creating a journal

Have looked at creating a journal but cant make head nor tail of it. Maybe its just me :( As I develop my allotments I would like to create a working journal of its development but need help!

Psilo, I think Go_vols created a tutorial for the journals, but I can't seem to find a reference to it at the moment. Maybe someone else will. I have to say, I've been putting off my journal until winter when I have time to get familiar with it, so I'm in the same boat as you.

I think Dave is possibly going to be putting on a wizard to help the likes of us. i tried to start a journal when i first registered, but didn't get very far - lack of time doesn't help! So a wizard will be great if one materialises!!

hope so Hilary. I am not the most computer literate person in the world! Hurry up Dave. Im bursting at the seams here :)

lol, Weezin - I thought I did too. But after some looking, I recall that I did one for tradelists; not for journals. We do need to do something; the instructions Sharon/SMSpear wrote were great, but Dave has made some significant changes to the journal since then.

I'm kind of hoping one of the heavy-duty journal users will step up to help with this? I'd volunteer but I'm up to my eyeballs in PDB stuff (yes, still!) and I don't want to commit to something I can't tackle right now.

In the meantime, here's my best advice:

1. I REALLY recommend that you look through the public journals. You'll find some layouts that you like, some that you don't.

2. Play with your journal. You will NOT break anything; if you create a mess, you can always delete the whole thing and start over. So mock up a few entries and see what happens :)

3. Think about your journal as though it were a paper one. How do you want to look for things - by category like perennial, annual, trees, shrubs, etc?

Or by sections of your garden (east bed, west bed, vegetable garden), etc?

Whichever you choose, those will become your categories. (Mine is laid out mostly by plant classifications, and then I have one category I call my "Almanac and Daily Journal" which is where - when I'm being good - I jot a few daily notes on weather, things blooming, activities I undertook that day, etc.)

many thanks for that go_vols. It is very useful as I couldnt quite understand the overall organisation. It is a little clearer now I think.

Alrighty, psilo, the wizard is up so go to your journal (I cleared out those 3 journal names you had created so as to give you a fresh start).

Go check it out and see what you think. If you are able to make a journal, I will call my wizard a success. If not, then...back to the drawing board. :)

dave

dave, my journal is empty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not empty, it's just not showing up correctly. I'm on it.

dave

whew:)

Well now hang on a second. It is looking just fine to me. I see you journal just fine: http://davesgarden.com/j/hp/tiG/

I click on either journal and it's full of categories and entries. What am I missing?

dave

when I go to the entries, there is nothing there.

Yes, mine's strange too Dave. My "view by category" shows the number of items in a cat. but when i click to open there's nothing there. However my "view by status" shows 19 items which open when i click.

Ah, yes, thank you. This is fixed now.

thanks dave

That's great thanks Dave. i've just added some images and had a look around. That looks much easier to follow. I look forward to putting lots in during the winter days when i can't get outside so much.

Many thanks Dave. I think I am getting the hang of it now ( as you may have seen :) ) much easier.

Dave, you are such a good "Gardener"! It seems like you are always pulling weeds, deadheading, pruning, and planting more seeds in Dave's Garden. It's been a busy summer, but hope to get going on my journal this winter, as well. By then, you'll have fumegated the bugs out of the wizard so that even a computer impaired person like myself can muddle through!

I went to my "journal", if you can call it that. (I've not messed with it much.) No wizard there to help me. Whaaaaa....!

Sorry about that, shoe. The wizard only shows up for people who don't already have a journal setup.

dave

whoops. sorry...I'll keep trying.

Dave, I still can't get to my journals. When I go under Your Tools, then Journal, I get this message:

Step 2...
Next step, you need to create some categories (at least one).

Joan: What happens when you click on the "create some categories" link?

dave

Ahh, I see. Okay, try again. It should be working this time.

dave

Thanks Dave! It works now.

To answer your first question, when I clicked on that link it took me to a place to create catagories and said I didn't have any yet.

That must have been a frightening experience. Well, at least you know that I always keep backup copies of the server (from each night at midnight) and I've never once lost any data! :)

dave

Yes, it did give my heart a little jump alright, since I have our housebuilding journal here too, and no place else. It's comforting to know that you back up the server so frequently. You think of everything to keep us safe. Thank you!

I felt that way earlier when I saw my categories but there were no entries in there. but knew Dave backed up, so it was just a little jump :)

Oh thank you so much Dave. I will try a journal now too. I've gone into try several times but I get so frustrated. Kind of an old age thing in this new technology era. Anyway, as soon as I get some time, I'll will try to do a journal. And if I make it, the wizard will REALLY be a success because I'm sure that if I can do it, anyone can. Thank you so much for all the neat things you constantly do for us. You're the best! vic