Andy Matuschak's new notetaking app

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Jeremy Ruston

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Feb 22, 2020, 8:33:18 AM2/22/20
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Andy Matuschak is working on a new notetaking application that I'm really enjoying.

Here's more about Andy:


And here's what we would call a permaview to a stack of notes:

https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes?stackedNotes=Work_with_the_garage_door_up&stackedNotes=Peripheral_vision&stackedNotes=A_reading_inbox_to_capture_possibly-useful_references&stackedNotes=Use_phones_to_collect_and_triage%2C_not_(usually)_to_read&stackedNotes=Pocket_memo_pad_to_capture_into_writing_inbox_while_out

I've yet to see the editing interface, but the reading interface is pretty sweet on an iPad: the panels are swipeable in a satisfying way.

Best wishes

Jeremy

Julio Peña

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Feb 22, 2020, 10:12:53 AM2/22/20
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Hello Jeremy and all,

Wow....I just gave it a skim for first impressions.
that concept looks sweeeet!
It'd be a nice theme addition for Tiddlywiki.
Thanks for sharing,

All the best,
Julio

Mark S.

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Feb 22, 2020, 2:44:15 PM2/22/20
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Strangely, on my outdated firefox on Kindle Fire the swiping works. On the desktop FF with the latest version, it doesn't. Or maybe it's a mobile-only feature?

I don't see any place for data entry, which is what I would be most interested in.

I think the existing presentation modes in TW are great. Adding another one would likely slow things down.

It's the TW edit mode that is a bit undeveloped. You open up in a claustrophobic box. If you widen the box,
then every box gets widened, including in the settings. The tiddler body font settings do not apply to the
edit font. Hmm ... if I want large fonts for viewing, I probably want them for editing as well, right? If you
use industry standard markdown, then you lose widget ability. And of
course, at the top of it all, there's no WYSWIG.

Diego Mesa

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Feb 22, 2020, 6:41:19 PM2/22/20
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The famous Andy Matuschak that published this piece with the great Michael Nielsen!


I wish we could plug him in to TW and even the (out of date) anwiki built into TW!

David Gifford

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Feb 23, 2020, 9:58:49 AM2/23/20
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Very cool! I am even more interested in the content than in the design. He even has notes on a book i just read yesterday, How to Take Smart Notes, by Ahren.


On Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 7:33:18 AM UTC-6, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

David Gifford

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Feb 23, 2020, 9:59:47 AM2/23/20
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Swipes fine on my touchscreen laptop using Firefox in Windows.
Message has been deleted

Jeremy Ruston

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Mar 2, 2020, 4:56:48 AM3/2/20
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I just caught up with that. Very, very good on touchscreen windows tablet.

Can we replicate that in TW?

Yes, I think we could.

When I started TW5 in 2011 I was very aware of the rise of mobile devices, which influenced the design quite a bit: e.g. avoiding relying on support for CSS hover effects, shipping with a mobile viewport by default, using responsive CSS etc. I've known for a long time that I didn't go quite far enough (e.g that it is only now that we have a responsive top menu), but I've also slowly realised that there is a deeper difference between interacting with a website on desktop vs. touch devices: desktop interfaces are "clicky", because that's what mice do, while mobile interfaces are "scrolly" and "swipey", because that's what touch screens do best. To be specific, it's hard to tap on the right place on a touch screen with any precision, but it's surprisingly easy to control the release of a touch-swipe-release gesture. I see this reflected in current native mobile UIs, which often provide a clicky way to do things, with a touch-swipe-release gesture acting as a shortcut (the examples I could cite are iOS specific, but I think it's a trend in Windows and Android too). 

I think TW5 is still far too clicky, doing anything is an endless stream of clicks to reveal things and activate them. A dream for a few years is to reimagine the user interface in more scrolly swipey terms, and Andy's interface does that beautifully. It's a shame it doesn't work well on phone-sized screens, though.

Meanwhile, BurningTreeC's work with Hammer.js to make touch interfaces shows that it's not too hard to add these gestures to present day TW5.

Best wishes

Jeremy


Best wishes
TT

Jeremy Ruston wrote:
Andy Matuschak is working on a new notetaking application that I'm really enjoying.

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Jeremy Ruston

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Mar 2, 2020, 4:58:46 AM3/2/20
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I meant to add that I've corresponded with Michael a few times over the years, and I know that he's followed TiddlyWIki for many years. I don't know Andy directly but I'd be pretty confident that he'd be aware of TiddlyWiki, and hopefully learned from it.

Best wishes

Jeremy

On 22 Feb 2020, at 23:41, Diego Mesa <dieg...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Dave

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Mar 2, 2020, 12:29:58 PM3/2/20
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this is a *vaguely related* aside, came across it recently and thought its a cousin in thinking to tiddlywiki, but more of a physical note system.

I thought it might be food for thought at least

@magasine

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Mar 2, 2020, 1:46:27 PM3/2/20
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Hi Jeremy,

If I understood this new idea, I think that the contributions, for a first step in the construction of a new theme, would not be difficult for the community.

Some points that seem possible (although I admit I don't have the domain for it):

- A Story River in the horizontal (using a selector in a top menu bar)
- Button to open and fold tiddlers, aligning them to the left.
- Display of the title field vertically, when folded

... and so on.

Let others launch more ideas.

Manoel.

HC Haase

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Mar 5, 2020, 2:25:48 PM3/5/20
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Jeremy said that mutch was prepared for mobile in 2011.

This gave me a thought. With the recent talk of a possible name change and the advantag of that being in connection with a major version change, like the one from TWC to TW5. Could the "version jump" be to a version optimized for mobile?

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/tiddlywiki/EShXN5LvQbA

IMO TW is lacking a lot on mobile but there are many solutions on the mobile front.

* You say that much is prepared under the hood to work with mobile devices.
* You work on top bar plugin optimised for mobile
* Jds mobile layout (this nake a big difference and that's what i use)
* Jds marerial theme with the floating FAB button also have some great mobile features
* The ideas in this thread of a better mobile theme
* and more

So if these things could be mashed up to make a more coherent mobile optimised tw version I think this could be be enough of a change to "count" as a new version (but not necessarily breaking backwards compatability with TW5).

I dont have the knowledge to say, but I think the work for this would be alot less than the work for the previous shift ftom TWC to TW5. And this could be enough to be perceived / feel like a new version, not to mention really useful in a world where mobile touch interfaces is more and more dominant.

What do you think?

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