Bringing jQuery to TiddlyWiki release 2.5.0

[Jeremy Ruston]

We've just uploaded release 2.5.0 of TiddlyWiki to
http://www.tiddlywiki.com/. It's an unusual release because it
contains only a single new feature over and above what we delivered in
the previous release 2.4.3, but the new feature is a very significant
change: we've added the standard jQuery library to TiddlyWiki.

The immediate consequence is that plugin authors can start to use the
powerful facilities of jQuery to simplify and speed-up plugin
development. Over the next few releases we'll be refactoring the
TiddlyWiki core code to take advantage of jQuery too, which should see
a reduction in the size of TiddlyWiki, and improvements in performance
and flexibility.

There's more details about this move over on the TiddlyWikiDev list:

http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDev/browse_thread/thread/c0711e68f7caa680

And there's also a roadmap here:

http://tiddlywiki.org/wiki/Dev:Roadmap

I should emphasise again that the addition of jQuery is the only
change between 2.4.3 and 2.5.0, and that the size of TiddlyWiki's
empty.html has consequently increased from 286k to 342k. That extra
space will be recovered as we refactor the core TiddlyWiki code (there
are substantial swathes of TiddlyWiki core code that can be rewritten
much more succinctly with jQuery).

Cheers

Jeremy

--
Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jer...@osmosoft.com
http://www.tiddlywiki.com

[Eric Shulman]

On Mar 10, 3:40 am, Jeremy Ruston <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We've just uploaded release 2.5.0 of TiddlyWiki

http://www.TiddlyTools.com is now using TW250.

enjoy,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

[Paul Kronenwetter]

Is there an example of what could be done at this point by some over-
ambitious person wanting to dive into jQuery-TW?

-Paul

On Mar 10, 6:54 am, Eric Shulman <elsdes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 10, 3:40 am, Jeremy Ruston <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > We've just uploaded release 2.5.0 of TiddlyWiki
>

> http://www.TiddlyTools.comis now using TW250.

[Paulo Soares]

Thank you Jeremy et al. for this new TW flavour. It's a pleasure to
write Javascript with jQuery.

BTW, importing from TW 2.4.3 seems to be broken.

Cheers,
--
Paulo Soares

On 10 Mar, 10:40, Jeremy Ruston <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We've just uploaded release 2.5.0 of TiddlyWiki tohttp://www.tiddlywiki.com/. It's an unusual release because it

> contains only a single new feature over and above what we delivered in
> the previous release 2.4.3, but the new feature is a very significant
> change: we've added the standard jQuery library to TiddlyWiki.
>
> The immediate consequence is that plugin authors can start to use the
> powerful facilities of jQuery to simplify and speed-up plugin
> development. Over the next few releases we'll be refactoring the
> TiddlyWiki core code to take advantage of jQuery too, which should see
> a reduction in the size of TiddlyWiki, and improvements in performance
> and flexibility.
>
> There's more details about this move over on the TiddlyWikiDev list:
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDev/browse_thread/thread/c07...

[Paulo Soares]

Stupid me! It's a well known Firefox security feature (bug?).
Sorry...
--
Paulo Soares

[FND]

> Is there an example of what could be done at this point by some over-
> ambitious person wanting to dive into jQuery-TW?

Generally speaking, jQuery makes it easier to write certain pieces of
code, because you don't have to worry about certain details.
There are plenty of existing jQuery plugins that could be turned into
TiddlyWiki plugins with minimal effort.
Right now, the only tangible example I can think of is my TiddlyViPlugin
experiment, which is not a spectacular example of jQuery power though:
http://fnd.lewcid.org/tmp/TiddlyViPlugin.html

As time progresses, plugin authors will certainly find great uses for
jQuery within TiddlyWiki.

-- F.

[Paul Kronenwetter]

That's perfect! I was looking for how to write something that uses
the new jQuery interface. The things I'd seen so far were too vague
for my little mind to grasp. This is a firm example of something that
I can use as a foundation, if I can think of something to do with it.

Thanks Fred!
-Paul

[Mike]

Maybe not the correct place to ask - but will jQuery affect current
plugins?
I.E. will old plugins have to be updated or will TW + jQuery be
backwards compatible?

Thanks,

Mike

[FND]

> will jQuery affect current plugins?

No - we'll continue to ensure backwards compatibility as much as
possible, with the existing APIs remaining functional.
The jQuery integration merely extends the functionality available to
plugin authors.
(While parts of the API will change eventually, that will be a gradual
transition - at the very least we'll keep the DeprecatedFunctionsPlugin
up to date.)

-- F.

[Morris Gray]

> Right now, the only tangible example I can think of is my TiddlyViPlugin
> experiment, which is not a spectacular example of jQuery power though:
> http://fnd.lewcid.org/tmp/TiddlyViPlugin.html

I thought that you would be able to use jQuery plugins directly. Will
every jQuery plugin require the type of translation to make them work
with TiddlyWiki such as you have provided for TiddlyViPlugin.html?

Morris

[FND]

> I thought that you would be able to use jQuery plugins directly. Will
> every jQuery plugin require the type of translation to make them work
> with TiddlyWiki such as you have provided for TiddlyViPlugin.html?

It depends, really - if you want something TiddlyWiki-specific (e.g. a
macro), you'll most likely need at least a tiny bit of "glue" code.
Perhaps we'll figure out a common pattern eventually and provide a
generic macro to invoke jQuery functionality - but that remains to be seen.

Do you have anything specific in mind?

-- F.

[Morris Gray]

> Do you have anything specific in mind?

Not particularity at the moment. I have however been playing with
jQuery from time to time in normal HTML pages. Mostly adding things
like sliders to make a normal HTML page perform like TiddlyWiki does
naturally. Of course it is more powerful than that.

But an intensive investigation of jQuery plugins reveals a lot of them
are of no real interest, them doing things I consider being done
simply because they can be done making dumb HTML pages do things they
couldn't normally and making no real contributions to capabilities
that are significant.

I feel if we were all as competent with Javascript as Eric Shulman
jQuery wouldn't seem so exciting. It is after all only a library of
Javascript that contains a small portion of what Eric knows. My hope
was that we of lesser knowledge could have a 'leg up' so to speak
through jQuery to approach his abilities it would be good. But if it
adds another layer of complexity requiring translation in order to
speak TiddlyWiki language then wouldn't becoming more competent with
Javascript be effort better spent.

Perhaps if now having jQuery in the core was causing an avalanche of
new significant capabilities for TiddlyWiki that we could all
understand and access one could get excited, but that may now seem a
naive expectation.

Whereas Udo's ForEach plugin simplified Javascript for the masses and
brought its capabilities within reach of the many, jQuery seems a more
complex way of doing similar things. Even so seeing Eric's pure
Javascript translations of the ForEach capabilities is a breath of
fresh air revealing the real language hidden behind the ForEach
language.

Please note I am just thinking out loud and possibly overlooking many
things but isn't using jQuery just putting another learning curve
between Javascript and Javascript.

Could it be the seduction of more and more capabilities is putting a
greater gap between TiddlyWiki and real world applications rather than
otherwise? Is the engineering of the product becoming an end in itself
with the final application being of lesser importance, and traveling
expectantly becoming better than arriving? Perhaps Occam's Razor
should be considered about now:-)

Keep in mind had the Luddites been successful everyone would be
employed now.

Morris:-)

[Mark S.]

Hi Morris,

On Mar 21, 8:03 am, Morris Gray <msg...@symbex.net.au> wrote:
>
> Please note I am just thinking out loud and possibly overlooking many
> things but isn't using jQuery just putting another learning curve
> between Javascript and Javascript.
> Could it be the seduction of more and more capabilities is putting a
> greater gap between TiddlyWiki and real world applications rather than
> otherwise? Is the engineering of the product becoming an end in itself
> with the final application being of lesser importance, and traveling
> expectantly becoming better than arriving? Perhaps Occam's Razor
> should be considered about now:-)

I don't think its about capabilities. Check out the link to the thread
in the development forum in the original post.

On the face of it, javascript should be just about the easiest
language anywhere. Loose typing. Automatic variable creation. Easy
object model (as long as you're not interested in real classes).

The problem is the multitudinous ways it behaves in different
browsers, on different platforms. Browsers and platforms that are
always changing. IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari on Linux, Windows,
Macs. Each with various version numbers. TW has code to help smooth
out the differences between javascript systems, but jquery is
considered to be more robust. Chaining the plugin code to jquery means
fewer worries for the developers going forward. Or at least that's how
I read it.

> Keep in mind had the Luddites been successful everyone would be
> employed now.

Luddites rule!

-- Mark

[RA]

FND, I love the TiddlyViPlugin. Even in it's present capacity. I have
a very simple (honestly though, I have no idea how simlpe or complex
it is) FR: please move the command line to the bottom of the window.
Also, it would be great if you could find a permanent home for it,
where the future versions can be synced from (looking forward to
those).

Thanks

--R

[RA]

FND, could you point out the CSS class that I should use to add z-
index to the command line? Otherwise it remains hidden under my fixed
header area. Thanks.

[FND]

(We should move this discussion to a separate thread.)

> I love the TiddlyViPlugin. Even in it's present capacity.

Glad to hear that! (Sort of - see below... )
It's essentially two separate bits of functionality; keyboard navigation
and the command mode - which is the one that's interesting to you?

> please move the command line to the bottom of the window

That's not actually so easy - not with pure CSS anyway (among other
things, there's the issue of fixed positioning, page vs. viewport etc.).
However, you could use custom styles to change the position of the
element (see below).

Also, you might have noticed the to-do list in jQuery.CLI contains an
item "Quake-like dropdown console" - that would then combine the command
line and "output buffer" (also on that list).
However, it's a bit of a departure from the simple Ex-like command line,
so it might not be very compatible with your vision.

> it would be great if you could find a permanent home for it, where
> the future versions can be synced from

Well, I still consider this experimental, so I haven't properly released
it yet.
If/when I get to work on this again, I will find a proper location for it.
(As usual, any code contributions are welcome.)

> could you point out the CSS class that I should use to add z-index to
> the command line?

It's not a class (perhaps it should be?), it's an ID: "#CLI".
(FWIW, Firebug is a great help for this sort of thing.)

-- F.

[Knightnet]

Wow!!!

I haven't dropped in for a while but what an announcement to see - my
favourite JavaScript library integrated into TW.

This is exciting as it opens so many possibilities. Using jQuery
really is a breeze & it is so easy to do in-browser manipulation of
html, data links to servers are also really easy so automatically
backing changes up to a server "database" of some form, even a simple
XML file would be very easy indeed.

Great work - now if we could only work out a way to replicate the
interface of Microsoft OneNote ....

Regards,
Julian Knight
http://www.knightnet.org.uk, http://it.knightnet.org.uk


On Mar 10, 10:40 am, Jeremy Ruston <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We've just uploaded release 2.5.0 of TiddlyWiki tohttp://www.tiddlywiki.com/. It's an unusual release because it

> contains only a single new feature over and above what we delivered in
> the previous release 2.4.3, but the new feature is a very significant
> change: we've added the standard jQuery library to TiddlyWiki.
>
> The immediate consequence is that plugin authors can start to use the
> powerful facilities of jQuery to simplify and speed-up plugin
> development. Over the next few releases we'll be refactoring the
> TiddlyWiki core code to take advantage of jQuery too, which should see
> a reduction in the size of TiddlyWiki, and improvements in performance
> and flexibility.
>
> There's more details about this move over on the TiddlyWikiDev list:
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDev/browse_thread/thread/c07...