Cordon Blue

[BenTremblay]

*Sure is quiet in here!*

As you can see by http://wiki.osmosoft.com/alpha/pardelib#Resources
and my Journals there I've been spidering quite a bit.
When I come across something like the editor function in
http://www.giffmex.org/webviewtwexample.html the fact that Import is
of limited scope really hammers me in the head.

So thinking, I pondered how we might "sync" plugins / templates etc.
Of course ginsu / cook / recipes came to mind.

Anecdotally, ExtJS allows the download of a customized build.
With that in mind, and RFE comes to mind.

A repository where TWs could be built from scratch using the groups
aggregated resources. (Have any of you come across "Puppet"? "Make, on
steroids" is how one wag described it.)

For e.g. I uploade the empty.html's that I've collected.
Those go into a directory and get ginsu'd.
A menu is generated.
I select from that collection and the chimera is produced, for me to
download.
Heck, I can imagine an Import that would allow me to drag in Tiddlers
from whatever TWs I've loaded!

Apologies if this is madly impractical.

cheers
--bentrem

[Jeremy Ruston]

You might like to look at Chris Dent's work on TiddlyWeb. It's a new
serverside for TiddlyWiki that's currently in alpha that is designed
to do some of the things you're talking about (if I've understood you
correctly).

It uses a simple file-based store of individual tiddlers on the
server, and provides tools to import individual TiddlyWiki files into
"bags" on the server. You can then browse to individidual "recipes"
are that build a custom TW document on the fly by splicing and dicing
those tiddlers. It sounds mindbending until you get your head around
the concepts. Have a look here:

http://www.tiddlywiki.org/wiki/TiddlyWeb

There's a demo site here:

http://peermore.com:8080/recipes/AutoTiddlyWeb/tiddlers.wiki

If you've the stomach for it, installing TiddlyWeb locally so that you
can poke about in it is surprisingly easy:

http://trac.tiddlywiki.org/browser/Trunk/contributors/ChrisDent/experimental/TiddlyWeb/COOKBOOK

Cheers

Jeremy

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

[BenTremblay]

On Jun 27, 4:03 am, "Jeremy Ruston" <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You might like to look at Chris Dent's work on TiddlyWeb. It's a new
> serverside for TiddlyWiki that's currently in alpha that is designed
> to do some of the things you're talking about (if I've understood you
> correctly).

To a friend from Newfoundland I once said "Great minds think alike" to
which he replied, "Sure ... and fools seldom differ".
;-)

Late last night I posted one of Chris' pages to the wiki on
http://tiddlywiki.org/wiki/Dev_talk:Recipe
http://peermore.com:8080/recipes/AutoTiddlyWeb/tiddlers

Someone could yell at me to RTFArchives, because 25June08 Anthony
Muscio posted "Publish Tiddlers for collection by other tiddlyWiki's"
which pretty much covers the same ground as my "CordonBlue" idea.
http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDev/browse_thread/thread/b6d557633a6f447a

> It uses a simple file-based store of individual tiddlers on the
> server, and provides tools to import individual TiddlyWiki files into
> "bags" on the server. You can then browse to individidual "recipes"
> are that build a custom TW document on the fly by splicing and dicing
> those tiddlers. It sounds mindbending until you get your head around
> the concepts.

Conceptually it's very much what I was thinking ... but it doesn't
seem to make use of Ginshu and Cook ... duplication of effort?

> Have a look here:
> http://www.tiddlywiki.org/wiki/TiddlyWeb

Thanks kindly ... I have it onscreen ... spot on.

> There's a demo site here:
> http://peermore.com:8080/recipes/AutoTiddlyWeb/tiddlers.wiki

Yaa, saw that ... cited it's TechnicalOverview in my /alpha/ TW.

> If you've the stomach for it, installing TiddlyWeb locally so that you
> can poke about in it is surprisingly easy:

> http://trac.tiddlywiki.org/browser/Trunk/contributors/ChrisDent/exper...
URL got snipped?

Anywhoo ... no, I'd rather not go that way. I mean I will for my own
elucidation, but what I'm aiming at is something that could used by a
user who's somewhere between raw/naive and dev-geek.

> Cheers
back atcha

> Jeremy

> > [...]

> > When I come across something like the editor function in

> >http://www.giffmex.org/webviewtwexample.htmlthe fact that Import is

> > of limited scope really hammers me in the head.
>
> > So thinking, I pondered how we might "sync" plugins / templates etc.
> > Of course ginsu / cook / recipes came to mind.

> > [...]

> > A repository where TWs could be built from scratch using the groups

> > aggregated resources. [...]

[RichShumaker]

I like what you are discussing here a lot.
List of 'things' TW can do - -> this links to plug ins and other code
required to do it.
You select what you want in an Ala Carte Fashion.
The server then combines your Taco, Fried Rice, Ice Cream Combo with a
Drink and creates a custom download for you.

Instead of the end users needing to know how and what to add the
Developer or Other Users have done that work ahead of time.
The regular person just picks, Blue background, Upload Ability, ToDo
Lists, Video Playback and they get a single HTML file even potentially
named for them as that could be part of the set up process.

If I mis understood your concept I hope my concept is not to far off
the mark.
Even if my concept is really far off the mark I might talk to some of
my friends that 'code' about how to make this using the standard Web
Tools that exist.

Rich Shumaker

[BenTremblay]

On Jun 27, 4:21 pm, RichShumaker <richshuma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I like what you are discussing here a lot.

Oooh, wonderful.
I'll repeat this: 25JUNE08 http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWikiDev/browse_thread/thread/b6d557633a6f447a
"If we're on different pages, then that's fine.
If we're on the same page, maybe we can start a topic on Dev Wiki."
That's what I posted in reply to Anthony
Muscio's "Publish Tiddlers for collection", immediately following your
reply.
> http://snipurl.com/2q825 <

> List of 'things' TW can do - -> this links to plug ins and other code
> required to do it.

And, in its own context, this would be accompanied by Demos and
Samples and Examples, much like sites where templates are on offer.
(WordPress is what I know best.)
I note that backstage Import goes some distance there ... italics for
Tiddlers that haven't been imported is a step ... links to more
information, likewise. But it's aweful intense in that seetting.

> You select what you want in an Ala Carte Fashion.
> The server then combines your Taco, Fried Rice, Ice Cream Combo with a
> Drink and creates a custom download for you.

Ahh that brings me back ... 1 coffee shop in Halifax had this peculiar/
delicious burnt-sugar/caramel syrup.
*oh-woops, sorry!*

Yes yes, just so.
But now, of course, we have to deal with collisions in name space.
see "Merging Tiddlers" here > http://snipurl.com/2q874 <

My thinking is this (after a 2 hour session of Import / Tweak / Save /
Upload):
Revision and history are core concepts; MainMenu today is not the same
as MainMenu last Tuesday ... those are the equivalent of prettyURLs,
nothing more. Of course we need to maintain human-readable, but
there's no reason the system needs to be stuhpud.

> Instead of the end users needing to know how and what to add the
> Developer or Other Users have done that work ahead of time.

Let's face it ... 80% read, 19% participate, and 1% create ... that's
just the lay of the land.
That 19% is my constituency ... if someone's willing to try Copy/Paste
when they see something they like, then that person deserves a leg up.
(I code ... but I'm not a programmer. There are lotsa folk like me.)

A well indexed central repository along with some implementation of
Ginsu, Cook, Chef, and Recipes > http://snipurl.com/2q89s < (I'm still
trying to grok Chris Dent's "bags") would do the trick, methinks.

> The regular person just picks, Blue background, Upload Ability, ToDo
> Lists, Video Playback and they get a single HTML file even potentially
> named for them as that could be part of the set up process.

I got so sidetracked by Plugins and Import that I've totally ignored
look / style / layout!

> If I mis understood your concept I hope my concept is not to far off
> the mark.

Spot on, so far as I can tell.

> Even if my concept is really far off the mark I might talk to some of
> my friends that 'code' about how to make this using the standard Web
> Tools that exist.

I think the tools we have are a good start. (I just tried to reference
the reply Jeremy Rushton contributed to this thread but damned if I
can find where google provides a permalink ... pretty lame.)

cheers!

> Rich Shumaker
ben

[RichShumaker]

I too, as many here, worked for a DotBust.
So I have several friends that code in a variety of languages.

I was thinking that you would take the TiddlyWiki stuff(Code, plug
ins, themes) and drop that into a database(MySQL or other) and use PHP
or AJAX or something to glue it together.
Then you would create an easy to use site to select all the stuff you
wanted.

The PHP or other language would 'bake' the TiddlyWiki and spit out a
downloadable file, or email you the file, or email you a link to the
file. Depending on how you do it.
If you made it a community site people could create their own versions
and share them and comment on other peoples versions or rate them.
Then you would see the 5 star versions of different genres of TW. The
most popular downloaded versions. You could also have ratings for the
genres. Like the Resarch genre, the GTD genre, the ToDo genre, the
Photo genre. I think you see where I am going.
Then people could start to interact with each other on a TW level. I
think I just creeped myself out with that last sentence.

So that is that. On to a movie or to cleaning or to something away
from the computer for a bit.

Rich Shumaker

[Daniel Baird]

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 7:28 AM, RichShumaker <richsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]

> Then you would see the 5 star versions of different genres of TW. The
> most popular downloaded versions. You could also have ratings for the
> genres. Like the Resarch genre, the GTD genre, the ToDo genre, the
> Photo genre. I think you see where I am going.

If I recall correctly, this is pretty much exactly what BDFL Jeremy
described a year or two ago when he was talking about his vision for
tiddlywiki.org. At that point it depended on developers making
versions of TW using the "cook" tool, but I guess TiddlyWeb will make
that part a bit easier.

Oh no.. I just realised TiddlyWeb has the same initials as TiddlyWiki.

So anyway, I suspect you will get your wish, Rich.

--
Daniel Baird
/to be or not to be/ => /(2b|[^2]b)/ => /(2|[^2])b/ => /.b/
...optimise your regexes, people!

[Jeremy Ruston]

That's right. This is all a response to the super-swiss-army-knife
nature of TiddlyWiki; it's so generic that it's hard for many people
to get their heads around it on first (or second or third) meeting.

These "vertical editions" would be things like
http://gtd.tiddlywiki.com/ and http://studentnotes.tiddlywiki.com/.
They would each in effect be TiddlyWiki with some bits taken out,
making them simpler to understand. So, the personal note-taking
edition might completely hide all the server adaptor stuff.

There's many useful verticals that just differ in content, too - using
different terminology for "tiddler", for instance.

One of the troubles with real life (as opposed to what goes on in my
head) is that things take way longer than I generally expect.
TiddlyWiki seems to be a multi-year journey - which is cool, given
that the alternative would be for it to be temporary and ephemeral.
Anyhow, we're now at the point where this sort of thing is practical
and just takes a little bit more impetus. Hopefully we can harness
your enthusiasm to speed things up a little, too :)

Cheers

Jerm

--

[BenTremblay]

On Jun 29, 2:35 am, "Jeremy Ruston" <jeremy.rus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's right. This is all a response to the super-swiss-army-knife
> nature of TiddlyWiki; it's so generic that it's hard for many people
> to get their heads around it on first (or second or third) meeting.

That's definitely part of my experience ... on my first contact with
things TW I /really/ wasn't impressed; the core concept seemed
incoherent to me. And when I finally dove into the pool (with
Osmosoft's /alpha/) I got tangled up and snagged on so many elements I
was quite bewildered ... the "learning curve" was more like a 15 foot
rock wall; hardly insurmountable, but called for some focussed effort.

> These "vertical editions" would be things likehttp://gtd.tiddlywiki.com/andhttp://studentnotes.tiddlywiki.com/.

Both of these are 404, alas.

> They would each in effect be TiddlyWiki with some bits taken out,
> making them simpler to understand.

Yes yes, just so.
I'm imagining a set of exemplar TWs (which I'm creating locally) that
are kind of exhaustive with some aspect of functionality ... one that
has a large set of tiddler having to do with format / themese / style,
another that's near exhaustive on presentation, sliders and menus and
that sort of thing.
In effect each of those TWs will act as a bag ... if I grasp Chris'
concept.

> So, the personal note-taking edition might completely hide all
> the server adaptor stuff.

See, this n00b's understanding is so slight, he gets thrown by
something as simple as "server adaptor stuff"! (!j/k)

> There's many useful verticals that just differ in content, too - using
> different terminology for "tiddler", for instance.

Gadd, that's unfortunate ... consistent nomenclature really helps the
naive user.

> One of the troubles with real life (as opposed to what goes on in my
> head) is that things take way longer than I generally expect.

Advancing on all fronts ... not simple, not easy.

> Anyhow, we're now at the point where this sort of thing is practical

> and just takes a little bit more impetus.[...]
I see a lot of the elements around.

On Jun 28, 4:17 pm, "Daniel Baird" <danielba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> At that point it depended on developers making versions of
> TW using the "cook" tool, but I guess TiddlyWeb will make
> that part a bit easier.

For example http://tiddlyweb.appspot.com/recipes/wiki ... not exactly
a handsome page, but still ...
... the two links on it produce two lists that are very similar, but
not identical (so far as I can tell), so that duality just confuses
me.
But still, in either one we see the list of tiddlers (modules?
elements? chunks?)
And both lists are headed by "These Tiddlers as a TiddlyWiki".

Now, that's the end point of what I imagine with CordonBlue ... served
up on a plate.
What I see missing is the selection process ... imagine a really slick
e-commerce shopping site, where you add items to your basket,
reviewing changing de-selecting and adding as you go ... those who
lists are the penultimate step, "reviewing your selections; proceed to
checkout" sorta thing.

So, to switch metaphors, it's a matter of going through bags to find
choice tiddlers and adding those to a sack (a cart?) and eventually
leading to "Serve me what I want!"

[chris...@gmail.com]

What you've been describing and is captured below is essentially what
TiddlyWeb and several other tools like it are working to reach.
TiddlyWeb is "not exactly [...] handsome" because it is a) still a
work in progress, b) a web service, not a web application.

When the data structures presented and managed by TiddlyWeb are
robust, it will be quite easy to develop _handsome_ tools that do what
you describe. It's been a goal for a long time, and we're almost
there.

The TiddlyWeb idea is not that TiddlyWeb itself is the handsome tool,
but rather is the data engine on which many handsome tools can rest.
Some of those tools will be TiddlyWiki itself, with a suite of plugins
'where you add items to your basket, reviewing changing de-selecting

and adding as you go ... those who lists are the penultimate step,

"reviewing your selections; proceed to checkout" sorta thing.'

On Jun 29, 9:28 pm, BenTremblay <ab...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
> For examplehttp://tiddlyweb.appspot.com/recipes/wiki... not exactly

[BenTremblay]

On Jun 29, 3:43 pm, "cd...@peermore.com" <chris.d...@gmail.com> wrote:

>[...]

>
> The TiddlyWeb idea is not that TiddlyWeb itself is the handsome tool,
> but rather is the data engine on which many handsome tools can rest.

Hear, hear!
A wonderful (refreshingly sane!) route of march.
FWIW my deep-background (read: stealth mode) project is moving in just
that way ... I can skin the thing any number of ways, but I want the
data schema to be robust.
Just so!

> Some of those tools will be TiddlyWiki itself, with a suite of plugins
> 'where you add items to your basket, reviewing changing de-selecting
> and adding as you go ... those who lists are the penultimate step,
> "reviewing your selections; proceed to checkout" sorta thing.'

What I see in my minds eye, again, is that for each tiddler / plugin
there's a way to view it in action (demo) as well as friction-free
access to usage and dependencies.

wunnerful!

ben

p.s. I'm finding quite a number of Plugins that don't have a related
PluginInfo tiddler ... and, at the same time, the Plugin tiddler seems
to have way way more information than is needed for its operation. I
guess I'm wondering why folk aren't a) rigorous about creating an Info
tiddler and b) parsimonious in their Plugin tiddlers. When Plugin and
PluginInfo are elegant, I think that will go at least a good step to
making recipes cook with gas.

[BenTremblay]

On Jun 28, 3:28 pm, RichShumaker <richshuma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]

> I was thinking that you would take the TiddlyWiki stuff(Code, plug
> ins, themes) and drop that into a database(MySQL or other) and use PHP
> or AJAX or something to glue it together.
> Then you would create an easy to use site to select all the stuff you
> wanted.

Ayup ... just what came to mind, exactly. I mean obviously we're
working with the same set of paradigms.

Here's part of the ExtJS Build selection process ...
... basic, parsimonious, effective ...

I'm also concentrating on providing a rich set of demo / example /
info functions, like a good e-commerce experience.
From Dojo and again from ExtJS:
http://dojocampus.org/explorer/
http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/samples.html

> The PHP or other language would 'bake' the TiddlyWiki and spit out a
> downloadable file, or email you the file, or email you a link to the
> file. Depending on how you do it.

Ayup ...lotsa different paths. And here my deficiencies manifest big-
time ... big chunks of implementation are over my head.

What I was pondering earlier is whether to give that build its own
unique identifier, so a person could return and replicate / tweak at
some time post-delivery w/o Redo from Start.

> If you made it a community site people could create their own versions
> and share them and comment on other peoples versions or rate them.

A very nice idea ... a showcase / gallery.
So here enters granularity ... access to a simple plugin VS access to
an entire purpose-built TW.

> Then you would see the 5 star versions of different genres of TW. The
> most popular downloaded versions. You could also have ratings for the
> genres. Like the Resarch genre, the GTD genre, the ToDo genre, the
> Photo genre. I think you see where I am going.

Indeed.
This morning I started sketching out category / nomenclature /
taxonomy, hence my visits to Dojo and ExtJS.

> Then people could start to interact with each other on a TW level. I
> think I just creeped myself out with that last sentence.

It's a brave new world!
;-)

--bentrem