TiddlyWiki vs OneNote (comparison on slant.co)

[Mark S.]

I came across this accidentally. Maybe everyone else is familiar with it?

https://www.slant.co/versus/2130/5116/~microsoft-onenote_vs_tiddlywik

I found the "con" that said "Without JavaScript nothing is visible" to be incredibly silly. Like "without electricity light bulbs are useless."

On the other hand, ON had a much longer list of cons.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

I used OneNote a while. It looks nice. Part of the issues with it I think is that "interface takes over". The neat look trumps the utility for purpose.

I have a long history with "free form databases" -- as they used to be called. 

I was, and am, always interested in *emergent* pattern rather than software with power but a visual structure that is ultimately restrictive. 

I used "InfoSelect" extensively, especially in its DOS days, because it was, then, a neat commercial realisation of free-form. 

I'd love do a TW replication of InfoSelect. Some of the DOS-days thinking was astute.

Things like Lotus Notes, rarely mentioned now, were excellent too.

Side-notes

Josiah

[Mat]

Yes, I think I added TW there some years ago. 

I found the "con" that said "Without JavaScript nothing is visible" to be incredibly silly. Like "without electricity light bulbs are useless."

I don't even understand what the claim means - "not visible"??? Probably that you can't easily add js but this is, of course, intentional.

A major Con, which surprisingly is not listed, is the no-multiuser/collaboration/sharing aspect.

<:-)

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Mat wrote ...

A major Con, which surprisingly is not listed, is the no-multiuser/collaboration/sharing aspect.

Did you read this on the internet? It's not reliable. :-) 

[Mat]

I should clarify: No built in multiuser functionality or via official plugin. Of course Jed is creating incredible stuff with his Bob variants.

<:-)

[Reaktorblue]

For me personally, I use OneNote a lot. In fact, I use OneNote much more than TiddlyWiki. The two biggest reasons being that changes to the browser don't break functionality and that it's ready to go out of the box with no need for configuration.

TiddlyWiki on the other hand is so much more robust but the problem I personally always run into is that I'm a fledgling coder/web developer. I don't already have the knowledge required to customize the CSS or JavaScript to enable the functionality with minimal effort. This means that every time I want to use TiddlyWiki, I have to take a lot of time to configure it the way I want it.

Additionally, I like how my OneNote syncs with OneDrive easily because it's behind the OneDrive security. I can't necessarily speak to the security of TiddlyWiki because there's so many ways to set it up. Personally, I like the old school idea of TiddlyWiki being just a single html file. Sadly though, TiddlyWiki has better tools available to it when it's run under Node.js but then, you have to figure out your own way to secure it, which I'm not quite there yet. The good news is you can just leave it on your LAN and the outside world can't see it. I don't use multi user access to my OneNote nor TiddlyWiki so multi user access is useless to me at this time.

For me, this makes TiddlyWiki a great learning tool but not so much a great tool for actual productivity but this wouldn't be the case with everyone. For those with the time and the knowledge, I think TiddlyWiki beats OneNote, hands down.

[Mat]

@Reaktorblue

I think it is very valuable for the TW project with input like what you just wrote. Even if there's probably nothing directly actionable to improve TW in it, it does give more context to why people choose TW or not which and this chisels out what defines TW.

So, the following may seem like I'm defending TW but I'm not. I'm just pointing out that people make unfair comparisons in some cases:

[...] every time I want to use TiddlyWiki, I have to take a lot of time to configure it the way I want it.

From what I understand, people only have one instance of OneNote (...right?) So a fair comparison would be to compar it to one instance of a TW. While this might have to be configured, this a one time thing (if you configure it "enough"). I certainly fall into this logical fallacy if I'm not careful; I feel like tweaking TW is a major thing I do... and it it but because I create new TWs all the time.

Plus, after the TW is tweaked, if you put the OneNote next to the TW ...now it is only one of them that you *can* customize further, and that is a good thing.

Additionally, I like how my OneNote syncs with OneDrive easily because it's behind the OneDrive security. I can't necessarily speak to the security of TiddlyWiki because there's so many ways to set it up.

If you store your data on OneDrive... then can't you store your TW there and it'd be as secure?

<:-)

[Reaktorblue]

In fairness, I use OneNote to a very basic degree. With that said, it's broken down such that OneNote is the application but I have many notebooks that can be loaded and unloaded. The notebooks themselves would be like having a folder on my PC with many TW files in it. Each notebook within OneNote would have sections and pages. So having OneNote open could contain 1 notebook or 50 notebooks.

I used to store my TiddlyWiki on DropBox, OneDrive, and even Google Drive. In fact, I preferred it that way (keeping it just a html file) because I had more flexibility keeping it up to date, hard versioning and soft versioning with OneDrive and Google drive version control on top of me having separate files with the date appended to the file name. It made emailing it, putting it on a flash drive, etc very easy.

However, as things have improved with TiddlyWiki, it's become clear to me that certain things are better when setting up TiddlyWiki on Node.js. Additionally, I was really enjoying the while Node.js process and was using TiddlyWiki as an excuse to just dive in deeper. The problem I ran into is TiddlyWiki on Node.js felt like a lot more work to get running, organized, and then configured to how I wanted it.

Additionally, I wasn't overly fond of starting it via the command line manually every time and had to spend quite a bit of time trying batch files and such to get it running. I settled on using Cmder and having a 3 batch file setup to double click an icon to start it and minimize Cmder to the system tray. Now realistically, I could at that point have exported an offline TiddlyWiki and tossed that on a flash drive or on one of the cloud storage media platforms but again, it just felt like more work when initially all I had to do was maybe make a list of say URLs and their purpose for something like a video game or another non important piece of data. OneNote was pretty much ready to go, so I could do it at home 5 minutes before work and then keep working on it once I got to the office.

To be clear though, I'm not advocating OneNote over TiddlyWiki and in fact, I'd rather use TiddlyWiki than OneNote but I lack the necessary skills to be able to configure/customize it in a timely fashion. So for me personally, it becomes a great tool for learning and at some point, will most likely be a major part of my toolkit. I absolutely love how you don't need anything installed to use TiddlyWiki as just about every computer I've ever used has a browser.

The biggest problem here isn't TiddlyWiki when compared to OneNote, it's me personally. The level of flexibility that TiddlyWiki possesses far exceeds my technical capabilities.

[TonyM]

One drive is packaged SharePoint and I have tiddlywiki running on sharepoint, so I do not see a compatibility issue.

I have full access to OneNote but do not use it as it does not have the same structure, features and design capabilities. It is much harder to set standards on yourself to retrieve or process the data in it than tiddlywiki. You can build any database structure you want in tiddly wiki and you can but are not bound to hierarchical organisation.

Regards
Tony

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Mat & @Reaktorblue

Mat wrote:

@Reaktorblue

I think it is very valuable for the TW project with input like what you just wrote...

I agree. 

So, the following may seem like I'm defending TW but I'm not...

R: [...] every time I want to use TiddlyWiki, I have to take a lot of time to configure it the way I want it.

From what I understand, people only have one instance of OneNote... So a fair comparison would be to compar it to one instance of a TW. While this might have to be configured, this a one time thing (if you configure it "enough"). 

Mat. I think a factor here is to what extent a user can get an "off-the-shelf" TW, already tweaked to be specific enough for OneNote like enough behaviour?

We don't  normally present "packaged" end-user software. Rahter, we offer huge diversiting of plugins and tweaks. But rarely present rounded products ready-honed for purpose.  

The norm IS you have to be into tweaking to get the best from TW. I think that is just a fact. One that could be changed for the better.

Thoughts

TT

[Werner]

I have come from OneNote to TiddlyWiki. I've used ON (as part of Office 2010) for several years as a personal information repository. My understanding is, that with Office 365 there will only be a very limited version of OneNote available, with a functionality reduced to the app version. I was looking for other solutions and eventually chose TW/BobWin. Honestly, I've never looked back. I find it much easier to maintain the semi-structured information I need (i.e. a combination of free-form text and information stored in fields) in TW. Also, working in a corporate environment, I was able to install everything under the radar. I also was able to use TW vanilla on our sharepoint environment, but having to load a potentially big html file everytime across a sluggish network deterred me. 

To be fair, the search function in ON is great. But the flexibility in TW beats everything.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Werner

Its a shame we have no "re-tweet" on Google Groups.

Its an interesting, very relevant set of comments.

TT

[Mat]

Werner wrote:

 

To be fair, the search function in ON is great.

What makes it great?

<:-) 

[Pit.W.]

In the beginning was the command line  I did a comparison of TW and OneNote

The deciding factor was a comparison between Microsoft's privacy documents (40+ pages of land-mined legalese with booby traps in every article) and Jeremy Ruston's biography.

Then I knew what to do and never looked back.

Pit.W

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[@TiddlyTweeter]

Again, this is a post that deserves a "re-tweet", if GG had such a thing.

Basically you are flagging your experience in a very useful way that a later user should see (but given how it works here it won't be).

But its good to see your comments.

TT

On Tuesday, 30 July 2019 18:13:12 UTC+2, Pit.W. wrote:

In the beginning was the command line  I did a comparison of TW and OneNote

The deciding factor was a comparison between Microsoft's privacy documents (40+ pages of land-mined legalese with booby traps in every article) and Jeremy Ruston's biography.

Then I knew what to do and never looked back.

Pit.W

Am 22.07.2019 um 04:57 schrieb 'Mark S.' via TiddlyWiki:

I came across this accidentally. Maybe everyone else is familiar with it?

https://www.slant.co/versus/2130/5116/~microsoft-onenote_vs_tiddlywik

I found the "con" that said "Without JavaScript nothing is visible" to be incredibly silly. Like "without electricity light bulbs are useless."

On the other hand, ON had a much longer list of cons.

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To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.

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[Riz]

Are they not talking about people who have addons like uMatrix installed which will prevent any javascript from being run?

Slant lists are funny. For eg: this lists lists org-mode at the top, while a similar one does not even mention them. Zim wiki is listed above TW5 in some cases (Remember that Zim wiki is only usable in linux and does not provide 1/3 functionality of TW5).

[Mat]

Riz wrote:

Slant lists are funny. 

As far as I understand, the lists are not professionally curated but anyone can add a product and then other people can add Pro's and Con's. And "comparisons" such as the one starting out this thread, are not really comparisons but merely side-by-side presentations.

It is not a perfect concept but I think it is a pretty good one IF there are enough users that ensure the data for each product makes sense. Very comparable to public wikis.

<:-)

[Mark S.]

I have Zim wiki on my Win 7 machine. Don't remember what hoops I had to jump through to make that possible.

The main pluses it has to offer compared to TW is WYSIWYG editing (for basic formatting) and embedded images.

There is also a FF extension for clipping articles.

It was at the top of my list when considering information management systems.

The main thing is that it didn't seem to have the kind of active support that TW has. But since the last time I used it, it's moved its code

to github where there are 56 contributors and an update as recent as May.

[Riz]

1. WYSIWYG editing
2. embedded images.
3. FF extension for clipping articles.

Doesnt TW5 have a good enough Editor Toolbar, support embedding images and Tiddlyclip? Can you elaborate on what makes experience with zim counterparts better?

[Mark S.]

There is no WYSWIG editing. The toolbar is nice, but not the same. It makes things a lot easier when you don't have to

toggle back and forth.

You can embed images, but at the cost of slowing your TW down.

With the extension, it inserts HTML code which is noisy and pretty much impossible to edit without WYSIWYG. You have to go back

in and replace image references with tiddler image references by hand if you want the images to be available  offline. It's the extra steps

of post-editing that prevent me from actively using the extension. If you just want to grab text, then it starts becoming easier just

to use some pasteboard manager (every platform has one).

All software, no matter how advanced, has some sort of deficiency. And (almost) all software, no matter how retrograde, has

some advantage over some other given software. So in the end it comes down to either some sort of trade-off, or dealing with

multiple software packages.

[TonyM]

Werner

Thanks for sharing. A few quick notes;

I don't think one notes functionality is diminishing in office 365 in some ways its stronger than ever in the o365 platform. I stand to be corrected.

One note is an application, a single app, be it designed to support cross application notes or not, and a propriatary one at that. Where tiddlywiki is a platform on which much more can be done in the long run.

Since learning tw5 I never think about one note at all.

Regards
Tony

[Werner]

Just wanted to be fair and not seem to be bashing OneNote. It's fast and it spans over multiple notebooks which I found useful :-) 

[Werner]

Hi Tony,

tried to track down where I got my information from. It's from mid-2018, so things might have changed/improved in the meantime. My understanding is that there is basically a function freeze with ON 2016. There is no ON in Office 2019 and Office 365 (but ON 2016 still works). Instead, current ON users are nudged to using the ON app coming with Windows 10, which (at that time) lacked some functionalities present in ON 2016. It seems that Microsoft has addressed quite a few original issues, so they seem to be basically doing their homework (don't nail me down on this, I'm not playing Microsoft's advocate). 

You will find all the information available starting from here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/onenote-2016-is-missing-after-installing-office-2019-or-office-365-1844ba87-7248-4bd8-a735-66a52f98e6e5

The biggest issue for me is that ON does no longer support local notebook files. You will be bound to OneDrive. You may convert your local notebooks to OneDrive, but it's a one-way street. Some people may not bother, but I do. So, that's it for me.

Oh, BTW, there's one ON feature I am missing with TW: Searchable PDFs. Importing a PDF and having the text auto-imported into a Tiddler would be awesome. But maybe I've just missed out on something

Best

Werner

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Agree

In OneNote's favour, over the years, its got better at not being quite so proprietary. In its early versions it was heavily linked into other Microsoft products. It is mature software now and does a bunch of things needed in a more open way.

I think the "bottom-line" in TW is maybe "WE CAN'T YET READ ONENOTE FORMAT". If we could import OneNote to TW there might be better harmony in the world.

Thoughts

TT

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Werner

Your point was well taken by me.

For PRACTICAL work. Its easier to use one method.

I'm thinking. "How complex is the OneNote format?" And could TW import it?

Best wishes

TT 

[Reaktorblue]

OneNote is now bundled with Windows 10 and that's pretty much the version you get. I'm an Office 365 Insiders subscriber and OneNote is no longer part of that package. One of the biggest issues I take with OneNote is that the UI is not configurable at least not at this current point in time. You can't change the size of the different elements and this is also one of the things that I love about TW5.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Reaktorblue

i see the inflex in OneNote

Maybe we should explore more HOW to leverage getting it's records into TW?

One thing I want to comment is OneNote is OLD software already. Some of its inflexibility arises, I trhink, purely because of its need to support its own legacy.

Best wishes

TT

[Reaktorblue]

The OneNote that's currently in circulation is being webified, if you can call it that. Just like most other Microsoft products. I don't know if it would be possible to get those records into TW but if I can ever become comfortable with CSS and TW as a whole, I'd probably abandon the whole thing.

I'd go so far as to say that the right ToC setup would rival OneNote, right out of the box.

[@TiddlyTweeter]

ciao Reakforblue

 "... if I can ever become comfortable with CSS and TW as a whole"

CSS is as flexible in TW as it is anywhere.

But we have been poor at making it easy to innovate with it. It is still cumbersome.

Just MO

TT