This is a feature I've wanted to add for years. Episodes connect multiple entries together into, well, an episode. For years when I've gone on a vacation I generally created one entry. One really big entry. Lots of pictures and a breakdown of the vacation that includes many days and activities. Lots of words.
But I wanted to be creating multiple smaller entries. Running log entries to capture any workouts. Food log entries to capture meals out. Travel log entries to capture the flights. Etc. Etc.
The problem was that in the past I had no way to tie them together. So I started thinking about the concept of episodes. And today I finally launched the feature for all reger.com users.
It's simple to use. At the bottom of an entry you can optionally choose to associate the entry with an existing episode or create a new one. You do that for a number of entries and then on each of those entries you see a chart of the episode. This chart has all entries from that episode.
It paints a big picture for you. Which is cool.
Episodes are not log types or entry categories. Those are a little too big. Episodes are manually-created (although they could be automated) relationships between entries.
A vacation is one good example.
I'm also going to create a new car episode and capture each entry that I write when I get a new car. So an episode can span any period of time. The new car episode will be a long-running one that I'll use throughout life.
An episode could also take place over a few minutes. Imagine posting to your blog, getting thrashed by a fellow blogger, responding. In a matter of a few minutes you may write three or four entries that should all roll up to one episode.
The code takes care of choosing the granularity of the episode chart that's displayed. I may make it possible to force it to a certain granularity (minute, hour, day, week, month, year). It tries to find the granularity that will give it the closest to seven columns in the chart.
In a corporate context the episode may be something like an issue. You're blogging a project. Giving updates every couple of days. And within your entries are issues/themes... things that organize the entries. For example, in a software deployment project you may have an episode to track the hardware acquisition issues and one for the software testing.
On the homepage of each blog that has episodes will be a link to all of their episodes. On my site, that link is on the left. I've just launched the feature and don't yet have any episodes... but I will.
At its root, the episode is little more than a heirarchical level of organization above the entry. It can be used a million ways. Half the fun for me will be to see how people use it.
I'm excited about the new episodes functionality. I plan on using it over the next few weeks to see how it works in the real world. Let me know what you think.
Update: I created my first episode called Cut My Hand that tracks my cut and a couple other entries related to it. Cool!
Screenshot of what an episode looks like. Each entry in the episode has this chart at the bottom of it, allowing for quick access to other entries in the episode. Colors are neutral because the design has to apply to thousands of sites and personal tastes. Keyword Tags: screenshotepisodes
30 Min Swim, 10 Min Stationary Bike