MacJournal 4.1

Reviewed by Mike Hubbartt

For years, aspiring writers have used journals to record thoughts and ideas for novels and short stories. Keeping a journal not only keeps those earlier experiences available for later review, it also forces the writer to do what they should: write. I’ve kept journals for many years, and read some of them when I need specific details or feelings when working on a story. So when I heard Mariner Software gave a sneak peek of MacJournal 4.1 at Mac Expo, I wanted to see if they improved it or just fixed a few bugs. Apparently they did both.

MacJournal, as the name implies, is product you can use to create a journal, and you can use it for blogging and creating podcasts. All three areas are improved in version 4.1. MacJournal supports .mac syncing, so you can access your journal on the road as well as at home. To do so, just select Entry -> Share -> .mac, and you’re good to go. Syncing with .mac may be the reason some choose to upgrade to version 4.1, but there are other valid reasons to consider. For blogging improvements, you can now send multiple blog entries to a blog server in one session. For people using this product for creating podcasts, Mariner improved the audio recording capabilities.

Version 4.1 now spell checks content in the Topic field in version 4.1, adds a plug-in to better integrate MacJournal content with Blacktree’s application launcher, and displays nested journal entries. And MacJournal will log into google when you want to post on blogger,com.

There are a number of bugs fixed in this version:

ü     Exporting allows greater control over the output, especially metadata. Now can specify plain text encoding.

ü     Fixed a potential crash communicating with the OS over data syncing.

ü     Fixed a bug exporting a single journal to individual HTML files.

ü     PDFs are now treated like non-image attachments when exporting to HTML.

ü     Deleted entries and journals will now end up with representations in the Trash.

ü     Fixed a crash using the "Open in New Tab" menu item.

ü     Improved appearance of selected text in Full Screen mode when using a colors like white-on-black.

ü     Making an entry uneditable while there are unsaved changes will save the text first.

ü     Fixed an error that could show a QuickTime alert message when appending a recording to another.

ü     The Activity window can now be used to cancel blog sends and receives.

ü     The Quick Note window accepts Command-Return.

ü     "Lock after idle" preference only considers application activity, not system activities.

ü     "Send entry to other blog" menu item in the Share menus shows a list of active blog servers.

ü     Version update checking works on Intel machines.

ü     Improved Services to support the Opera and OmniWeb browser.

ü     Removed the unneeded "Blogger" protocol from the list when manually setting up a blog.

ü     An issue where Movable Type servers incorrectly report MetaWeblog as their server type.

Conclusion: I like this product. It was easy to install and use – I didn’t need to pour over the documentation to figure it out, and I like intuitive software. And while the documentation is not printed, Mariner does offer a hard copy for an additional charge.

And while it isn’t a new feature, I really like the full screen mode. It gets rid of the extra distracting stuff on the screen, letting me focus on writing. Mariner’s Montague also has a full screen mode, and it is a good reason to consider that product if you’re looking for a good scriptwriting program. Speaking of writing, one of macCompanion’s writers uses MacJournal to produce his monthly articles for the magazine. Just shows how far some people will go to avoid using MS Word…

Recommendation: This mature product is easy to use and good at keeping a journal or to record your views for your own blog. A good buy and recommended.