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JournalBear 5.0 Beta 1 Released!

The first beta for JournalBear 5.0, the first version after the rebranding, is now up for download! As mentioned in earlier posts, this version is more responsive and supports encryption. I will continue to build upon this version after user feedback. This version is cross-platform, so it'll work on all major operating systems. You can download the software for your operating system from this link . While writing this post, only the Windows and Linux versions support 32-bit systems, and among Linux, only Debian-based distros, like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Elementary OS are supported. Please do note that the app is still in its primitive stages--while I don't expect major bugs, there may be minor hiccups. The versions released so far don't have the JournalBear icon shown in the previous post. Do share your feedback and any bug reports so that the software may be improved in future versions.
Recent posts

JournalBear 5.0 Beta Releasing This Week!

It's been a long wait, and after multiple UI changes and tests, I'm finally done with the first beta of JournalBear 5.0!  As promised, this will be cross-platform, meaning it'll run on Windows, Mac, and Linux, both 32 and 64-bit, but it's restricted to Debian-based systems for now, which includes Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Elementary OS. Apart from the features you're used to from the previous version, Productivity 4.0, the new version uses AES-256 encryption, and makes it mandatory, so you'll have to use a strong password to encrypt your journal. After that, no unauthorized person will be able to look at your entries without the right password. The new version also lets you search by date. Entries can now also be styled, using either HTML or Markdown, both of which are easy to use. If you're comfortable with HTML, feel free to use a separate <style> tag for all your CSS.  While we're on the topic of being new, there's also a new tem

Version 5.0 Coming Soon!

We're finally coming up with a newer version of the app! However, this update will only apply to Journal, and not affect the other products in Productivity. As per current plans, we intend to release Journal as a separate app on its own, but users of Productivity will also get the new update. The new Journal app is now cross-platform, which means it will run on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. We've rebuilt it from the ground-up, with a fresh new UI! Apart from the same great features you're used to, the new version now encrypts your journal using AES-256 encryption, so you'll have to provide a password to open your journals. This keeps your private information safe. Among other features planned, you'll also be able to now add multiple images to each day's journal entry. Unfortunately, all these new additional features do mean that we now use a newer file format (.ejournal) instead of the older .journalx. The new format allows us to store more informat

Productivity 4.0 Released!

The new version of Productivity has now been uploaded on Softpedia! You can go to the download page by clicking here. This version focuses on the Journal feature, giving it a new Events feature and changing the journal files to a JSON-based .journalx format, along with UI changes.

Source Code Updated on GitHub

We announced a while ago how the code published earlier on GitHub had issues including licensed third-party controls as dependencies, and other issues that would make it harder for other developers to clone and compile the code themselves. We're glad to announce that these issues have now been resolved, and hence devs can now freely download the code and modify it to suit their needs. The code we published also includes the new features from version 4.0, which will be out shortly. You can find the code for Productivity at this link.

Productivity 4.0

It's been about 3 months since we made any announcements about the app, but it's just that we're a little undermanned at the moment, so development is going slow. But the good news is that we've been working on it quite a bit of late, and we're done with a few things that we had planned earlier. Most of the source code is now available on GitHub. It may not compile yet, and we're working to remove proprietary third-party components so that developers may work on it without hassle. We'll publish the link to the project once that's done. We've focused on improving the Journal feature, and we have an exciting new feature for you! We call the feature "Events", and basically it helps you keep track of major events like birthdays, anniversaries and graduations in your life. When you're done writing your entry for the day, click on the Events button on the menu, and give your event a title. Every day in subsequent years from then, you&#

We're Open-Sourcing Productivity!

To encourage other developers to help improve the app, we've decided to open-source Productivity, meaning the source code for the app is now available for download for free. We've made a GitHub repository with the source code and we're adding chunks of the code to it regularly. The code is written entirely in Visual Basic .NET, so anyone who knows the language should find it easy to work on the code and help improve it. To make it easier for other developers to work on it, we've removed third-party paid components and switched to free ones. We still do use other open-source third party components though, whose full source code is available on GitHub and CodeProject. Links to these source codes are given in the Readme file of the project. So what does this mean for you if you're not a developer? It simply means that although the app hasn't had many updates in quite a while, it's surely not a dead project, and we're simply reaching out to other dev