[TW5] for GTD

[Arkady Grudzinsky]

I'm currently using mGSD to manage my tasks.  Recently tried TW5.  I think, it's awesome.  Wanted to thank Jeremy for Tiddlywiki.  <$list> and <$checkbox> widgets available at TW5 are very handy to create task lists by project/context/contact.  The TW5 ability to manipulate and customize tiddler fields is a great addition.  I was able to create <$list> of tasks sorted by custom fields such as "start", "due", or "priority".  I also love the minimalism of the interface.

Couple of questions about TW5 features for which I could not find documentation.  I'm thinking of implementing recurring tasks in TW5.  I envision using tags "recurring" and "weekly"/"daily"/"monthly", etc. and use fields such as "start", "modified", etc.  So, my questions are:

• Is it possible to set <$list> filter to select tiddlers using comparisons?  E.g. select tiddlers with "start" date before "now" to make tasks appear on the list at certain date/time?  Perhaps, it's possible to do it in a similar fashion as mGSD handles ticklers, but I thought, <$list> widget might offer a much simpler way. 
  
• Is it possible to set <$list> filter to select tiddlers with tags/titles matching a regular expression?
  
• Is it possible to have <$checkbox> widget do more than assign a tag to a tiddler?  E.g. Can it increment the "start" date field by 7 days?
• Are tiddler fields always treated as text or is it possible to set a field type (e.g. date, integer, etc.).
  
• Is it possible to create contextual tiddler templates?  E.g.
  
• when a tiddler is tagged as "project", the tiddler view would automatically show lists of tasks or
  
• when a tiddler is tagged as "context", the tiddler view would automatically show a list of tasks orgainzed differently, etc.
  (similar behavior as in mGSD, only I would expect a more transparent and customizeable syntax with <$list> and <$view>.  In mGSD, it's done through macros which are hard to find and difficult to customize.)
• Would be nice to have an easy way to create a tiddler with a certain template (e.g. create buttons with custom functionality).  I have a feeling that buttons are already implemented, but not documented.  Is it true?

Finally, I may be reinventing the wheel.  Is there a GTD implementation based on TW5?  Even if there is, I, probably, would want to customize a few things.  So, I still would like to know the answers.

Thanks again to all Tidlywiki developers.  It's an awesome tool for many things.  I have not seen so much functionality packed in ~600K of code.

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Arkady

Thanks for the encouragement, and the detailed feedback, much appreciated.

 

I'm currently using mGSD to manage my tasks.  Recently tried TW5.  I think, it's awesome.  Wanted to thank Jeremy for Tiddlywiki.  <$list> and <$checkbox> widgets available at TW5 are very handy to create task lists by project/context/contact.  The TW5 ability to manipulate and customize tiddler fields is a great addition.  I was able to create <$list> of tasks sorted by custom fields such as "start", "due", or "priority".  I also love the minimalism of the interface.

Great, I'm glad that the checkbox and list widgets are understandable.

 

Couple of questions about TW5 features for which I could not find documentation.  I'm thinking of implementing recurring tasks in TW5.  I envision using tags "recurring" and "weekly"/"daily"/"monthly", etc. and use fields such as "start", "modified", etc.  So, my questions are:

• Is it possible to set <$list> filter to select tiddlers using comparisons?  E.g. select tiddlers with "start" date before "now" to make tasks appear on the list at certain date/time?  Perhaps, it's possible to do it in a similar fashion as mGSD handles ticklers, but I thought, <$list> widget might offer a much simpler way.  

There's no comparison operators yet, but the plan is to have them as filter operator modules. See the "has" operator as an example:

https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/blob/master/core/modules/filters/has.js

• Is it possible to set <$list> filter to select tiddlers with tags/titles matching a regular expression?
  

Not at the moment, but it's a good idea. 

• Is it possible to have <$checkbox> widget do more than assign a tag to a tiddler?  E.g. Can it increment the "start" date field by 7 days?
  

Not yet. TW5 doesn't yet really have the general concept of programmable actions, but something along those lines is going to be useful. For the moment, I'd expect a GxD implementation to have it's own extended checkbox widget.

• Are tiddler fields always treated as text or is it possible to set a field type (e.g. date, integer, etc.).
  

Tiddler fields are strings by default, but can be typed through the use of "tiddlerfield" modules. The core tiddlerfields are in boot.js:

https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/blob/master/boot/boot.js#L713 

• Is it possible to create contextual tiddler templates?  E.g.
  
• when a tiddler is tagged as "project", the tiddler view would automatically show lists of tasks or
  
• when a tiddler is tagged as "context", the tiddler view would automatically show a list of tasks orgainzed differently, etc.
  (similar behavior as in mGSD, only I would expect a more transparent and customizeable syntax with <$list> and <$view>.  In mGSD, it's done through macros which are hard to find and difficult to customize.)

You can almost do that in a basic form with the reveal widget. Basically each type of view that you need would be a separate ViewTemplate segment (i.e. a tiddler tagged $:/tags/ViewTemplate). You'd wrap it in a reveal widget that would selectively display the template depending on the tags on the current tiddler. The reveal widget doesn't yet allow for testing tags, though.

 

• Would be nice to have an easy way to create a tiddler with a certain template (e.g. create buttons with custom functionality).  I have a feeling that buttons are already implemented, but not documented.  Is it true?

There is a button widget that's used for the new tiddler button:

<$button message="tw-new-tiddler" class="btn-invisible">{{$:/core/images/new-button}}</$button>

The plan is to extend the tw-new-tiddler message so that the title of a template tiddler can be provided. 

Finally, I may be reinventing the wheel.  Is there a GTD implementation based on TW5?  Even if there is, I, probably, would want to customize a few things.  So, I still would like to know the answers.

No, there's no GTD implementations that I'm aware of.

Do be aware that TW5 will undergo quite significant changes in the next couple of days as I complete a round of refactoring that I've been doing. With the new changes the generated HTML is much cleaner, and the individual widgets have been rationalised and simplified:

https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/pull/178

 

Thanks again to all Tidlywiki developers.  It's an awesome tool for many things.  I have not seen so much functionality packed in ~600K of code.

Thank you, much appreciated. Eventually we'll minify the TW5 core by default, which should reduce the footprint somewhat!

Best wishes

Jeremy

 

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Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jeremy...@gmail.com

[Jeremy Ruston]

The tiddlerfields that are defined in the core are not full modules because they are needed before the tiddler loading mechanism is fully installed. That call to $tw.modules.define() directly defines the module exports.

For a normal module, you should use something like this:

/*\

title: $:/plugins/arkadygrudzinsky/startfield.js

type: application/javascript

module-type: tiddlerfield

Implements the start field as a date

\*/

(function(){

/*jslint node: true, browser: true */

/*global $tw: false */

"use strict";

exports.name = "start";

exports.parse = $tw.utils.parseDate;

exports.stringify = $tw.utils.stringifyDate;

})();

Let me know how you get on,

Best wishes

Jeremy

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:19 AM, Arkady Grudzinsky <agrud...@gmail.com> wrote:

Jeremy,

• Are tiddler fields always treated as text or is it possible to set a field type (e.g. date, integer, etc.).
  

Tiddler fields are strings by default, but can be typed through the use of "tiddlerfield" modules. The core tiddlerfields are in boot.js:

https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/blob/master/boot/boot.js#L713

A newbie question.

I was able to chage my custom "start" field type to "date" by adding this to boot.js:

$tw.modules.define("$:/boot/modules/tiddlerfields/start","tiddlerfield",{ 

name: "start", 
parse: $tw.utils.parseDate, 
stringify: $tw.utils.stringifyDate 
});



After that I was able to use 

I guess, it's not a good idea to mess with boot.js.  So, I tried to create a tiddler called "$:/boot/modules/tiddlerfields/start" and set its type to "application/javascript", "module-type: tiddlerfield".  But I could not get it to register.  It seems, I'm missing how to get the .js tiddler code registered as a module.

I also tried naming the tiddler "$:/core/modules/tiddlerfields/start" thinking that boot somehow loads all "$:/core/modules" tiddlers, but it did not work.  What am I missing?

Thanks.

--
Arkady

[Arkady Grudzinsky]

Jeremy, thanks. 
It worked.  I cut and pasted this into a file, imported into TW5, and that's it.  I created a tiddler with a start field "20120101", and another tiddler with the following list:

<$list filter="[has[start]]">
<$view field="start" format="date"/>
</$list>

I have noticed, the date field is set to time in UTC.  When the field is set to "20120101", then <$view field="start" format="date"/> renders it as December 31, 2011.  Is there a way to interpret dates in local time?

Thanks.

--
Arkady

[Jeremy Ruston]

I have noticed, the date field is set to time in UTC.  When the field is set to "20120101", then <$view field="start" format="date"/> renders it as December 31, 2011.  Is there a way to interpret dates in local time?

Hi Arkady

No, date fields are always interpreted as UTC. There does indeed need to be a way to deal with local times; I've added a ticket:

https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/issues/190

Best wishes

Jeremy

[Arkady Grudzinsky]

Jeremy,

I see, most of the features I asked for back in 2013 in this thread are implemented now (e.g. date comparison with "days[]" filter).  I'm returning back to the idea of tracking my projects in TW5.  I created a custom date field called "scheduled" using the methodology you described below.  The "scheduled" field seems to get a correct type now.  However, when I try to use this field in widgets, I get an error message "Uncaught TypeError: value.getUTCFullYear is not a function"

I have a feeling that something is missing in my date field specification, but cannot figure out what.  From what I understand, getUTCFullYear() is a standard JavaScript function, but it seems that for it to work, "value" needs to be of the date type, and the way the field is defined, JavaScript does not recognize the field as a date.

See the attached latest empty.html TW5 file.  The "scheduled" field is defined in [[$:/plugins/tf/scheduled.js]], and the error is caused by the [[New Tiddler]] which has a "scheduled" field set to 20130301000000000 and is trying to show it using 

<$view field="scheduled"/>.  You will get the error if you try to open the [[New Tiddler]].

Do you know why it crashes?  Is there a better way to create a custom date field now?  I noticed that the <<timeline>> macro allows "dateField" parameter.  I get the same error when I try to use my "scheduled" field with it.

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Arkady

As far as I can tell, you have correctly set up the tiddlerfield object to describe the new “scheduled” field.

The problem is that your “New Tiddler” has a “scheduled” field that is a string; the tiddlerfield object causes the core to expect the field to be a date, hence the crash when it turns out to be a string.

I suspect that the problem is caused by the way that you are assigning a value to the field, which is just to set it to a string value.

You may be able to work around it by ensuring that the field is set to a JS date object.

Having said that, the core function $tw.utils.stringifyDate() could be modified to automatically convert strings to dates, which might work around the problem.

Best wishes

Jeremy

<empty.html>

[Arkady Grudzinsky]

Thanks, Jeremy,

adding value=$tw.utils.parseDate(value) to $tw.utils.stringifyDate() function seems to do the trick.  parseDate() is defined right after stringifyDate() and seems to do exactly what is needed.  You may consider adding it there for future releases.  It's a good idea to make sure that value is a date object before using getUTCFullYear() function on it.

// Convert a date into UTC YYYYMMDDHHMMSSmmm format
$tw.utils.stringifyDate = function(value) {
value=$tw.utils.parseDate(value);
	return value.getUTCFullYear() +
			$tw.utils.pad(value.getUTCMonth() + 1) +
			$tw.utils.pad(value.getUTCDate()) +
			$tw.utils.pad(value.getUTCHours()) +
			$tw.utils.pad(value.getUTCMinutes()) +
			$tw.utils.pad(value.getUTCSeconds()) +
			$tw.utils.pad(value.getUTCMilliseconds(),3);
};

// Parse a date from a UTC YYYYMMDDHHMMSSmmm format string
$tw.utils.parseDate = function(value) {
	if(typeof value === "string") {
		return new Date(Date.UTC(parseInt(value.substr(0,4),10),
				parseInt(value.substr(4,2),10)-1,
				parseInt(value.substr(6,2),10),
				parseInt(value.substr(8,2)||"00",10),
				parseInt(value.substr(10,2)||"00",10),
				parseInt(value.substr(12,2)||"00",10),
				parseInt(value.substr(14,3)||"000",10)));
	} else if($tw.utils.isDate(value)) {
		return value;
	} else {
		return null;
	}
};

--

Arkady