Basic Question Regarding TW5 Framework

[Christopher Walters]

Hi all,

I have dreams for creating a piece of software for this really niche purpose, and I found myself returning time and again to TiddlyWiki as the basis for a lot of it. 

My question is really basic, feels like it doesn't even really warrant a Conversation post 😅 What framework does TiddlyWiki use? 

I've heard of things like Angular or React, but I'm just looking for a name that I can research and learn on my own, for the purposes of replicating that aspects of TW5 that I enjoy so much. 

[TonyM]

Christopher,

Others can give a more technical origins story, but to me TiddlyWiki is the framework. It is a platform in its own right and relies on broad standards of HTML and Javascript. 

When incorporating Javascript you need to be aware of the way tiddlywiki works because its efficient update propagation to the whole wiki when a change occurs is what gives tiddlywiki power to a developer and user.

Because of this use of standard software standards plus a set of mechanisium in many cases its possible to plug in many alternative technologies, both in single file files and even more so on Node JS server implementations.

A key thing to remember is most of tiddlywiki is totally visible even within a single empty.html, by learning how to navigate the internals of tiddlywiki it becomes self documenting and you can follow a current function to learn how its done and clone and build a new new and novel solution.

A piece of advice to New users and javascript writers is as a platform or framework much can be achieved already tiddlywiki without resorting to new Javascript code. I believe the key input needed by javascript coders is filling gaps in functionality or performance when needed or creating engines for complex computations. Fortunately open source projects in javascript or HTML can be and have being, "ported" into the tiddlywiki frame work successfully, and this makes use of other open source communities efforts. 

I feel tiddlywiki is about both niche and general solutions but I have adopted it as my development environment of choice on top of which I can build anything including tools to build TiddlyWiki's or websites and apps.

Regards

Tony

[Joshua Fontany]

Yes, TiddlyWiki5 is definitely its own "paradigm". While similar to React, in that a javascript model is updated, and these updated are passed to the "DOM" to be rendered by the browser, it is very unique in how it is constructed and how updates are called.

Resources:

https://tiddlywiki.com/dev/

https://tiddlywiki.com/dev/#TiddlyWiki%20Core%20Application

https://softwareas.com/tiddlywiki-internals-1-of-3-architectural-concepts/

https://softwareas.com/tiddlywiki-internals-2-of-3-list-of-javascript-files/

https://softwareas.com/tiddlywiki-internals-3-of-3-key-javascript-classes-and-files/

https://btheado.github.io/tw-widget-tutorial/

Best,
Joshua Fontany

[Christopher Walters]

Okay, that's good to know, I guess I'll come back to this forum when I have a stronger understanding a Javascript/React. I've got plans for an Electron application, but I loved the text editing and Hyperlinking capabilities from TiddlyWiki, which is why I wanted to ask here. Thanks for your help. 

[TonyM]

Christopher,

95% of what tiddlywiki can do does not need  Javascript/React. It has its own wikitext and macro language and widgets to achieve almost anything. No to mention the plugins and editions available.

I have build my own rapid development environment on top of tiddlywiki without more than the odd hack given to me.

If you think you need to make use of Javascript/React no matter, but perhaps tell us what functionality you are trying to get, and we can tell you if its native or already available.

Regards

Tony

[Christopher Walters]

Well, I was hoping to learn Javascript/React for job opportunities besides, haha

I don't know how familiar you are with Dungeons and Dragons, but the idea I had for this software was to have a fast, responsive, organized way to organize Dungeon Master notes, which would include things like information on characters, locations, themes, and rules. I tried to do this for myself with just raw TiddlyWiki, but I found that TW was a little too fluid. I guess the easiest way to describe what I'm talking about would be to describe a potential use case. 

Here's a rough mockup of what I imagine the UI would be like.

The adventurers come to a haunted house. At the top of the page are tabs (a), with quick access to areas that could be relevant soon, but aren't currently the central focus. At the top of the main window, there are 'sub-tabs' (b), which link to pages for the various sub-pages within this larger area (Haunted House), like floors in a multi-story building. On one side of the main window is a map, where "rooms" are hyperlinked such that they navigate the app to the proper entry. Across from the map is a scrollable section (d), detailing all of the "rooms" on this "floor." This is where I really love TiddlyWiki's text editor, with the capacity to quickly format and link to other pages. In fact, when I was making this UI, I straight up took a screenshot of my old TiddlyWiki notes.

Within a moment, I could click the 'Floor 2' sub-tab, and everything within the map and the main notes area (c and d) would update accordingly. I could click 'Floor 1' and everything would return to this way it was before. 

I'd also like there to be a 'quick navigation' or 'quick search' function, something like the 'Ctrl + K' functionality that Discord has, that allows the DM to search for key words, and navigate to an entry very very quickly. 

I'm assuming that the 'rooms' or entries might have a path, something like `continent/country/region/village/Haunted House/floor/Spare Bedroom`, and that's what the link would contain. I could contain multiple rooms on the same floor with the same title, such as "Spare Bedroom", even though they would have different paths for linking purposes.

The text editor from TiddlyWiki mostly serves my purposes for a text editor perfectly, though there's a fair amount of customization that I'd actually like to cut down on, for the sake of user simplicity. 

[PMario]

Hi Christopher,

You may be interested in this hangout, where 2 D&D and TW enthusiasts present their stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imx-EzCOWGc&list=PLVT_2PPd-1p34gGCQ5qpwC8QdykxVAI3u&index=2

have fun!

mario

[TonyM]

Christopher,

Dungeon Master notes is possibly one of the most common specific uses of TiddlyWiki

Look for T5 TiddlyWiki 5 in discord this is where a lot of gamers reside.

This may work

https://discord.gg/cjEfap

Tones

[Christopher Walters]

Well as I mentioned, I've used TW5 for my DnD notes before, there's just a lot of little things that slowed the process down, which is why I was looking to create a software that streamlined the process.

[TonyM]

Christopher,

Great idea, and always welcome such initiatives, yet a lot of value can be obtained by researching previous work (Prior Art) before starting or after you capture you current ideas, the community can always help, if you break it into bite size pieces.

Tones

[Joshua Fontany]

EXCELLENT!

This was my primary motivation for learning tiddlywiki myself. I have been collecting design notes for a "GMGuild Wiki" TW Edition, which would bundle up a lot of my tools and other ad-hoc stuff into something very much like you describe. I'll throw a link to the Discord Channel where the other TW Gamers hang out.

https://discord.gg/kVjRpP

I am slowly progressing on the edition, and it will eventually be hosted in its own GitHub Repo where I can take pull-requests and merge in other's ideas, etc. Thanks for the detailed UI mockup, this helps a lot. I probably won't have anything worth showing for a few more weeks yet....

Best,
Joshua F

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[barro...@gmail.com]

Many people have adapted TW to table top rpg, many examples have been shown on the user group.

I have adapted TW to story creation & presentation, ttrpg & video game world building, interactive novel and ttrpg adventure presentation without having to resort to plugin ins or additional coding (though my custom tiddler creations could be considered plugins).  This thread shows some of what I achieved (there's an external link with plenty (17 iirc) of screenshots and layout diagram):

https://groups.google.com/g/tiddlywiki/c/gsKttLKxG_Y/m/Ca5k4BNLAgAJ