Remembering and sharing · Chapter 18
Reminders on your phone
In the evening a gentle nudge comes to your phone if you have not written yet. nexdiary sends it as Web Push, so without an app from a store, straight from the browser or from the app on your home screen. For that to work, you sign each device up once.
Signing a device up
- Open nexdiary on the device
On an iPhone, open nexdiary from its icon on the home screen for this, not in a Safari window. How the icon gets there is in the chapter On your phone.
- Go to reminders
Through the round account button to “My account” and the tab “Reminders”. At the top is the card “Notifications on your devices”.
- “Turn on for this device”
The browser asks whether nexdiary may send notifications. Allow it. Then it says “This device gets reminders now.”
- “Send a test”
A test arrives on every device you have signed up, so you see straight away whether it works.
The list below shows your devices, the one in use marked “this device”. Each can be given a name with “Rename the device”, such as “Phone” or “Laptop”, and signed off again with “Sign the device off”. Up to ten devices are possible.
If it does not work
- Without https it cannot. “Push needs an address with https (or localhost).” Open nexdiary at its https address.
- On an iPhone only from the app on the home screen: “Share, then “Add to Home Screen””, from iOS 16.4.
- If the browser said no, allow notifications in the settings of the site (at the lock to the left of the address) and try again.
When nexdiary reminds you
The card “When to remind” below sets when the nudge comes. Out of the box it is “Every day” at 20:30. Nothing is sent, though, until a device is signed up.
| Setting | Means |
|---|---|
| Never | no reminder |
| Every day | every day at the “Time” |
| After a pause | only once you have not written for a while; you set “After how many days without an entry” from 1 to 30, and the message comes at the “Time” |
| Do not remind me when I have written today | with “Every day”: if you have noted something today, the reminder stays away. One note a day is enough. On out of the box. |
| With a question of the day | the reminder brings a small question along, such as “What made you happy today?”; on out of the box |
| Remind me when my weekly goal is in danger | additionally, when the days left in the week only just suffice for your writing goal; off out of the box |
Under “This is how it looks” nexdiary shows what the message will say, such as “How was your day?” or, after a pause, “Nothing written for 3 days. Fancy a few lines?”. nexdiary goes by your time zone and never sends a reminder twice. If your server was briefly off at the time, it catches up for up to two hours afterwards.
What else arrives as a message
Besides the reminder, only a few other messages come to the signed-up devices:
- a new sign-in to your account, if the switch for it is on (on out of the box, see Account)
- a time capsule has arrived for you, and at 8 on the morning of its day, that it has opened
- a draft the AI made in the morning from yesterday's notes is waiting for you
- the operator has reset your second factor
- the operator has removed the link of your account to a sign-in provider
If someone shares a day with you or sends a heart, no message comes. You see that from the counter on “Shared”.
What a message says
nexdiary writes the text of a message itself; nothing from your diary is ever in it. A reminder can name the question of the day, including one you wrote yourself. A time capsule message names its sender. On the way the message is encrypted and goes through your browser's push service: Google for Chrome, Apple for Safari, Mozilla for Firefox. Only your device can read it.
Good to knowIf a daily reminder bothers you more than it helps, choose “After a pause” with two or three days. Then nexdiary only speaks up when you really have been away for a while.