Sunday, August 21, 2011

Linux app review: Lifeograph

It's been a while since I done one of these. Between office hours, socialising with friends and juggling with family issues I hardly get the time to blog anymore. It's time to start fresh, time for a change

The application I'm reviewing today is a useful beast, simple and uncanny in its features. Lifeograph, as some of you may have guessed from it's name, allows its user to write his diary (or journal, if you prefer). That's how it is popularised anyway and at first glance that's all it is with options to set a password for your diaries and a feature that automatically 'locks down' the application upon a certain period of user inactivity. You really don't want your personal life, secrets and rants being read by your office mates, do you? Than this application is what you are looking for! Ability to secure my writings gave me the idea that Lifeograph doesn't necessarily have to be used as a diary or journal (though I must meekly admit, I discovered the wonders of keeping my own journal because of Lifeograph). One additional diary later, I was writing down blog ideas, another diary and soon I was writing my own fantasy story! This application, in its simplicity, has opened the doors for me to be creative by offering one feature that I couldn't find in any other applications; the ability to secure my ideas and thoughts with a password. Now, why couldn't any1 else come up with that idea? Now I have the ease of writing everything and anything without my peers able to know about it.


Sure enough, Lifeograph could use some features and become one of the great standard apps. Some sort of plugin feature is required (the whole interface looks clean and simple, but when the drop down menus contain so few options, one would feel like using an under developed application). I can draft a blog post in Lifeograph, but I have no way to include additional media (pictures, videos) into the post. I can't even do a spell check, which eventually leads to some embarrassing situations. So, it doesn't come with great surprise that there isn't anyway to publish my post to a blog. I'm a novice programmer and based on my experience of how programmer usually add features to a program, I think plugins could solve all my problems. Perhaps I should look into writing plugins and fill in the gap for Linux offline blogging, take on Windows Live Writer, the holy grail in the market and the undisputed champion in offline blogging.

Lets forget about blogging for a while and think about... writing a book! I tried doing just that with Lifeograph and although I was presented with ability to make chapters for my 'book', for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to enter the separate entries into the chapters I create. Some non-functioning code to blame, or there is a way to do it and I still haven't figured it out. That aside, I can't do things I would normally want to do when I'm writing a book like cross referencing, character building etc...

Lifeograph has a long way to go to challenge WLW (albeit a really required challenge now). But for now it i definitely functions for me and I am happy to have found this small app just lying around in the Ubuntu repository.

I cant somethings up without my Pros and Cons list. So without further ado, let me give to u...

PROS
  1. Simple, KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) application
  2. Lightweight and fast
  3. Auto formatted heading and subheading. Able to format text with shortcuts (CTRL - B: *bold*, CTRL - I: _italic_, etc)
  4. Easy to navigate entries because of the calendar and entry list panel
  5. Secure my entries with a password
  6. Once a password is set, smartly locks itself up after a period of idle time. My secrets are safe here, even if I forgot to close the application when I leave.
  7. Able to tag and search my entries.

CONS
  1. More formatting options would be welcome, like ability to create ordered and unordered lists and making text bold, italic and underlined using buttons
  2. Formatted texts show format markings
  3. Linking to entries possible using date of the entry only. Using a hyperlinked text like that in Tomboy notes would be a better alternative
  4. Not able to insert pictures and other multimedia. A must have feature for me. I could create a photo journal easily if that feature had been there
  5. No spell check available
  6. No help guide or welcome page. No entries by default. Instead a welcome entry like that in Tomboy notes would have been a better alternative
  7. No integration with other software. I could see how this could have been easily integrated with Tomboy notes
  8. No integration applet in notification area like Tomboy notes. I think one would be useful for this application
  9. No synchronisation with Ubuntu One.
PREVIEW
The welcome screen. With ability to choose a diary from the drop down list or by browsing to a backup
My diary :D
Tags, filters, formatting, heading and subheading illustrated in this screenshot
Search (filter) illustrated
Backup your diaries (with password protection of course)
Chapters.... how to make them work? Anyone knows?
My blog diary. Ability to keep separate diaries is super kewl




CONCLUSION
I like it because of its simplicity and headache free easy to use interface. I'm going to use and review it for a week before I post it on my blog. This is not going to be to every one's liking and people would feel other alternatives such as OneNote on windows and KDE

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