I want to log notes on a calendar on my iphone. I also want to be able to log several different types of things separately, but have the option to view them together on the same calendar.
For example, say I want a food log, a workout log, and a mood log. I should be able to thumb an icon, quickly type an entry, select the log name from a drop-down menu, and hit submit. Then, when i want to analyze what I’ve logged that month, I should be able to pull up a calendar-like interface that has my different logs visible across the whole week, month, or year.
Long story short: I want this application, it doesn’t exist, and I can’t create it myself. Let’s call this app “Daily Log”. Interested? Read on…
Stuff I’ve tried already:
- iPhone’s regular calendar:
Creating an all-day event on the calendar and adding notes is a cumbersome process. Plus, between a log entry and a regular calendar event on the calendar - iPhone’s Notes application
manually entering the date at the top and just having a list of unsortable entries in the Notes interface is no more useful than carrying a notebook around in my purse. - GoalKeep ($3.99 on App store)
Goalkeep has something like the type of Calendar interface that I want. It has a cool “zoom in” feature that lets you see the day you click on in more detail, and each entry is displayed visually on the calendar with different colors. However, goalkeep isn’t a log application at all, so obviously it doesn’t serve my purpose. - Any kind of blog client
Blog clients have the whole “automatically date-stamp the entry” thing down, but they post the entry online, and the calendar view is only visible from a web browser assuming that particular blog has a calendar view (Livejournal does.). I want my entries private and viewable locally.
Here’s how Daily Log would work:
The user thumbs an icon, and Daily Log opens a “Write Log” interface including a text entry box, a pre-filled datestamp box (that can be manually edited), and a drop down menu with a few labels, the option to edit existing labels, and to create a new label. The interface also includes a menu either at the top or the bottom that gives access to the “view logs” interface (more about this later too) and “settings/configuration” where you can create labels, or change other settings.
The user types an entry, selects the label for the entry, and hits submit. Daily Log returns to the Write Log interface, ready for the next entry.
If the user clicks on the “View Logs” button, the app displays a calendar with an overview of a period of time (year, month, week), and displays color-coded previews of the log entries on the dates (a different color for each different label). The user can click on the preview to see the full log entry.
The calendar view also has a link to the app’s configuration, where users can select colors for different labels when in the calendar view, and can show/hide different logs.
Backup through itunes or the web:
This application should only come paired with a web-based service if it is for backup purposes only and does not prevent the user from writing logs without internet connectivity. I personally want to use my Daily Log at any time, any place, for personal, medical, or just plain TMI purposes, so I don’t want anyone but me looking at my log entries.
If possible, application data should be backed up when syncing with iTunes and not require internet connectivity at all.
Here’s some example uses for Daily Log:
- Daily food journal (without extra “count your calories etc” database lookup crap)
- Mood log
- Workout log
- Dream Log
- Menstrual / PMS log
- “here’s what I did today” task logging
Here’s what Daily Log would NOT be:
- NOT a to-do list application (omg there are a million of those.)
- NOT a reminder application
- NOT a social networking client
- NOT be dependent on internet connectivity to use
Anyway…this is one of the reasons I wish I could have taken more (read: some) engineering stuff in college. I’ve got ideas for tools, and the ability to describe them and design them… but I can’t make them. :(
Want to help?
6 Comments
I’d like something along those broad general lines but for Wordpress (in plugin form). I want to have a nice way to record my scuba diving and biking activities, among other activities, that occur on a regular basis and that have a regular set of data to record.
Everything I’ve found so far that does what I want it to do either resides on its own website (that I would often have to pay for and would no longer have control over my data) or on my computer hard drive (which can be prone to p0wnage).
If it weren’t for your need of being able to use it without internet access, it almost sounds like you could use Wordpress (and the Wordpress I Phone app) to keep those daily logs. I don’t have an I Phone so I can’t vouch for what the Wordpress app can do, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was some sort of “store until online” functionality. All you’d have to do is mark the TMI sorts of entries as private and away you go!
BTW, why the sudden flurry of blog activity? :-)
hahaha. one post is a sudden flurry?
Yeah, I’ve searched for different apps or ways to force existing tools to sort of do what i want… but that’s the best I can do right now.
I’m still trying to find something that sucks all my appointments and meetings out, along with the contact information, and any notes I made and then imports them into my CRM (sugar) :( This would save me like three daily manual data punching steps.
this sounds like something i have been wanting too. but i don’t have an iphone… I will have to look into the iphone api because i know nothing about it and see if some more general kind of coding would port…
As it happens, I’ve recently been learning how to code for the iPhone. If I can work up the motivation, I’ll try to throw together something like this. It seems like a bizarro-world calendar that keeps track of only past events, rather than future plans.
“It seems like a bizarro-world calendar that keeps track of only past events, rather than future plans.”
yeah, that’s exactly what it is. Only it’s not so bizarro-world if you have a real need to keep track of your progress on a personal goal or keep track of certain nearly regular events you don’t have control over.
FYI, since writing this entry, I read somewhere that you can’t backup abitrary data through itunes. So the only solution to the “offline access plz” requirement is to email a text version of the data to an email address. However, there doesn’t seem to be a way to import that data back in…
A lot of similar apps have this problem and I haven’t seen anyone solve it yet.
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