[ Streams ] : feedback and issues

[Saq Imtiaz]

Please post your feedback and any issues for Streams here or on github: https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams

Demo: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

Before posting a bug report please make sure you have the latest version of the plugin from the above link.

Previous thread and background: https://groups.google.com/forum/?oldui=1#!topic/tiddlywiki/KeVDndcnY0g%5B1-25%5D

I am focusing only on bug reports for now until I have greater availability. However, all feedback will be considered when further development takes places. 

The code needs a full review for consistency after the last major refactoring in which fields were renamed among other changes, before new features can be added.

[Saq Imtiaz]

If you would like shorter auto-generated titles for new tiddlers, remember that you can tweak how titles are generated by editing:

$:/config/sq/streams/new-node-title

Examples:

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#Customizing%20bullet%20titles

For very short titles, make use of the unusedtitle macro that is part of the TW core.

For example:

<$macrocall $name="unusedtitle" baseName=<<stream-root-title>>/>

Will give nodes of the Streams tiddler titles like Streams 1, Streams 2, Streams 3 etc.

[Saq Imtiaz]

Now at version 0.1.9. 

Some bug fixes and CSS tweaks over the last week

No official change-log but for now this might be useful to see what has changed:

https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams/commits/master

[TW Tones]

Saq,

Thanks for the (minor) update of this powerful tool, I would even encourage new users to use streams as a way to immediately capture value from tiddlywiki. Perhaps an edition published with a small set of changes and the streams plugin deserves to be published.

As I have said before and will say again, I am very impressed with your design, and the addition of the custom "auto-generated titles" is a testament to good design choices you have made. Streams could be leveraged to be the heat of a knowledge database and more.

I see that if I open the subtiddler (for want of a better name) separately, that a breadcrumb trail can guide me back to the root, or I can build further structure in a subtiddler and it will appear in the main stream.

My own exploration now is to;

• Find a subtiddler naming standard that adds real value
• Make full use of your designs flexibility
• Develop ideas for your consideration and future availability
• streams 2.0
• possible fork more tightly integrated with tiddlywiki as a whole. 

Once again

Thanks so much for this Tiddlywiki Gem

TW Tones

[Saq Imtiaz]

Version 0.1.10

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

• added option to disable breadcrumbs
• added feature to add commands to context menu via tagged tiddlers

[Jan]

Hi Saq,
I want to propose a small tweak defining the streamroot variable in $:/plugins/sq/streams/nodes-list-template

\define streamroot()
 <$list filter="[all[current]!has[draft-of]]+[split[/]limit[1]]" emptyMessage={{!!draft-of}}/>
\end

<$vars stream-root-title=<<streamroot>>

This avoids draft-of-titles and the doubling of datesuffixes.
thanks again for this great plugin.

Cheers Jan

Am 03.07.2020 um 17:29 schrieb Saq Imtiaz:

Please post your feedback and any issues for Streams here or on github: https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams

Demo: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

Previous thread and background: https://groups.google.com/forum/?oldui=1#!topic/tiddlywiki/KeVDndcnY0g%5B1-25%5D

I am focusing only on bug reports for now until I have greater availability. However, all feedback will be considered when further development takes places. 

The code needs a fully review for consistency after the last major refactoring in which fields were renamed among other changes, before new features can be added.

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[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Jan,

Interesting! I am happy you are tinkering with this further but I am not sure I entirely follow so please help me understand what you want to achieve.

Am I correct in thinking that you want to:

1. not have Streams active on draft tiddlers
2. not have titles like: Roadmap/20200529194658065/20200529194658090

For (1) the draft tiddlers I am a bit confused. Since Drafts only open in the edittemplate, where Streams is not visible or active, where are you running into this issue? Are you using Streams in the edit template? 

If you can explain how and where this is causing issues that would be very helpful in finding the best solution.

Note also that you can tweak $:/config/sq/streams/stream-enable-filter to exclude drafts.

Regarding (2) note that the variable stream-root is also needed in action-macros and the "split" modification you suggest would surely create issues. In particular if you open a tiddler with a / in the title and it has stream nodes, some of the actions will likely fail.

So I suggest to try instead to tinker with the title for new nodes in $:/config/sq/streams/new-node-title

Note that the contents of this tiddler are wikified to get the new node title, so you can do something like this:

\define streamroot()
 <$list filter="[<stream-root-title>]+[split[/]limit[1]]"/>
\end

<<streamroot>>/<<now "[UTC]YYYY0MM0DD0hh0mm0ssXXX">>

I am very happy you are tinkering with this and am definitely willing to make changes to make the plugin more flexible. I just want to understand the use-cases and potential issues, and make sure we keep the big picture in mind when finding solutions.

Cheers,

Saq

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 11:37:19 AM UTC+2, Jan wrote:

Hi Saq,
I want to propose a small tweak defining the streamroot variable in $:/plugins/sq/streams/nodes-list-template

\define streamroot()
 <$list filter="[all[current]!has[draft-of]]+[split[/]limit[1]]" emptyMessage={{!!draft-of}}/>
\end

<$vars stream-root-title=<<streamroot>>

This avoids draft-of-titles and the doubling of datesuffixes.
thanks again for this great plugin.

Cheers Jan



Am 03.07.2020 um 17:29 schrieb Saq Imtiaz:

Please post your feedback and any issues for Streams here or on github: https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams

Demo: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

Previous thread and background: https://groups.google.com/forum/?oldui=1#!topic/tiddlywiki/KeVDndcnY0g%5B1-25%5D

I am focusing only on bug reports for now until I have greater availability. However, all feedback will be considered when further development takes places. 

The code needs a fully review for consistency after the last major refactoring in which fields were renamed among other changes, before new features can be added.

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[Saq Imtiaz]

PS: in fact you could shorten the below to a one-liner: 

{{{[<stream-root-title>split[/]limit[1]]}}}/<<now "[UTC]YYYY0MM0DD0hh0mm0ssXXX">>

[PMario]

Hi Saq,

I did use stream to make notes for the DAT-CON some days ago. This is a short info about my experience, which was very good over all, with some hickups

What really worked well for me:

1) Collecting notes _and_ a structure can be done in "real time" while watching the conference video

2) Following the chat and copy paste links and info from the chat into the stream structure works in "real time"

3) tab - "indent node" and shift-tab - "uninedent node" are intuitive. No thinking needed.

4) ctrl - up / down ... just works

5) I use this format for tiddler names: <<stream-root-title>>/<<now "YYYY/0MM/0DD/0hh:0mm:0ss-0XXX">>

6) I use [!is[shadow]has[stream-type]]  as a stream enable filter. This may change in the future.

7) I use this line <$vars stream-root-title={{{[<currentTiddler>split[/]limit[1]]}}} in the nodes-list-template. So tiddler names are created as shown in 5) .. NO long node names. ... The disadvantage is, that "sub streams" don't get a (+) new Node button ... Only the "main stream" tiddler has this button. ..

8) I do like the tiddler-title format as shown in 5), because it automatically creates a visible "timeline", when the nodes have been taken and the core <<tree "DAT-CON/">> macro will be able to deal with it after I did create a new "leaf template" for the macro.

My personal hickups ;)

a) I did notice again, that I can't deal with hidden information.

    a.1) I need the "stream-node-collapser" to be visible as soon as child elements exist, similar to "toc-selective-expandable"

    a.2) Waiting for the hover effect doesn't work for me.

    a.3) I need the "collapser" to be in a different colour.

b) I need the cheat sheet to be tagged $:/tags/SideBar so I can have it open all the time in the sidebar

c) I saw I only can deal with the existing keyboard shortcuts if the "cheat sheet" is open.

Existing is:

• Ctrl+Enter - save
• Enter - save and create new node with text after cursor -> For me personally this functionality is frustrating without an Undo :/ Especially in "refactoring mode" a day later.
  
• Shift+Enter - add a linebreak without saving
• Alt+Enter - split longer text into multiple nodes. (default is to split on two linebreaks)

I would like to have them default like this:

• Enter - add a linebreak without saving

Ctrl+Enter - save and create new node - no splitting
Shift+Enter - save and create new node with text splitting -> Default disabled for me. I don't want it.

• Alt+Enter - split longer text into multiple nodes. I need a confirmation dialogue, even if it is slower. .. Fixing the problem if hitting this combination by accident is a 100 times more time consuming

So in the end it should be configurable.

d) Using stream-root-title as described in 7) removes the (+) new Node button from "subtiddlers" ... Couldn't find the code yet.

That's basically it.

Have fun and thanks for your great work!

mario

[PMario]

The link: http://dat-conf-2020.tiddlyspot.com/

-m

[Ken Gray]

A few observations from a newbie.

• I didn't realize I could edit the nodes at first but then got to them by accident by hitting the bullet.
  
  • it may not be the way it was designed to be used so I may be off label use.
  • it may already be your plan, but if you can put the sub-tiddler's name where you have the warning about it being "This is in active development..." message.  Highlighting would be helpful as well. 
    
    • my eye keeps going to the title and that's not useful but that may just come in time.
  • i'd like it to go directly into editing the tiddler when double-clicking.
•  The 'fold the body' doesn't fold as much as i'd expect (it doesn't fold the stream).
• I don't see how to set those options above.

Looking forward to getting this into gold master so I can really start to use it.  I'm thinking meetings and brainstorming is where this is really going to take off.

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Pmario,

It's actually really nice to get some detailed feedback from real world usage, so firstly, thank you!

I probably haven't tried quite so hard to make time to work on Streams recently since there has been radio silence around it, which would suggest it is either perfect (hah!) or that no one is using it.

6) I use [!is[shadow]has[stream-type]]  as a stream enable filter. This may change in the future.

I welcome suggestions for a sensible default for this.

 

7) I use this line <$vars stream-root-title={{{[<currentTiddler>split[/]limit[1]]}}} in the nodes-list-template. So tiddler names are created as shown in 5) .. NO long node names. ... The disadvantage is, that "sub streams" don't get a (+) new Node button ... Only the "main stream" tiddler has this button. ..

So two things to address here:

i) have you tried setting this format for tiddler titles in $:/config/sq/streams/new-node-title, instead of changing the stream-root variable:

{{{[<stream-root-title>split[/]limit[1]]}}}/<<now "[UTC]YYYY0MM0DD0hh0mm0ssXXX">>

I think this will accomplish the same thing without the need for editing nodes-list-template, which may cause issues with the drag and drop code as well.

ii) it was a design decision to only have the (+) add node button on the root stream, and not the sub nodes. I now see this isn't convenient. This will be changed, thank you for pointing it out.

 

8) I do like the tiddler-title format as shown in 5), because it automatically creates a visible "timeline", when the nodes have been taken and the core <<tree "DAT-CON/">> macro will be able to deal with it after I did create a new "leaf template" for the macro.

Could you point out the leaf template please? I'd like to add examples like these to the documentation.

 

My personal hickups ;)

a) I did notice again, that I can't deal with hidden information.

    a.1) I need the "stream-node-collapser" to be visible as soon as child elements exist, similar to "toc-selective-expandable"

    a.2) Waiting for the hover effect doesn't work for me.

    a.3) I need the "collapser" to be in a different colour.

This is really just down to a design decision try and find balance between usability and clutter where possible, but you have a very valid point. I'd love to get more user feedback in order to establish a sensible default, while allowing this to be customizable. Since this is just CSS, it can be easily made into a config option that toggles some css in the stylesheet.

 

b) I need the cheat sheet to be tagged $:/tags/SideBar so I can have it open all the time in the sidebar

I'd actually love some help with tidying up that tiddler to improve readability.

 

Regarding keyboard shortcuts, the bottom line is that they need to be made configurable since everyone willl have different needs and expectations.

• Enter - save and create new node with text after cursor -> For me personally this functionality is frustrating without an Undo :/ Especially in "refactoring mode" a day later.
  

There is actually commented out code in Streams right now that handles an undo. I haven't made that active yet for two reasons:

i) I want to add a confirmation both for splitting the text at the cursor, and for merging back with the previous node

ii) I have an idea to separate out all such "word processor" features to a separate sub-plugin

• Alt+Enter - split longer text into multiple nodes. I need a confirmation dialogue, even if it is slower. .. Fixing the problem if hitting this combination by accident is a 100 times more time consuming

A confirmation dialogue makes sense and will be added.

 

Thank you again for the detailed feedback, I've added notes on to my local copy of the Roadmap and will push it to github once I've had the chance to tidy it up.

Cheers,
Saq

[PMario]

On Tuesday, August 11, 2020 at 6:13:53 PM UTC+2, Saq Imtiaz wrote:

...

It's actually really nice to get some detailed feedback from real world usage, so firstly, thank you!

I did like the fast workflow very much!

 

I probably haven't tried quite so hard to make time to work on Streams recently since there has been radio silence around it, which would suggest it is either perfect (hah!) or that no one is using it.

:)

6) I use [!is[shadow]has[stream-type]]  as a stream enable filter. This may change in the future.

I welcome suggestions for a sensible default for this.

Yea, I didn't want to have it with every tiddler. ... But my choice needs a manual input of the "stream-type: default" field. So I think I'd need to make a new button. .. So we need a "Streams Icon" ... @anyone?

 

 

7) I use this line <$vars stream-root-title={{{[<currentTiddler>split[/]limit[1]]}}} in the nodes-list-template. So tiddler names are created as shown in 5) .. NO long node names. ... The disadvantage is, that "sub streams" don't get a (+) new Node button ... Only the "main stream" tiddler has this button. ..

So two things to address here:

i) have you tried setting this format for tiddler titles in $:/config/sq/streams/new-node-title, instead of changing the stream-root variable:

{{{[<stream-root-title>split[/]limit[1]]}}}/<<now "[UTC]YYYY0MM0DD0hh0mm0ssXXX">>

I think this will accomplish the same thing without the need for editing nodes-list-template, which may cause issues with the drag and drop code as well.

You are right. That seems to fix the next problem for me too!

 

ii) it was a design decision to only have the (+) add node button on the root stream, and not the sub nodes. I now see this isn't convenient. This will be changed, thank you for pointing it out.

Sorry. I wasn't clear enough. ... I meant "sub nodes" in a separated tiddler. ... But as written above. Your new-node-title construction seems to fix both problems, that I had with my "hacks"

 

 

8) I do like the tiddler-title format as shown in 5), because it automatically creates a visible "timeline", when the nodes have been taken and the core <<tree "DAT-CON/">> macro will be able to deal with it after I did create a new "leaf template" for the macro.

Could you point out the leaf template please? I'd like to add examples like these to the documentation.

I'm not sure, what I actually want, yet. ... So I'll update the DAT-CONF link once I've done more refactoring. ... As you know, I also want to make my tocP macro usable with the stream structure. But I'm not sure, if I should show the "first line of text" or if I should use "caption" or "subtitle".

 

 

My personal hickups ;)

a) I did notice again, that I can't deal with hidden information.

    a.1) I need the "stream-node-collapser" to be visible as soon as child elements exist, similar to "toc-selective-expandable"

    a.2) Waiting for the hover effect doesn't work for me.

    a.3) I need the "collapser" to be in a different colour.

This is really just down to a design decision try and find balance between usability and clutter where possible, but you have a very valid point. I'd love to get more user feedback in order to establish a sensible default, while allowing this to be customizable. Since this is just CSS, it can be easily made into a config option that toggles some css in the stylesheet.

At the DAT-CON I did a little bit of CSS tweaking between the video sessions. ... So I could go on with taking notes ;)

 

 

b) I need the cheat sheet to be tagged $:/tags/SideBar so I can have it open all the time in the sidebar

I'd actually love some help with tidying up that tiddler to improve readability.

 

Regarding keyboard shortcuts, the bottom line is that they need to be made configurable since everyone willl have different needs and expectations.

That's right. As I wrote, during a session it's "kind of" OK. .... But the next day I tend to mess it up, at the beginning.

 

• Enter - save and create new node with text after cursor -> For me personally this functionality is frustrating without an Undo :/ Especially in "refactoring mode" a day later.
  

There is actually commented out code in Streams right now that handles an undo. I haven't made that active yet for two reasons:

i) I want to add a confirmation both for splitting the text at the cursor, and for merging back with the previous node

ii) I have an idea to separate out all such "word processor" features to a separate sub-plugin

OK

 

• Alt+Enter - split longer text into multiple nodes. I need a confirmation dialogue, even if it is slower. .. Fixing the problem if hitting this combination by accident is a 100 times more time consuming

A confirmation dialogue makes sense and will be added.

 

Thank you again for the detailed feedback, I've added notes on to my local copy of the Roadmap and will push it to github once I've had the chance to tidy it up.

You are welcome!

-mario

[Keelan Cook]

Saq,

I've been lurking in this group for a few months now, and your comment wondering whether or not people are using Streams has pulled me out of the shadows! I wanted to vocalize how significant this plugin has become to my workflow. 

A bit of background on my usage. I'm a professor and do a lot of research in history and the humanities. My work requires a really good notetaking workflow. On the other hand, I'm not even close to a programmer. So, I gravitate toward out-of-the-box systems, and they always have pain points.

I've fiddled with TiddlyWiki off and on for several years. I've always wanted it to work for me, because I really admire the project. But, the ease of editing and quick note capture (as well as design aesthetics) usually ended my attempts and sent me back to other tools. Enter Streams.

Like many others in this group, over the last 2-3 months the rise of TiddlyWiki as a Roam alternative pulled me back into the conversation. Dave's Stroll was instrumental in getting me back in. I stumbled on several themes that remove distaste for the UI. And then Streams became the pièce de résistance. Quick capture in adjustable outline form that allows for capturing literature notes and then drafting up outlines for longer form articles and books. I use your Stories plugin as well. I can pull up a Stream tiddler with source notes on one side and drag and drop content into my outline for works I'm creating. This is exactly what I've needed.

Bimlas echoed my sentiments well in this recent post concerning ways to use TiddlyWiki: https://groups.google.com/g/tiddlywiki/c/Re11x96t-qI/m/GYuMKHx0AQAJ

I've been actively working to create my own, bespoke, note-taking environment and I finally feel like all the pieces are there in TiddlyWiki to do so. 

So, I for one, am very interested in your continued work on Streams. It's minimalist, unobtrusive, and powerful for a researcher. I'm happy to provide any feedback that may be helpful to you, understanding I'm only able to speak toward end use and not the coding aspect of it. 

Thanks so much for your work on this. It's been a game changer for me, and I've recommended it to several others in my field at this point.

Keelan

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Keelan,

Thank you for the detailed feedback and for explaining the context behind your usage. It is very helpful to get a different perspective on things and to know that others find it useful. 

My TiddlyWiki fiddling is something I do on my own time in addition to two fairly demanding day jobs. While it is enjoyable for me, I must admit that I carry over from my professional life the desire to be productive and efficient in what little time I do have for it. Feedback goes a long way towards knowing what to focus my energy and time on.

The combination of the Stories plugin and Streams is what I had in mind when I worked on the drag and drop support within Streams. I haven't really mentioned this anywhere so I am glad to hear you realized the possiblities in this. I think there is need of a bespoke customized TiddlyWiki edition around Streams (and other plugins) to fully utilize its potential. For example, you could if so desired, get the backlinks in Stroll to reference only the root node of each backlink instead of each node. Similarly, the search could be adapted to better integrate with Streams tiddlers as well. Unfortunately that isn't something I have the time to devote to myself.

I do have a few questions for you if have the time:

1. Have you encountered any issues or pain/choke points in your workflow with Streams?
2. Are there any features you find yourself wishing that Streams had?
3. Overall in your larger workflow in TiddlyWiki, not just related to Streams, what if any are the roadblocks that slow you down or cause difficulties?
4. Are your notes mostly plain text with formatting (bold, italics etc) or do you use a lot of macros and widgets in the actual note taking?

Thank you.

Cheers,
Saq

[Keelan Cook]

I'm happy to do so. I completely understand the need for feedback to help focus limited bandwidth.

Let me think on the questions and get back with you tomorrow. Again, thanks for the work you've already put into Streams. 

[Keelan Cook]

As promised, my response to your questions... at length (my apologies).

Have you encountered any issues or pain/choke points in your workflow with Streams?

Overall, I'm very impressed with the manner in which Streams does what it does. So, pain points are slight, but there are some of course. I've been a long time Workflowy user, and I often find myself wanting it to work like WF in instances. Furthermore, there is a good chance the pain points are simply from the nature of TW and more an issue of me having to relearn behaviors.

• Hitting enter in a node with text does not always behave the way I want. - I'm very glad you added the ability to split a tiddler into two nodes by hitting enter. It would really slow down my workflow if that process was inhibited, as I often write full paragraphs into a node, realizing only afterward that they need to be separate paragraphs. If I had to confirm this change every time, it would impede using Streams for writing and notetaking. However, I also expect the reverse behavior because of my time in Workflowy. If I am at the beginning of a node that needs to be connected to the one above it, I expect hitting backspace to join the two nodes. And, of course, Streams doesn't do this, so I find myself regularly attempting this action by reflex.
• Nested nodes stay with an empty node when hitting enter instead of moving with content. - If I have a node with nested tiddlers and hit enter at the beginning of the text in that node, my expectation is that all the text of that node and the nested nodes under it would move down, creating a new blank tiddler above with nothing in it. Again, this is a Workflowy behavior. However, in Streams, this action leaves all nested information under the blank node created and moves the text from the parent node down into a separate tiddler below everything.
• Ctrl+down does not always behave as I expect. - If I've collapsed nested nodes and want to switch between top level nodes. For example, if I'm writing an outline, I will have headings. If I collapse the subheadings under each heading and then attempt to use the Ctrl + down function it switches down to the nested node that is not visible (one of the subheadings) instead of switching down to the next heading that is visible.
• Having to add a space at the beginning of a node. - Finally, there appears to be some quirk where I have to enter a space prior to using a text expander. It will not call the action if I enter the slash as the first character in a new node. So, I have to hit a space and then put it in.
• Search gets confusing. I've learned to adjust to this, but all of the streams tiddlers show up in search. Most of the time, I only want the parent to show and then I will find what I want on that "main tiddler." However, I periodically have a tiddler created in a stream that rises to the level of a stand alone tiddler, so I would want it to index. I realize the dilemma in all of this. So, I think if we could omit all the children and just index the main parent tiddler for a stream in search, it would be preferrable, since it is possible to just rename a specific stream tiddler and then it could index. At current, when I have one of these special stream tiddlers that I want to also stand alone, the relink gives me the ability to name it with something outside the stream and keep it in the stream. That's probably clear as mud. If you can't tell, I'm still thinking through this one myself.

Are there any features you find yourself wishing that Streams had?

• Easily adjust max width. - It would be nice when you develop a configuration panel to include adjustable max width. I've found that line in the style and can easily adjust that way, but having that option in the control panel would be nice.
• Different views would be stellar. - A Document view, in specific, would be a great addition for me. As mentioned previously, I use this to create a source tiddler for literature notes, then I create an outline tiddler (also with Streams) where I draft the outline of the article I am writing. I can easily drag my notes from source tiddlers to fill in the article outline. With a little manipulation, these notes become paragraphs within the outline. The outline becomes the article. If I could then switch it to a document view that removes the bullets and makes nodes headings, that would be incredible.
• Conditional styles(?) - Even while in outline form, I wish there was a way to make some styles conditional. Though, I have no idea if that's even a thing CSS can do. For instance, if I turn a node into a heading with !!, it would no longer show the bullet next to it, but still show the bullets on all body text in nested nodes under it. Another instance where this might be nice is with a block quote. Though, the ability to see that a block quote is its own tiddler in the stream instead of being part of the above bullet is important info.
• Flattening a whole stream into a tiddler. - Finally, and I've seen this mentioned in the threads here on the group, the ability to flatten to an article, conflating all tiddlers into one that can then be exported to word processing software for publication. I did see that on your roadmap, and I'm interested in the implementation of that.

Overall in your larger workflow in TiddlyWiki, not just related to Streams, what if any are the roadblocks that slow you down or cause difficulties?

Export, but there's a good chance this is mostly ignorance on my part. I'd love a way to export as markdown, or some easy integration with pandoc. A good LaTex export would be dynamite. I know I can export as a static html, but that pulls all of the styles with it from the page, which is great if I want to display it as an html file in my browser, and sometimes I do. It is suboptimal if I just want the text portion of the tiddler, properly formatted, for opening or importing into a word processor or markdown/LaTex editor. I've experimented some with online pandoc tools, and they work to a level, but I'd love to click a button somewhere in TiddlyWiki and make this happen. Again, it may be my ignorance in capability that is prohibiting this at current.

I do not know the horizon of possibility with TiddlyWiki. There are reams of content written in this Google group and other places on TiddlyWiki, so it's not for want of content. However, I do think (as has been echoed in this group in other threads) that it is a daunting task for someone new to even realize what TiddlyWiki can do. What is clear from my last 4-5 months living in these group threads is that it can do almost anything you want, if you have the knowledge of how to make it do so. That's incredible.

And yet, my personal use cases are meager, and clear guides of how to "choose your own adventure" for particular use cases seem missing (or I can't find them). While the ability to capture non-linear, networked thought appears to be the shining strength of TiddlyWiki, it would do well to have some linear explanations, or guides, for easy setup. Linear content has its merit, of course, and it is sometimes the best way to present information or make a specific argument. An easy example is the work that Anne-Laure did recently on her site providing a linear guide for building a nonlinear notetaking tool with TiddlyWiki. Of course, she has a large platform, but I think the ease of her linear explanation to build a particular instance of TiddlyWiki has done much to bring new people into the fold. It was a sizeable plank in my own bridge.

Ideally, I wonder if it would be beneficial to come to some form of consensus on the majority use cases (networked notetaking, static website generator, table top gaming and world building, etc.) and then provide some linear walkthroughs of how to build a core instance of TiddlyWiki for those things. Of course, with some discussion of potential options to modify and the caveat that many more things are possible the more you dig. I often hear TiddlyWiki described as a box of Legos from which you can build anything. This much is true; however, a box of Legos most often comes with a set of step-by-step instructions to build the specific thing on the cover.

Are your notes mostly plain text with formatting (bold, italics etc) or do you use a lot of macros and widgets in the actual note taking?

Yes. It's mostly plain text formatting. Very little in the way of images, diagrams, or embedded media of any kind. My current use case is classic notetaking. I need to quickly and easily capture literature notes from sources I am read. I want to capture them in such a way that they (1) are easy to find based on their connections to other ideas and (2) easy to manipulate in an outline. Then, I need a tool where it is easy to organize an outline and fill it out into an article. So, a minimal, easy to use interface that allows for long form writing with as few distractions from toolbars and buttons as possible. I'll probably never have use for mathematics or anything computational in my instances. Though, I realize I'm just one use case for TiddlyWiki.

I currently do very little with widgets and macros, though I believe I will do more as I familiarize myself with their ability. I'm still learning to drive TiddlyWiki. I'm very impressed by the things I see people suggesting in this group concerning macros and widgets, and I imagine once I have a populated wiki, I may want to use these to call certain things. I can tell I'm just scratching the surface with this.


Thanks, Saq, for your labor on this project. I have this sense that the timing of several developments with TiddlyWiki of late are surfacing it as a very promising tool for people who live and die by knowledge management. Feels kinda like a renaissance of sorts.

Do let me know if you have further questions. I appreciate you asking, and am happy to help in any way I can.

Blessings,

Keelan 

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Keelan,

The detailed feedback is highly appreciated, no need to apologize. I will reply properly when I have a bit more time, but wanted to drop a quick note that the latest version of Streams should not have the issue you experienced with needing to add a space at the start of a node:

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Fsq%2Fstreams

Cheers,

Saq

[JD]

Saq! I love your ideas and extensions to the way we can create tiddlers! Honestly, Streams is making it easier for me to write ^^,

I have a request for mostly-mobile users like me, because I also want to continue using this on my phone.

Will it be possible to implement a swipe mechanism on the nodes? (Sample is BTC's Swipe widget hammerwidgets.tiddlyspot.com)

On my phone, I'd like to be able to swipe right on a node to indent it! And be able to swipe left to un-indent. Google Keep has this feature and I found it made listing so much easier! Hopefully Streams can also do it?

Thanks for this wonderful creation tool!

-jd

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi JD,

That's an interesting idea. I agree that adding better UX for mobile would be a good idea. I'd like to use a smaller library than the one the hammer widgets use, but I might use that first to make sure that the interactions and flow is satisfactory. In particular, there will likely be issues with selecting text clashing with swipe support.

I think the hammer widgets get around this by disabling text selection, which wouldn't work for Streams.

I'm tracking another mobile related ticket as well, perhaps you might have some thoughts on it?

https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams/issues/3

Thank you,
Saq

[Keelan Cook]

Just updated, and the initial space issue is indeed solved. Thanks!

[E Browns]

Thanks for considering it, Saq! It will make for a more wonderful workflow, mobile-wise. 

I agree it might produce interferences while editting. Maybe while the node is not in edit mode? Or maybe just along the left margin right outside the textbox? Whatever the implementation might be I'd love to try it! 

Thanks again, i'll also look into the issue you linked! 

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[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Keelan,

Apologies for the late response, I wanted to wait to reply to your feedback until I had the time to do so properly. I am always happy to discuss at length when the feedback is both detailed and pertinent, as yours has been. I am going to going off on what seems like a bit of a tangent at first, to properly reply to some of the points you raised.

Firstly, I'd like to explain the concept of a TiddlyWiki edition, sometimes also referred to as a vertical edition. Simply put it is a TiddlyWiki meant to serve as a starting point, with a set of plugins and tweaks preconfigured that work together well with no clashes, to provide a specific set of features or workflow. The best example of this currently is Stroll from David Gifford, which encourages a notetaking style dependent on backlinks.

The key part that is relevant here is that with an edition, you have the ability to make sure that all the plugins play together nicely and don't clash, and complement each other with their functionality. When writing a plugin you have to try your utmost not to make changes to the default TW behaviour beyond what you absolutely need to, to minimize the chance of clashes with other plugins.

As an example consider Streams. If it were to be extended to tweak the default search results, it would clash with any other plugin that extended the search results or the search interface. With a pre-configured set of plugins, this isn't an issue. Furthermore, the more changes you make to the defaults in TW, the greater the chance the plugin will need updates when the TiddlyWiki core is updated, increasing the maintenance burden of the plugin.

So at this point, you would be right in thinking that editions is basically what you alluded to when speaking of linear guides or "choose your own adventure" use cases. There are some significant challenges inherent in creating editions, amongst them:

- the need for extensive user studies and testing, to design, test and refine a workflow and featureset. This requires a significant amount of time and effort from both the developer and the users working together. Furthermore it requires developer(s) and users working together towards the same end goal in an effective and efficient manner. A common shortcut that is employed is for the developer to also act as the user, which works in situations where the development is driven by the developer's own needs. This, by the way is not the case for Streams which I personally do not use and was created as a tech demo for the community. I will come back to this later.

- Customizing, simplifying and optimizing the workflow for a specific use cases often involves making choices that limit or alter functionality. While the components of an edition can be designed to work together well, they are likely to clash with other plugins available in the community. This often leads to discontent from the users that are unhappy with the perceived lack of flexibility and customization in an edition, considering that it is still based on TiddlyWiki.

For example let us consider WYSIWYG editors, something that has been a frequent topic of discussion in the TW community. Due to the way that TiddlyWiki widgets, macros and transclusions work, implementing a full featured WYSIWYG editor would be a very significant, challenging and time consuming endeavour. There have however been comments in the community that even a WYSIWYG editor that only handled simple text formatting would be useful for everyday writing, but at what cost?

I have a prototype of such an editor that only supports text formatting, but that means giving up custom HTML and widgets and macros in the tiddlers where you use it. So for instance, in your case to use such an editor you would need to give up using the refnotes plugin in those tiddlers. This perhaps hasn't been the most ideal example, but hopefully it serves to illustrate the point about compromises and limitations imposed when designing specific features and workflows. In some ways TiddlyWiki's flexibility works against it in these situations, by setting certain user expectations.

- Last but not least is the maintenance burden that comes with providing an edition, and keeping it up to date with TiddlyWiki core updates as well as plugin updates.

I do agree that there is a lot of untapped potential in providing editions that serve specific workflows, but I am uncertain if a community as small as this has the resources to tackle this.

Similarly Streams would benefit greatly from an edition that incorporated it and addressed some of the issues like search results, backlink results etc. However, considering both my limited availability and the fact that I do not use this myself, I am not the appropriate person to do so. 

Regarding Streams and the motivation behind its development: 

Overall I feel that there is a lack of innovation in the TW5 community in recent years, compared to the peak years with TiddlyWiki Classic (the previous version), especially in light of its potential. This may be in part due to a change in the demographic, I think there were more active developers in the community back then. The availability of more alternative platforms has probably also played a role. My perception is that there is far too great a dependence on Jeremy (the creator and developer of TiddlyWiki) for new ideas and features. Considering how long TW5 has been around, and how much potential and flexibility it offers even for those that aren't JavaScript developers, I am surprised at how many avenues are yet left unexplored. (Note that all of this is my perception only, as someone that only just became active again in the community recently after an absence of some years. Others will likely disagree.)

TiddlyWiki 5 goes to significant lengths to allow things to be adaptable and customizable without needing to write JavaScript, however this potential is largely untapped. Consider that the entire user interface of TiddlyWiki is entirely built with widgets and templates, however we have seen so little innovation and experimentation with alternative UIs. I would love to see someone just throwaway the default interface entirely and start from scratch. It can be done without any knowledge of JavaScript.

Streams was written as an adaptation of a personal task management solution, to demonstrate workflows and interactions that were previously considered difficult or not possible in TiddlyWiki. 

Towards this end the very first demo was written entirely without any extra JavaScript. As such, it was meant to be more of a technology demo and reference implementation to inspire other developers, rather than something for people to use, and this contributes to some of the current shortcomings in the workflow. I will endeavour to address them to the extent that I can within both my time constraints, and the scope of a single plugin (and not an edition).

Regarding exports: exporting just the content of tiddlers in HTML is entirely possible via a button in TiddlyWiki. I suggest posting a thread in the group asking for assistance on this to get you going. You can then use Pandoc to convert to your format of choice. Note also that my work on the WYSIWYG editor that I mentioned earlier also involves a limited HTML to markdown conversion option in TiddlyWiki, that could potentially be reused to convert wikitext to markdown as long as its just plain text.

Hopefully this addresses the more general feedback you provided, and I'll follow up with more specific replies to the Streams related items a little later.

Regards,

Saq

[Keelan Cook]

Saq, tremendously thankful for the detailed response. It was clear and very helpful in furthering my understanding of how TW5 works.

I do see (and had read in other threads on Stroll) the difference between plugins and editions and the complexity that offering an out-of-the-box edition brings. As best I can tell from my limited experience with it, the plugin route should most often be preferred, since it aims to reduce dependencies and modifications to core elements. To that regard, I personally prefer living in the constraints to search with Streams and other issues over trying to develop a specific version that removes some of those only to have to deal with issues of extensibility further down the road.

Though I see the benefit of a vertical edition such as Stroll, my comment about linear guides was less about making a specific edition of TiddlyWiki and more about creating a step-by-step walkthrough (like an article or how-to guide) for constructing a TW5 instance from available plugins and themes that are known to work together well. I'm thinking about a tutorial that would get someone up and running for a common use case (notetaking and research), without hunting through the threads for different pieces to bolt on. For instance, at this point, I've discovered a couple of themes (Whitepace and Krystal), your Streams and Stories plugins, the Refnotes plugin, and the Crosslinks plugin for backlinks and freelinks all work well together to create a solid notetaking instance. Had I been able to locate a tutorial that explained TiddlyWiki setup for one notetaking instance and turned me on to that set of themes and plugins, I would have been up and running much faster. 

I was merely suggesting it might be helpful for the community to come up with the 3-5 most common uses and some solid walkthroughs for how to build a good instance out of available themes and plugins. That is why I pointed out Anne-Laure's work on her site. In fact, I think it better to provide a walkthrough than provide a packaged instance of TW5 with the themes and plugins already together, since a walkthrough has the added benefit of teaching just enough about customizing your TiddlyWiki in order to add the plugins. It's the right kind of friction, but it walks with someone instead of leaving them in a wide open field. Of course, this information would be ever-changing as new plugins are developed, so it might not be a feasible approach to onboarding. 

Concerning the export, that's great news. I assumed there was some option, and I just wasn't sure how to accomplish it yet. I'll have a go at a request here to get that started. 

Thanks again for your response, and for your work on TiddlyWiki. It's been refreshing having this at my disposal of late. I look forward to any further feedback you may have concerning Streams. And again, I'm happy to help and answer any questions you may have concerning my use case.

Thanks,

Keelan

[Saq Imtiaz]

Keelan,

Another short reply for now, going to work through the rest of your feedback piecemeal as time permits.

Regarding search:

Search gets confusing. I've learned to adjust to this, but all of the streams tiddlers show up in search. Most of the time, I only want the parent to show and then I will find what I want on that "main tiddler." However, I periodically have a tiddler created in a stream that rises to the level of a stand alone tiddler, so I would want it to index. I realize the dilemma in all of this. So, I think if we could omit all the children and just index the main parent tiddler for a stream in search, it would be preferrable, since it is possible to just rename a specific stream tiddler and then it could index.

 I thought about putting together a quick search solution for search where only the root node is returned in search results, but quickly realized there is a conceptual snag. Streams is intentionally written so that it doesn't care about the titles of tiddlers for maintaining the relationships between them. So for example:

History/1908 is not a subnode of History because of it's title, but rather because History/1908 has a field called parent with value History.

So it's easily doable to have a custom search only return the root node of results by following the parent field back through relationships to the end. However, just renaming a tiddler would not make it show up in the search results. You would have to delete the "parent" field thereby removing it from the Stream.

So this makes a generic and flexible solution quite difficult. However, it would be doable to create a custom solution for you where search always follows the parent field upwards as long as the parent tiddler title is a substring of the tiddler in question.

That is if History/1908 has the field parent pointing to History, we follow that field.

If French Revolution has the field parent pointing to History, we do not follow it.

 Let me know if this would be helpful, and if so what the value of the tiddler $:/config/sq/streams/new-node-title is when you open it for editing.

Cheers,

Saq

[Keelan Cook]

Saq, if I'm understanding correctly, that does sound intriguing. Let me rehash my understanding of what you are saying, just to make sure I'm getting it.

I do understand (and very much like) that the sub-nodes are not actually in a hierarchy, and that they are attached through the parent field. That's one of the big strengths of the plugin. Each tiddler is actually a stand alone note that can be transcluded a dozen times into different content. Literature notes are durable that way. And when I am creating content, a paragraph can easily be moved to another place in the flow of the article. That makes writing and editing a smooth experience. 

Furthermore, it does allow me to change the title of a note to whatever I desire, because the title is not the determining factor for its presence in the stream. It relies on the title being in the parent field, and the relink plugin ensures it stays there if I change it. 

However, what it sounds like you are suggesting is a search option that uses the parent field and checks it somehow to follow up to the "main" tiddler for that stream. Doing this would search all of the tiddlers in the stream, but show the "main" tiddler as the search result for all of them... with one exception. If I have changed the title to something that does not include the "main" tiddler title, then it would not be included, it would stand alone as it's own search result.

Am I understanding you correctly? If so, that does, indeed sound like a good option, and I think it would streamline the flow for researching with Streams.

Concerning the tiddler you mentioned, here are the contents of that tiddler:

<<stream-root-title>>/<<now "[UTC]YYYY0MM0DD0hh0mm0ssXXX">>

Thanks again, Saq.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Keelan your summary for how search could be set up for you is correct.

 I don't know if it makes a great generic solution for Streams users since they might customize their node titles to be generated differently, or wish to rename without it affecting search results. The best way to figure that out of course, is to let people try it.

I wrote the code that follows the parent field to the root, I just need to adjust to only follow when the title of the node includes the parent tiddler title as a prefix. Will do so as soon as I get the chance.

Regards,
Saq

[Saq Imtiaz]

Keelan, install this and let me know if it gets us in the ballpark of helpful search behaviour:

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Fsq%2Fstreams-search

[Keelan Cook]

Well, I may have done something wrong in installation, but it's kicking an error back at me.

The error comes as soon as I click into the search bar to type something. I've attempted a refresh to no avail. When I disable the new plugin and refresh, the error is gone. 

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Keelan,

Apologies, I may not have been diligent enough with error handling.

Try the following steps please:

1) try using the search at https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Fsq%2Fstreams-search and see if there is an error

2) If there isn't an error, try grabbing the updated plugin and try it on your wiki.

If either steps gives the same error, in your browser press Ctrl+Shift+I to open the developer console. In the "Console" tab, if there is an error message in red, click on it to expand and post a screenshot please.

[Keelan Cook]

I know not what magic you have worked here, but I like it! 

No errors this time. This is a great improvement on the search. Having that second tab dedicated to streams allows both a regular search and the option to filter out the chaff in a stream and focus on the main tiddler. That's perfect. And, it's unobtrusive too. 

In fact, it's already allowed me to locate some dangling tiddlers with no content that had somehow been removed from my streams. So, I was able to tidy up a bit. 

[Saq Imtiaz]

Keelan,

Glad it seems useful. One thing to keep in mind is that for the search results, the logic is now dependent on the name of the sub-node tiddler starting with the name of the root-node. So if you rename the root, all the sub-nodes will turn up as separate results in search.

[Keelan Cook]

Yes, that makes sense. If I rename a sub-node, then it will also show up separate. If I rename the root, then they would all show up.

Do you happen to know of a plugin that allows for batch renaming in a sequence, in the event that I did want to change the root node? If not, the benefits of this search outweigh the cons, I believe.

[Saq Imtiaz]

I haven't used it but I have seen this plugin recommended for batch operations:

https://github.com/kookma/TW-Commander 

It would also be doable to add a context menu action in Streams, so that "Rename" also renamed the nodes of that tiddler.

However this feels like a step backwards in terms of flexibility regarding tiddler titles if it were a default. Having this as an optional behaviour that one could trigger when needed would make more sense.

[Keelan Cook]

That's the plugin that came to mind when I asked. I'll fiddle with it some and see if sequential naming is an option.

Though, the concept of adding it to the context menu in Streams is intriguing. I agree that you wouldn't want it to be default behavior, but having the option from that context menu could be a helpful addition when the minority use case presents itself.

Is that something I could add to the context menu? I know you've set it up so users can create their own menu items.

[Keelan Cook]

That's the plugin that came to mind when I asked. I'll fiddle with it some and see if sequential naming is an option.

Though, the concept of adding it to the context menu in Streams is intriguing. I agree that you wouldn't want it to be default behavior, but having the option from that context menu could be a helpful addition when the minority use case presents itself.

Is that something I could add to the context menu? I know you've set it up so users can create their own menu items.

On Sunday, August 23, 2020 at 5:11:14 AM UTC-4 saq.i...@gmail.com wrote:

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Keelan

Is that something I could add to the context menu? I know you've set it up so users can create their own menu items.

Yes, that should be doable. 

There is some info here: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#Extending%20the%20Context%20Menu

I can probably help you get the actions right. Are you thinking an option that renames a node, and the subnodes *if* their titles begin with the node title?

Or something to use after you've already renamed a node and the subnodes no longer match in terms of titles.

[Keelan Cook]

That first option to rename if it shares the same prefix.

I can see creating a steam in a particular topic, realizing it would need a different title, and wanting to maintain the semantic connection with all of the subnodes for the purpose of search. However, I would not want to force a rename on one that I had already broken out with it's own name. 

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[Ken Gray]

I really like this.  I'm wondering though, if it is possible to get some editor toolbar to show up so that I can do some things like what I do with Code Mirror.  Not the general wiki formatting stuff (!  *  -  etc.) but the more complicated stuff like @@color:black;background-color:goldenrod;  Test Text@@  stuff.

On Friday, July 3, 2020 at 11:29:53 AM UTC-4 saq.i...@gmail.com wrote:

Please post your feedback and any issues for Streams here or on github: https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams

Demo: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

Before posting a bug report please make sure you have the latest version of the plugin from the above link.

Previous thread and background: https://groups.google.com/forum/?oldui=1#!topic/tiddlywiki/KeVDndcnY0g%5B1-25%5D

I am focusing only on bug reports for now until I have greater availability. However, all feedback will be considered when further development takes places. 

The code needs a full review for consistency after the last major refactoring in which fields were renamed among other changes, before new features can be added.

[Saq Imtiaz]

There is an update to Streams (0.1.14) that brings a fair few small features and changes, and needs some testing and feedback.
Please backup your wiki before updating and test carefully before using with important data.

New configuration options that toggle settings depending on whether they are set to yes or no:

• $:/config/sq/streams/split-at-caret split the text of a node at the caret position when saving the node with <kbd>Enter</kbd>. This is existing behaviour that can now be toggled.
• $:/config/sq/streams/prompt-split-to-multiple prompt for confirmation when splitting a node to multiple nodes, triggered by <kbd>Alt+Enter</kbd>. New feature.
• $:/config/sq/streams/prompt-merge-with-previous prompt the user before attempting to merge a node with the previous node, triggered by <kbd>Backspace</kbd> with the caret position at the beginning of the text. New feature.
  
• $:/config/sq/streams/exit-on-saving-empty-node Exit edit mode on saving an empty node with <kbd>Enter</kbd>. Allows exiting edit mode on mobile. New feature.
  

With split-at-caret set to "yes", saving a node with Enter with the caret at the start of the text will create a new node above the current node. 

Backspace with the caret at the start of a node will attempt to merge with the previous node, provided it is at the same indent level and has no child nodes. This is an intentionally simplified and constrained behaviour intended as an undo to the above split option. By default the user is prompted for confirmation before merging, this can be disabled by setting prompt-merge-with-previous to "no"

By default, saving a node with Alt+Enter will ask for confirmation before splitting the text into multiple nodes. The prompt can be disabled by setting prompt-split-to-multiple to "no"

To allow exiting edit mode on mobile devices, set exit-on-saving-empty-node to "yes". This will exit edit mode when attempting to save an empty node with Enter. In other words, hit Enter twice to exit editing.

 https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

Cheers,

Saq

[Keelan Cook]

Just took it for a spin. I'm having no errors so far, and though subtle, it's a great update. The split-at-caret behavior is much more intuitive for me now. I much prefer the new node being created above the existing node if the caret is at the beginning. That effectively moves the current node down one in the order (with all of it's sub-nodes) and presents a new node in the order above it. That's precisely the behavior I expect.

I like having the option to confirm split or merge workflow as a configuration option, though that will be a minority use case for me. 

And, the improvement for mobile on saving with exit was needed. My tablet also pushes TW5 to a mobile layout, and before this update, attempting to exit a node with my stylus was convoluted at best. This has made that a much easier action. 

Great update, Saq!

[Saq Imtiaz]

Thank you Keelan.

Please let me know if you run into any issues.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Keelan regarding the rename handling we discussed, it occurs to me that it may make more sense to trigger this via the renaming of a tiddler the regular way via the edit template, rather than via renaming of a node via streams.

Otherwise, there would be no mechanism to handle renaming the subnodes when the stream-root tiddler is renamed. Whereas a node can always be opened as a tiddler and renamed that way. 

What do you think?

[Keelan Cook]

@Saq I'm not quite sure I'm following, though I imagine you're correct. Let me rephrase to make sure I'm tracking with you.

Are you suggesting that, like the relink plugin which triggers an option to rename every mention of this tiddler once someone attempts to rename it, Streams could (and should) suggest renaming the subnodes with that same trigger? In this case, if I choose to rename a stream of nodes, I would get a check box for the relink plugin and some form of checkbox asking if I wanted to change the naming scheme of all stream nodes that are "downstream" from this one.

If that's what you're suggesting, I agree with your point. That does seem to make more sense than adding something in the context menu. It seems to create a more obvious user flow for renaming. That's the way I rename things currently. I click on the bullet that I want to rename, enter edit mode on the displayed tiddler, and then rename, making sure I have the relink checkbox marked. It would make sense to also add a simple checkbox here that would offer to rename all downstream tiddlers as well. This way, a branch can become its own stream but stay a part of the initial stream as well. It would make it searchable separately via the new method you've established. And, if you started at the very beginning of a stream, it would still rename everything downstream, changing the naming scheme on an entire thread.

If I'm understanding you correctly, this is a better approach.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@keelan your description is in accordance with what I tried to express in my last message. The UI part might vary, as I haven't looked into how much flexibility there is to extend that part of the edit template, seeing as how Relink already customizes it. I'll investigate once I get the time and see what our options are.

[Keelan Cook]

Very good. I do think that makes more sense. 

[TW Tones]

Saq,

You know more than me I am sure, but here is what I know on this matter.

Re-hackability in the rename, 1st it depends on the draft mechanism. Last time I looked at it Relink uses a hack of its own, when it would be better if tiddlywiki provisioned the hack for such tools. Eg a tag that will include and have access to the rename process the current and new tiddler at a minimum. Thus on rename a conditional process can be activated and apply the rename according to its own rules. Ideally this would be a generic solution. eg on rename trigger a mechanism that any solution can add to. eg $:/tags/on-rename-actions.

The next issue is renaming by other means. Ie copy and delete or 

WidgetMessage: tm-rename-tiddler

Jeremy has a plan to expose the the actions behind WidgetMessages to increase hackability which should allow the designer to install a custom response to renames. However I am not sure how often tm-rename-tiddler is used.

I have a project I need to push forward that allows custom actions to be included behind all existing buttons, this allows any button to be used as a trigger. In this case the done/save button on a tiddler can trigger an action to test for and handle the tiddler rename case. However to handle this comprehensively one needs to deal with other buttons that trigger the save process including those in other plugins.

Regards

Tones

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Tony we seem to be talking about very different things. What is relevant and under discussion here is customizing the EditTemplate UI to offer a user interface for additional options related to renaming. The answer probably lies in adding a new edit template segment via a new tiddler which is displayed after $:/core/ui/EditTemplate/title

Streams has code for executing actions on tiddler rename (unpublished) and on tiddler delete (see https://github.com/saqimtiaz/streams/blob/master/plugins/streams/delete-hook/actions.tid) that may be of interest to you. If you wish to discuss that, please start a new thread.

Thank you.

Saq

[TW Tones]

Saw

That is exactly what I am talking about. Just before Relink. Was released I investigated the editor rename process.

However there are other ways to rename and I was being thorough.

Regards

Tony

[Saq Imtiaz]

New Streams update (0.1.15).

Please backup your wiki before updating and test carefully before using with important data.

Changes:

• Keyboard shortcuts are now configurable from the Control Panel
  
  
• You can now add custom keyboard shortcuts without editing any plugin shadow tiddlers.
  
  
• This compliments the already existing ability to add custom context menu items
  
  
• You can also override macros from $:/plugins/sq/streams/action-macros to customize behaviour, by adding tiddlers with macros with the same names, and tagging these tiddlers with $:/tags/streams/user-actionmacros

Regular users can just upgrade the plugin as usual. However, if you have edited shadow tiddlers from the plugin to make your own customizations, you will likely need to delete and re-do those changes.

 

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html

  

Cheers,

Saq

[Michael Wiktowy]

Hi Saq,

I really like this utility and have immediately incorporated it into my daily log wiki as I wanted to separate things out into tasks anyway and this does it perfectly including a built in time stamp.

Some feedback though. Is there a way to change mouse interaction such that the edit window closes if you left click anywhere but the edit window? I find myself caught with the edit window stuck open after clicking somewhere and it loses focus. Then there is no way to close the edit field via mouse and the esc key doesn't work to close it so I have to click inside then switch to the keyboard to close it. It makes for a lot of UI input-mode-switching.

I like the idea of using this in different contexts for to-do list (with checkboxes) and per-paragraph (with some formatting buttons) editors but it will take me a while of head-scratching before I figure out how to change your existing template. In the meanwhile, I've managed to make a template that will at least list streams as regular uneditable bullets to include in a weekly summary. I've just arbitrarily made it go 8 levels deep by a brute-force repetition. I'm not sure there is a way to adjust to the actual depth of the bullet indentations (and detect possible infinite loops ... not automatically possible but certainly possible with hand editing).

<$link to={{!!title}}>
<$transclude field="caption">
<$view field="title"/>
</$transclude>
</$link>
<hr>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
<ul><$list filter="[list[!!stream-list]!is[missing]]">
<li><$transclude mode="block"/></li>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>
</$list></ul>

/Mike

[Saq Imtiaz]

Mike, 

Have a look at the following link for a macro that will create a static HTML representation of any stream, regardless of depth:

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#Working%20with%20streams%20tiddlers

Regarding exiting edit mode when clicking outside the node, this has come up before.

However, it would create its own set of usability issues as it's a pretty common workflow for some to refer or copy content from other tiddlers while editing a node, or even have two nodes open for editing in two different tiddlers at the same time 

I welcome any ideas that make it easier to exit editing, while still allowing the above mentioned workflow and not adding visual clutter 

One option could be a context menu option, though that would still be two clicks of the mouse.

Cheers,

Saq

[Florian Kohrt]

Saq,

besides the obvious greatness of your Streams plugin, what I really like
in your demo wiki is the ability to open tiddlers from the search bar by
hitting Enter. How did you achieve that/how can one implement that in
another wiki?

It doesn't seem to be included in your plugins...

Regards,
Florian

Am 04.07.20 um 07:39 schrieb Saq Imtiaz:

[Saq Imtiaz]

Florian,

That is a new feature that will be available in the TiddlyWiki core from version 5.1.23 and is currently available in the pre-release

https://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/

Cheers,

Saq

[Keelan Cook]

Saq, thanks for the update! All appears to be working as intended for me. 

[Saq Imtiaz]

Streams and the Edit-CompText plugin.

There have been several requests for compatibility between Streams and the Edit-CompText plugin which provides autocompletion for tiddler titles. This requires changes in the autocompletion plugin.

I have a test version which requires feedback.

If you are not already accustomed to the Edit-CompText plugin and the features it provides, please familiarize yourself with it first before proceeding.

Note that any issues or feedback for the features and behaviour of the Edit-CompText plugin itself should be directed towards its github page. The remit of the changes in this test version is only to enable the same features in Streams as are available via this plugin in editing regular tiddlers, and I will not be making any other changes to the autocomplete plugin.

Please back up your wiki and use this version of the plugin for testing only:

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/streams.html#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Fsnowgoon88%2Fedit-comptext

I would appreciate feedback on whether the plugin works in Streams as it does when used in regular tiddlers.

Cheers,

Saq

[Keelan Cook]

This is a real help, Saq. After adding it to my own setup to test, I'm not seeing any differences in behavior from the regular edit-comptext plugin. It appears to work well in a Streams node now and still works the same in a regular tiddler text field. Though, I've only fiddled with it briefly.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@keelan, thank you, good to know.

On the next occasion I have a solid chunk of time to work on this, I'll try to push through an official update of the plugin with these changes.

[blake]

@Saq,

Confirming I'm having the same experience as Keelan -- seems to work fine in both the normal text field and with Streams so far.

As always, fantastic work .. thanks ..!

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[Michael Wiktowy]

Hi Saq,

Thanks for pointing out the self-referencing macro trick ... that seems like a recipe for disaster and infinite loops but it works great. I will try to implement that elsewhere in situations where I don't know the depth of the tree.

In working with streams for the past few days, I agree with you. I just have to remember to esc out before moving on. Any steps gained with my suggestion would be lost by having to do extra steps to do some of the other workflows. I still feel that there should be some mouse-only way of ending editing ... maybe I will just add a context menu entry since you have made that extensible.

Thank you for sharing a very useful tool. It is making daily journal entries very streamlined and I am looking at implementing it into a bunch of projects.

/Mike

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Mike, 

I still feel that there should be some mouse-only way of ending editing ...

I agree, it's just a case of figuring out an intuitive way to do so without cluttering the interface. 
I thought about a double click in the editor to exit editing feature. However, the way that the editor (which is  a core feature) works wont allow that. 

Open to suggestions if you happen to think of something.

Cheers,

Saq

[Michael Wiktowy]

Hi Saq,

In exploring the context menu option I mentioned, it seems to be extremely easy to implement. Using your instructions as a guide, I just added the "$:/tags/streams/contextmenu" tag and "sq-contextmenu-name" field with "Save and Exit" to your "$:/plugins/sq/streams/keyboard-shortcuts/save-and-exit" plug-in tiddler. That seems to allow mouse-only closing of individual stream entries (even with multiple entries open) with minimal fuss. Hopefully you can add that into the official plug-in.

/Mike

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Mike,

In exploring the context menu option I mentioned, it seems to be extremely easy to implement. Using your instructions as a guide

That is good to hear. The individual keyboard shortcut tiddlers were added only in the last plugin update, and this was one of the use cases in mind. You're the first one to actually use them in this way, so this is good feedback.

The default context menu items are currently hardcoded. I would like to move those into separate tiddlers and offer a settings panel for the content menu, before adding more items to the context menu by default.

Cheers,
Saq

[Ken Gray]

I have 1.1.15 but my 'autosave' still doesn't work.  when I create a new item in a tiddler, it doesn't save.  however, when I create a new tiddler, it autosaves as expected.

if not a way at this time, is there a keyboard shortcut to do this while I work?

Thanks!

[Saq Imtiaz]

Ken, Streams does't change the default behaviour of autosave in any manner.

Are you using the single file version of TiddlyWiki, or node.js?

[Ken Gray]

I'm using TWEXE, so maybe it's because of that.

Does yours save as expected?

[波普]

Hi Saq,

I added a new edge-type "tw-list: parent" in order to display the connections of streams in the tiddlymap, but the tiddlymap does not support spaces in the field, and if there are spaces in the title, the correct connections cannot be displayed. 

Can you make the parent field automatically add a tag so that tiddlymap can correctly identify the title with spaces?  

Regards, 

Bop 

[波普]

Hi Saq,

Are you the author of the Stories plug-in? I have a question to ask you.

I want to automatically hide the sidebar when I click the "show right column" icon, and vice versa.

Do you know how I should modify some tiddler's code?

Regards, 

Bop 

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Bop

Using tags to reflect relationships is contrary to the design decisions in Streams. I am not familiar with TiddlyMap but I assume tw-list expects a title list, in which a title with spaces would cause issues. I suggest checking if TiddlyMap supports a different edge type that treat the entire field value as a tiddler title. Does tw-title or tw-field exist?

As for Stories, that plugin was made available specifically for Stroll and I am not able to provide support for it beyond that specific configuration.

[arun babu]

@Saq, 

Is there any way to use the floating editor you had shown in this link (https://saqimtiaz.github.io/sq-tw/floating-menu.html#config:config%20%5B%5BDraft%20of%20'RikerIpsum'%5D%5D) within a streams tiddler ?

I could make it work only in the default editor, not in the streams tiddler.

[Saq Imtiaz]

Streams update to v 0.1.17: https://saqimtiaz.github.io/streams/

This is a compatibility update for the upcoming release of TiddlyWiki 5.1.23

You will need to update Streams before upgrading to the new TW release.

I would appreciate some testing and feedback in case there are any unexpected issues.

Regards,
Saq

[Keelan Cook]

I've done some initial testing, Saq, with my regular workflows and I've not ran into any snags as of yet. I'll keep doing so and let you know if I stumble across something.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@keelan thank you for the feedback. There are only small changes but they are essential to a problem free upgrade to the upcoming TiddlyWiki 5.1.23 release, as a lot of the tweaks that Streams relied on have been introduced into the core.

[Keelan Cook]

I gathered it was mostly behind the scenes components. I am very much looking forward to the new release and continued progress on Streams. It's become my daily drive for research and writing at this point. You (and the large pool of contributors) have created a wonderful tool!

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[Dominic Robinson]

Hi Saq

In the v 0.1.17 you have linked above, the alt-Enter shortcut to split and save as multiple nodes creates a new empty node but does not seem to split the content.

Regards

Dom

[Saq Imtiaz]

Hi Dom,

Thank you for the bug report. Turns out this bug (in the exact same way of similar variations) has actually been there for quite some time! Will investigate.

Cheers,
Saq

[Saq Imtiaz]

So the bug that Dom reported is very interesting and others may find it of interest.

The underlying problem is that we are creating several tiddlers at the same time via action-widgets, and the tiddler titles rely on a timestamp to make them unique. However, the tiddlers are sometimes created so quickly that they are not unique!

There have been discussions on this group in the past on the merits of using timestamps for tiddler titles and this is a good reminder that they just aren't specific enough to serve as a proper unique identifier.

I am going to have take a moment and think about the best way to resolve this. I know users prefer timestamps to randomly generated UUIDs so I have to consider if there is a middle ground.

[si]

>>> The underlying problem is that we are creating several tiddlers at the same time via action-widgets, and the tiddler titles rely on a timestamp to make them unique. However, the tiddlers are sometimes created so quickly that they are not unique!

Just out of curiosity, why do you need to create two timestamped tiddlers? Can't the text before the caret keep the title of the original tiddler, and the rest of the text get a new timestamp?

[Saq Imtiaz]

@si this bug relates to splitting a tiddler into multiple tiddlers by pressing Alt+Enter.

So for instance the following results in 6 tiddlers if saved with Alt+Enter. The first keeps the original title but the 5 subsequent ones are new.

"a

b

c

d

e

f"

[si]

Ahh my apologies I had misunderstood the purpose of the shortcut. I thought it was supposed to create a new node from text following the caret, but I realize now that that just happens when you press enter.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@si no worries, there are a lot of different options and features to keep track of. 

I have an idea for a new widget to solve the problem that might be helpful in other places too.

[TW Tones]

Saq,

I have solved this problem in the past simply by including milliseconds in the time stamp however before using the "new title" check it does not exist, increment the milliseconds and check again. No one cares if the milliseconds are not totally accurate, you could even increment with a random number to reduce collisions ( at most they need only that they reflect chronological orde)r. Given 1000 per second are available this should not be an issue, and in fact 99.99% of the time the first title is usable, however it is important to ensure the timestamp value is re-evaluated at the last possible moment.

Personally I feel incrementing a value to obtain the next tiddlername is a better than timestamp method, but that just a view point. I am looking eventually to produce a generic solution for this as there are many ways to make use of this code patterns not only for unique serial numbers but initial set/queue order FIFO LIFO and more, with less bytes needed.

Regards

Tones

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Tones

I have solved this problem in the past simply by including milliseconds in the time stamp however before using the "new title" check it does not exist, increment the milliseconds and check again. 

This isn't possible when executing action widgets in a loop, where the previous action widgets have not always been executed before the current one. It is a well known issue with action widgets and concurrency.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Dom I have a fix. I want to give it until tomorrow to do some further testing before I push a new version. Thank you again for the bug report.

[TW Tones]

Saq,

I do not care if they get out of sequence within a second, only that they are unique. I don't understand the issue you raise - but that is fine.

Tones

[Saq Imtiaz]

Streams update to 0.1.18

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/streams/

This resolves the issue with saving multiple nodes with Alt+Enter. The fix is a bit of a kludge but it will have to do until I have a chance to re-think action-widget execution in general.

Please remember that you need to update to Streams 0.1.17 or newer before upgrading to the upcoming TiddlyWiki version 5.1.23

[si]

Hi Saq,

Is there a way to edit Streams so that shift + drag-and-drop uses a custom macro for transclusion instead of the regular curly brackets?

I'm imagining that this would be quite an easy tweak but I can't find the relevant plug-in tiddler.

[Saq Imtiaz]

Streams update to 0.1.19

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/streams/

There was a bug that crept in with 0.1.18 with root titles that have spaces in them. Apologies. So please update.

As a bonus there are some performance optimizations included that reduce rendering time significantly for very large node trees.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@si busy times currently. Please remind me after the release of 5.1.23

[si]

@saq Will do. Thanks a lot for all your amazing contributions to TiddlyWiki!

[Dominic Robinson]

@Saq, 0.1.20 seems to have the same issue.

Dom

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Dom I am unable to re-create the issue with Stream 0.1.20 on Chrome or Firefox on Windows 10.

• What browser and OS are you using?
• Can you please provide step by step instruction for re-creating the issue on https://saqimtiaz.github.io/streams/ ?
  • Please include:
    • the exact text that you enter, 
    • a screenshot of the resultant nodes, 
    • and a screenshot of the Recent tab in the sidebar, so I can see what tiddlers have been created.

Thank you.
Saq

[Dominic Robinson]

@Saq - this is Chrome on Windows 10.

Hopefully this gif will show you what you need.  The gif looping doesn't help, but it shows an attempt to split the node with alt-enter and the creation of a new empty one.

Cheers

Dom

[si]

Hi Dom,

It looks like you are making the same error that I did and have misunderstood the purpose of the shortcut.

Alt+Enter should split a node that has multiple lines into separate tiddlers, but in your GIF the text is all on one line, so there is nothing to split.

If you want to split the text into two tiddlers at the place where your cursor is, just press Enter.

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Dom: As Si points out, the Alt+Enter shortcut tries to split the text at double line breaks. If you want to split at the cursor just press Enter.

However, thanks to your bug report I did manage to find and fix an actual bug with the Alt+Enter handling.

Cheers,
Saq

[Dominic Robinson]

Ahh - that makes sense.  Obvious really :)

[Saq Imtiaz]

Streams users:

Please remember to upgrade to the latest version of Streams (0.1.20) before upgrading to TW 5.1.23

https://saqimtiaz.github.io/streams/#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Fsq%2Fstreams

[Scott Kingery]

Is there a way to NOT have streams show up on a tiddler? 

It seems you could edit $:/config/sq/streams/stream-enable-filter to do this but I can't seem to get the syntax right. My wiki opens with MainPage as the default and I don't need the Stream icon on there because I use that page to launch other pages.

Even handier might be a field called nostream (or something better) and entering yes would prevent the function.

Thanks for the excellent plugin!

Scott

[Michael Wiktowy]

Hi Scott,

I have added [!is[shadow]tag[Daily Log]] to '$:/config/sq/streams/stream-enable-filter' to only have it show up in my tiddlers tagged with 'Daily Log' (and restrict it to non-shadow tiddlers with the intent to speed things up but I don't think it makes a difference) and it works for me.

That config setting is used via a ViewTemplate located at '$:/plugins/sq/streams/stream-view-template' so maybe that got over-written or changed to ignore that config setting if it still doesn't work with valid subfilter. It will indicate that whether it is changed from the default plugin shadow tiddler.

/Mike