Tiddlywiki versus Zettlr

[Mohammad]

With Zettlr, writing professional texts is easy and motivating: Whether you are a college student, a researcher, a journalist, or an author — Zettlr has the right tools for you. Watch the video or continue reading to see what they are!

https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr

I believe we can do all these stuffs with Tiddlywiki? What do you think?

--Mohammad

[Jan]

Hi Mohammad,
Thanks for sharing this,
I think the approach for visualizing the eefects of the Markup right in the Editor is great - especially for beginners.
Markup is a bit intimidating for beginners because the fear that they have to write code...
(Thats why I liked your notetaking thing to get my colleagues started ;-)

On top of that, they seem to have integrated impress.js for the presentation.

Anyhow it was worth having a look!

best wishes
Jan

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[TiddlyTweeter]

There is a very Good overview of its genesis here: https://www.zettlr.com/about

The creator's mindset shares a lot with ideas in TW.

Also, as I guessed, he was very taken with Luhman's Zettelkasten influential methodology in social science that was originally a pre-computer system.

Moving from the Zettelkasten-approach by Niklas Luhmann (which is where the name of my app originates) towards more sophisticated, more “contemporary” methods, I quickly discovered the markup language “Markdown,” invented by John Gruber in 2004...

I'll look and think more & comment more later.

TT 

[Ste Wilson]

It's the shiny again.. A tiddlywikibut...
It's like tiddlywiki but it can't do... Ooohhh animation.. Shiny.. What was the thing?

[TiddlyTweeter]

Mohammad

I installed it and dependencies for Pandoc & LaTex and the BetterBibTex plugin. Works well!

Its, basically, a featured academic word processor written in JavaScript on node, assembled into a self contained executable through Electron.

Though, in many ways, it can be contextualized / compared best with other dedicated software like that ... e.g. Nota Bene https://www.notabene.com/

Looking at the features of ZettIr I'm pretty with a clear design and laid out you could get very close to it in TW. Perhaps not the full flexibility on citation styles, but very close.

I think the issue is that in TW we don't tend to collectively dedicate to "finished apps" by field spec, rather we tend to work ad-hoc in many directions so clear apps are not that numerous.

One exception is "to do" tools. Both ToDoNow & Cardo come close.

And a recent outstanding exception is the epub reader which is extremely good at showing what a few skilled people working together can achieve in a polished dedicated application ... 

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tiddlywiki/_VLufc4Svp8/jALzYZ09BAAJ

Best wishes

TT

[Mark S.]

Given that there are already professional writing programs, what would be the advantage of a TW-based application? There needs to be a compelling reason why someone would choose TW over existing solutions, especially when those solutions are really good. The number of dependencies you loaded shows what a long row to hoe awaits.

The first thing I would want, is a plain-old TW writing application that would allow me to write without having to constantly break things out to separate tiddlers, or doing so with minimal interruption.

[Mohammad]

Thank you all,

I think we can learn from Zettlr and get idea for Tiddlywiki.

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 8:44:26 PM UTC+4:30, TiddlyTweeter wrote:

Mohammad

I installed it and dependencies for Pandoc & LaTex and the BetterBibTex plugin. Works well!

Its, basically, a featured academic word processor written in JavaScript on node, assembled into a self contained executable through Electron.

I installed in on Mint, through Virtualbox on Windows 10 and it works great!  

Though, in many ways, it can be contextualized / compared best with other dedicated software like that ... e.g. Nota Bene https://www.notabene.com/

Looking at the features of ZettIr I'm pretty with a clear design and laid out you could get very close to it in TW. Perhaps not the full flexibility on citation styles, but very close.

I think the issue is that in TW we don't tend to collectively dedicate to "finished apps" by field spec, rather we tend to work ad-hoc in many directions so clear apps are not that numerous.

That's true! It is feature rich in producing academic text (thesis, scientific reports, ...)  I like the high quality PDFs it produces. 

 

One exception is "to do" tools. Both ToDoNow & Cardo come close.

And a recent outstanding exception is the epub reader which is extremely good at showing what a few skilled people working together can achieve in a polished dedicated application ... 

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tiddlywiki/_VLufc4Svp8/jALzYZ09BAAJ

Thumbs up! I Yes, we have few or no final product (app) in TW! 

[Mohammad]

Josiah,

In this area of academic quality tools, and similar to TW, I also like to name these two:

- https://academicpages.github.io/

- https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/

In reality the first was built on top of the second!

Simplicity, clarity, short learning curve and flexibility are among most notable features of these tool!

I like to learn from them and see how I can adopt my TW and have such features in Tiddlywiki.

--Mohammad

[TonyM]

Folks,

My thoughts here,

On the subject of replicating the methods in other apps. I agree with Marks suggestion why not make use of another app when is fit for purpose. Zettler is also open source and free and offers content exportability. If others are maintaining this for a particular function I do not think we should "undermine it" however sometimes we want to integrate the features into tiddlywiki so showing ways to replicate some of the features is helpful. In this case I think most of the features are already possible in tiddlywiki.

However I think our first thought should be to developing the tools to import and export from such a tool so that people can choose the tool that best suits and freely interchange content. This is not unlike one may do between to different TiddlyWikis anyway. Just as if someone here did a custom tiddlywiki that I liked to use I would not necessarily replicate it in my own wiki but make use of the free interchange of content, so can we do this with third party specialist solutions  as well. 

For example I hope to provide a mechanism for .cal .ics and other files to be dropped into tiddlywiki and made use of, this would be a preferable first step, over trying to replicate Gmail or Outlook functionality in tiddlywiki.

In short rather than cannibalize other free and open source apps build the integration and where appropriate build the matching features as components. If it is compelling, in time, a TiddlyWiki edition/plugin may arise, but I don't think it should be the first reaction (not saying it was)

Regards

Tony   

[Mark S.]

Hi Tony,

I guess my thinking is that the best use of TW isn't in horizontal applications, but vertical. That is, there are certain topics that thousands of people are interested in. And thanks to that interest, there are already good applications. In those situations, TW would be, at best, an "also ran." But there are lots of niche applications where TW could shine. Unfortunately, by virtue of being a niche, there is also less interest to begin with. The trick is to find those areas of interest which are important and useful, but not being served well by existing applications.

Various ideas

  * Nutrition tracking

  * TW versions of important books (e.g. Bible, Shakespeare)

  * Dictionaries

  * Garden planning

  * Trip packing lists

  * Grocery List 

  * Audio book Manager

  * Work time log

[TonyM]

Mark,

I agree with what you are saying in part, but for me until now I have treated TiddlyWiki as a platform. Rather than trying to build solutions I have being refining my tools and code patterns. My interest is a rapid development environment, but if I am to provide a fully featured solution similar to your list (I have a long list of ideas too) I want the platform refined. So in this case I may be treating it more horizontally (if I have that word right).

This thread raises the question about do we help tiddlywiki do what other solutions do?, I say yes, do we let it integrate or customise solutions for special use cases (I say yes as well)  but I do see value in not using tiddlywiki for everything, if someone has a better niche solution, at least if that neich solution is open source and to data transfer. I feel a little more focus on interapplication transfers, automation, integration is also a good first step. 

Ultimately Tiddlywiki as a platform will most likely be the best for solutions as you say not well served by existing applications or taking those applications data to a next level interface or customisation.

I wonder if we should get collaborative projects going perhaps on github where the community works together to build some of these application editions, so we can build a "best of breed" editions. As a community we are not producing many of these whole editions that novices can use out of the box. I am as much to blame as anyone, building my private bespoke solutions and developing the platform and capabilities, rather than finished solutions with which to promote tiddlywiki.

I hope to play with Zettlr and its integration with Tiddlywiki.

Regards

Tony

[TiddlyTweeter]

Mohammad

All good tools.

Academic writing for publication is incredibly constrained and any tools to help it welcome!

I was thinking about what are the main issues for TW ...

-- For Publication Layout needs for journal styles. CSS could likely do it in TW. Not too difficult.

-- For Citations the format needs vary by journal. Zettlr default is "APA format" (APA = American Psychological Association) which is widely used in humanities & social science. 

   Strict science tends to need more diverse citation schemes. The variations of styling citations seems the most complex issue.

   I am not clear how you could, in TW, fully support the full diversity of citation schemes. 

-- Output/Export to PDF, Word etc ... Point is academics need to publish research & articles.

              They need flexible export because different journals have different requirements. 

    So you need flexible export, or good PDF "virtual printing".

    I think that is achievable in TW.

    It just needs better attention to CSS print styling (though pagination remains a more complex problem).

Thoughts

TT 

Mohammad wrote

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Tony

Interesting post. Maybe better in another thread, but let's bear with it here for a minute.

TonyM wrote:

... until now I have treated TiddlyWiki as a platform. ... My interest is a rapid development environment ...

 

... Ultimately Tiddlywiki as a platform will most likely be the best for solutions ... not well served by existing applications ...

 

I wonder if we should get collaborative projects going ... so we can build a "best of breed" editions.

 

As a community we are not producing many of these whole editions that novices can use out of the box.

TBH, I think its a matter of engaging demand. What I mean is: a group of users with explicit requirements who ...

1 - can specify them

2 - are not one man and a dog

3 - is achievable via TW

Do you have a favourite example of an end-user group who could do (1) for something?

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Mark S. wrote:

The first thing I would want, is a plain-old TW writing application that would allow me to write without having to constantly break things out to separate tiddlers, or doing so with minimal interruption.

Could not agree more. Minimalise Segway. And you done much thought & examples in that way. I will answer separately later.

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Mohammad

Zettlr uses Electron to make executables.

TiddlyDesktop uses a packager too.

The point with both is that they "Package" apps written in JS.

The packaging may be important. Packaging  avoids the "saving" issues as the app handles it. 

Zettlr partly gets users because it just looks and behaves like a normal app. Few users would know or care its, basically, a Web page.

IMO we need to tweak TiddlyDesktop to make just as seamless for such apps.

TT

On Wednesday, 1 April 2020 19:12:34 UTC+2, Mohammad wrote:

[Mark S.]

On Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 2:16:23 AM UTC-7, TiddlyTweeter wrote:

Mohammad

-- Output/Export to PDF, Word etc ... Point is academics need to publish research & articles.

              They need flexible export because different journals have different requirements. 

    So you need flexible export, or good PDF "virtual printing".

    I think that is achievable in TW.

    It just needs better attention to CSS print styling (though pagination remains a more complex problem).

If PDF is a requirement for output, then it seems like that is the place to start, especially since it would be useful for many projects.

But is there any example of citation-quality PDF being built in TW?

In terms of JS capability, there's a couple projects for producing PDF using JS. It's unclear whether they can be used stand-alone, or whether they would depend on someone else's hosted library, or a running node.

What would need to happen is to parse the text (possibly from markdown, not wikitext), and then turn it into js commands that get executed on a TW internal object. That object then gets downloaded or displayed as PDF.  Then there's figuring out where to insert footnotes, etc.

 

Doesn't seem trivial, especially considering the small user base. But maybe there's a simpler way?

You could use CSS and then print using a PDF extension, assuming that the extensions will honor page breaks. I suspect this approach would be fragile.

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Mark

I'm commenting here as a high-end user of PDF for print, not specifically about TW.

PDF is a de-facto standard in the print industry still. On Web it looks like "a" format. That is not quite right.

PDF has vast possibilities on settings (resolution is critical in printing as is the color scheme, to suit the press, which can be tweaked endlessly). 

Its font handling is rich and allows embedding on the fly. 

Windows print drivers that do pdf mainly just do a common subset of features. A few can be manually set in the driver.

I am TOTALLY UNCLEAR how you'd interact / set those refined functions PDF has without specialist software. 

There is likely a way on invocation but I'm unclear how.

I think Mohammad's wow on Zettlr output via pandoc is its leveraging some of the PDF machine better than TW.

But, in theory, you should be able to pass all quality and precision to PDF directly. 

Pagination in TW is an issue. I don't think its a PDF issue per se.

Thoughts

TT

[TonyM]

Folks,

I have substantial and somewhat unpleasant recent experience with print to PDF however I maintain this is an area to "Make use of".

If anyone wants to develop PDF solutions do reach out because I have a bit to share. Here is a brain dump;

• WYSIWYG means what is ultimately printed can have a lot to do with each computer, the printer drivers fonts etc available.
• If you change the driver the format can change
• My Favorite free tool is Foxit Reader, 
• save to PDF can be more reliable than print to PDF
• Tables are easy to create with page break headers and footers just use <thead><tfoot><tbody> in that order (use page break avoid on rows)
• Page headers and footers will have fixed positions
• Empty invisible rows/elements with a height and page-break after/before/inside  using AVOID is the way to leave room for page header and footer handling
  
• I keep it simple by using the Open in New Window before printing to target a single tiddler, that may itself contain multiple tiddlers.
• Using the media print css allows you to format for online viewing but on printing see the page breaking
• Annoying artifacts can occur in print preview which page scaling can fix, I do not know how to force this scaling onto the print process. 
• PDF is page description and one could generate actual PDF files with code that handles this "language"
• This may be the only choice for high standard print composition.
• However it is easier when a PDF printer is reliable at WYSIWYG and translating what you see to PDF
• If you do not need to dynamically generate PDF simply importing them can reduce printer driver variances
• One Open in new window bug is resolved in 5.1.22

In closing

I have no doubt with a bit of focused effort we could simplify the process of tiddlywiki to print processes with a set of standards including page header and footer references, Print CSS and variations on the open in new window button's template. If we have a nice basic standard it would be easier to introduce more sophisticated handling of references/citations and foot notes etc...

Remember you can introduce css to a tiddler via the class field that can contain the screen and print css.

Regards

Tony