emulating TiddlyWikiClassic behavior in TiddlyWiki5

[Jean Ogryzalov]

I've been using TiddlyWiki since 2007 and I really like it. I've done only light modifications, didn't really poke around in the source code and stayed away from plugins. I've only used it for one purpose - keeping a diary. Every year I would make a copy of the file, clear out the entries from last year and begin again. So it was only recently that I found out about the reboot.

My first impression of TiddlyWiki5 was negative. It looked uglier, seemed to work slower and was much more complicated to understand. But that's normal. You are used to something and react negatively when forced to change. I'd probably still be using Version 2 if it wasn't for the new built-in encryption feature.

But I figure I should join the future, learn something new and maybe there are features in the new version that could come in handy. However, I've grown quite attached to certain behaviors and I would like the implement them in my wiki. I've poked around and tried to read the documentation, communities and such but I think it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it can cause one to run away clutching one's head. It's a mess and it's not helped that the majority of what you find refers to the old version. I don't want to spend months trying to piece it all together.

I would appreciate help with these. Even an explanation of which abstractions are needed (macro/message/widget) so I could figure it out myself. Because right now I'm not sure if what I want is even possible. I would prefer to not install plug-ins. It seems like TiddlyWiki should be powerful to do the things I want. Here they are in the order of most to least important.

1) Search results should display in the story.

In the old tiddlywiki when you searched for a term you would see the results show in the story view. This is much more useful to me than seeing a list of matching tiddlers.

2) I want some kind of "open all" associated action associated with a tag. I want to see all the tiddlers with a certain tag in the story view. I don't just want a list of titles but the contents.

I was able to use a list to show all tiddlers with a tag. But I had to paste it into each tag's tiddler individually and I want the tiddlers displayed separately not the way list does it.

3) I would like a single line break to translate into a <br>. Currently I have to do two line breaks to force a new paragraph. I don't want to be typing html <br> into my posts.

My hope is that doing this will teach me more about TiddlyWiki5 is put together and that I will stick with it and perhaps contribute to the documentation.

[Scott Simmons (Secret-HQ)]

Hi, Jean —

I can relate.  I too keep a running TiddlyWiki, which I archive out each year.  I don't exactly start fresh, but I do offload my journal tiddlers, finished project tiddlers, and anything that isn't "current" to last year's archive.  The good news for folks like us us that the archives are still perfectly usable and searchable.

Like you, though, I recognize the need to stay current.  I was cautiously excited about TW5 back in 2014 but the heavy investment I had made in using TiddlyWiki Classic (TWC) day-in and day-out led me to put off a proper upgrade for a full year.  It was too frustrating to be faced with a new learning curve to perform daily tasks that had become second nature to me in TWC.  But now that I'm using TW5 daily, I can report that the excitement of discovering it for the first time is back, as well.  It didn't take long for that excitement and possibility to outstrip the anxiety and frustration of being back at the bottom of the learning curve.  And the new interface has certainly grown on me!

As a TWC user coming over to TW5, I highly recommend getting at least one plugin:

http://tiddlywiki.com/plugins/tiddlywiki/tw2parser/

You may not plan to bring any tiddlers from the past into your new TW5 file, but you never know when you might need to import something — and the TW2Parser will allow you to view its older-style markup (mostly) as it was intended to be viewed.

 

2) I want some kind of "open all" associated action associated with a tag. I want to see all the tiddlers with a certain tag in the story view. I don't just want a list of titles but the contents.

I was able to use a list to show all tiddlers with a tag. But I had to paste it into each tag's tiddler individually and I want the tiddlers displayed separately not the way list does it.

Try installing the showtaggedtiddlers macro I've attached and then putting <<showtaggedtiddlers "TAGNAME">> in each tag's tiddler.  This will display a "substory" of all the tiddlers within that tiddler.  To go to the individual tiddlers themselves (for editing), you can click their titles.  You can also selectively "close" them to narrow down what you're looking for.

Here's the code of that macro if you'd rather copy it from here and put it in your own tiddler (just tag that tiddler $:/tags/Macro):

\define showtaggedtiddlers(tag)

<$list filter="[tag[$tag$]]">

<div>

!<$button message="tm-close-tiddler" class="tc-btn-invisible">{{$:/core/images/close-button}}</$button> <$link to={{!!title}}><$view field="title" /></$link>

<$transclude/>

</div>

</$list>
\end

I haven't looked yet, but if such a solution has any appeal, we might be able to find and hack the search results tiddler so that it uses the same macro to display its results.  I think that would give you something pretty darn close to your number (1).

Oh!  I've just noticed Matabele has a more involved (but way more elegant!) solution for opening multiple tags that you can find in this thread.

And, if I'm not mistaken, an "open all" item on the tag pill dropdown is something Jeremy still plans to implement as a core feature of TW5 at some point.

3) I would like a single line break to translate into a <br>. Currently I have to do two line breaks to force a new paragraph. I don't want to be typing html <br> into my posts.

See here:

http://tiddlywiki.com/#Hard%20Linebreaks%20in%20WikiText

[Mark S.]

I've learned to roll my own macros, make lists, and even a couple plugins ... but I still think TWC was better. It was less opaque. You could get access to the code and write your own custom app with just a limited bit of JS skill. There were plugins available for most everything. I don't believe it had the cyclic input problem that interferes with rapid typing (the TW5 plugin to fix this doesn't work). 

If someone had promised to support TWC for the next 25 years, I would probably have stuck with it. At the time, TWC was failing to save every time FF got an upgrade, so TW5 seemed the way to go.

Number 3 on your list is a big one for those of us who want to capture ordinary text. Apparently there are extremely technical reasons why TW5 will never go back to using single-line breaks between lines. Something about <br> being against the laws of nature. I like having input text that resembles the display text.

My main work-around is to put triple quotes """ around the 'traditional' (i.e. 'normal') text that I want to maintain. It's a bit of a hassle, but it seems to pose the fewest compromises. On certain content, I have a new-tiddler button that creates new tiddlers with the triple quotes already there, ready for pasting.

Good luck!
Mark