A bit of advertising for TW

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Peter Buyze

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Apr 20, 2020, 1:18:22 AM4/20/20
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TonyM

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Apr 20, 2020, 2:24:58 AM4/20/20
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Peter,

Thanks for increasing our exposure. Its interesting reading that material. I have never heard about the "Zettelkasten Method" I presume its German originally, and based on cards, I would tend to call it a card based reference/knowledge system. It is one of my hobbies since being an Information/knowledge manager to take knowledge and skills honed in computers, such as hierarchies, networks and databases. The fact is the TiddlyWiki subtitle "a non-linear personal web notebook" describes something quite similar, perhaps along with "non-trivial Quine". I consider tiddlywiki a platform and not only a software platform because it is also a knowledge/information platform and it does networks and hierarchies quite well and even better with add on's such as the TocP, Kin operator and more. However Although I cant prove an infinity I can not see a data/knowledge model we can't represent in tiddlywiki apart from those built with very big data, although displaying the results can be fine. 

Don't hesitate to raise questions about developing such methods on Tiddlywiki in the forum and do search for previous discussions.

Regards
Tony

Birthe C

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Apr 20, 2020, 2:49:43 AM4/20/20
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Peter and Tony,

Nice write up Peter. Try to search in this group and you will find that zettelkasten has been discussed several times before. Alex Hough is very interested and has linked to a lot of interesting reading.

Birthe

Peter Buyze

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Apr 20, 2020, 3:24:19 AM4/20/20
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Hi Tony,
Yes, the person who developed this with physical index cards was a German sociologist called Niklas Luhmann. He had a library of some 90,000 of such cards (proto-tiddlers, if you like) on a variety of topics and was able to write a significant number of books on the basis of his notes.

He had a sophisticated "linking" system, an impressive numbering system for a start card and then combinations of numbers and lower case letters for a branch, and a branch off a branch, and a branch off a branch off …… etc.

Today most people use digital systems, of course, and having tried a number of apps I never really found one that satisfied me. I looked at TiddlyWiki a few years ago but walked away, put off by the steep learning curve (or so it seemed to me) and the coding. But TW never really left me, it kept niggling me, and after getting into markdown and its syntax, I felt a bit more comfortable with TW, and then fell in love.

In my opinion TW has not gained more traction because of how it is perceived when someone looks at it, i.e. similar to my initial experience. That's why, in another thread, I mentioned that there should perhaps be a "lite" version with some basic built in features and buttons for easy customisation. Subsequently, when one has got used to it, an upgrade to a "pro" version should be possible.

I did not get any reactions to that suggestion so I suppose the TW community is not interested.

20 Apr 2020, 09:24 by anthony...@gmail.com:
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Peter Buyze

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Apr 20, 2020, 3:41:03 AM4/20/20
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Thanks Birthe, I started to check it out.


20 Apr 2020, 09:49 by strikke...@gmail.com:
Peter and Tony,

Nice write up Peter. Try to search in this group and you will find that zettelkasten has been discussed several times before. Alex Hough is very interested and has linked to a lot of interesting reading.

Birthe


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TonyM

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Apr 20, 2020, 4:00:45 AM4/20/20
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Peter,
 
In my opinion TW has not gained more traction because of how it is perceived when someone looks at it, i.e. similar to my initial experience. That's why, in another thread, I mentioned that there should perhaps be a "lite" version with some basic built in features and buttons for easy customisation. Subsequently, when one has got used to it, an upgrade to a "pro" version should be possible.

I did not get any reactions to that suggestion so I suppose the TW community is not interested.

This "perception" has being discussed many times. I have raised the idea of a "standard edition" but a "Pro version" is not practical in my mind because there are too many possible branches. The established alternative is the publishing of editions, quite a few already exist explore tiddlywiki.com to learn more. Put it this way their could be many professional editions.

Given your recent reintroduction, and how this newbee thoughts are in your mind, I would be happy to define a "standard edition" with you, then we can see if we can persuade the community. Even in this thread?

But I would also encourage you to consider publishing your own edition(s).

Conversations of late have being around plugin libraries which could be another way of sharing a set of customisations rather than an edition.

Regards
Tony

Peter Buyze

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Apr 20, 2020, 4:14:41 AM4/20/20
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Rather than have yet another fork, a set of "starter" plug-ins would probably be better indeed. And what would be needed is a simple, straightforward "Getting started" page - even the current "Getting started" page is confusing and overwhelming, off-putting even, for a newbie.

BTW, by newbie I don't just mean someone who is new to TW, I also mean someone who is not well-versed, if at all, in coding terminology. That latter lack does not mean that TW is not for that person, it most certainly could be, but the intro to TW has to be right.


20 Apr 2020, 11:00 by anthony...@gmail.com:
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Birthe C

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Apr 20, 2020, 4:38:23 AM4/20/20
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Peter and Tony,

I do not think it is easy to find out what it should contain. I think we have all at some point put together a tiddlywiki for family and friends. Trying to make everything easy.
Well ,did you have any luck? They look at it, try a little and give up anyway to go use some software everybody and their cat are using at the moment.

I should add that usually I have also found a second hand laptop for them and installed linux and set up everything. That is also to say, that a saver for tiddlywiki was intalled in the browser and working. That a tab in the browser contained a tiddlywiki with everything explained.

So much for blaming saving difficulties.

Birthel

Peter Buyze

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Apr 20, 2020, 5:40:59 AM4/20/20
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Birthe, I am not aiming this so much at family and friends as at serious Zettelkasten users.

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20 Apr 2020, 11:38 by strikke...@gmail.com:
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Anne-Laure Le Cunff

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Apr 20, 2020, 7:47:04 AM4/20/20
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I have to agree it's been hard to convince people to give TiddlyWiki a proper try, mainly I think because of the experience for a new user. The landing page is confusing, saving/backing up your notes seems unnecessarily complicated. Ideally, there should be a regular static landing page containing:
  • What TiddlyWiki is
  • A nice screenshot or walkthrough video
  • How to easily get started in 3 steps (download/create your first note/save)
  • Link to docs.tiddlywiki.com (current tiddlywiki.com) with a welcome page listing concepts to explore in order for people who have installed everything and are ready to dive in
  • Link to this community + Twitter for extra help
A few examples:
I think this would do *a lot* to help grow the TW community!

On Monday, April 20, 2020 at 10:40:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Buyze wrote:
Birthe, I am not aiming this so much at family and friends as at serious Zettelkasten users.

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20 Apr 2020, 11:38 by strikk...@gmail.com:
Peter and Tony,

I do not think it is easy to find out what it should contain. I think we have all at some point put together a tiddlywiki for family and friends. Trying to make everything easy.
Well ,did you have any luck? They look at it, try a little and give up anyway to go use some software everybody and their cat are using at the moment.

I should add that usually I have also found a second hand laptop for them and installed linux and set up everything. That is also to say, that a saver for tiddlywiki was intalled in the browser and working. That a tab in the browser contained a tiddlywiki with everything explained.

So much for blaming saving difficulties.


Birthel


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Peter Buyze

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Apr 20, 2020, 7:54:50 AM4/20/20
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Bonjour Anne-Laure,

You describe the high threshold issue better than me. I fully support your comments.
It seems to me TW is ready for that step into the wider world.


20 Apr 2020, 14:47 by alec...@gmail.com:
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