In a word, the Journler Lexicon is an infinite depth digital representation of the term-document relationships in your journal.

Entries and text-based file attachments are all composed of individual words which often appear in more than one place. The lexicon shows the connections between words and entries, allowing you to see the implicit relationships spun like a web through your documents.

The Lexicon Proper

From the Window menu choose Lexicon. It may take a moment to load the viewer, but when finished the Lexicon displays every word contained in your journal. Select a term from the list and Journler locates every entry or text based attachment that includes it.

When you select one of those documents, two things happen. First, the Lexicon loads the file and displays it, highlighting the originally selected word. Second, the Lexicon parses the document and displays every term that occurs in it alone. Selecting a term in the new list highlights it in the document and again shows every entry or text based attachment in which it occurs. At this point you have returned to step one and may select another document.

With speed and grace you are now able to traverse the relationships between your documents established implicitly by the words which they contain. The Lexicon is a new perspective on your thoughts and media, preferring linguistic and semantic affinities to temporal and organizational restrictions. Connections exist that you don't know about. Discover them.

The Embedded Lexicon

The Lexicon can be cumbersome. A large journal contains thousands of unique terms, many of no significance. Cut through the complexity and go straight to the connections.

Select any text based document in your journal, including entries, PDF, Word and text files as well as Mail messages and web pages or web archives. Highlight a single word in the text and right click (or hold down the ctrl key, clicking once). At the bottom of the context menu you will find the All Documents with Term submenu. Selecting it reveals every document which contains the highlighted term

When you chose a document from the list, Journler jumps to that entry or resource and highlights occurrences of the term you had originally selected. If the document is not what you were looking for, use the Back toolbar button at the top left of the window. The embedded lexicon respects keyboard modifiers, so that for example selecting a document from the list with the command key down opens the document in a new tab instead of the current one.

Stop Words

As your journal grows the lexicon will begin to contain terms that are of no use to you. Some of these terms are common words such as prepositions and articles while others are junk that the search technology has picked up. You can filter these terms so that the lexicon and search engine both ignore them. Select a range of words in one of the lexicon's columns and from the Edit menu choose Copy. Click once on the Stop Words toolbar button at the top left of the window and Paste the terms into the already existing list. Save your changes. Next time you use the lexicon Journler ignores the newly added terms.

A number of words are included by default in the stop list.

a all am an and any are as at be but by can could did do does etc for from goes got had has have he her him his how if in is it let me more much must my nor not now of off on or our own see set shall she should so some than that the them then there these this those though to too us was way we what when where which who why will would yes yet you