Close option from the menu or select the close icon on the toolbar or press the key combination Alt-C.  These options will only be available if a journal is currently open.
2. If the archive needs to be saved, you will be asked to save it prior to closing.

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Exporting and Importing Journals

Exporting Journals to a Directory

A Journal may be exported to a directory.  This is useful for viewing in other text based tools or for retaining your journal integrity between versions of Jed.  When your Journal is exported to a directory, the directory structure will look like it does in the tree view of Jed.  The main directory will have the words "Journal - " in front of your journal name and the journal entries themselves will have a number for a filename.

For example, the journal entry for July 1, 2002 11:10:34 in category cats in journal Cat Stuff will have a file name of "Journal - Cat Stuff\cats\2452457.965671.txt".  The number represents the Julian Date of the journal entry, with 2452457 representing the date and .965671 representing the time of day. The file extension of .txt is used to allow you operating system to recognize this file as a text file.  Each text file will contain the material from the corresponding journal entry.

To export a Journal to a Directory:

1. Select the File | Export to | Directory... option from the menu.  This option will only be available if you have a journal currently open.  

2. Select the directory to which you would like your journal to be exported.  Jed will create the directory structure described above within this directory.

3. Press the Export button.

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Exporting Journals to a Zip File

A Journal may be exported to a zip file.  This export option provides the same information as in the export to a directory option detailed above, however all of the entries are zipped to a single zip file named with the same name as you journal.  For example, if your Journal is named "Cat Stuff.jed" the exported zip file containing all of your text-based journal entries will be named "Cat Stuff.zip".

To export a Journal to a Zip File:

1. Select the File | Export to | Zip File... option from the menu.  This option will only be available if you have a journal currently open.  

2. Select the directory to which you would like your journal to be exported.  Jed will create the zip file described above within this directory.

3. Press the Export button.

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Importing Journals from a Directory

You may import a journal into Jed that was previously exported using Jed.  The directory you import must have the text "Journal - MyJournalName.jed" in it, where MyJournalName can be any text you define for the journal name.  All directories within the journal directory will be considered as categories.  Each categories directory will contain journal entries with names as described in  Exporting Journals to a directory above.  If you are interested in creating the journal names using the correct date and time numbers, I have a separate tool that can do this, please contact me.

You may add categories as new directories, rename categories, delete entries, change your archive name etc when it is exported.  To successfully read it back into Jed however, be sure to adhere by the rules set here.

To import a Directory into a Journal:

1. Select the Import From | Directory... menu option.  Select the directory you wish to import, it must have the "Journal - " text in the directory name.
2. Press the Import button.

If, successful, you will be shown a message stating the number of categories and the number of entries read in.

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Options

Hiding The Contents

You can choose to show or hide the contents of the Journal Editor.  This is helpful in you are writing a private document and someone comes in view of your screen.  When you press the Hide Contents button the screen will become blank and the button's text will change to Show Contents.  Press the button again to reveal the Journal editor's contents

To show or hide the contents of the editor:

1. Select the Hide Contents checkbox menu option or Button from the toolbar.  If the menu item is checked, the contents of the journal editor will be hidden.

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Using the Toolbar

You can choose to show or hide the tool bar.  All of the options on the toolbar are also available from within the menus.

To show or hide the toolbar:

1. Select the Options | Show Toolbar checkbox menu option.  If the menu item is checked, the toolbar will be showing, if it is unchecked, it will be hidden.

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Explicitly Setting the Background or Text colors

You can choose the specific colors used for the editor panes background and text colors.  These color choices will not be saved between uses of Jed, though this will be supported in future releases.

To change the background color of the Editor pane:

1. Select the Options | Set Background Color... menu option.  This will only be available if a journal is currently open. 
2. Select the color from the color chooser.
3. Press the OK button.

The editor's background will change to the color you choose.

To change the text color within the Editor pane:

1. Select the Options | Set Text Color... menu option.  This will only be available if a journal is currently open. 
2. Select the color from the color chooser.
3. Press the OK button.

The editor's text will change to the color you choose.

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Inserting a Date/Time Stamp Into Your Journal Entry

You can insert a date/time stamp into your journal entry whenever you wish.  The stamp is in plain text and will be placed at the end of the text in your journal entry.

To add a Date/Time Stamp to your journal entry:

Perform one of the following to insert a Date/Time Stamp into your journal entry:

1. Select the Options | Date/Time Stamp menu option or,
2. Press the Date/Time Stamp button on the toolbar or,
3. Use the key combination Alt-D or,
4. Right-click on the editor window and select the Date/Time Stamp menu option

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Locking The Journal

The journal can be locked using a password you specify.  Password confirmation will be required for the following tasks in Jed: 

1. Opening a password protected journal
2. Exporting a password protected journal
3. Clearing the password from a password protected journal

Warning: An exported journal will not have any password protection associated with it.

Caution: This password protection is not foolproof and does not currently abide by any encryption standards.  It is provided merely as a convenience at this time and it not intended to protect data without fail.

To protect a journal with a password:

1. Select the Options | Lock Journal checkbox menu option.  
2. You will be prompted for a password.  You must type your password twice for confirmation.
3. Press the OK button.
4. If you have not ever saved the journal, you will be prompted to save. 

The check box on the Options | Lock Journal checkbox menu option will now be checked.

To remove password protection from a journal

1. Select the Options | Lock Journal checkbox menu option.  
2. You will be prompted for your password.  
3. Press the OK button.

The check box on the Options | Lock Journal checkbox menu option will now be unchecked.

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Using the Color Presets

There are five predefined Color schemes in Jed.  They are:

The asterisk denotes the Editor default value.

To select a predefined color scheme for the editor:

1. Right-click on the editor window and select the Color Presets menu.
2. Select one of the color schemes

The editor's background and text will change to the new scheme Jed will continue to display these colors each time it is started until they are changed again.

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Using the Font Presets

There are four predefined fonts schemes in Jed.  They are:

The asterisk denotes the Editor default value.

To select a predefined font scheme for the editor:

1. Right-click on the editor window and select the Font Presets menu.
2. Select one of the font schemes

The editor's text will change to the new font scheme.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

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Version History

Changes from version 1.3

1. Added the capability to select a .jed file and open it by double clicking. (only works with windows installed version, though if your bright, you can figure out how to do this with the executable jar version too).
2. Minor bug fixes

Changes from version 1.2

1. Added the Help button to the toolbar
2. Added the Hide Contents button to the right side of the toolbar to allow the user to hide the contents of the journal editor easily.
3. Added saved preferences for the chosen colors of the text and background.  These colors will become the new defaults. This feature will only work if the user is running with JRE 1.4 or later.
4. Changed the default font from Arial 12 to Courier 14.
5. Applied a new saving algorithm to make the saved .jed files much smaller.  Also added a check to try to open .jed files saved with a previous version using the old method, so users will be able to seamlessly change to the new format. (Thanks to Patrick Forhan for his suggestion)

Changes from version 1.1

1. Fixed a bug with the delete function.  It did not work!  (Thanks to Patrick Forhan)
2. Changed the format of the displayed date.  This will affect the sorting of journal entries in the tree.  The dates that have a month or day less than 10 now will have a zero (0) prepended to them.  For example, June 8, 2002 was previously displayed as 6/8/2002, it will now be displayed as 06/08/2002. 
   To add this new feature to your existing archive, export your journal to a directory and then import it.  When imported, all the dates will be updated.
3. Fixed a bug with the save feature.  Under certain conditions, after you typed something into the editor area, Jed would not recognize that you typed and not set the "journal needs to be saved" state correctly.  If this happens, you would not have been prompted to save changes, potentially losing your data.