Background: Between paper notebooks, post-it notes, OneNote, Evernote, and so many more, there is no shortage of ways to write things down. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but none satisfied my requirements to act as a daily work log to record key events, thoughts, and milestones during my work day.

My paper notebook is excellent for free-form thoughts, sketches, and calculations, but I would want to keep a separate notebook to keep track of these sequential events. We use OneNote at work, but where the infinite blank canvas is a strength in applications such as for research or brainstorming, I found it to be a weakness in record keeping since the document is too easy to edit and “fragile”.

One day after learning about Git and SourceTree, I knew wanted to create a similar commit-style application to record activites and “freeze” them in time. Not web-based, internet connected, or cross platform; just a no frills desktop application that does one thing and one thing only.

Objective: Develop a simple application to log daily activities at work.

Features:

• Entries for each day are saved in a date-stamped text file
• Each commit is time-stamped in the text file
• Archive of log entries is accessible through the list in the left column
• Text files show up as read only in the application, but are editable and searchable through the Windows File Explorer

Framework: C#

Source: Github

Screencap of the Engineer's Diary. Write in the 'Description' and 'Project' text boxes, then press 'Commit' when complete.

After the 'Commit' button is pressed, the entry is written or appended to a text file and displayed on screen.