Personal Log was designed to be simple to use, yet  powerful enough to be useful. Personal Log is not intended to be a word processor, but rather, a note collector. In order to make use of this function, you first must create a log file, then you may create any entries you see fit.  

Creating a Log File:
In order to create a log file, select the New Log… menu item from the File menu.  The new log dialog will appear and looks like the following:

In addition to being a normal Macintosh Save As... dialog, the new log dialog has a checkbox and a group of radio buttons. The checkbox, titled “Require Password to open,” governs whether or not a password is required to open the log file. This setting can be changed later via the password manager (see Advanced Features chapter). If the checkbox is selected, a password text box will appear to the right.  

The three radio buttons found below the password checkbox govern whether or not the entries may be edited once they have been recorded (see Advanced Features chapter). The “Fully Editable” radio allows all entries in the log to be edited. The “Editable with Password” radio allows recorded entries to be edited only when the correct password has been entered. If this radio is selected, then the password text box will appear to the right. The “Uneditable” radio does not allow any editing of entries once they have been recorded. All radio options allow entries to be deleted from a log file (see Advanced Features chapter), but the “Editable with Password” and “Uneditable” options require a password to do this. These parameters can not be changed once the log file has been created.

To create the log file, click the save button once you have your log file name chosen and have set up its parameters. Please note that if the parameters require a password, and you have not entered one, a beep will sound and the log will not be created. However, the dialog will remain.

Creating a New Entry:
To add a new entry to a log file, click on log window of the chosen log file to select it, then click on the new entry button. A dialog will appear and looks like the following:

In this dialog, you may enter the subject of the new entry and a listing of any keywords. You may enter up to a 255-character subject and up to eight 31-character keywords. You must separate each keyword with a comma when entering them into this dialog. Please note the pop-up menus next to the “Subject” and “Key Words” text fields. These pop-up menus allow you to enter often-used subjects and keywords more quickly. You may set up these menus via the subject manager and the keyword manager, which are explained in the Advanced Features chapter of this manual.

To enter the information you have typed into the dialog, click the OK button. This will dismiss the dialog and create a new entry with the subject and keywords you have specified. An entry window will appear, and you may create and edit the text of your entry.  Some editing features of Personal Log are:

     •  You may edit the entry text's format (e.g., font, font size, and font face) from the Format menu.  This menu is only available when the front window is an editable entry.

     •  You can define keywords for the current entry "on the fly" by selecting the word you wish to define as a keyword and selecting Define Keyword from the Commands menu.

     •  If you have Apple's Drag & Drop technology installed on your computer, Personal Log fully supports it in entry windows.  You may drag styled text into (or with in) any editable entry.  You may also drag styled text from an entry window, including entry windows which are currently uneditable.

When you have completed your entry, click the record entry button, and the entry will be added permanantly to the log file.  If you decide, before clicking the record entry button, that you do not want to add this entry to the log file, you may click the window’s go away box to dismiss the window. 

Once the entry has been recorded, it will be added to the log file. The subject and date created will be added at the end of the entry list in the log window.

Please note that once an entry has been recorded, you may not re-edit it. This is not a bug in Personal Log, but a feature. It guarantees the integrity of each entry when viewed at a later date.

Recalling Old Entries:
To recall a previously recorded entry, double click on that entry in the entry list area of the log window. That entry will be displayed in a read only entry window, meaning it may be viewed but not edited.

Printing an Entry:
(Please note this feature is disabled in unregistered copies of Personal Log)
To print the text and header information of an entry in Personal Log, select  that entry’s window, then select Print… from the File menu. To print multiple entries, go to the entry list list of the log window and select the entries you wish to print. Then select Print… from the File menu.

Saving Entries as Text Files:
(Please note this feature is disabled in unregistered copies of Personal Log)
To save an entry as a text file, select that entry’s window, then select Save As… from the File menu.  A dialog will appear which looks like the following:

This dialog looks similar to Macintosh’s standard save dialog, however, there are two exceptions. The Save As… dialog in Personal Log has two extra items. The first is the “Save Selection Toggle.” This checkbox is enabled only if the entry window you wish to save has text selected. If you check this toggle, only the selected text in the entry window will be saved into the text file. The second additional item is the “Save Format ” menu. This menu allows you to set the format of the file that is being saved. It contains only two formats—text files and Personal Log log files—and is useful only when saving log files. When saving entries as text, only the text file option is enabled.  

Once you have selected your options and named the text file, click the save button, and the entry will be saved to the text file.

To save multiple entries to a single text file, select the log window, then select Save As…  from the File menu. The same dialog will appear, except the “Save Format” menu now enables both the text and log file options. If no entries have been selected in the log window, the “SaveSelection Toggle” will be disabled. If the “SaveSelection Toggle” is enabled, the selected entries will be saved only as text if the box is checked. In other words, you cannot create a new log file that is a subset of another log file. When the “SaveSelection Toggle” is not selected, you may save the entire log file either as a text file or a new or copied log file.