Create Journal entries and notes from iOS

A while back, we wrote about a 1Writer action to post journal entries and notes from 1Writer on iOS. That proved to be a pretty popular idea, and today we are making it easier to do that from almost any iOS app.

With a recent release of Workflow, it’s now possible to use the Tradervue API from within Workflow, without having to use any additional code. We can use this to create an action extension to post to Tradervue from any application that can share text. For example, here we are sharing a note from Bear to a new Tradervue journal note1:

https://youtu.be/G5-1h-FPwwY

First you’ll need to download Workflow from the App Store. Then, you can install our workflows by clicking these links on your device:

Tradervue Journal Entry – this workflow allows you to create or update the journal entry for the current day

Tradervue Journal Note – this workflow creates a new journal note

When you install those workflows, use the customize window that pops up and enter your Tradervue username (or email) and password; these will be stored on your device, and will be used by Workflow to access our API and send data to Tradervue. You can change these later if you wish by editing the workflow.

That’s it! You can now click the share button in apps that support sharing text — anything from Mail, to Notes or Drafts, to powerful writing apps like Ulysses. The very first time you try to share, you may need to add the “Run Workflow” action to the share sheet; scroll all the way to the right, tap More, and enable Run Workflow:

Once you do that once, it will be available everywhere. So for example, suppose we have a note in Notes we want to share:

We tap the share button, and the share sheet comes up:

Then we tap “Run Workflow”, and select a workflow:

We tap “Tradervue Journal Entry”, and we will then see the note published to Tradervue:

Workflow is a powerful app on iOS, and when paired with the Tradervue API, there’s no limit to what you can do. We’d love to hear how you use Workflow to streamline your process of journaling and using Tradervue!


  1. If you are using Bear, and wish to preserve your markdown formatting, then instead of clicking the share button on a note, instead click the info button at the top right. Then tap MD (to export in Markdown), and then click the share button to send that to Tradervue with the formatting intact. 

Journaling workflows

If you’re keeping a trading journal with Tradervue, and writing specific notes for each trade you make, there are several different workflows you can use to do this easily. Specifically, you can:

  1. If you’re using an auto-importer (such as Journal Lync), you have the best of all worlds; you can simply make notes as you go, and your executions will be loaded in near real-time. Importing can be automated via our API.

  2. You can import your trades at the end of the day (or at whatever frequency makes sense for you), and then make notes on your trades. This is simple and easy, but the downside is by the time you import your trades, you may not remember everything that you would have liked to make notes about.

  3. You can make per-trade notes throughout the day, and then have your imported executions “match up” with those notes when you import at the end of the day.

Let’s dive into a bit more detail about how the third option works.

Suppose you just opened a trade in TWTR a minute ago. You have a bunch of things that are fresh in your mind about why you entered this trade, and you’d like to make some notes about it. Do the following:

  1. In Tradervue, click “New Trade”. Enter TWTR as the symbol, and enter the notes that you want to capture:

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  1. If there are tags you want to apply to the trade, add them here. If you’re using account tags, add a tag for the account.

  2. If you’re using risk tracking, enter your initial risk.

  3. Save the trade.

Now you have the trade saved, albeit with no executions yet.

Later in the day, perhaps you make an adjustment to the trade, and want to make additional notes. From the Trades View, find the TWTR trade, and click “details” to open it. Now you can enter additional notes, add/remove tags, etc. You can repeat this throughout the day:

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At the end of the day, import your data from your trading platform as you normally would. What will happen is the executions making up the first trade in TWTR will be attached to the empty trade you created earlier in the day:

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This is a very useful way to make the best use of your journal throughout the trading day. You can make notes on your trades when your thoughts are fresh in your mind, and not lose any nuance that you might miss if you wait until the end of the day.