Niman

Journal

One note per day, made the first time you open that day.

An entry is an ordinary note: it lives in the library like any other, syncs, is found by search and links to and from other notes. What makes it an entry is where it is and what it is called, set in Settings → Journal and kept in the library’s settings.json, so they travel with it (see settings). The entry name shows today’s entry as you type it, and a name that cannot make one entry per day is not saved:

  • Folder (journalFolder, default Journal).
  • Entry name (journalEntryName, default YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD): YYYY, MM / M and DD / D are the day’s year, month and day; a / makes a folder; text in 'quotes' is kept as it is. Numbers only, so an entry has the same name on every device whatever the app’s language. The default files 23 September 2026 as Journal/2026/09/2026-09-23.md.
  • Template (journalTemplate): the template an entry is made from. None set, an entry starts with a heading holding its date.
  • A new day starts at (journalDayStart, 0 to 6): for late nights, at 4 the journal’s “today” stays on the day before until four in the morning.

Opening the journal

  • Today’s entry: Ctrl/⌘+Shift+J, or Journal: Today’s entry in the command palette. It opens today’s entry, and makes it first when there is none — no question asked, since it is the one you want every day.
  • The entries around it: on an entry, Ctrl/⌘+Shift+Page Up and Page Down (or Journal: Previous entry / Next entry) go to the entry before or after it, skipping the days without one. With none left in that direction, previous offers the day before; next stops at today.
  • Another day: a day with no entry is not made behind your back — Niman asks first, so leafing through the days never leaves empty notes.

The calendar

A month with a dot under each day that has an entry, today ringed, a Today button, the open tasks due on the day (from todo.txt: tap one for the task list), and the latest entries with their first words. In the side panel the day is the entry on screen’s, or today; on the phone’s screen, the day picked.

  • Desktop (a window wide enough for the side panel): the Journal pane of the side panel, beside the note. Clicking a day opens its entry (or offers to make it).
  • Phone: the calendar icon in the Files bar opens the Journal screen. Tap a day to pick it; its card opens the entry or makes it.
  • Everywhere: the day in the strip over an entry, or Journal: Show the calendar in the command palette.

The + button on the phone’s Files tab starts with Today’s journal entry.

The strip over an entry

Any note that is an entry — wherever it was opened from — wears a strip above it, on every platform: its day in full (with Today on today’s), and on either side the entry before and after it, by date. A side whose day has no entry yet is drawn softer: tapping it offers to make one. The next side stops at today.

What an entry starts with

With no template set, an entry starts with its date as a heading (# Wednesday 23 September 2026) and the caret under it.

With one, the template is filled in as for any template, with one difference: the date is the entry’s day, not the moment it was made, so an entry made for last Monday says Monday — and {{date|-1d}} links it to the Sunday before ([[{{date|-1d}}]]), a calendar day back even across a clock change. {{time}} still says when it was written. The template’s own questions are asked; its niman: directives are not followed, since the journal already says where the entry goes and what it is called. A template that cannot be read is said so, and the entry is made without it.

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