Maybe I'm just not getting your approach to providing documentation for Campaign Logger. Let me try this a different way.
There's a product called ToDoist, which lets you track tasks and todo items. The ToDoist documentation tells you how to do specific things, e.g., make a task with a future date. However, it doesn't really give you any idea how to use the product (or ways you can use the product) in wholistic ways. For example I dug into the GTD methodology, and came up with my own implementation.
This is where it seems like we're at with Campaign Logger. You have instructions on how to do specific things, and a hard to find random collection of "here's how I did X" (like how to do the Dungeon23 challenge), but no whole method for using it - like a suite of templates or examples. I know for example you provided a response with how to distinguish master data (permanent data about a thing) from transaction/fleeting/data but I'm not sure where that documentation is.
e.g., within a campaign
How many notebooks should I have and what should be in each?
How do I track my master data (history)?
How do I track my master data (planning)?
How do I organize all this so that it's prep friendly?
How do I organize my inboxes/buckets?
How do I mark items as active?
How do I mark items as needing processing?
During the session do I take one big log note or a ton of tiny, one sentence notes?
How do I do my prep and know what to scan/process?
There must be at least one person with one campaign who has come up with a good implementation I can steal.
How I Got Started with Campaign Logger:
https://campaign-community.com/index.php?threads/how-i-got-started-with-campaign-logger.1634/
Now some quick answers to your initial questions:
Q: How many notebooks should I have and what should be in each?
Create *one* campaign in Campaign Logger (CL) for each campaign you're running: a campaign being a story or adventures your running for groups in given setting with a given set of rules.
Create one Log in that CL Campaign for *each* group you're running in the same setting.
Create many *pages* in the CL Campaign, tagged by the type of content (is it an NPC, a Location, etc).
For example, if you are running a D20 Forgotten Realms game for one group of people, you just need one CL Campaign for it.
You can start with 1 Log within the CL Campaign for tracking what the group is doing session by session while you're running the session.
You can create many Pages with the CL Campaign for tracking Forgotten Realms NPCs, Locations, Treasures, and more.
Q: How do I track my master data (history)?
You have at least *two* histories to track in a Campaign:
* The history of what the adventures do in your world
* The history of the world itself.
What the players do session by session goes into your Log for the group.
Between sessions you will move notes from that log into the CL Pages in your Campaign that need updates based on the log notes you took.
The History of the game world itself can be Listed in Pages using the % tag tied to the in-world historical dates.
For example the different versions of Forgotten Realms string out in a huge timeline - you can create pages for various events where you put player and GM reference information about the historical event marked in Forgotten Realms calendar years:
%951 ^Orcs raid #Phandalin on the #"Sword Coast"
The ^ is marker for a group/faction ... the # is a location marker, and the % is the calendar marker
Q: How do I track my master data (planning)?
You can also plan in two places:
In the Log for the Campaign, at the end of a session, I start the Log Entry for the *next* or *upcoming* session with immediate notes to remember ... People, Places, Things to remember with tagged entries For example: ^Assassins track @Players to *"kill them" - an "open Loop" in loopy planning terms that is the most likely thing the next session will be about.
Within your Campaign Pages, you have *two* tags you can freely use for whatever - the Section symbol and the & Ampersand symbol.
Make a CL Page called &"Evil Schemes" and put your master list of plots and plans there.
Each plot can be tagged with the * so that the &"Evil Schemes" page links to all your plot ideas.
Also link your next Log Entry to the &"Evil Schemes" page.
The Section category is a good place to store your "stat block" templates so you can duplicate/copy them into new Pages as needed.
For example §3LNPC for a 3-line NPC template, or §5RD for the 5-room dungeon template. Open it and hit the "Copy" (two squares) and choose the new name for whatever it needs to be ... a 3LNPC template would copy to @"Dewey Cheatham" to start a new lawyer NPC for example.
Q: How do I organize all this so that it's prep friendly?
Your "next session log" entry that you put in your notes and next plans starting at the end of a session, and then work on as your cheat sheet to between sessions so that when you hit your next session - that log entry is your blueprint ready to go.
The log entry can link to all the Pages you need: @NPCs, @BBEGs, ^Monsters or ^Factions #Locations, !Items, $treasures, and the *openplots the players might be chasing.
Q: How do I organize my inboxes/buckets?
Use the "tags" for the Pages as your starting buckets - @ for NPC and villain pages, ^ for factions and monster types, # for locations, etc.
The post about how I started with CL above has some ideas on how I framed up my campaign to start too - basically I created a lot of initial placeholder pages for all the types of things I was already scheming on ... empty ... ready to prep
Q: How do I mark items as active?
You can use Labels for this on pages as well:
ACTIVE
COMPLETED
PREPME
Then just add and remove the labels from the Campaign Pages as you work with them
Q: How do I mark items as needing processing?
Same as above: PREPME?
Campaign Logger itself also has some little colored spots for each Page entry that help with this.
One color spot filled in means that page has Player content.
Another color spot filled in means that page has GM content.
A third color spot means that page has Labels you've created, to group categories of tagged Pages.
For example - All NPCs are tagged with @name ... but you might have a Label for Villager, another for Villain ... two different types of NPC each get different labels which you can search and filter with.
So, at a glance you can see whether a page has Player data, GM data, and is Labeled or not.
I tend to prep everything in pages on the GM Data side.
Once I reveal info to the players, that gets MOVED from the GM data on the page, to the Player data part.
Now its part of the "Encyclopedia" of the Campaign for players to refer to as we go.... and I know what I've shared and and secrets for that specific topic I still have.
Q: During the session do I take one big log note or a ton of tiny, one sentence notes?
Try both using browser tabs to keep the one big Log entry or Log ready to add the next.
Either one is fine and is a personal preference.
The important point is to not get distracted making the note on the fly - the entire point is that these get reviewed between sessions to update things and help remember what goes in your next campaign newsletter etc.
Q: How do I do my prep and know what to scan/process?
Check out the "How I Started with Campaign Logger" above and see if that works for you as a starting point.
Or - build your checklist as a Page in CL itself:
&"Prep Checklist"
Player Notes: None
GM Notes:
Re-read my last log entries
1. Feature Creature? What would be fun to throw in?
2. Feature Location? What would be cool place to show off?
3. Feature Item? Review the player &"Treasure Table" - who is due for a new cool thing?
Review the current &"Evil Schemes" - what are the bad guys up to next?
Do I need page numbers of any cool rules, spells, feats, etc?
Update my next log planning entry with options to run.
Finally ask: What else do I want to be ready to run the next session?
Start with a small between session prep checklist and add items as you go and find you keep needing "something extra" at the table in a session
And when think of that during the session, add it as a quick log note "Add this to prep checklist" and move on.
So, that's my quick and dirty start to trying to put something on the wall for you to plan and work with for CL.
Nothing here is gospel - CL is a tool, and ultimately, as you learn what you can do in it, and fit it into what you're doing at the table, you will create your own "style" of using CL ... much like amateur radio operators create their own "signature way" to send Morse Code.
