Our Verdict
There was a time when keeping a journal was a pop pastime — everyone from teenager to artists to world Explorer did it diligently . These day , I ’d wager that just as many people publish their daily mentation and activities on blogs and Twitter as keep private diaries and authorship in a notebook .
CallitADayoffers a middle ground that both groups might find appealing . It ’s a program for keeping a daily journal , but one that ’s whippy enough to countenance you store other content , as well — and even publish some of that content to the Web .
Before creating any daybook entries(which CallitADay callsnotes ) you should create topics for grouping related types of contentedness . Each topic acquire its own discussion section in CallitADay ’s sidebar . To create a new note , penetrate the desired date in CallitADay ’s calendar , pick out the appropriate topic area , and then bug out typing . CallitADay ’s Snippets feature lets you save morsel of frequently used school text and then glue those bits into any musical note using menu - taproom or contextual - card command .
To browse preceding short letter , you’re able to either click a date on the main calendar ( calendar daytime are color coded to make it easy to see which dates let in daybook entry ) or browse the index of subject below the calendar . Within each subject , musical note are sorted by date . If you click a topic , rather than a date , you may browse notes within that subject using either thumbnail or Cover Flow views . History button let you apace flip-flop through the most - recently accessed notes . you may also rename note to make it easier to discover them using CallitADay ’s search feature .
When typing a note , you get the stock Mac OS X text - formatting options , but notes can contain more than just schoolbook . For example , you could drag an image or video into any Federal Reserve note , and the sensitive will come along exactly where you drop it . you’re able to also resize the image or video , and move it around within the note — as with Apple ’s Pages political platform , text mechanically feed around the point . Click a telecasting ’s Play button to watch .
you may also drag attachments and audio files into a eminence ; the item ’s icon will seem wherever you leave out it . Click the Play button on an audio file ’s ikon to mind to the sound recording , or double - click an attachment icon to open up the original data file or booklet in the appropriate programme or the Finder , respectively . ( Depending on your setting in CallitADay ’s Preferences window , introduce an attachment into a note either copies the single file to your database or creates an alias to the original . )
CallitADay also includes feature for immortalize audio and , if you have an iSight or other USB camera connect , for take photos . The lead effigy and audio file are treated as affixation in the current notation .
CallitADay ’s Search command lets you search for notes containing your search condition , and a separate Find mastery lets you find textbook within note . The Find feature film crop much like the one in Safari : All instances of a found word are highlight , with the rest of the note dimmed . you could skip between launch instances using the keyboard or Previous and Next buttons .
Finally , if you maintain a WordPress web log , you could also release a note to your blog as a web log unveiling by simply clicking CallitADay ’s Publish button .
As elegant as CallitADay ’s port is , I did total across some notable restriction . For example , there does n’t seem to be a way to create multiple notes within a category on the same date . And unlikeMemoires , you ca n’t encrypt your diary file to keep them private ; you need to save them to , say , an inscribe phonograph record image , which is a morsel of a hassle .
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[ Dan Frakes is a Macworld senior editor . ]
