[TW5] Bob and BobEXE version 1.3.0, Tofurky, file server and wiki management updates

[Jed Carty]

There are some potentially nasty bugs that I found in this version. I released version 1.3.1 to fix these bugs so use that instead.

I have done some bug fixes and a lot of ui improvements so that features that have been available in Bob for a long time are easier to set up and use.

The biggest things are toggling access to the wikis from the local network, setting up the local file server for media, serving files from multiple folders, setting up the server images plugin, and an interface to let you scan a folder for media files, add that folder to the list of folders served by the file server and create _canonical_uri tiddlers for each file in a wiki.

There are also some other ui improvements, the dirty indicator should actually indicate if there are unsaved changes or not now, there is a warning if you open a wiki that isn't able to establish a web socket connection to the server and the persistent questions from the browser about if you want to close the tab or not may actually be taken care of now.

There is also a chat interface that works with both local and federated chat. Connecting to remote servers for the federated part is not particularly simple for the moment, but I didn't feel like removing the interface from everything for the release. So have fun.

The plugin version of Bob is on GitHub here: https://github.com/OokTech/TW5-Bob
The newest version of BobEXE is available here: https://github.com/OokTech/TW5-BobEXE/releases

If you want to support the development OokTech has a patreon page here https://www.patreon.com/OokTech
or if you prefer there is a link for PayPal here https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ZG94CTLHTKYRE

The full changelog is here:

!! Version 1.3.0 Tofurkey

* maybe actually set the SaverFilter tiddler correctly
* start documentation on inter-server federation and syncing
* Add local chat
** different people using the same wiki served by a Bob server can have a real-time chat.
* Add federated chat
** People on different servers can chat with each other
** Limited utility due to server discoverability and NAT shenanigans
* Hopefully fix the problems with saving .tid files that have unsorted tags
* split out routes into separate files
** this may allow doing things like enabling the file server without restarting the server.
* Started a hopefully better interface for federated things.
* Add some advanced settings
** local message queue timeout
** federated message queue timeout
** saveTiddlerDelay
* Added a server route for uploading files.
** The browser hook is still in the ServerImages plugin, I may move it into Bob later.
* Add a warning that the wiki hasn't connected to the server at startup
** the warning goes away as soon as the wiki connects to the server
* The dirty indicator is changed to show dirty when there are messages in the send queue and clean when the queue is empty.
* The resync has been modified, it may work inconsistently
* Added easier way to turn on/off serving on the local network
** Go to the control panel -> Bob Settings -> Server tab for instructions
* Added an easier way to turn on/off the static file server
** Go to the control panel -> Bob Settings -> Server tab -> File Server tab for instructions
* Added an interface for adding multiple folders to serve media, see `Serving Files and Images` in the Bob documentation.
* Improved the mediaScan so that it can scan any folder and serve the files in them.
** This breaks the previous `filePathRoot` setup method

[Dave]

"Tofurkey" <-- Lol       :D

Nothing like Thanksgiving dinner with the odd vegetarian relative, ha ha

Looking forward to trying this :)

[TonyM]

Jed,

Thanks again for you development of Bob. I think a lot of users will benefit from the 0.0.0.0 setting as a quick enable of lan accessible wikis, this being a key feature of a server implementation on tiddlywiki. Bob exe is the easiest way (at least I know on windows) to enable a server, so by introducing this I think you make bob open to more users. I do think there is more that can be done to document Bob better, with a little less jargon, but it is understandable this is not so straightforward, given the broad number of features bob enables.

Since I use multiple servers on my desktop from apache, TiddlyServer, TiddlyDestop, Vanilla node and Bob I need to manage this more than others. As a result I discovered how easy it is to install additional IP addresses on my WIndows 10, and I now host bob on one of these additional addresses, as a result I do not want to use the 0.0.0.0 shortcut.

I have it working, now I can access bob on the lan at 192.168.1.80 (no port specified) and even at a local DNS name bob.local

"serverlnfo": {
"host": "192.168.1.84",
"ipAddress": "192.168.1.84",
"port": "80"
}

"ws-server": {

"host": "192.168.1.84",
"port": "80"
}

This seems to be working for me, But I am a little confused about the need to set 192.168.1.84 in three places. 

• Could you provide a little more info on the difference between serverInfo and ws-server, and host vs IP address?
• Also when I run bob exe it still opens 127.0.0.1 in the browser window, how can I change this address please?

Thanks in advance

Tony

[Birthe C]

Hi Jed,

You sure have made it easy to change the settings now. But after having saved, shut down and restarted bob, it opens in 127.0.0.1:8080 - and nothing is available from other computer on the network. Looking at the settings from within BobEXE, it has changed to o.o.o.o and the button now offers to change the settings to localhost.

I do realise that my lack of knowledge and bad description makes it very difficult to find  an error that is clearly on my part.

Birthe

[Jed Carty]

Birthe,

Given how carefully you have described things in the past and followed instructions my first thought is that my instructions are unclear or that there is something else wrong, not that you are making a mistake.

I am sorry if this is something that you have already looked at, but when finding these problems you always start with the smallest things. My first thought is to look at what you are typing into the address bar of the other computers to access the wiki? On the local computer 127.0.0.1 is just how the computer references things hosted locally and it will almost always be fine opening it at that address on the computer running Bob, on the other computers you will need to use what is listed as the wiki server address at the top of the Bob Settings tab, it should be something like '192.168.0.11:8080'

Tony,

As shown in the documentation, to configure the host you change values in ws-server, you do not need to set it in three places.

Changing values in serverInfo will do nothing as it is generated each time Bob starts.

As far as the host vs IP address distinction, I am sure there are many sources online that can explain that far more clearly than I could. You could start with the expressjs or Apache documentation, in my experience they are generally complete and at least marginally understandable.

For opening other addresses automatically goes I would have to modify some parts of BobEXE, at the moment 127.0.0.1 is hardcoded because it hasn't come up and anyone doing more complicated things has been using the plugin version.

The next version of BobEXE should support opening on different ip addresses based on the value of host.

[Birthe C]

Hi Jed,

That is how I understood you explanations in BobEXE, 127.0.0.1 on the local computer, and trying

192.168.1.72:8080 as Bob told me from the other computer, firefox tries to connect but is unable to do so.

Birthe

lørdag den 12. oktober 2019 kl. 10.09.37 UTC+2 skrev Jed Carty:

Birthe,

[Jed Carty]

Birthe,

I was afraid of that. This may be an 'interesting' bug to track down.

First I would suggest trying to ping the computer that is running Bob. In a terminal type:

ping 192.168.1.72

and see if that gives a response. If so the two computers are able to see each other at least, if not than it is a networking problem that probably has something to do with the router setup.

if that works try:

curl 192.168.1.72:8080

and see if that gives you anything.

If none of that works open a terminal and type ifconfig to make sure that the ip listed by that matches the 192.168.1.72 address given by Bob, if not try the address given by ifconfig and I will have to try and find why there is a difference.

if none of that works the next step is probably looking at the router configuration if you have access to it.

[Jed Carty]

Birthe,

I didn't specify, the first two commands (ping 192.168.1.72 and curl 192.168.1.72:8080) need to be run on a computer on the network other than the one running Bob, ifconfig should be run on the same computer running Bob.

[Birthe C]

Jed,

Result from ifconfig on computer running Bob:

enp0s25: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether 00:1c:25:94:f3:d8  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 20  memory 0xfc600000-fc620000 

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 618851  bytes 120379692 (120.3 MB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 618851  bytes 120379692 (120.3 MB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlp3s0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.72  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::ac01:1e70:cab5:f28b  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 00:16:ea:b3:ec:b2  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 736152  bytes 68464266 (68.4 MB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 29108  bytes 4052762 (4.0 MB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlx801f02877e39: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.54  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::56b8:6a28:9e14:8375  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 80:1f:02:87:7e:39  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 92426  bytes 34419386 (34.4 MB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 86180  bytes 24798334 (24.7 MB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Now, I do not understand any of this, but can explain if that helps, that the computer I am using is a Lenovo Thinkpad T400 with an inbuild wifi, I could not get to work. I am using a usb wifi adaptor, that works right out the box with the kernel drivers.

I will try your suggestion on the other computer in a short while,

Birthe

[TonyM]

Births

I assume you were using 0.0.0.0 rather than o.o.o.o ?

Jed

Now you point out the ones that are auto populated it all makes sense.

Perhaps it is important to say 0.0.0.0 or a local ip address on the server not 127.0.0.1 will make bob visible on the network.

Regards
Tony

[Jed Carty]

That explains the problem. I hope anyway. Because the computer has two WiFi interfaces it has two IP addresses, one for each interface. The problem is that Bob found the address for the unused interface.

I do not know why there is an IP address for the one that isn't used.

So try connecting to 192.168.1.54:8080, that should be the correct one.

The address may change in the future or on different WiFi networks, so here is a quick exploitation so you can find the correct address until I find a way to have bob do it automatically.

The output of ifconfig gave 4 entries, the first two aren't important here, the two that start with w are the two wireless interfaces.

The second line for the last two groups each of the two groups for the wireless interfaces start with 'inet' followed by an IP address. Those are the addresses for each wireless interface. In the future if one doesn't work try the otherone.

Hopefully that lets you connect until I find a better solution.

[Birthe C]

Jed,

ping 192.168.1.72

$ PING 192.168.1.72 (192.168.1.72) 56(84) bytes of data.
bash: syntaksfejl nær uventet udtryk "("
lenovo@lenovo-ThinkPad-T500:~$ 64 bytes from 192.168.1.72: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=10.7 ms
64: kommando ikke fundet
lenovo@lenovo-ThinkPad-T500:~$ 64 bytes from 192.168.1.72: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=8.90 ms

keeps running and running..starting with 64kbytes

Birthe

[Jed Carty]

Tony,

In my experience giving information like that without providing a mostly automated way to do it just leads to problems. Considering the amount of background knowledge and assistance that is required, even for someone as knowledgeable as you, to properly explain the host setting of a server and its purpose means that it would only lead to people using it incorrectly and flooding me with requests for help.

It is a setting where if you know enough to be able to configure it without aid then you know what it is and how to use it.

[Birthe C]

Jed,

Alas, that did not work either.

In fact I tried yesterday the opposite way around, starting BobExe from the other computer, that has only one wifi, to avoid confusion. That gave me of course the adress 192.168.1.54:8080. Then I tried to contact from the computer, that has confusing wifi, but I never got a connection anyway.

I did use Ifconfig also earlier on several times, thinking that would find a solution...;-)

I do not know wether this could have anything to do with the problems. It seems a lot of Linux Mint users are having trouble with network after 19.

Curious it is that:

I have several old thinkpads, paired two and two for compatible parts (thinking ahead for repair). Now 3 of them have the same wifi as the one giving trouble now...only no trouble they run fine enough. It is really not easy this network thing.

Birthe

[Jed Carty]

I use mint as well, but I think that my desktop is still on 18.4 so I haven't run into the problems. For the moment I am going to assume it is a problem with mint and look for solutions there because the results you showed indicate that everything is working the way it should be.

[Birthe C]

Jed,

Earlier on you mentioned that you have had intermittend internet connection. That is what a lot of linux mint 19 users are complaining about. That was also what I experienced on the wifi,  I am not using anymore. On the same computer a very cheap and tiny usb wifi has helped and giving me good connection all the time.

Of course it also helps me, that I am using older than old hardware.

Birthe

[TonyM]

Birthe,

Is there a network administrator around you can speak to? Without going into too much detail on network configuration, there are ways and methods that may make inter computer communications difficult. In some environments served well by servers and internet connections things can be configured to discourage individual devices being able to act as servers. It may be worth asking.

Regards
Tony

[Torax Malu]

Merci for the new version.

[Birthe C]

Thank you for caring, Tony,

I see, that could be the case, but I know of no one.

Birthe

[TonyM]

Jed,

Since you are responsible for bob and its documentation and support you take what every approach you want. However with all due respect your concern about causing a flood of requests may be another issue. Its is critical you provide information that others do not have access to, information that is needed to use something you created can only come from you, otherwise we remain in the dark. People must ask you if the information is not there. I also note that when you know something deeply, I think you forget others do not know it as well, this happens to me too when writing documentation for end users. 

Sure my case of multiple IP addresses may be an edge case, which you feel you do not need to document, however not adding a simple line on this subject such as "0.0.0.0 or a specific IP address on the Current host. Will do more than one thing. It would have guided me in my edge case, some people may realise they need to see if they have more than one IP address and may trigger others to explore IP assignments when debugging there own issues, for example they already have another server on the localhost, that is, this information supports a lot more than one edge case. Perhaps you could note what values are auto populated on the Manual setting page, they are hardly manual if they are automatic.

I have great respect for what you have built with Bob and it certainly deserves more than the attention and support that it already gets. I have volunteered to assist in writing and developing documentation in the past, but found I could not proceed because despite attempts to do so I could not get enough understanding, to know bob well enough to be able to write effective notes on Bob. Because I had some recurring problems I could not fix, I had to abandon it for my production wikis. I am returning to it now with a number of your improvements and bug fixes in recent releases. 

I am only trying to be honest from my perspective, because I have no other perspective to share. I want to help but I can't because I find it hard to help myself, despite my fairly extensive experience with TiddlyWiki. To be honest I think some of these barriers are a result of your own annoyance, feelings, approach and your deep technical knowledge which only you can address. Please forgive me for being personal - and take my comments with a "grain of salt" but I feel I need to express them "lest they never be spoken".

Love your work

Tony

[Birthe C]

Hi Tony,

I really am a naive user, knowing nothing about development, but I would think it is done in steps. The basics has to be right before building a tower.

Support for questions like, will bob serve after atom war via satellite from a star in an outer universe, could be answered but might not. Could that be categorized as concern about causing a flood of requests.

I am quite sure Jed knows where he is going with his project, and it will get there. (Great benefit for all of us..no matter what we use and want to use it for).

I would think that management is important to avoid a zig zag direction.

Birthe

[TonyM]

Birthe

Actualy trying to establish how to make bob operate with standard nodejs server functions is nothing like star wars. I want to help Jed and others make use of bob which is a revolutionary addition to tiddlywiki.

Perhaps if Jed felt comfortable doing imperfect brain dumps in gg others will have access to the details and we can publish "how to"s that Jed can add to his documentation.

Missing information is my problem, but Jed wants to avoid complicating the documention by simplifying it. I am trying to respectfully suggest a different approach would help, me and others contribute.

I believe bob is underutilized but deserves much more attention, we need to close some gaps.

And yes I am nerviouse about raising this in the most fair way I can.

Regards
Tony

[Jed Carty]

Tony,

Arguing against accessibility isn't going to get very far with me.

The target audience of Bob consists of me, and people without the technical background to be able to use tiddlywiki conveniently.

My own documentation is mostly comments in the code, so the externally visible documentation is targeted at people who want something to just work and do not have the time/interest/money/whatever to learn what a server is or how to configure one. Anything that would make it more confusing or unclear for them is counterproductive.

The configuration documentation looks big and scary because if someone doesn't feel comfortable with that then they are probably not in a situation to take advantage of manual configuration. I do not have a link to the node api documentation because if someone is in a position to take advantage of that then they probably have the knowledge and ability to find, read and interpret technical documentation.

I am working on making a nice clear map of what is useful for people without a technical background, I am certainly not there yet, and if you wander off of that map then 'here there be dragons' and it is your responsibility.

I am uncertain what sort of 'brain dump' you would like in this situation, the information requested relates to servers in general, in this case a node server, and the behaviour and settings in question are exactly the same as in the core server.

So, If you have specific requirements as far as the advanced functionality of Bob is concerned you can email in...@ooktech.com for information about quotes and availability.

[TonyM]

Jed

I tried to give you a pointer to help you do exactly what you wanted to do. I can't help it that you don't understand what I am saying.

I can't help it that when I try and do what you say bob can do, I find it hard to follow your instructions and that if you gave a little more info I can help support you and bobs adoption. I am not having difficulty with other parts of tiddlywiki except bob, given I am a super user I am not sure how people with less skill will be able to use bob beyond a simple set of instructions and thus not make use of its great features.

Any way I have tried to comminicate, that's all I could do.

Thanks for your contribution never the less.

Regards
Tony

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Jed

Quick comments. Installed & working, so far so good. 

I don't use Bob over network mainly. I use Bob to assist automation most for converting texts. I find the method of interaction with the OS extremely good. 

It helps me build wikis quickly.

Some obscure issues I had with a previous version (that I could never pin down and replicate) seem to have gone.

I'll comment more after longer use.

Thanks! Best wishes

Josiah

[Stobot]

Jed - thanks for the update! (BOXEXE Windows 64-bit)

Per our last interaction - I'm now able to get the ServerImages thing working via the new UI. I think this will help *a lot* for end-users of the solution that I'm putting together.

Minor technical notes - so you have some insight into how less technical users such as myself try to make this thing work.

• First I tried just swapping out the EXE file and running it. I don't know if this is the intended method of updating, but some pieces didn't work, so ended up starting fresh and then moving /tiddlers back in afterwards. Recommendation?
• Tried enabling the file server via my... remote? (not the one serving) computer. It wasn't "sticking" for me after clicking the buttons and restarting.
• So I went to the serving computer, started totally new folder etc. as per point one. Then I enabled the settings at the "root wiki" - the one that pops up when you start the EXE.
  
• Then I built the wiki off using the same name as before and repeated all of the steps, it took a few times, but eventually the "file server" box stuck! Then I moved all my tiddlers back in.
  
• Now I'm back to where I started - with the new version. Everything working well.
• Log on the EXE seems to complain about a lack of "Language folder" - not sure if there's something I should be doing there
  

Favorite parts of the update so far:

• The "set to 0.0.0.0" finally worked for me - it has *never* worked for me before, I always had to go into the manual area and do it.
  
• I assume most of your changelog make things more stable - can't tell so far, but stable is good :)
  

Questions for you:

• What should my default "edition" be - Bob or Empty? Any difference between the two?
• How does the local chat work? I couldn't find any interface for this, but would be interested in testing this out.
• I know compatibility stuff is a nightmare, but visually I built my solution around the look of http://j.d.material.tiddlyspot.com/ and it seems to break the "Reconnect" function. Any insight would be amazing!
• I move between ethernet and wifi many times a day, and right now I have to do hard refresh each re-connection - meaning storyriver is lost and I have to log in again (my homebrew login system using $:/temp/username)
  

Thanks again Jed!

[Jed Carty]

Stobot,

I am glad that the server images work now.

For the other bits:

Thank you for the feedback, this sort of feedback is very helpful for updating documentation and interfaces.

- What didn't work when you swapped out the executables? That is how I have been updating it on osx (on linux I just use the plugin version). The file server part got changed and there may have been other backwards-incompatible changes which is why it is 1.3.0 instead of 1.2.5. But your method is what I would have suggested to fix the problem. Let me know if there are any other issues.

- I have no idea why enabling the file server wouldn't work from the remote computer. You were clicking the `Save Settings` button after checking the box right? I will eventually get everything set up so it is just checking the box but for now you have to do the two steps and then restart to make it work.

- Saying that you don't have a languages folder just means that you don't have a folder for other languages the way that there are folders for plugins and themes. It can safely be ignored unless you add a languages folder and it isn't detected. I don't think anyone has done this yet.

- I am glad that the new interface for changing the host works well for other people.

- The empty edition is a good choice. The Bob edition just has the Bob plugin listed which doesn't do anything anywhere aside from in the index wiki. I made my own edition that has my default settings and make new wikis from that.

- The local chat is very helpfully listed under the `Federation` tab. It is $:/ControlPanel -> Bob Settings -> Federation -> Chat interface

  you can ignore everything about servers and connecting and all of that, just give a name in the Current Name box (or speak as the Nameless Interloper), type what you want to say in the   

  text input box below and press enter or click send. What you say should be visible to everyone using the wiki.

- Someone mentioned before that the material theme covers the disconnected warning and reconnect button. I had to make some changes to how the reconnect function works so it may 

  be inconsistent. Let me know how it goes.

Putting this in a tiddler should show you when you are disconnected, so you can make it a view template and place it wherever you want. Hopefully that helps.

<$list filter='[[$:/plugins/OokTech/Bob/Server Warning]has[text]]'>
''WARNING: You are no longer connected to the server.''
<$button>
Reconnect
<$action-reconnectwebsocket/>
<$action-navigate $to='$:/plugins/Bob/ConflictList'/>
</$button>
</$list>

someone made a cookie based login plugin that may help a bit with the reconnection. I don't have a link for it here.

I have been thinking about making a secure login setup for BobEXE, but that will take some time I don't currently have.

[Jed Carty]

Birthe,

I am now having network troubles as well from linux mint. It is acting differently for me than what you are describing, but I am going between linux mint and osx. The changes only seem to go one direction. This wasn't happening before so I think I must have done something to break it in one of the last few days.

Are both computers you are using to test with running linux mint? It may be the same problem but it acts differently between different operating systems.

I will hopefully figure this out and release 1.3.1 soon, if we are lucky it will fix the networking problem you are having as well.

[Birthe C]

Jed,

I am using Linux Mint Mate 19.2 on both computers. I did not save the link, but I read a thread on Linux Mint forum, it was all about problems between Windows and Linux Mint.

The point was that systemd has lead to a config file change. I understand too little to explain more, sorry.

Birthe

[Stobot]

Some responses Jed:

• Q: What didn't work after swapping the .exe?
• A: Just the things I discussed - mainly the "enable file server" checkbox not "sticking". Could have been something else in the way though. The file server checkbox - is that to be done on the "host" wiki (one that comes up after running exe) AND the "child" wiki, or just the "child" one. I initially just did the "child" one that didn't work initially. Works now though.
• Q: You were clicking the "Save Settings" button right?
• A: There were a few setup changes that had one button for saving - in this case you labeled it "Update Settings" and then a following "Shutdown Server". In all cases just the update button seemed to also kill the server, don't know if it was "crashing" it which is why it appeared closed or shutdown. If that's the case, it would make sense that's why it took a few cycles for it to stick.
  
• Q: Empty is a good choice
• A: I do have a large amount of settings I'd like to carry over for multiple settings. Is there anywhere I can learn how to package these as an "edition" for my own use?
• Q: Chat is in Federation area
• A: Thanks for the location / description . I tried it just running in two tabs on the same computer and nothing seemed to happen - maybe need separate IP addresses or something? - or the "message" is obscured somewhere - is it supposed to be a popup or something? If so, that'd be useful if I need to do something to the server to warn all the end-users.
  
• Q: Material theme coverup
• A: Yea, that was probably me. I did put something together something similar to what you did. It's actually the *function* that doesn't work though. In older versions of Bob, clicking the Reconnect button actually "ate" a random amount (maybe 1/3) of my tiddlers, luckily I keep plenty of backups. I tried under this version and it didn't appear to do that thankfully, but now it appears to work, then I get a notification bar at the top saying "Please save and reload to allow changes to plugins to take effect" then a second goes by, and it fails again and BOB crashes. At least I don't appear to lose tiddlers though.
  
• Q: Someone made a cookie based login
• A: I'll see what I can find - thanks for the suggestion, that'd be very helpful if I could find. I don't need much security, just some convenience.

Thanks again for this awesome tool!

[Stobot]

Quick update on the "Reconnect crash" I mentioned a minute ago. After running through this a few times, one time BOB didn't crash and it had the following messages:

WebSocket error:  SyntaxError: Unexpected token o in JSON at position 1

Save Tiddler .... (one for *every tiddler in the whole wiki)

[Jed Carty]

I released 1.3.1 which takes care of some potentially nasty bugs relating to editing the same wiki from multiple computers. The result of the bugs is that if you have multiple computers connected to the same Bob server editing the same wiki than editing a tiddler and then trying to make a change to that same tiddler and resave it within about 5 seconds of saving it the first time would just drop the changes you were trying to make. Please switch to 1.3.1 to avoid these problems.

Stobot,

This is already in this thread so I will answer here but we should move anything more in the conversation into the 1.3.1 thread to avoid confusion about versions.

I think that the reconnect synchronisation is just broken for now. I will see if I can find the reason and fix it but some stability changes in other areas seem to have broken this completely. I have been getting the same behaviour you describe.

The chat was broken for new conversations but not for existing conversations which is why I didn't see the error in my test wiki. I need a more robust test setup. But that should be fixed in version 1.3.1.

The easiest way to have a wiki that holds your default custom settings is probably to make an empty wiki that just has your settings and when you make a new one instead of making one based on an edition use the 'Duplicate an existing wiki' option. If you want to make it an edition all you need to do is copy the full wiki folder into the Editions folder that was created in the same place as the executable. The benefit of using the duplicate option is that you can easily update what you want in your default without having to edit the edition, there is no quick way to do that from within the wiki itself.

You should be able to turn on the file server from any of the wikis, the bugs I mentioned above may have had something to do with the changes not sticking, but I am not at all certain of that. Let me know if it continues to be a problem and I will try and track it down.

In most places the update button does shutdown the server because the change requires a restart to take effect. I will put some more explicit explanation in the instructions about that.

Thank you again for you feedback! This is very helpful.