<<<<<<< HEAD

for version 0.4.2

# Frequently Asked Questions

This page is meant to address certain questions or problems that various users have had so far. You should expect this list to grow as more questions are asked with each new version of RoboJournal.

## Question: Why doesn't RoboJournal offer higher security?

Will Kraft's answer:

As the "Current Limitations" section explains, RoboJournal was not originally designed to be a high-security program. RoboJournal's purpose is to allow users to create and maintain an electronic diary or journal on a remote server. By its very design, RoboJournal is already more secure than a traditional handwritten diary (which offers no security at all since anyone can pick it up and read it) since the MySQL server requires a username and password for each login. Even so, you need to ask yourself how much protection your journal really requires. A basic login requirement is probably enough to thwart casual unauthorized access attempts unless the attacker has root-level access to your MySQL installation (in which case you have far greater problems than having your secrets exposed).

That said, there are plans in the works to harden RoboJournal against unauthorized access attempts even from the MySQL root account. Starting in a future version (most likely 0.6), RoboJournal will support RSA and/or AES on-the-fly encryption for all journal content.

## Question: Why is spell check disabled on the Linux version of RoboJournal 0.4.2?

Will Kraft's answer (updated on 8/30/13):
I had no choice but to issue a service patch that disables spell check (for the time being) on all instances of RoboJournal that have been compiled for any Linux-based operating system. The only other [unacceptable] option was to leave this serious problem completely unaddressed.

This decision is due to the well-known crashing bug that has plagued RoboJournal ever since the spell check feature was introduced in version 0.4. I have recently made progress on figuring out what is causing the bug but there is no way for me to fix it in a timely manner. I intend to replace the spell check system entirely before RoboJournal 0.5 is released (since that is what the fix requires) in order to resolve this bug once and for all. In the meantime, this patch prevents a Linux-user's copy of RoboJournal from crashing merely because he or she enabled spell check at some point. This patch is temporary; I intend to restore full spell check functionality as soon as possible.

The patch does not affect the Windows version of RoboJournal because that version has always been immune to this crashing bug. Therefore, all custom Windows binaries will continue to have fully-functional spell check.

## Question: Why does the whitespace removal feature sometimes add lots of empty lines to a new entry?

Will Kraft's answer:
This is on my list of things to fix in RoboJournal 0.5.

The bug is most often triggered whenever you paste content from an external source (like a website) into a new entry and then save it. Once saved, the new entry shows lots of unnecessary whitespace in the Entry Output Pane. Whenever this problem occurs, it can be easily remedied by editing the affected entry (consult "Modifying an Existing Entry" if necessary) and then saving it again without making any changes. The whitespace removal function should work correctly the second time.

## Question: Why isn't there a version of RoboJournal for Mac OS X?

Will Kraft's answer:
I have actually been planning to release RoboJournal on Mac OS X as soon as I can. The reason why I haven't done it for earlier versions is because I don't have a Mac of my own; under the circumstances there has been no way for me to build or actively maintain a Mac version.

Update (4/23/13): Unfortunately, my last plan for porting RoboJournal to OS X has recently failed. I'm now forced to wait for another volunteer to come along.

## Question: RoboJournal has been useful to me. Is there anything I can do to help out?

Will Kraft's answer:
What I need the most right now are more beta testers and translators who are able to volunteer some of their time. As of 4/23/13, I'm also looking for someone who can help me port RoboJournal to Mac OS X.

Supporting RoboJournal on Mac OS X requires a volunteer who can be relied on to download the current stable source code (from Github or SourceForge), compile it to run natively on Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" (or later), and package it as a .dmg archive. This must be done for each release cycle.

Beta testers help me test new experimental versions of RoboJournal prior to release (usually the current "experimental" branch on GitHub) on a wide variety of operating systems and notify me of any new bugs they find. Beta testers also suggest new features and other ways to improve RoboJournal. As a beta tester, you must have enough development experience and skill to compile the experimental code yourself because I simply don't have the time to package and distribute custom builds on a regular basis.

Translators would help me make RoboJournal available in other languages besides English. I'm only fluent in English so my ability to do this myself is extremely limited. I would definitely appreciate having several people who are willing to gradually translate all text in the program (and perhaps in this documentation as well) into Spanish, French, German, Chinese, or any other world language in which they have proficiency.

If you are interested in any of these roles, please contact me at pwizard[at]gmail[dot]com.

Copyright © 2013 by Will Kraft. All parts of the RoboJournal Documentation are covered by the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

=======

for version 0.5

# Frequently Asked Questions

This page is meant to address certain questions or problems that various users have had so far. You should expect this list to grow as more questions are asked with each new version of RoboJournal.

## Question: Why doesn't RoboJournal offer higher security?

Will Kraft's answer:
As the "Current Limitations" section explains, RoboJournal was not originally designed to be a high-security program. RoboJournal's purpose is to allow users to create and maintain an electronic diary or journal on a remote server. By its very design, RoboJournal is already more secure than a traditional handwritten diary (which offers no security at all since anyone can pick it up and read it) since the MySQL server requires a username and password for each login. Even so, you need to ask yourself how much protection your journal really requires. A basic login requirement is probably enough to thwart casual unauthorized access attempts unless the attacker has root-level access to your MySQL installation (in which case you have far greater problems than having your secrets exposed).

That said, there are plans in the works to harden RoboJournal against unauthorized access attempts even from the MySQL root account. Starting in a future version (possibly 0.6), RoboJournal will support RSA (and possibly AES) on-the-fly encryption for all journal content.

## Question: Why does spellcheck flag some words incorrectly?

Will Kraft's answer (updated on 6/8/14):
The new spellcheck in RoboJournal 0.5 is still a work in progress. It's much better than the old one but it still has some bugs to work out. I hope to make more progress by the time RoboJournal 0.6 comes out (no idea when that will be).

## Question: Why does the whitespace removal feature sometimes add lots of empty lines to a new entry?

Will Kraft's answer:
This was originally on my list of things to fix in RoboJournal 0.5. Unfortunately, I had to delay it again due to my busy schedule's tendency to cut into my free development time. I hope to include a fix in RoboJournal 0.6, along with some other low-level architectural changes/improvements for old bugs I haven't been able to address until now.

The bug is most often triggered whenever you paste content from an external source (like a website) into a new entry and then save it. Once saved, the new entry shows lots of unnecessary whitespace in the Entry Output Pane. Whenever this problem occurs, it can be easily remedied by editing the affected entry (consult "Modifying an Existing Entry" if necessary) and then saving it again without making any changes (you may need to do this several times). The whitespace removal function should work correctly after one or more subsequent attempts.

## Question: Why isn't there a version of RoboJournal for Mac OS X?

Will Kraft's answer:
I have actually been planning to release RoboJournal 0.5 on Mac OS X as soon as I can. The reason why I haven't done it for earlier versions is because I don't have a Mac of my own; under the circumstances there has been no way for me to build or actively maintain a Mac version.

Update (4/23/13): Unfortunately, my last plan for porting RoboJournal to OS X has recently failed; I'm now forced to wait for another volunteer to come along.

## Question: RoboJournal has been useful to me. Is there anything I can do to help out?

Will Kraft's answer:
What I need the most right now are more beta testers and translators who are able to volunteer some of their time. As of 4/23/13, I'm also looking for someone who can help me port RoboJournal to Mac OS X.

Supporting RoboJournal on Mac OS X requires a volunteer who can be relied on to download the current stable source code (from Github or SourceForge), compile it to run natively on Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" (or later), and package it as a .dmg archive. This must be done for each release cycle.

Beta testers help me test new experimental versions of RoboJournal prior to release (usually the current "experimental" branch on GitHub) on a wide variety of operating systems and notify me of any new bugs they find. Beta testers also suggest new features and other ways to improve RoboJournal. As a beta tester, you must have enough development experience and skill to compile the experimental code yourself because I simply don't have the time to package and distribute custom builds on a regular basis.

Translators would help me make RoboJournal available in other languages besides English. I'm only fluent in English so my ability to do this myself is extremely limited. I would definitely appreciate having several people who are willing to gradually translate all text in the program (and perhaps in this documentation as well) into Spanish, French, German, Chinese, or any other world language in which they have proficiency.

If you are interested in any of these roles, please contact me at pwizard[at]gmail[dot]com.

Copyright © 2014 by Will Kraft. All parts of the RoboJournal Documentation are subject to the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

>>>>>>> experimental