[TW5] New Feature Moratorium

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Jeremy Ruston

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Nov 21, 2014, 7:27:26 AM11/21/14
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Several recent events have conspired to make me suggest that until the end of the year I operate a moratorium on new features for TiddlyWiki5. Instead, I propose to focus on documentation, and presentation of the available editions and plugins. I will of course continue to fix bugs as they are reported wherever it's possible to do so.

(In the next few weeks I will also have to pay some attention to TiddlyFox and TiddlyDesktop. In the case of TiddlyFox, imminent Firefox architectural changes will require the architecture of the add-on to be significantly updated).

One trigger is obviously the recent thread discussing obstacles to TiddlyWiki's success:


A more subtle trigger is my recent experience with implementing the "export" features for 5.1.5.

I started work on those features on around 12 days ago, on November 9th. I committed the first working code on November 10th. Ever since then I've been tied up with fixing up the loose ends: making the strings translatable, making improvements in response to feedback. Most recently, I've been implementing nested popups so that the export button will function when it is invoked through the "more" menu. The initial implementation was quick and fun, but a lot of the work since has been a slow slog.

In my experience that is all pretty typical for a major new UI feature: 2 days to get the basic implementation followed by 5 to 10 days of working through the edge cases and cleaning up. Of course, part of the reason it takes so long is that alongside I'm still working on bug fixes, documentation and the occasional new feature such as the tabbed table of contents.

The third trigger starts with the fact that I've been busy over the last few days, and unable to participate in the mailing list threads as much as I'd like. I've still been scanning the messages, and I'm drawn to the conclusion that for many people here, some of the quite basic features of TiddlyWiki are, thanks to the lack of documentation, indistinguishable from voodoo. For example, Danielo's terrific recent post on the "variable" attribute of the list widget was pretty interesting: another basic feature that hasn't been well enough communicated.

So, now that I stand back, I'm not at all sure that the work on the "export" features was the best use of my time. It's an undeniably important feature in terms of rounding out the interoperability of TiddlyWiki, but it makes little or no difference to new users.

My worry is that this will keep happening. There's plenty of voices here calling for new features, and I'm naturally attracted to the intricate problem solving required to implement them. I've a deep motivation to keep smashing through the roadmap of planned features.

Hence my proposal for a new feature moratorium. It's a simple way to ensure that my attention stays focussed on the really important things for the next few weeks.

Some quick googling suggests that new feature moratoriums are not uncommon:


I'd be interested in any thoughts on this, and of course we'll discuss it further at the hangout next Tuesday,

Best wishes

Jeremy





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Stephan Hradek

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Nov 21, 2014, 7:35:48 AM11/21/14
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+1

Tobias Beer

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Nov 21, 2014, 7:54:47 AM11/21/14
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+1

Whatever boosts your productivity and focus, Jeremy.
Definitely advisable slow down a little from time to time and do some housekeeping before the next round.

If there are any new feature requests, they'll end up on the pile anyways.

Perhaps there's a way to display a sticky above the github issues.

Best wishes, Tobias.

PMario

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Nov 21, 2014, 8:39:06 AM11/21/14
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On Friday, November 21, 2014 1:27:26 PM UTC+1, Jeremy Ruston wrote:
Hence my proposal for a new feature moratorium. It's a simple way to ensure that my attention stays focussed on the really important things for the next few weeks.

OK. +1
... as long as also every other non programming and programming community member contributes to the documentation improvement.

There is a lot of work, which can be done. eg: 

 - New Translations with a stand alone translators/index.html TW (upcoming 5.1.5), that can be used to create translations, without any developer voodoo
     - existing languages are: English, German, Danish, Greek, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Chinese (traditional and simplified)
     - improvements / feedback is also possible for the existing translations.

 - With 5.1.5. it will be possible to export tiddlers in different formats.
    - So it's possible to edit content with TW. - export it - and send it to a developer (if jeremy is ok with this workflow)
    - The format that works best for contributors and developers has yet to be specified.

 - For those who have a github account or are able and willing to create one:
     - see: http://tiddlywiki.com/#Improving%20TiddlyWiki%20Documentation  ... it isn't that hard to use it.
     - you can't destroy something, so just play with it, get up to speed and contribute.

 - At the time of writing the TiddlyWiki project at github https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5 has 910 Stars.
     - That's ok, but it could be much much better. #1 has 31.700+
     - The number of Stars and Forks at github are an indicator, how prominent an open source project is.
     - So everyone who has a github account ... click the damned button!!!
     - If you don't want to use github to contribute but push the project a little bit, create an account and
          click the damned button and carefully need the next 2 points :) !!!

 - For those who can't afford the time but some money there is the "Inside TiddlyWiki: The Missing Manual" IndieGoGo project from Eric.

 - For those who can afford the time and some money there is the "Inside TiddlyWiki: The Missing Manual" IndieGoGo project from Eric :)

So there is no excuse, not helping us!

Just my 3 cents.
have fun!
mario

Alex Hough

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Nov 21, 2014, 8:39:11 AM11/21/14
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My thoughts:

I thought the criticism was more than an bit unfair. 
It's for other members of the community to contribute to efforts according to their will and skills. 

To me it signalled a requirement for the wider community of non-coders to organise itself a bit more. 

I think there are people who would give time to organising things and these people could focus on that freeing up those who code to get on with coding. The new features are what makes the project exciting - documentation is IMHO pretty good. 

The reality is that for any of us who are on the journey into TiddlyWiki is that some of the concept are difficult to grasp: its not that the documentation is not there - its just hard stuff that reqires thinking about.

I think it's important not to be over influenced by one critic. It's the only recent case of a complaint - i was very surprised.

best wishes

Alex

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David Gifford

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Nov 21, 2014, 9:17:54 AM11/21/14
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Comments:

1. Don't be too hard on yourself about choices made. All of the possibilities - documentation, new features, bug fixes, helping people who are stuck on a use case problem - all of it is worthwhile. And while you are so productive as to seem omnipresent at times, you are still one finite being and can't do it all.

2. There was a book I saw in Barnes and Nobles earlier this year, I think it may have been called The One Thing, or something similar. But the author's point was that we should focus our efforts on the one thing that will make everything else either easier or unnecessary. I think a clear roadmap for new users, and everyone, on where to find this (e.g. Plugin list mechanism) and how to use that (documentation and examples) is something that could save you and others time and energy later, because you won't have to spend as much time explaining things, you can just paste a link to the instructions.

3. I am glad Eric is doing his book series, and I have already donated because it will be really valuable. And while I am currently too busy to do much writing for you - my work responsibilities grew dramatically starting in September - I did manage to sneak in some documentation yesterday. Hopefully that was helpful, though it probably needs some cleaning up. And hopefully here and there I can help you out some more, either with documentation or at least reviewing what there is and writing up suggestions of areas where documentation is needed or needs to be clearer. And others have done some how tos that may also help you see what is needed. Anyway, my point is that you are not alone. I second the others in giving a +1 to your plan to put the brakes on new features and do some consolidating and explaining of what is already there, but I also second those who say it should fall primarily on us, the TiddlyWiki community.

4. You may think about a two level plugin list: the top part would list the plugins that are officially sanctioned and compatible with the latest release. The bottom part could be a growing list of webpages where individuals have stored there plugins and goodies they have created for TW but that may or may not continue to be compatible.

5. Don't feel too bad about TiddlyWiki looking like voodoo. It is a highly customizable tool with limitless functional possibilities that positively screams at the user, "Create something totally new with me! Combine my filter operators and features in a new way!". I doubt the documentation will ever be sufficient to explain every possible use case. I have played around with it quite a bit, and I still scratch my head at things like text references and action-this or action-that. Remember that TiddlyWiki classic was also like voodoo. The learning curve was high, which is why I created TW for the rest of us and TiddlyVault.

6. For me, a really, really long list of examples of filters and widgets would go a long way in helping us learn the unique language(s) of TiddlyWiki. Seriously, these are languages for which there is no full grammar textbook and the number of native speakers are limited. Even when I know what I want to do and get the general idea of what a widget or list filter is for, I have trouble writing [tag[tags]tagged[!is]!all[sort]] so that it works like I see it in my imagination. For TiddlyWiki classic I constantly returned to Abego Extensions because it had a long list of possible forEachFilter examples. Seeing and comparing the examples was how I learned to use it. But with TW5 there still aren't enough examples out there, so I have to fiddle and fiddle and finally get on the Google group and just ask. So a long list of representative examples would go a long way toward reducing our frustration and yours.

Hope these comments are encouraging and helpful. Blessings to you and to everyone working on these issues.

Dave


David Gifford

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Nov 21, 2014, 9:32:29 AM11/21/14
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One other thing...there is a lot of helpful stuff on the hangouts, and Mario has done an awesome job of writing annotations for them. But still, there area almost 70 of them now, most of them two hours long. One possible help for TiddlyWiki users might be a topical index of the Hangouts. Not every single item in every hangout, mind you, but where Jeremy shows and explains a feature in a Hangout, or someone shows and explains their plugin, the index could give a link to the time at which that discussion starts. Just a thought.

Examples

JSXGraph Widget - [[link|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj7PNlUB5TA#]]
Tabbed TOC - [[link|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlOSyUXAtoA#]] (not actually sure if I got the links correctly, but you get the idea)

Dave

PMario

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Nov 21, 2014, 10:15:06 AM11/21/14
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@Jeremy,
Could you set the "sticky flag" for this post for some time?
-m

Alex Hough

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Nov 21, 2014, 10:15:47 AM11/21/14
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great points Dave and Mario

Alex

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HansWobbe

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Nov 21, 2014, 10:48:49 AM11/21/14
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+1

Julio Peña

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Nov 21, 2014, 10:55:26 AM11/21/14
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+1

In the heat of battle a good general knows when it time to resurvey the situation. I believe that Tiddlywiki5's development has been going at an accelerated pace ever since it came out of beta. As for myself, I'd the time is right to take a deep breath and stand back a bit.


Best regards to all,

Julio

Ton Gerner

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Nov 21, 2014, 11:23:16 AM11/21/14
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+1

Ed Dixon

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Nov 21, 2014, 2:59:03 PM11/21/14
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I feel it should be expected. I am surprised you haven't decided to take at least a month off and celebrate TW5 leaving the nest :) It allows the smoke to clear, noobs like me to catch up on basic concepts and features. I am sure plugin development will continue to move forward within our community here but you already do so much for us! Honestly for me it will be nice to work with a non moving target for a while. Will 1.1.5 and the export feature make release before the moratorium begins?

Jon

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Nov 21, 2014, 3:18:12 PM11/21/14
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I didn't like the recent post that provoked the review - it seemed very ungrateful to me.

I use tiddlywiki every day and it has revolutionised my study and I'm just thankful for whatever improvements I can pick up along the way.

As far as I'm concerned it's a work in progress and people should accept that and focus on the benefits rather than any current drawbacks.

Just my two-penneth worth.

Jon

Ed Dixon

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Nov 21, 2014, 3:35:32 PM11/21/14
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I do agree Jon but at the same time if I understand what transpired it was meant as constructive criticism and upon reflection Jeremy feels it is in the best interest of the project to slow new feature development down a bit and refocus his efforts. As a new comer I have to admit I am drowning in the flexibility and the number of features already available much less keeping up with all of the new features being added. 

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Mat

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Nov 21, 2014, 6:56:53 PM11/21/14
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My +1 shouldn't surprise much.

@everyone - Don't let my views distract you from doing what you love doing and your personal goals with TW. I think that in non-profit / no-pay projects the common, and necessary, denominator for anyone doing anything is enjoyment.

<:-)



On Friday, November 21, 2014 1:27:26 PM UTC+1, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

Richard Smith

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Nov 21, 2014, 8:39:08 PM11/21/14
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+1

@PMario

"... as long as also every other non programming and programming community member contributes to the documentation improvement. "

Hi Mario,

Is there any chance we could coordinate this effort somehow? I am happy to lend my time to the project but I'm a bit unsure as to where to start. Some of the improvements I would like to make don't involve re-writing the text of individual tiddlers but re-arranging and adding tiddlers to make things clearer.

For example - GettingStarted really just contains information about downloading and saving on different platforms whereas I think this could be moved to a tiddler called "Downloading and Saving" and getting started could be a much less imposing list. "1. Download TW   2. Create some content and check that you can save it   3. Explore the Basic editing features"

The other problem I'd like to address is how we give people more relevant results from the search box. For example, I'm a new user who's figured out basic linking and tagging and now I'd like to make some lists. If I type 'list' into the search box it doesn't help me much to find what I'm looking for.

Perhaps we could have a 'docs' edition with some extra magic in it to prioritise content according to relevance. For example, we would put the ListWidget tiddler at the top of the above search results.

If you have seen something specific that you think can be improved in the docs, perhaps we could work on it together?

Regards,
Richard

Jed Carty

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Nov 21, 2014, 9:37:16 PM11/21/14
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I think that we could try making a public tiddlywiki on tiddlyspot and make a list of topics people want documentation for the most, then collect explanations and examples from people and hopefully get someone who is good at technical writing or design to collect everything into a nice tiddler we can submit for inclusion on the main page.

Is there interest in a project like this? It would allow people to make small updates or suggestions for the documentation without having to do the entire tiddler by themselves. Using github isn't hard, but this may encourage more people to help out. That is if multi-user wikis are a viable solution, if not we would need someone to manage it, which may not be better than just using github the way it is now.


On Friday, November 21, 2014 5:27:26 AM UTC-7, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

Alberto Molina

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Nov 22, 2014, 3:52:17 AM11/22/14
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+1

We all love new features, but the success of TW is more important.

Mat

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Nov 22, 2014, 1:00:48 PM11/22/14
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On Saturday, November 22, 2014 3:37:16 AM UTC+1, Jed Carty wrote:
I think that we could try making a public tiddlywiki on tiddlyspot and make a list of topics people want documentation for the most, then collect explanations and examples from people and hopefully get someone who is good at technical writing or design to collect everything into a nice tiddler we can submit for inclusion on the main page.


That sounds easier than github pull requests (if I'm using the term correctly) but there will be a problem with version management i.e an upload overwrites the latest version of the whole wiki potentially overwriting something that had been contributed just recently.

Tiddlyspace would probably work better in this respect as each tiddler is saved separately. There could be a policy that you're not allowed to manipulate, or at least not delete, someone elses tiddler but instead e.g append a new tiddler with your updated version. Maybe www.tiddlywiki.org, which actually is on tiddlyspace and already open for edit, could be modified to suit this ( @tobibeer )

However... the greater crux is that documentation is still very demanding, effectively limiting it to the few individuals who'll contribute. And while a few individuals can accomplish great things, I think documentation for TW is a big task. Heck, one of our super contributors estimates it will take 3 months of continuous writing to get the most basic questions explained well and he is super qualified on all matters. link.

I outlined an idea in the notorious thread (linked to in Jeremys post above) that takes another approach to documentation. The work to set up system that is probably much more limited than the work needed for documentation (which is open ended more or less) - but, of course, few can implement it and we can't expect anyone to actually implement it. (Personally, I'd gladly help support such a project financially. I believe it has potential to bring temendous value to the community. Anyone interested?)

I also started another thread with, if technically possible, is yet aother completely differnt take on what could be used for documentation contributions.

Another question is of course what would bring the most value to TW. I'm not certain it's the documentation issue, important as that is. Then again, in practice people will (and should) only do what they like in an unpaid project :-)

<:-)

Message has been deleted

Mark S.

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Nov 22, 2014, 1:43:44 PM11/22/14
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Whenever you have an open web page, you end up with spammers trying to create link drops.

Probably a real wiki (with authentication) or even just a special thread on this forum would be better. I believe the better wiki systems track history, so changes can be rolled back when something useful has been overwritten.

I feel the github process discourages documentation. The problem is that it's the same system of review for documentation as for code. Which means that you may have to wait a week or so before changes get applied, Sure, CODE needs to be thoroughly vetted so that TW doesn't break. But, unlike code, poor documentation is usually better than NO documentation, and it can be peer-reviewed and tweaked as time goes along. It's an odd quirk of human psychology that people tend to like to correct things that are already in place rather than creating new content in the first place. So getting something in place quickly (even if not 100% perfect) is more important than getting it publisher-ready on the first draft.

Mark

Jeremy Ruston

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Nov 23, 2014, 8:21:24 AM11/23/14
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Thanks everyone for their contributions. There are a bunch of good suggestions in the thread which I'll try to pick up in the hangout on Tuesday.

A big topic is clearly how we improve the contribution process for the documentation. I have a couple of thoughts:

* We could initiate a TW5 community space on tiddlyspace along the lines of tiddlywiki.org - it's a proven way to work. It would be good to try out TW5's support for TiddlySpace in a multiuser setting (since it's not been done before I think there may be some wrinkles to be ironed out).
* We should support documentation contributions by people taking a copy of tiddlywiki.com onto tiddlyspot and making their edits there. I could easily build a batch file that pulls down their changes and applies them to the repo, so that I can convert their changes to a pull request (I don't think there's any avoiding needing a moderation step for tiddlywiki.com)
* An alternative workflow for accepting those contributions would be to support visual diffing in the import manager

I've also got a couple of clarifications.

> Perhaps there's a way to display a sticky above the github issues.

We don't want to discourage people from suggesting and discussing new features, but lets see how it goes and I can add a banner to the "new issue" page if needed.

> 4. You may think about a two level plugin list: the top part would list the plugins that are officially sanctioned and compatible with the latest release. The bottom part could be a growing list of webpages where individuals have stored there plugins and goodies they have created for TW but that may or may not continue to be compatible.

That's pretty much what we've got:

* Plugins listed in http://tiddlywiki.com/#Plugins are the officially maintained and distributed plugins. They will be automatically upgraded when using http://tiddlywiki.com/upgrade.html
* Community plugins are listed in http://tiddlywiki.com/#Resources

Perhaps we should maintain a catalogue of community plugins that is separate from the general resources list.

> Will 1.1.5 and the export feature make release before the moratorium begins?

Yes, the moratorium would start after 5.1.5's release.

Best wishes

Jeremy


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David Gifford

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Nov 23, 2014, 8:30:03 AM11/23/14
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And 5.1.5 will be released this week, right Jeremy? I am really eager to have this update. It's got some great stuff in it. Also I am eager because I have used some of the define newhere bits you  emailed me, but they don't seem to work in 5.1.4, only in my copy of the prerelease of 5.1.5. This new version HAS been in the works for a while, so don't keep us in suspense forever! :-)

Dave

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Jeremy Ruston

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Nov 23, 2014, 8:31:33 AM11/23/14
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Hi Dave

> And 5.1.5 will be released this week, right Jeremy?

Yes, there's nothing else big planned, but it'll still be a couple of days before the release. In particular there's quite a few contributions awaiting merging on github.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

David Gifford

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Nov 23, 2014, 10:53:51 AM11/23/14
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Yay! Thanks, Jeremy

Erwan

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Nov 23, 2014, 11:33:40 AM11/23/14
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Hi everyone,

as this is my first post here, I'd like to start by thanking Jeremy and everyone who contributes to TW, from core development to helping make the community so engaging. I've discovered TW only a few months ago (I was lucky to arrive just for the birth of the official TW5), and I've been hooked by both the great tool that TW is and the good atmosphere of knowledge sharing in the community.

I agree with Jeremy and everybody in this thread that improving the documentation process (including the great potential for community knowledge) becomes more and more important, especially in the perspective of attracting newcomers.

In general my thoughts on the topic are similar to what most people have said here. I would like to suggest maybe a couple of points that I think deserve some attention. Indeed, people with technical skills tend to focus on the technical side of a problem, and obviously there are highly skilled people here ;) While this is important, there can be other angles to look at:

* For example, about the fact that some people are not comfortable using github, a very simple way to overcome the problem would be to have a few volunteers who know git who would receive the contributions and make the pull request for them. I guess something similar could be done for other things, like translating, so that someone who can translate doesn't need to have any technical skills.

* Imho, one of the problems with contributing to the official documentation is that there is no clear guidelines about the structure or the type of content. I think that it would be very helpful to think about a detailed plan and identify the missing parts: this way it would be easier for people who want to contribute to know what to do, and eventually for newcomers to find their way in the documentation.

I tried to develop these ideas and to imagine how things could work globally in a more detailed proposition, in case that helps: http://tw-doc-ideas.tiddlyspot.com

Regards,
Erwan

Jeremy Ruston

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Nov 23, 2014, 12:17:13 PM11/23/14
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Hi Erwan

> I tried to develop these ideas and to imagine how things could work globally in a more detailed proposition, in case that helps: http://tw-doc-ideas.tiddlyspot.com

Terrific stuff, thank you Erwan. You've done a great job of summarising the situation and the ideas that are floating around.

Perhaps some of your material could be structured as a pull request to start fleshing out the contribution guidelines in tw5.com?

I realised earlier when I made the following changes that the "house style" of tiddlywiki.com is not explicitly stated, providing another hurdle for contributors:


Best wishes

Jeremy




Mat

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Nov 23, 2014, 2:41:21 PM11/23/14
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On Sunday, November 23, 2014 5:33:40 PM UTC+1, Erwan wrote:
http://tw-doc-ideas.tiddlyspot.com

Hear, hear! I particularly like that you brought up the need for different types of documentation, and probably for different levels of expertise. BTW, this will, to say the least, be one tough test of manhood to see to what extent we can use the philosophy of tiddlers!

<:-)

Richard Smith

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Nov 23, 2014, 3:40:32 PM11/23/14
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Hi all,

With regards the "Philosophy of Tiddlers".

I read some of Tobias' and Jeremy's recent conversations about sections in Tiddlers. Although I don't understand some of the complexities, I do think the goal of 'smallest semantically meaningful' is a good one. It's also true that splitting a long tiddler into multiple smaller ones when those smaller ones will never appear anywhere else adds little value for the necessary work.

With regards to the documentation specifically then, how should we think about, for example "Introduction to Filters" - should it be split into ~13 different tiddlers and those tiddlers then re-combined?

Regards,
Richard

Mat

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Nov 23, 2014, 4:52:38 PM11/23/14
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On Sunday, November 23, 2014 9:40:32 PM UTC+1, Richard Smith wrote:
With regards to the documentation specifically then, how should we think about, for example "Introduction to Filters" - should it be split into ~13 different tiddlers and those tiddlers then re-combined?

On a need basis perhaps? I.e if a part can be reused, then it is tiddlified to avoid redundance in the system. Not sure how to deal with if there's later a wish to change it in one context but not the other. Or maybe clone+change is obvoius solution?

<:-)

Tobias Beer

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Nov 23, 2014, 6:52:09 PM11/23/14
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Hi Mat,
 
On a need basis perhaps? I.e if a part can be reused, then it is tiddlified to avoid redundance in the system. Not sure how to deal with if there's later a wish to change it in one context but not the other. Or maybe clone+change is obvoius solution?

Yes, but that introduces a few questions, like...
  • What name should that new tiddler get?
  • Does it need tagging?
  • Any fields?
  • Where do I need to link it?
  • How do I put it into context?
  • Does it need ordering in some list?
  • etc...
Whereas I could simply do some section magic, reference that bit form anywhere, have it neatly displayed in a clickable toc... and all those things that make not really big tiddlers not nessessarily smaller than they have to be.

Let me put it slightly differently: there is a too small... in the sense of: "smaller than is perhaps good for ya"... omg, all the uncertainty that comes with the quantum-approach to anything. ^^

Best wishes, Tobias.

Erwan

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Nov 23, 2014, 8:18:30 PM11/23/14
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On 23/11/14 17:17, Jeremy Ruston wrote:
Hi Erwan

> I tried to develop these ideas and to imagine how things could work globally in a more detailed proposition, in case that helps: http://tw-doc-ideas.tiddlyspot.com

Terrific stuff, thank you Erwan. You've done a great job of summarising the situation and the ideas that are floating around.

Perhaps some of your material could be structured as a pull request to start fleshing out the contribution guidelines in tw5.com?

Thank you Jeremy,

I'd be happy to do it, but I don't know exactly how: I'm relatively familiar with git but not so much with TW node.js version, and the tw5.com edition looks like a complex case of node.js (with tiddlers in different subdirectories). I was able to open it locally under node.js but not to save my changes, is there something special to do?

About the content: currently it is written like a proposition (with some "I think", "in my opinion", ...), should I leave it like that or rewrite it another way? And which parts are interesting/useful?

Regards
Erwan

Jed Carty

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Nov 23, 2014, 9:51:57 PM11/23/14
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Erwin,

I was hoping to restart the dedicated documentation mailing list trying out the ideas discussed here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tiddlywiki/F0dnmWrOuxg

The other mailing list is https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/tiddlywikidocs and I put up a post briefly discussing how I hope it will work. The sort of guidelines you are working on look like they would definitely help a lot and give a good structure for people who would like to contribute. I hope to have changes discussed on the other mailing list and demonstrated on the cloned wikis like the example I made here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tiddlywikidocs/X0GeGiiPMAw
That way we could have a relatively small group of people who have to actually use github while everyone who can comment on the mailing list could contribute ideas or content.

PMario

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Nov 24, 2014, 4:30:38 AM11/24/14
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On Monday, November 24, 2014 12:52:09 AM UTC+1, Tobias Beer wrote:

On a need basis perhaps? I.e if a part can be reused, then it is tiddlified to avoid redundance in the system. Not sure how to deal with if there's later a wish to change it in one context but not the other. Or maybe clone+change is obvoius solution?

Yes, but that introduces a few questions, like...
  • What name should that new tiddler get?
Finding proper name for tiddlers is always important and if you want to reference sections you need proper tiddler names and proper section names, otherwise your links will break in the future. So it doubles the complexity.
  • Does it need tagging?
Some tiddlers may need tagging, some may not. Similar problem to creating a TOC. The core can handle it already.
 
  • Any fields?
If needed. eg: caption
  • Where do I need to link it?
In the main "overview" tiddler
  • How do I put it into context?
An eg: "executive summary tiddler" can have a list with 2-3 lines of info, to get an overview.
A "show it all" tiddler can transclude the whole content. Those concepts are part of tiddlywiki.com already, so let us use it.
  • Does it need ordering in some list?
may be.

The core will get drag and drop UI for list sorting in the future. Do you want to provide the same functions for sections too, without modifying the tiddler text? To accomplish this, you'll need new tiddlers to store the configuration. So what do you win, except making the mechanisms more complicated?

Whereas I could simply do some section magic, reference that bit form anywhere, have it neatly displayed in a clickable toc... and all those things that make not really big tiddlers not nessessarily smaller than they have to be.

Why do you want to use magic, if you can use the core functions?
 
Let me put it slightly differently: there is a too small... in the sense of: "smaller than is perhaps good for ya"... omg, all the uncertainty that comes with the quantum-approach to anything. ^^

At the beginning, I also wanted to have sections and slices back. ... but using tiddlers for everything creates the power that TW has at the moment. ... Implementing sections with the same functionality as tiddlers, would create more complexity in the core sw and is redundant, because tiddlers can do it already.

If you search the group for pmario and section you may find those posts and Jeremys responses.

IMO tiddlers should be the smallest chunks of text we deal with. ... But we need to improve the UI to compose and manipulate them. ...

So if you want to have new plugins to make proper documentation possible, we need those plugins to fit to the global core concept. ... If we really need new core features to improve the documentation, Jeremy is needed to implement them. ... But that's a problem, if we want the moratorium.

There are a lot of possibilities to be explored with TW. Falling back to TWclassic patterns will just limit us, even if it seems to be faster in the short run. ... So let us step forward and not backward.

just my 2 cents
mario

Handoko Suwono

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Dec 24, 2014, 10:47:22 PM12/24/14
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> A big topic is clearly how we improve the contribution process for the documentation. I have a couple of thoughts:

* We could initiate a TW5 community space on tiddlyspace along the lines of tiddlywiki.org - it's a proven way to work. It would be good to try out TW5's support for TiddlySpace in a multiuser setting (since it's not been done before I think there may be some wrinkles to be ironed out).
>>

I think we had been talking about lacking of proper documentation and perhaps "good" training materials. It's good that you point out to host at tiddlyspace in a multi-user setting.

My point is that TW-5 should be informed (or introduced) as (1) collaborative works where many can edit simultaneously, wiki-like and (2) as an open source product, it should gain as many users as it can. Not only from the community within but also the public users outthere who would only use TW as a product.


Handoko -

Tobias Beer

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Dec 31, 2014, 6:43:12 AM12/31/14
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My point is that TW-5 should be informed (or introduced) as (1) collaborative works where many can edit simultaneously
 
While that would be very desireable, TiddlyWiki is not that.

Best wishes, Tobias.

Alex Hough

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Dec 31, 2014, 5:36:31 PM12/31/14
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The starting point for me  is a personal notebook, a tool to help me think. Yes, colaboration as well, but i am note sure about the many can edit paradigm. GitHub and forking seems to be a better way, avoiding unnecessary coordination and protocols for decision making

Alex
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Handoko Suwono

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Jan 1, 2015, 2:58:20 AM1/1/15
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There is a topic about integrating TW5 and TS in TS list,  but I am not sure it is progressive. Please see in detail,

@ Osmosoft TiddlySpace and TiddlyWiki5
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tiddlyspace/cKxJFJPZBcA

>I was wondering if I could gently pass the ball to you guys
about your roadmap for integrating TiddlySpace and TiddlyWiki 5
and whether you could perhaps make that process transparent?
I remember a bit more than a year ago there was a rather successful trello board for the registration / login process.
...
>I believe this integration will kick-start a whole new collaboration experience for either platform. TiddlySpot is great with tw5 but collaboration is pretty much non-existent.

>Here's a TiddlyWiki5 issue addressing this topic, perhaps join?
https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/issues/1194



On Thursday, January 1, 2015 5:36:31 AM UTC+7, AlexHough wrote:
The starting point for me  is a personal notebook, a tool to help me think. Yes, colaboration as well, but i am note sure about the many can edit paradigm. GitHub and forking seems to be a better way, avoiding unnecessary coordination and protocols for decision making

Alex

On Wednesday, 31 December 2014, Tobias Beer <beert...@gmail.com> wrote:
My point is that TW-5 should be informed (or introduced) as (1) collaborative works where many can edit simultaneously
 
While that would be very desireable, TiddlyWiki is not that.

Best wishes, Tobias.

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Hiru Yoru

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Feb 15, 2015, 12:20:58 AM2/15/15
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Speaking as someone new to TW5, I think documentation is a must. I had a hard time starting to use TWC way back in the day because of the unavailability of documentation. It was a struggle and I stopped bothering with it on several occasions because of that very problem. It was only after more documentation became available that I could theme it, add my own simple extensions, and really start to get it to work for me.

If you document TW5 thoroughly -- not just the dense, complex documentation targeted towards seasoned programmers, but the more easily understood documentation that could be read by newbies -- I think TW5 will grow on its own. Allowing other people to add on to it will guarantee that the most-wanted features are added as users will add them on themselves. This will allow the community and features to grow on their own.

I'd say the best features to add to the core are the ones TW5 can't function without. Give a solid foundation upon which others can build. After that, once we have documentation, just wait, and I think you'll see the extensions growing in number to suit any more specific needs.

That's just my humble personal opinion and hope.

On another note, I wanted to say thank you for all the work you've done. TiddlyWiki is something I've used for very many years and it's done a lot for me -- both in terms of using it and learning from it by playing around with themes/extensions. I'm really glad I had it because it made a difference for me, so thank you! ^-^



On Friday, November 21, 2014 at 7:27:26 AM UTC-5, Jeremy Ruston wrote:
Several recent events have conspired to make me suggest that until the end of the year I operate a moratorium on new features for TiddlyWiki5. Instead, I propose to focus on documentation, and presentation of the available editions and plugins. I will of course continue to fix bugs as they are reported wherever it's possible to do so.

(In the next few weeks I will also have to pay some attention to TiddlyFox and TiddlyDesktop. In the case of TiddlyFox, imminent Firefox architectural changes will require the architecture of the add-on to be significantly updated).

One trigger is obviously the recent thread discussing obstacles to TiddlyWiki's success:


A more subtle trigger is my recent experience with implementing the "export" features for 5.1.5.

I started work on those features on around 12 days ago, on November 9th. I committed the first working code on November 10th. Ever since then I've been tied up with fixing up the loose ends: making the strings translatable, making improvements in response to feedback. Most recently, I've been implementing nested popups so that the export button will function when it is invoked through the "more" menu. The initial implementation was quick and fun, but a lot of the work since has been a slow slog.

In my experience that is all pretty typical for a major new UI feature: 2 days to get the basic implementation followed by 5 to 10 days of working through the edge cases and cleaning up. Of course, part of the reason it takes so long is that alongside I'm still working on bug fixes, documentation and the occasional new feature such as the tabbed table of contents.

The third trigger starts with the fact that I've been busy over the last few days, and unable to participate in the mailing list threads as much as I'd like. I've still been scanning the messages, and I'm drawn to the conclusion that for many people here, some of the quite basic features of TiddlyWiki are, thanks to the lack of documentation, indistinguishable from voodoo. For example, Danielo's terrific recent post on the "variable" attribute of the list widget was pretty interesting: another basic feature that hasn't been well enough communicated.

So, now that I stand back, I'm not at all sure that the work on the "export" features was the best use of my time. It's an undeniably important feature in terms of rounding out the interoperability of TiddlyWiki, but it makes little or no difference to new users.

My worry is that this will keep happening. There's plenty of voices here calling for new features, and I'm naturally attracted to the intricate problem solving required to implement them. I've a deep motivation to keep smashing through the roadmap of planned features.

Hence my proposal for a new feature moratorium. It's a simple way to ensure that my attention stays focussed on the really important things for the next few weeks.

Some quick googling suggests that new feature moratoriums are not uncommon:


I'd be interested in any thoughts on this, and of course we'll discuss it further at the hangout next Tuesday,

Best wishes

Jeremy





Eric Shulman

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Feb 15, 2015, 1:42:29 AM2/15/15
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On Saturday, February 14, 2015 at 9:20:58 PM UTC-8, Hiru Yoru wrote:

If you document TW5 thoroughly -- not just the dense, complex documentation targeted towards seasoned programmers, but the more easily understood documentation that could be read by newbies -- I think TW5 will grow on its own.

Yes!  My "InsideTiddlyWiki" book project is intended to address exactly this problem...

read more here:

Note: although the IndieGoGo campaign has ended, the fundraising is ongoing,
and campaign "Perks" as described on the IndieGoGo page will still be given
to all new contributors!  See below for the link to my direct PayPal contribution form.

enjoy,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

YOUR DONATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT!
HELP ME TO HELP YOU - MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO MY "TIP JAR"...

Professional TiddlyWiki Consulting Services...
Analysis, Design, and Custom Solutions:

Hiru Yoru

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Feb 15, 2015, 2:22:54 AM2/15/15
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That's a great idea! Thank you for the information! My idea was more for an online wiki, though, so that everyone can add to it and help to expand it through group effort. I know I didn't say that specifically, but that's what I had in mind when I wrote that. That said, I'm sure the two aren't mutually exclusive. Having a book in hand that guides you through something step-by-step is very different than having a bunch of separate articles on a wiki. They each have a very useful place in the learning process.

I look forward to seeing your book when it's finished! ^-^ I also still hope a wiki comes about online somewhere. Perhaps once I learn more about TW5, I'd have something to contribute. ^-^

~Hiru

Eric Shulman

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Feb 15, 2015, 11:55:44 AM2/15/15
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On Saturday, February 14, 2015 at 11:22:54 PM UTC-8, Hiru Yoru wrote:
That's a great idea! Thank you for the information! My idea was more for an online wiki, though, so that everyone can add to it and help to expand it through group effort. I know I didn't say that specifically, but that's what I had in mind when I wrote that. That said, I'm sure the two aren't mutually exclusive. Having a book in hand that guides you through something step-by-step is very different than having a bunch of separate articles on a wiki. They each have a very useful place in the learning process.

There have been numerous efforts to create community-generated, open wikis for documenting TiddlyWiki... unfortunately, most have met with only limited success.

Although community-driven wiki's are a good idea for some kinds of information, in practice, they have not been all that successful at producing clear, consistent, well-organized documentation for TiddlyWiki.  There have been some *individually-authored/curated* TiddlyWiki documentation efforts have been well received and are very helpful.   However, most of the "open contributor" sites tend to be a bit of a mess and eventually lose steam and become static and stale, with outdated or incorrect information (due to core changes).  There is also a tendency for people to document their solutions to "hard stuff"... so the articles tend towards "dense, complex documentation targeted towards seasoned programmers", rather than "the more easily understood documentation that could be read by newbies"

-e




Alfonso Arciniega

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Feb 17, 2015, 12:49:52 AM2/17/15
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Hi Eric,

I left you a message in TiddlyTools regarding the book project. Not sure if you've seen it.

Apologies to the group for this unrelated message, just I don't have Eric's email to communicate to him directly.

Alfonso Arciniega

David Bakin

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Mar 20, 2015, 3:25:54 PM3/20/15
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I am a happy user of TWC.  Every few months I check this group to see how TW5 is coming along and I was very happy to read this message - until I released it was 3 months old.  Has this moratorium paid off?  Is there documentation and a plugin list for new users?  I hope so!

Here's my state:  I have several useful TWC wikis in progress ... some have several hundred tiddlers.  Even though there's very little theming done I have only read that a) TWC tiddlers can't be directly imported to TW5 and b) there's a tool "in progress" that will convert "most" tiddlers (but no specification of what gets converted and what doesn't).

I'm willing to learn the new markup language, and in fact, I'm willing to start new wikis from scratch (new topics) but my blocking issue is that I do rely on several TWC plugins and I have no idea what the equivalent is in TW5 or if it is available.  So in the interests of progressing, I hope you'll be able to answer for me what the equivalent of the following is in TW5 or what I should be doing instead:

a) The single most important plugin I use is SharedTiddlers, which lets me have a "base" wiki which contains nearly all the plugins I use (except SharedTiddlers itself...) and then a bunch of topic wikis that refer to the "base" for all enhancments ... plugins, configuration, etc.  That way when I introduce a new plugin to my repertoire ... or a plugin is upgraded ... I do it in one place - base.html - and it is available in all my wikis instantly and automatically.  Does SharedTiddlers exist in TW5 or is there another way to get this vital functionality?

b) TextArea - to adjust the size of the area of the new tiddler I'm creating.

c) RearrangeTiddlers - I just like to organize several tiddlers I'm reading at the moment.

d) ForEachTiddler - I've written little utilities like a macro that deletes all tiddlers with a given tag.

e) DisableWikiLinks - sometimes it's more convenient than using individual markup

f) MathJax - I can move up to KaTeX ... I assume the markup to signal TeX is similar, so this probably isn't a problem.

Really, the lack of documentation and the different plugin support are the major major blockers for me.  I just isn't practical to search google groups to find answers to questions like "what's available" - things are so scattered.

I will very much appreciate your help in getting me going on TW5 by letting me know what the right way to handle each of the needs that the above TWC plugins do for me.  And also, am I right that I might as well NOT convert my old TWC wikis?  Or does the tool to do the conversion actual exist and work?

Thanks very much!  -- David Bakin

Eric Shulman

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Mar 20, 2015, 4:58:28 PM3/20/15
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On Friday, March 20, 2015 at 12:25:54 PM UTC-7, David Bakin wrote:
Here's my state:  I have several useful TWC wikis in progress ... some have several hundred tiddlers.  Even though there's very little theming done I have only read that a) TWC tiddlers can't be directly imported to TW5 and b) there's a tool "in progress" that will convert "most" tiddlers (but no specification of what gets converted and what doesn't).

I'm willing to learn the new markup language, and in fact, I'm willing to start new wikis from scratch (new topics) but my blocking issue is that I do rely on several TWC plugins and I have no idea what the equivalent is in TW5 or if it is available.  So in the interests of progressing, I hope you'll be able to answer for me what the equivalent of the following is in TW5 or what I should be doing instead:

One of the best features of TWC (and TW5 in 'standalone' single file use), is that all the programming for the system is self-contained in the same file with your document data, so that there is no risk of "version skew" when upgrading.  You can continue to use your existing TWC documents even as you get "up to speed" creating new TW5 documents from scratch.  As you learn more TW5 syntax and techniques, you will eventually become comfortable enough with TW5 that you will be able to tackle the migration of your existing TWC content.  Of course, you can always decide that you don't need to convert your TWC documents, and just use TW5 for new things.

a) The single most important plugin I use is SharedTiddlers, which lets me have a "base" wiki which contains nearly all the plugins I use (except SharedTiddlers itself...) and then a bunch of topic wikis that refer to the "base" for all enhancments ... plugins, configuration, etc.  That way when I introduce a new plugin to my repertoire ... or a plugin is upgraded ... I do it in one place - base.html - and it is available in all my wikis instantly and automatically.  Does SharedTiddlers exist in TW5 or is there another way to get this vital functionality?

Jeremy has talked quite a bit about Ward Cunningham's "Federated Wiki" concept, which can readily support a SharedTiddlers model of use.  However... the implementation is not yet there.  One of the major concerns is about security... because TWC allows some embedded scripting (e.g., onClick handlers in HTML code, evaluated parameters in TWC macros, etc.) within tiddlers, it is a possible vector for malicious code... especially in a "SharedTiddlers" situation, where the tiddlers can be coming from non-trusted sources.  Some of the TW5 strategies for closing this security gap include "sanitizing" the tiddler content to remove all embedded <script>...</script> elements, as well as all "onXXX" handlers in HTML code.

b) TextArea - to adjust the size of the area of the new tiddler I'm creating.

Most modern browsers now include a small "stretch box" on textarea input fields.  Simple grab the lower right corner of the text box and you can resize it.  This is a browser-level feature, and is completely independent of TiddlyWiki code.
 
c) RearrangeTiddlers - I just like to organize several tiddlers I'm reading at the moment.

I like this feature too (that why I wrote it!).  In TW5, the current contents of the "story river" are continuously tracked in [[$:/StoryList]].  Editing the tiddlers listed there to change their order will immediately update the order the tiddlers current displayed in the story river.  However, there is not YET any "drag and drop" handling to achieve this interactively.  TW5 has some built-in handling for drag-and-drop, via the $dropzone widget, so there is some potential for creating a plugin to enable dragging tiddlers for re-ordering... but this has not yet been implemented... and may need some additional core changes to make it work right.

d) ForEachTiddler - I've written little utilities like a macro that deletes all tiddlers with a given tag.

One of the most powerful new features of TW5 is the <$list> widget.  It selects a set of tiddlers by using a "filter" (another powerful features of TW5), and then loops over that set of tiddlers, rendering specified content for each tiddler that is selected.  For your indicated use-case, you could write something like:
<$list filter="[tag[SomeTag]]">
   <$action-deletetiddler {{!!title}}/>
</$list>

However, since deleting a set of tiddlers is a fairly common activity, the <$action-deletetiddler> widget also directly supports filtering for deleting multiple tiddlers, so you could write this in just one line:
<$action-deletetiddler $filter="[tag[sometag]]"/>

To make sure that the above is only invoked when you explicitly choose to delete tiddlers, you can wrap the above line inside a <$button> widget, like this:
<$button>
<$action-deletetiddler $filter="[tag[sometag]]"/>
Delete tiddlers
</$button>
This creates a pushbutton labelled "Delete tiddlers".  Pushing the button triggers the contained <$action-deletetiddler> widget.

e) DisableWikiLinks - sometimes it's more convenient than using individual markup


f) MathJax - I can move up to KaTeX ... I assume the markup to signal TeX is similar, so this probably isn't a problem.

Not personally familiar with either MathJax or KaTeX syntax, but yes, my impression is that they are similar.

Really, the lack of documentation and the different plugin support are the major major blockers for me.  I just isn't practical to search google groups to find answers to questions like "what's available" - things are so scattered.

There are quite a few people that are working on improving the documentation... but this takes time.  There has recently been alot of refactoring in the documentation at www.TiddlyWiki.com, but it's still a work in progress, and there's lots of opportunities for improvement.

Myself, I am working on a full-blown book project: "Inside TiddlyWiki: The Missing Manual", but it also is a work-in-progress, and it will be some time (months) before it is ready for public consumption.  This is a group funded project, with initial funds raised through an IndieGoGo campaign, and continued fundraising through direct PayPal contributions here: http://TiddlyTools.github.com/fundraising.html#MakeADonation

I will very much appreciate your help in getting me going on TW5 by letting me know what the right way to handle each of the needs that the above TWC plugins do for me.  And also, am I right that I might as well NOT convert my old TWC wikis?  Or does the tool to do the conversion actual exist and work?

Unfortuantely, migrating content is not currently a 'one click' operation.  You can drag-and-drop a TWC file onto an open TW5 document and it will import all the tiddlers from the TWC file (you can select which ones).  However, the content in those TWC tiddlers is not "massaged" into TW5 syntax, which is left for you to do manually.  There is also a TWC parser plugin for TW5, which enables most (but not all) TWC syntax to be rendered without converting to TW5 syntax (see http://tiddlywiki.com/plugins/tiddlywiki/tw2parser/ for a demo).  Note also that there is no direct support in TW5 for TWC <<macro>> syntax -- especially if the macro was defined in a TWC plugin -- so there is still some manual conversion and re-implementation that will be needed to completely migrate from TWC to TW5.

Of course, as I noted above, you can continue to use your existing TWC documents as long as you like, and only migrate when you are up-to-speed with TW5.  

I hope my answers have given you some confidence in moving forward to TW5... if not for all your existing documents, then at least for any new documents you create from scratch.

enjoy,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

Note: the IndieGogo funding campaign has ended,
but direct fundraising continues below...

PMario

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Mar 21, 2015, 7:29:23 AM3/21/15
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Hi David,

On Friday, March 20, 2015 at 8:25:54 PM UTC+1, David Bakin wrote:
I am a happy user of TWC.  Every few months I check this group to see how TW5 is coming along and I was very happy to read this message - until I released it was 3 months old.  Has this moratorium paid off?  Is there documentation and a plugin list for new users?  I hope so!

IMO documentation improved, but there will be never enough. So feedback and help is very welcome!

There has been some development according to the plugin library and the possibility to install plugins from the web within a file TW. see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7tRvAj1ZG9s#t=1492

The upcoming 5.1.8 version will have a basic core plugin library manager.

The tiddlywiki community tiddler and Tobi Beers TW will be good starting points.

 
Here's my state:  I have several useful TWC wikis in progress ... some have several hundred tiddlers.  Even though there's very little theming done I have only read that a) TWC tiddlers can't be directly imported to TW5 and b) there's a tool "in progress" that will convert "most" tiddlers (but no specification of what gets converted and what doesn't).

TW will import TWC tiddlers as mime type text/x-tiddlywiki, which are shown as plain text by TW. ... There is a button, that lets you set the type to text/vnd.tiddlywiki. ... but the formatting will be broken since TW uses a slightly different wiki text. Most noticeable will be, that TWC wasn't able to create proper paragraphs. TW5 will need 2 newlines to indicate the beginning of a new paragraph. 1 newline will be ignored. ...

There is an edit toolbar plugin from Stephen http://tw5editor.tiddlyspot.com/ that can help you adjust text for TW.

 
I'm willing to learn the new markup language, and in fact, I'm willing to start new wikis from scratch (new topics) but my blocking issue is that I do rely on several TWC plugins and I have no idea what the equivalent is in TW5 or if it is available.  So in the interests of progressing, I hope you'll be able to answer for me what the equivalent of the following is in TW5 or what I should be doing instead:

a) The single most important plugin I use is SharedTiddlers, which lets me have a "base" wiki which contains nearly all the plugins I use (except SharedTiddlers itself...) and then a bunch of topic wikis that refer to the "base" for all enhancments ... plugins, configuration, etc.  That way when I introduce a new plugin to my repertoire ... or a plugin is upgraded ... I do it in one place - base.html - and it is available in all my wikis instantly and automatically.  Does SharedTiddlers exist in TW5 or is there another way to get this vital functionality?

There is no SharedTiddlers equivalent. ... But TiddlyDesktop may be interesting.
 
b) TextArea - to adjust the size of the area of the new tiddler I'm creating.

Just go to tiddlywiki.com edit a tiddler and have a look, if it does what you want. .. I don't know, what you want here.
 
c) RearrangeTiddlers - I just like to organize several tiddlers I'm reading at the moment.

There is no drag and drop functionality in the core atm but the feature is requested very often.
 
d) ForEachTiddler - I've written little utilities like a macro that deletes all tiddlers with a given tag.

list macros and list widget can do all the things and a lot more, without javascript programming. Have a look at Tobie Beers site.
 
e) DisableWikiLinks - sometimes it's more convenient than using individual markup

Every parser rule has its own unique name. eg: bold
So if you start a tiddler with

\rule except bold

This tiddler will ignore the ''bold'' formatting rule. The opposite is:

\rules only bold italic underscore

So only bold italic and underscore will be recogniced. ....

So there are a lot of possibilities.


 
f) MathJax - I can move up to KaTeX ... I assume the markup to signal TeX is similar, so this probably isn't a problem.

There is a KaTeX plugin.
 
Really, the lack of documentation and the different plugin support are the major major blockers for me.  I just isn't practical to search google groups to find answers to questions like "what's available" - things are so scattered.

Giving proper feedback and help out is highly appreciated and highly needed. We just don't have enough man power.

 
I will very much appreciate your help in getting me going on TW5 by letting me know what the right way to handle each of the needs that the above TWC plugins do for me.  And also, am I right that I might as well NOT convert my old TWC wikis?

If TWC works for you stay with it for your "working stuff" and try to use TW5 for new wikis. .. IMO that's the best way to start.
 
  Or does the tool to do the conversion actual exist and work?

IMO it will never exist. There are some helpers. see Stephens toolbar plugin, but IMO manual work will always need to be done. 


have fun!
mario

Jeremy Ruston

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Mar 21, 2015, 9:38:59 AM3/21/15
to David Bakin, TiddlyWiki
Hi David

Just to a couple of the answers already given by Eric and Mario:

a) The single most important plugin I use is SharedTiddlers, which lets me have a "base" wiki which contains nearly all the plugins I use (except SharedTiddlers itself...) and then a bunch of topic wikis that refer to the "base" for all enhancments ... plugins, configuration, etc.  That way when I introduce a new plugin to my repertoire ... or a plugin is upgraded ... I do it in one place - base.html - and it is available in all my wikis instantly and automatically.  Does SharedTiddlers exist in TW5 or is there another way to get this vital functionality?

It's probably not what you were looking for, but there is a very flexible equivalent of shared tiddlers under the Node.js configuration of TiddlyWiki. Individual tiddlers are stored as individual, separate files. Directories of tiddlers can be chained together and shared between wikis.
 
b) TextArea - to adjust the size of the area of the new tiddler I'm creating.

Edit text areas in TW5 automatically adjust their height to fit their content.
 
c) RearrangeTiddlers - I just like to organize several tiddlers I'm reading at the moment.

buggyj has a plugin for this:

 
Best wishes

Jeremy

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