SelectMode - KeeBoord Navigation
BurningTreeC
h0p3
Hi community,for those interested in more advanced Keyboard-Navigation within tiddlywiki I've createdhttp://selectmode.tiddlyspot.com, where the "SelectMode" plugin will soon be available for drag&drop installation
Meanwhile, if you're interested to test and comment, that would be great help.I'm looking for ideas how to visualize that the wiki is in select-mode. The top yellow bar will get an option to be disabled, but there should stillbe some kind of a visual hint that select-mode is on.
- You might consider making it sticky as you scroll/navigate. It doesn't follow you, and that might be worth having. The "highlighting" of current/target/focused tiddler is outstanding. I really appreciate that very much, and I may not really even need the bar just because of that gorgeous highlighting.
- I use sticky titles (probably can't live without them). That function wasn't working nicely for me on that particular TW, and I'm not sure why. This might be a reason to put the bar on the bottom instead of the top, which also has that sometimes annoying "Drop here (or use the 'Escape' key to cancel)" bar.
- Is it possible to start default in the text-body window for editing?
- You might consider adding a search bar that steps through entries better than http://j.d.spartan.tiddlyspot.com/
BurningTreeC
Hi community,for those interested in more advanced Keyboard-Navigation within tiddlywiki I've createdhttp://selectmode.tiddlyspot.com, where the "SelectMode" plugin will soon be available for drag&drop installationSending you all my interweb XOXOs. Thank you! This could easily be my favorite plug-in.Meanwhile, if you're interested to test and comment, that would be great help.I'm looking for ideas how to visualize that the wiki is in select-mode. The top yellow bar will get an option to be disabled, but there should stillbe some kind of a visual hint that select-mode is on.Feel free to ignore anything I have to say here. I'm just spitballin'.
- You might consider making it sticky as you scroll/navigate. It doesn't follow you, and that might be worth having. The "highlighting" of current/target/focused tiddler is outstanding. I really appreciate that very much, and I may not really even need the bar just because of that gorgeous highlighting.
- I use sticky titles (probably can't live without them). That function wasn't working nicely for me on that particular TW, and I'm not sure why. This might be a reason to put the bar on the bottom instead of the top, which also has that sometimes annoying "Drop here (or use the 'Escape' key to cancel)" bar.
- Is it possible to start default in the text-body window for editing?
- You might consider adding a search bar that steps through entries better than http://j.d.spartan.tiddlyspot.com/
This is really awesome.
Alex Hough
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BurningTreeC
BurningTreeC,when you open the tiddler for editing with 'e' could the focus be on the tiddler body?really like this approach - i puts an other layer of editing over the top of the TW.Alex
@TiddlyTweeter
I tested on FF 52 & 60, latest Chrome on Windows 7. All behave the same.
My initial comments ...
Josiah
BurningTreeC
That is extremely good piece of work. Really good.
I tested on FF 52 & 60, latest Chrome on Windows 7. All behave the same.
My initial comments ...-- Would not Up-Arrow and Down-Arrow better fit story navigation than Left-Arrow and Right-Arrow? The story river is generally considered VERTICAL, not horizontal.
-- Regarding signalling you are in "S mode" / "KN mode." For me the HIGHLIGHT of the border of the selected Tiddler does it already. I don't need the colour bars and they add cruft I do not think is needed. I think if you make the highlight border a bit stronger, or with, say, a drop shadow it would communicate visually well-enough. Also, perhaps, there could be a simple capital "S" that appears on the right sidebar when you in that mode. With a red slash through it when off? Maybe it could also be a toggle to switch it on and off? Just a thought.
-- The Help at bottom is good. Once you learned it you don't need to see it again. Can it be switchable off?
-- When you create or edit a Tiddler you lose "S mode" / "KN mode." Not sure, but is that preventable? It would be nice to stay in it.
Best wishes for a great tool
Josiah
@TiddlyTweeter
TT ... -- When you create or edit a Tiddler you lose "S mode" / "KN mode." Not sure, but is that preventable? It would be nice to stay in it.
There's some background: the "E" shortcut for editing works within the text-editor, too. If you type a word that contains "e", it wouldn't insert the letter but trigger the shortcut. That's why I disable SelectMode when I edit a tiddler.
Of course! I should have realised that in edit-mode there would be a conflict. My bad for not thinking it through!
... I could however modify KeeBoord so that it only triggers shortcuts if we're not within an editor or input field. But the amount of such fields is very high within tw so I wonder how often users then have to click outside those fields so that they loose focus, just to trigger a keyboard shortcut. That's somehow contra-productive
I agree. Being able to get back to "S mode" after an edit is easy anyway. So likely better not to makre it over complicated?
FYI, small observation. I opened three Tiddlers to edit. I then clicked alt+s. Typed into one of them the word "the". You get to "th" and it bails out and loses focus and "S mode" goes off. It seems resilient & behaves well.
Worth noting, if you had a case of, say, one tiddler open for editing and a load of others in view mode you could STILL navigate around with keys UNTIL you started an actual edit in the opened editor. So "S mode" is NOT incompatible with having Tiddlers open for edit, merely it switches off once you actually start editing.
Best wishes
Josiah
@TiddlyTweeter
BTC: What's KNmode? :)
Keyboard Navigation mode :-)
@TiddlyTweeter
BTC: How about a simple "S" or "SELECT MODE" in the top right bar (beneath the sidebar button) with some highlighting background? I'll maybe make more options and make them configurable, too
Simple "S" sounds good at that position. Pretty sure that will work well enough as an indicator.
Best wishes
Josiah
h0p3
This post turned out longer than I expected. You'll have to forgive me if what I'm saying is weird or not useful to you. I'm thinking outloud. I want you to know, I love the tool you are building, and I'm intensely grateful.
You can now select if you want to focus the text-editor or the title when editing a tiddler. I'll probably add shortcuts that will be active in select-mode to focus title, tags, editor, type and fields inputs
Making shortcuts to target features for any focused tiddler is a damned good idea. I don't know how far you are going with this, and I might have the wrong vision. Building a framework to control a variety of standard components (perhaps beyond what you have already) of Tiddlywiki through a keyboard might be worthwhile. The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced some version of your plugin should be in Tiddlywiki's primary codebase (I always wonder if some aspects of the code will eventually go WASM, but that may defeat the purpose).
Your tool is a hack for me. It allows to navigate and organize large workflows by hand, which is the intended purpose, but more importantly, it allows me to leverage non-JS ecosystems without NPM. I really do want to keep Tiddlywiki as self-contained as possible inside a single HTML file. That's what is truly magic about it. The moment I'm leaving the browser to run NPM though, I feel like I should just be using some other tool besides Tiddlywiki (this may just be my incompetence though).
I think I'm going to abuse your tool in a way that is simply the result of me not being able to figure out how to write my own JS modifications of the wiki. To me, you are giving us platform agnostic controls over the wiki, a ghetto API to a magical blackbox meant for skiddies like me.
Back when I used Windows, I was an AutoHotKey fan. In many cases, I might not want or be able to touch the memory of a program, but I can programmatically tell you how to interact with it from the keyboard and mouse. Your tool may be a bridge for me. I'm interested in integrating a lot of python and bash (actually, xonsh) scripts into my TW. For example, I now use a tool that sanitizes my clipboard with replacements and pastes (because I have to move data from other programs through clipboard often enough). I also have a script which takes a list of tiddlers from "New" and organizes them into a nested list structure that I consistently use as a template. Automating tiddler creation, templating, and other processes through the keyboard may give me the Rube-Goldberg machine I always dreamed of. Thank you. =)
If Tiddlywiki is a specialized self-contained VMed OS in my browser (Zawinski's law, give me the ability to decentrally mail tiddlers!), then maybe you're building some kind of visual commandline (I wonder what a console would look like in Tiddlywiki; a true commandline could be very powerful). I hope to read titles, xonsh parse and massage data, and use your tool to manually edit Tiddlywiki through xdotool and i3msgs. I can do this through NPM, but it requires decompiling and recompiling the Tiddlywiki (which I may just be forced to accept in the end); it has not been foolproof for me either.
On a side note, I'm forced to use this: https://philosopher.life/#%24%3A%2F_toggle-editor-toolbar_preview:%24%3A%2F_toggle-editor-toolbar_preview, a tool to disable toolbars, in order to maintain the font I want to have in the editor itself. Is this going to be a huge monkeywrench?
My claim might be dumb, and perhaps it should not have any influence on what you are constructing because this is just one person's oddball usecase. I'll leave that up to you.
How did you imagine the search bar? How should it behave, what should it search for... ?
I want to open search from keyboard, type stuff in, and use my keyboard to quickly navigate through the list. Currently, it has very poor highlighting, I must use Tab and Ctrl+Tab to move through the list (would love more options), and I have to Tab quite a bit to actually get to navigating the list in the first place. I suppose I may just fix this myself though (the highlighting I cannot).
Some of the work that others to do with tagging I choose to do with titles (so far, I'm not seeing why I should switch over to tags, but I may be blind here). Eventually, I aim to be able to search by title and then search for text within those titles (that may be already possible, but I've not figured out how yet). I may end up having to write out a bunch of specialized query templates.
The softness of Tiddlywiki as
software is exactly what I need as I figure out what it's supposed to
look like. Search is ridiculously important, but I think I actually need
to finds ways that are specifically tailored to the structures I have
built. I will think more about your question.
DemoniWaari
Couple of things: How about making a shortcut for the search bar? Would be great to ctrl+f, type my stuff, tab tab enter, my tiddler pops up, press e and get straight to editing it. Also would it be hard to get re-ordering of a selected tiddler? So if I have three tiddlers tid1 tid2 and tid3 in that order and I select tid3 and press a shortcut (e.g. shift up) and then the order would be tid1 tid3 tid2 and then selecting tid1 and pressing e.g. shift down would then give me order of tid3 tid1 tid2.
I think that the visualization that preople have here been talking about sounds good, though for me a simple border on my tiddlers (perhaps slightly more easy to see, red border maybe?) is enough.
EDIT: Also noticed that if I press e to edit a tiddler, then ctrl+enter to save it, I can't get back to select mode with shift-space. I need to click something (a tiddler for instance) and only then I can get back to select mode with shift-space.
BurningTreeC
Looks really nice, can't wait to get the tag selection stuff.
Couple of things: How about making a shortcut for the search bar? Would be great to ctrl+f, type my stuff, tab tab enter, my tiddler pops up, press e and get straight to editing it. Also would it be hard to get re-ordering of a selected tiddler? So if I have three tiddlers tid1 tid2 and tid3 in that order and I select tid3 and press a shortcut (e.g. shift up) and then the order would be tid1 tid3 tid2 and then selecting tid1 and pressing e.g. shift down would then give me order of tid3 tid1 tid2.
I think that the visualization that preople have here been talking about sounds good, though for me a simple border on my tiddlers (perhaps slightly more easy to see, red border maybe?) is enough.
EDIT: Also noticed that if I press e to edit a tiddler, then ctrl+enter to save it, I can't get back to select mode with shift-space. I need to click something (a tiddler for instance) and only then I can get back to select mode with shift-space.
BurningTreeC
This post turned out longer than I expected. You'll have to forgive me if what I'm saying is weird or not useful to you. I'm thinking outloud. I want you to know, I love the tool you are building, and I'm intensely grateful.
You can now select if you want to focus the text-editor or the title when editing a tiddler. I'll probably add shortcuts that will be active in select-mode to focus title, tags, editor, type and fields inputs
Making shortcuts to target features for any focused tiddler is a damned good idea. I don't know how far you are going with this, and I might have the wrong vision. Building a framework to control a variety of standard components (perhaps beyond what you have already) of Tiddlywiki through a keyboard might be worthwhile. The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced some version of your plugin should be in Tiddlywiki's primary codebase (I always wonder if some aspects of the code will eventually go WASM, but that may defeat the purpose).
Your tool is a hack for me. It allows to navigate and organize large workflows by hand, which is the intended purpose, but more importantly, it allows me to leverage non-JS ecosystems without NPM. I really do want to keep Tiddlywiki as self-contained as possible inside a single HTML file. That's what is truly magic about it. The moment I'm leaving the browser to run NPM though, I feel like I should just be using some other tool besides Tiddlywiki (this may just be my incompetence though).
I think I'm going to abuse your tool in a way that is simply the result of me not being able to figure out how to write my own JS modifications of the wiki. To me, you are giving us platform agnostic controls over the wiki, a ghetto API to a magical blackbox meant for skiddies like me.
Back when I used Windows, I was an AutoHotKey fan. In many cases, I might not want or be able to touch the memory of a program, but I can programmatically tell you how to interact with it from the keyboard and mouse. Your tool may be a bridge for me. I'm interested in integrating a lot of python and bash (actually, xonsh) scripts into my TW. For example, I now use a tool that sanitizes my clipboard with replacements and pastes (because I have to move data from other programs through clipboard often enough). I also have a script which takes a list of tiddlers from "New" and organizes them into a nested list structure that I consistently use as a template. Automating tiddler creation, templating, and other processes through the keyboard may give me the Rube-Goldberg machine I always dreamed of. Thank you. =)
If Tiddlywiki is a specialized self-contained VMed OS in my browser (Zawinski's law, give me the ability to decentrally mail tiddlers!), then maybe you're building some kind of visual commandline (I wonder what a console would look like in Tiddlywiki; a true commandline could be very powerful). I hope to read titles, xonsh parse and massage data, and use your tool to manually edit Tiddlywiki through xdotool and i3msgs. I can do this through NPM, but it requires decompiling and recompiling the Tiddlywiki (which I may just be forced to accept in the end); it has not been foolproof for me either.
On a side note, I'm forced to use this: https://philosopher.life/#%24%3A%2F_toggle-editor-toolbar_preview:%24%3A%2F_toggle-editor-toolbar_preview, a tool to disable toolbars, in order to maintain the font I want to have in the editor itself. Is this going to be a huge monkeywrench?
My claim might be dumb, and perhaps it should not have any influence on what you are constructing because this is just one person's oddball usecase. I'll leave that up to you.
How did you imagine the search bar? How should it behave, what should it search for... ?
I want to open search from keyboard, type stuff in, and use my keyboard to quickly navigate through the list. Currently, it has very poor highlighting, I must use Tab and Ctrl+Tab to move through the list (would love more options), and I have to Tab quite a bit to actually get to navigating the list in the first place. I suppose I may just fix this myself though (the highlighting I cannot).
Some of the work that others to do with tagging I choose to do with titles (so far, I'm not seeing why I should switch over to tags, but I may be blind here). Eventually, I aim to be able to search by title and then search for text within those titles (that may be already possible, but I've not figured out how yet). I may end up having to write out a bunch of specialized query templates.
The softness of Tiddlywiki as software is exactly what I need as I figure out what it's supposed to look like. Search is ridiculously important, but I think I actually need to finds ways that are specifically tailored to the structures I have built. I will think more about your question.
@TiddlyTweeter
A quick point that came to me reading over the latest posts.
Just my opinion, but would "K" (for keyboard / keys) be better than "S" (for select)?
I don't think it ultimately matters much, but IMO this is stuff I do via the Keyboard. "Select" is broader. A select to me is an item I could select (option), or highlighting text (for copy).
Just a thought
Josiah
DemoniWaari
You already can move tiddlers one slot next, one slot previous. Look at the shortcut at the selectmode page ($:/KeyboardShortcut/select-mode-movenext and $:/KeyboardShortcut/select-mode-moveprevious)
EDIT: Also noticed that if I press e to edit a tiddler, then ctrl+enter to save it, I can't get back to select mode with shift-space. I need to click something (a tiddler for instance) and only then I can get back to select mode with shift-space.Thanks for reporting, I tried on Linux with Chrome, TiddlyDesktop and Firefox latest and couldn't reproduce this. What's your operating system and browser?
I'm using Firefox 52.9.0 under Windows 7.
h0p3
I actually want to go further with this keyboard-centered approach. There's the sidebar that can be made key-boardable, too... basically everything that forces me to use my mouse where under i3 I'd always just press a shortcut is a target for select-mode.
I think you're right that something like this should be in TW's codebase.
Agreed! We've talked about the sidebar before. I have very strong opinions about the sidebar.
I know how I would like to navigate my sidebar right now (although, I'd probably change my method with more complex tooling), but I fear I am too specific (and don't know how to generalize it for everyone's usecases).
I want to use a hotkey to enter "sidebar mode," select tabs from hotkeys, and perhaps have a mode for each tab. For example, on my Hub (https://philosopher.life/#Hub:Hub), I want to step up and down through the major sections, and then select from the links inside those lists.
As far as I'm concerned, the sidebar is fundamental to navigating the wiki, and salient navigation of complex structures is what a wiki is all about. Keyboard control of it is necessary to allow me to "load" tiddlers into my story river.
I tried that nodejs-approach but the missing live-reload killed it for me.
YES! There are a lot of problems surrounding it.
To me, this is the one of the key areas in which Tiddlywiki could make a quantum leap. The browser's VM continues to be tightened again and again, and running a server is literally the only option around it. Unfortunately, I believe it's computationally unoptimized. I blow a whole core just to recompile every minute with nodejs. JS makes this beautiful in the browser, but the server itself needs another language, imho.
I'd want edit priority given to the CLI.
This is no small task though, and I think most people have no use for it (at least initially).
@DemoniWaari also mentioned this search-functionality. I think I'll add the quick-search by keyboard function and then we can discuss the content of the search results...
Thanks for your feedback and thoughts!
I am very excited by this. I think it is actually an entirely different problem than keyboard navigation, and arguably an even larger problem. It would, of course, be an enormous contribution. Advanced search that a user can easily tailor to the structures they build in their own wiki is necessary. This is where the flexibility of Tiddlywiki may continue to shine for a long time to come.
TonyM
BurningTreeC
Mohammad
BurningTreeC
BurningTreeC
Mohammad
h0p3
h0p3
On Saturday, August 4, 2018 at 10:04:10 AM UTC-4, BurningTreeC wrote:
BurningTreeC
I know you are still working on this gorgeous tool and the infrastructure for developing and distributing it. I have tested the tool on your demo several times. I gratefully request this with no expectations: I would like to get a feel for it on my own wiki and actually begin using it in production to develop more opinions about it. It might be a while before I get to do that I realize. Unfortunately, I don't know how to insert this into my wiki (although, I have tried a couple times). If and when you are ready, would you give me a set of instructions to insert this into my wiki (I'd like to be able to remove or modify it as this plugin develops)? It doesn't need to be a single drag and drop plugin; I'll work with whatever instructions you can give me. Obviously, you owe me nothing, and you can (and should) just tell me to figure it out for myself (you're already being generous to let us see your source).
@TiddlyTweeter
SelectMode has become a bit more complicated to handle. If I'd make it just for myself it would be easy - I wouldn't consider all the different cases users may want. I haven't got that much feedback about it so I'm not that sure if the modes are worth the work
An admission of guilt: I got totally confused about what was SelectMode & KeeBoord ... I thought they were the same thing.
Josiah
BurningTreeC
@TiddlyTweeter
SelectMode has become a bit more complicated to handle... all the different cases users may want.I haven't got that much feedback about it so I'm not that sure if the modes are worth the work.
What I would say is that your own model is likely a huge step already.
As one of the end-users who tends to always ask for more because it is invited it does not mean I think I'm right. I mean: YOU are the developer.
Its an interesting issue--you tend to invite early comment which I think is very good. On the other hand I don't think its so good if it gives you a headache.
Regarding scale of decent feedback: I have to say its more likely we simply do not have enough active users reading and commenting on GG. Its not lack of interest. Its basic lack of numbers, IMO.
Best wishes
Josiah