Why I can't use TiddlyWiki, but wish I could

[Robert Mark Bram]

Hi All,

I love TiddlyWiki, really. I spent nearly three weeks customizing it to bits, enjoying every minute of it. But I can't use it.

For the kind of collaboration work I am doing, I need it to be "in the cloud" so that others can view/edit without having to save it locally. And I want to be able to do it with Chrome.

Just now I found myself manually putting in links and anchors into a Google Document and thought "damnit, this is exactly what TiddlyWiki would save me from!" but then I couldn't get my collaborators to view/edit the doc in the same way. It makes me sad.

Can HTML 5 save the day, I wonder?

TiddlyWiki, my heart pines for you.

Rob

:)

[passingby]

How about using tiddlyspace? You don't have to save locally and it is geared towards fast online saving of individual tiddlers.

[Robert Mark Bram]

Wow. I am checking this out now.

:)

[HansBKK]

I believe a critical issue, and one I'm quite surprised about, are the cross-browser problems. One of the main attractions of TW is to serve as a long-term repository for hypertext content, free of the "expiring accessibility" of proprietary formats.

I would have thought newer browsers would keep backward compatibility with well-written JavaScript, so if I want to use an archived TW twenty years from now I wouldn't have to resurrect the whole working environment.

I've just re-visited a topic that's about that old for me, and I'm struggling getting v2 of Lotus Notes up and running just to get at my data!

Maybe I need to make sure my important data stored in TWs is also exported as CSV when it gets archived. . .

[PMario]

==== slightly off topic ====

On 1 Jul., 05:59, HansBKK <hans...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe a critical issue, and one I'm quite surprised about, are the
> cross-browser problems. One of the main attractions of TW is to serve as a
> long-term repository for hypertext content, free of the "expiring
> accessibility" of proprietary formats.

If you are talking about the latest problems, people reported with
FireFox5, this isn't a cross-browser problem.

I don't remember one, that said:"I can't load my TW anymore, all my
data is gone." Most of them said:"I can't import the content of one TW
into a eg: master TW". Or "I can't open my master TW, that
automatically imports content from other TWs". Which seems to be
blocked, due to security issues. Or it is a browser bug. The single TW
files seem to be still accessible. So it is a loss of convenience and
not data. The HTML4 format works fine with new browsers.

> I would have thought newer browsers would keep backward compatibility with
> well-written JavaScript, so if I want to use an archived TW twenty years
> from now I wouldn't have to resurrect the whole working environment.

JavaScript also has an ongoing development. Even if it is a slow one.
There may be functions that can be used at the moment, but may be
depricated in future versions. Also mostly due to security reasons. So
checking if you can access your archive every year, would be a good
idea. I personally check mine at least every 3 years.

> Maybe I need to make sure my important data stored in TWs is also exported
> as CSV when it gets archived. . .

Saving valuable data in 2 indipendent formats, isn't a bad idea
anyway. If you can make sure, that future programms can read your CSV
files. It's just an other file format, but imo doesn't solve the long
term accessibility problem, because data needs to be stored on a media
eg: CD and there you also have an accessibility problem. .....

==== on topic ============
@rob
I think you found http://tiddlyspace.com, which was developed for
editing TW in the cloud.
have fun!

[HansBKK]

On Friday, July 1, 2011 2:34:52 PM UTC+7, PMario wrote:

==== slightly off topic ====

I don't remember one, that said:"I can't load my TW anymore, all my
data is gone." Most of them said:"I can't import the content of one TW
into a eg: master TW". Or "I can't open my master TW, that
automatically imports content from other TWs".  Which seems to be
blocked, due to security issues. Or it is a browser bug. The single TW
files seem to be still accessible. So it is a loss of convenience and
not data. The HTML4 format works fine with new browsers.

Yes, I was simply pointing out an area of concern, as I've been quite surprised that these issues are coming up at all - probably just shows my ignorance of the complexities of HTML5 and/or JavaScript standards.

So checking if you can access your archive every year, would be a good
idea. I personally check mine at least every 3 years.

It's just an other file format, but imo doesn't solve the long
term accessibility problem, because data needs to be stored on a media
eg: CD and there you also have an accessibility problem. .....

Good points, reminders there are no single-solution magic bullets. . .

But I don't think plain text, including CSV as a file format will become difficult to work with for at least a few more generations, probably "never" IMO.

Regarding physical data storage, all but my multi-media files are small enough that they just stay with me, as standard hard drive sizes keep expanding faster than I can fill them with content - as long as I'm vigilant about moving my multi-media stuff offline, and I do transfer over to new optical discs, deciding what to keep and what to chuck every 2-3 years.

[josef]

To be really safe you also have to be able to use the original OS
where the TW was created and used. Worse case, it is not the JS or
HTML that changed but due to various concerns, the OS has changed.

Thus, the foolproof way is to have a virtual machine that runs the OS,
browser, and TW. Alas, the VM may not load and run in future also.
Ultimately, the only solution is paper. We are still finding
documents from ancient times, whereas computer apps and storage don't
even live for a decade (DBase2, floppies, zip drives, ....).

Perhaps, off topic.
-- Josef

[S.]

There's plenty of server-side TW you can try. I'd recommend
CCTiddlywiki, but I'm biased :P

S.

[HansBKK]

I'm still using apps based on dBase2, and even the occasional floppy! 8-)

Obviously define "long term" long enough and even stone tablets dissolve, from my POV it's really a question of balancing current convenience/bells & whistles against the desire for longevity - my desire for the latter certainly wouldn't make a return to paper worth my while.

I'm personally hoping that today's TW will still be "mostly usable" down the road. I'm not expecting perfect fidelity, and worst case scenario the file format is in the end plain text, and I am willing to give pretty long odds that *that will* be accessible in the future, and future text parsing/scripting tools (eg Perl) will be able to get the data out into a useful format.

[Julian Knight]

Hans, I sympathise with the Lotus Notes issue! I did extensive work with Notes from around 1991 to 1999 and very ocassionally need to resurrect some old work that I know is buried in one of the Notes databases that I have archived. Are you sure you need v2 though? I've been able to get at all my data by downloading the latest release from IBM - though I suspect that my oldest surviving database is v3 rather than v2. Of course, you do need a copy of your ID file!

[HansBKK]

haven't got a round tuit yet, and good luck my remembering my password from 12+ years ago

[Julian Knight]

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