How to get stuff into tw

[Steve S]

Hello readers, 

I am trying to work out how to get stuff (e.g. notes) into tw from other apps like drafts. I have tried tw as a GTD capture bucket and its ok but I don't think anything can beat Drafts app and perhaps nvAlt on the Mac. I like tw as a place to store and review and manipulate the stuff I have stored but I can't find an easy way to get stuff into tw from those other apps. 

I hesitated writing here as I'm not sure how relevant, simple or silly it is, but then I have been told that there is no such thing as a silly question and that if you ask it you often find others who were afraid to!?

Any help appreciated. 

Steve

[Sycom]

Maybe you can export your drafts node as individual markdown files. Inspired from this:
https://forums.getdrafts.com/t/export-multiple-drafts-as-individual-text-files/4536

Then using tiddlydesktop or directly nodejs TiddlyWiki, you'll be able to import them.

- You will need the markown plugin
- You may have to create a recipe for your export for creating .md.meta files alongside markdown ones.

Know it's not so easy. But possible. Maybe there are other ways also (through Evernote?)

Cheers

Sylvain
@sycom

[@TiddlyTweeter]

It should be easier than it currently is.

Sycom wrote:

Maybe you can export your drafts node as individual markdown files. 

The issue with markdown is its not fully compatable with TW's WikiText. 

TT

[TonyM]

Is there not a markdowns parser plugin?

personally I think tiddlywiki has more options than most for capture and transfer. Tiddlyclip or I like browser add-ons.

Happy to help further

Tony

[@TiddlyTweeter]

TonyM wrote:

... I think tiddlywiki has more options than most for capture and transfer. 

I think you are right AND wrong.

I could NOT say there are that many "easy out of the box" methods.

I think TW is quite TOUGH on this for beginners.

I could also say that ONCE you understand it anything is possible.

It might be useful to provide Online Convertors in TW between formats?

TT

 

[Sycom]

Hi

The issue with markdown is its not fully compatable with TW's WikiText.

I find the markdown plugin is doing a decent job. Never had problems with it though it's pretty old. Also there will be an update using remarkable. My only regret is that you have to store metadata in another file when most of modern md systems store them in the file, just like .tid does for a long time.

It might be useful to provide Online Convertors in TW between formats?

Why not? It might. The problem is that such translators will restrain your output to "minimal common functionalities" of both language. A bit sad. I think plugins are a good way, even for beginners.

I agree with the fact that TW is not so easy for beginners. And it's not so easy to convince new people to use it. BUT :

- It is the price of freedom. I've been trying alternatives for years for good or bad reasons. I never found any tool that free my mind and work like TW.

- The learning curve is adaptative. Soft if you need. Steep if you wish.

One of the main issue is that you have plenty ways of doing the same thing. But it's rather a feature, isn't it? :-)

Regards

Sylvain

@sycom

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Sylvain

Sycom wrote:

TT: The issue with markdown is its not fully compatable with TW's WikiText.

I find the markdown plugin is doing a decent job. Never had problems with it though it's pretty old. Also there will be an update using remarkable. My only regret is that you have to store metadata in another file when most of modern md systems store them in the file, just like .tid does for a long time.

I agree. It does a good job. But its not 100% kosher.

My thought was "better to convert to TW WikiText directly when we can" (not need another render engine unless there is no other TW way to standard format).

 

It might be useful to provide Online Convertors in TW between formats?

 Why not? It might. The problem is that such translators will restrain your output to "minimal common functionalities" of both language.

But that would apply to any translator.

 

A bit sad. I think plugins are a good way, even for beginners.

I don't understand how a "plugin" reduces that issue (fyi, I'm not against them!) .

I agree with the fact that TW is not so easy for beginners. And it's not so easy to convince new people to use it. BUT :

- It is the price of freedom. I've been trying alternatives for years for good or bad reasons. I never found any tool that free my mind and work like TW.

- The learning curve is adaptative. Soft if you need. Steep if you wish.

One of the main issue is that you have plenty ways of doing the same thing. But it's rather a feature, isn't it? :-)

I think that is a really excellent point.

The missing piece may just be HOW to help a beginner get to grips with that very richness.

I hope we are not leaving that to fate :-).

Very interesting post! Thanks!

Best wishes

TT 

[Sylvain Comte]

Hi TT,

> But that would apply to any translator.

...

> I don't understand how a "plugin" reduces that issue (fyi, I'm not against them!) 

I will have to find a feature md has, that wikitext doesn't. Pretty hard I'm afraid ;-). I was just pointing that renderers are different and speak their native language directly to HTML.

I know that you're not against plugins. Even the not "100% kosher" ( ?!? :-)

Maybe I'm wrong, but many people are using md. Providing them with a way to keep their work "as is" in TW is a good way to make them a test. Having to translate before starting is not so sexy.

Later, they will understand the power of wikitext and learn it. If they don't like TW, switching back will be painless.

Always a pleasure to have a debate here. Despite my poor Globish. Makes me work...

Regards

Sylvain

@sycom

[Mark S.]

The first step would be to understand what formats the application exports to, if any. I couldn't readily

identify from their documentation if they had an actual export format.

[TonyM]

Steve

See https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!searchin/tiddlywiki/DOM%7Csort:date/tiddlywiki/Z--Tvs6eftY/hEv6fVvnCgAJ for a short discussion on cleaning html. If you had a way to display your current content in HTML and a browser plugin to copy html this html cleaner may be a good way to import content.

Keep in mind rather than build many to many converters in tiddlywiki is is better to rely on an external many to many converter, ideal batch driven, that allows access to a greater range of conversions. Perhaps as a community we need to add wiki markup to a good converter.

However recent discussions on regex show using it to extract content from html. Which after all is a good pervasive standard. I believe the visual editor also accepts pasting html but it stays in html (in which you can insert wikitext).

Regards

Tony 

[Steve S]

Hello everyone 

Thanks so much for all the discussion. I was hoping for something a bit simpler and with some creative thinking may be able to come up with some suggestions that need less expert knowledge and simpler steps. For example:

- I recently (a recent post?) read about writing to a google spreadsheet and then reading that with Tiddlywiki. That person has obviously worked out how to read a google spreadsheet. 

- Quine works with the share button on iPhone. It stores the item that you share as a separate Tiddlywiki (I think) which you then need to import. If there was a way to auto import that may well solve the problem. Is there a way to auto import another toddler/tiddlywiki?

- there are Drafts "scripts" that do all kinds of amazing things. I could ask the drafts community but I'm not sure what to ask them right now. I'm sure drafts can export a HTML, but it may be able to do something that is even easier to get into tw? The scripts can do amazing things and work with many diverse apps. 

- I think it was in regard to IFTTT that I read about the google spreadsheet (I think I was a widget - or whatever IFTTT calls them- that did something like that). There may be another IFTTT solution? There are also other services that join apps and services together (Zapier). Not sure if it is worth thinking about?

Your suggestions above may well be more elegant and natural and not relying on other things but I'm trying to work with what I know and don't need to learn. 

What I don't understand is if you have something in a file (HTML, text or other) can you get tw to read/import it automatically? I guess you can link to things outside tw, is there something that does more than link or can tw read something that it has a link for?

These may all be newbie silly questions but they are mine and I'm sure there are a lot of others out there who have them or similar. I have an opinion on the side discussion that was happening about making tw more friendly for beginners and that is the struggle I am having now. I'd like to write some more about that experience but I'll just mention the first thing that came to mind. 

I quickly discovered (after the answer to my first question in this group - I think from Tony?) that if I want to get into tw more then I need to learn CSS (or at least know what it is and some of the terms) and then I learnt that it helps learning CSS if I have some understanding of HTML. I found a couple of courses and even the few intro lessons have been enormously helpful. Not sure if you agree that you need to know those things, but even the language that you are using in this group to help me assumes lots of knowledge (CSS and HTML!?). 

I'm not criticising but trying to give you a newbie perspective. I didn't really plan to join a new community but I guess I have been drawn in! It is kind of interesting and fun as was mentioned, but it is also time consuming and it is a bit humiliating and embarrassing to have to ask silly questions and spend a lot of time trying to understand difficult ideas and language, even when someone is trying to help you.

One simple thing that can be done is to make the easy courses more readily findable (front and centre on the front page?). I found tiddlytoddler quite good (and a relief!) and another one or two that I can't remember now. The videos are quite good (8 part series) but I didn't go first to them because I was in a hurry. I'm not sure that it was easy to find them apart from youtube directing me there after I watched the one that was linked to on the tw front page.  

I realise that pointing out these issues probably means being part of the answer. I'll have a think about that but I can at least try to document what I learn in simple language that even I can understand and make it available for others. While its still all fresh and frustrating I'll try to remember and write some of the things that I struggled with when I first started that the intro page didn't help with (or confused me). I guess that the other question to face is how user friendly do you really want it to be. I know a lot of people who would never get past the "save" instructions. It took me quite some time to understand. Tiddly desktop is ok but that wasn't immediately intuitive either. Please accept these criticisms as from a friend. You probably already know these things but I thought it worth pointing out anyway. I'll think about how I can be part of the solution and will help if I can (and you will have me!). 

This is an ongoing discussion and probably worth its own topic (if there isn't already one). 

I really appreciate all of your help and only mention all of this to try to make things better and give you a little perspective. 

Regards

Steve

We need to learn and remind ourselves every day that God's favour - His blessings and answers to prayer - comes to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.

- Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Everyday Life 

(+61) 0435 097 077

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[TonyM]

Steve

No question is silly. Just ask

I doubt I said you must learn html or css however both are helpful skills.

Most of your observations are familiar with learning tiddly wiki but we do learn from them.

I do need to point out your request is fairly broad and from an application we may not be familiar with. Transfering data between apps is a dark art given all the possible formats and you can even go via intermediate formats.

As an experienced it professional tiddlywiki is one of the more adaptable with text, csv, html. Json. Numerous plugins can also split text, parse text and more.

I will try and look at your source app but I suggest you explore the formats you can export to, investigate what converters are available for those formats, and let us know.

Also there is often a big difference between small ad hoc transfers and bulk transfer. Perhaps provide an indicator of how much you have. When Transfering larger volumes the key is how you represent the data's pieces, e.g. note name fields etc so you can maintain this information and use it perhaps to split them into tiddlers.

I hope this helps. When we can refine what you need I expect we can help more.

Tony

[Sycom]

Hello,

Thanks for your feedback. I don't know if the whole community can do something for all this (or will), but it's interesting, at least for me as a person involved in the conversation.

 

I recently (a recent post?) read about writing to a google spreadsheet and then reading that with Tiddlywiki. That person has obviously worked out how to read a google spreadsheet.

There is an xls importer for TiddlyWiki. But considering what you want to do, It does not really mean less expert knowledge. I might be wrong though, each one can have a different feeling of what is complexity.

Is there a way to auto import another toddler/tiddlywiki?

Definitly. You can try this. Go to an empty wiki, look for the tools tab in the sidebar and click on import. You can choose a tiddlywiki file and then select tiddlers you want. You can also import files in your wiki, just by drag and drop. Try it directly on the online empty wiki to see what happens. You may drag any tiddler or markdown file from your PC or from another TW elsewhere on the web.

There may be another IFTTT solution?

This one looks like a dead end. TiddlyWiki is not a SAAS you can request from iFTTT.

there are Drafts "scripts" that do all kinds of amazing things

Maybe this is the good way to go. Since you like Drafts very much, maybe you could find (or ask for scripts) that could do what you want?

(...) I'm trying to work with what I know and don't need to learn.

I think this is an issue. At least you will have to learn how to import things (Drafts notes?) and then how to save your TiddlyWiki to avoid losing your work. That mean also learn how to export your Drafts notes, since TW community can not help you very much for that. TiddlyWiki can be learned at own pace, but it has to be learned a little bit. And by the way, you're a bit unlucky since you are not starting with the easiest use case to get in ;-)

 I know a lot of people who would never get past the "save" instructions.

I do too!! It is a major point for anyone beginning with TW, but there are so many options and way to do this... It IS disturbing, even for me. And I've been using TW for ... (I can't remember. I'm pretty old now)

I'm sorry that you felt embarrassed or humiliated. I'm hundred and ten percent sure that no one here wanted something like this. Reading what you write here, I may suggest a rewrite of your question :

- You have "material" in a software called Drafts that you use and like. We don't know how is this "material" structured, what type of syntax it uses and how it can be exported.

- You found that TiddlyWiki is a good tool for organizing ideas and ask yourself if it is possible to get your "material" into it easily to play with

- We can say you how your material will be structured in TiddlyWiki :

    * as a collection of small pieces of text called tiddlers containing firstly some metadatas

title: the title of one tiddler
tags: tag1 [[another tag]] [[a third one]]
created: 20191021161700000
modified: 20191021162700472
type: text/vnd.tiddlywiki
...

The type meta describes the syntax of the text field that is under the first blank line (see below). The native format for tiddlers (default) is text/vnd.tiddlywiki wich is TiddlyWiki special WikiText, but you can use text, svg or csv and others. You can also use text/x-makdown with a plugin

! This is the tiddler content
As you see there is a blank line just above for delimiting the start of the text field

You have ''all sorts'' of //formatting// options here that are specific to [[TiddlyWiki|https://tiddlywiki.com]]. But if you have declared `text/x-markdown` as metadata type, you can use markdown...


...

TiddlyWiki can be run in a single html file containing both the software and all your tiddlers.

It can also be run separatly with a collection of standalone files with the .tid extension. It might be a good way to mass import your notes.

That said :

- I don't see an obvious way to have your Drafts notes in sync into a TiddlyWiki. Importing will probably be the only way to go. That means re-importing regularly if you want to be up-to-date.

- As you can understand we tiddlywikians have no Drafts script for doing the job you want to do.

- And TW has no script for doing it either as far as I know.

- But

   * I'm pretty sure that Drafts can export your notes in many formats. I suggested markdown because it is a pretty common standard that may be used in TW even if it is not perfect : There is a metadata issue. But If a Draft script can export your notes in title.md and their metadata (like described above) in title.md.meta it will be easy to have all this in a TiddlyWiki using TiddlyDesktop.

   * If you think that Draft can export your notes in an xls file, you may use the xls-utils described above. You will have to learn how to. The xsl-utils is powerfull BUT a bit cryptic at first sight.

Hope this helps you to find a path.

Regards,

Sylvain

@sycom

[Steve S]

Thanks for the ideas. There are some things to try, questions to ask and answer. I wanted to write something so you didn’t think I disappeared. I had a few other things on my plate.  I’ll get back with some further comments and questions  as soon as I can. 

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[Dave]

Here's my solution to a similar desire:

I use Bob (a version of node.js TW5) and so all the tiddlers are stored as text files with the ".tid" extension. That tiddlers folder I have shared between my work and home PC's and my android phone with Syncthing.

With that in place, you can make a new tid file however you choose and place it in that folder, it'll show up in your wiki.

From my PC I have a keyboard shortcut to run "newTiddler.sh", a bash script that pre populates the required fields as outlined above, and on Android I have a Tasker script that does the same.

My main purpose was to be able to quickly write down an idea before I forget it and this setup helps.

I even have the folder synced to a couple of computers on which I don't have Bob installed, just so I can add the odd file "on the fly"

[Steve S]

Thanks Bob,

that sounds like the kind of thing I want to do. 

My first reaction (apart from "this could work") is that I'm wondering about Bob (I'm yet to google it) and how it compares with pure TW which seems to have as one of its features that it just runs from one file. 

I'm not sure I understand what newTiddler.sh does. is it not true that "you can make a new tid file however you choose" but that you need some help from this script? I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. 

Regards

Steve

We need to learn and remind ourselves every day that God's favour - His blessings and answers to prayer - comes to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.

- Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Everyday Life 

(+61) 0435 097 077

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[Dave]

Oh, sorry, newTiddler.sh is a bash script I wrote for this purpose. If you're on Linux it would work and I can post it for you. But basically you could theoretically make a shortcut in any system that would say open a file already set up with the fields you want and when you're done with it you could "save as" "my tiddler.tid" and you're good to go. (Drawback is the date fields wouldn't be correct, but they just have to be present to work)

If you're on a Windows system you could write a similar script to make the file using Autohotkey I suppose.

Anyway let me know if you want me to post my script. You'd also have to be able to install the bash Gui program called "Yad" (short for "yet another dialog")

[Steve S]

Not on Linux. So I think I understand that its not just a matter of having a text file but that it needs some kind of formatting or needs certain fields. So this script takes the file that you put in the tiddlers folder (or puts them in there?) and gives them the right fields?

Regards

Steve

We need to learn and remind ourselves every day that God's favour - His blessings and answers to prayer - comes to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.

- Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Everyday Life 

(+61) 0435 097 077

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[Dave]

Here's a picture of the text file that you would have to generate (see attached)

Those are the minimal "fields" you would need, i.e.

title

created: 20191028203108637

modified: 20191028203108637

tags: pts work

priority: 0.01

In my script it takes the first line as the title and puts this as the first line: "title: whatever I write in there"

and if you want something in the body of the tiddler just leave at least one space below your last "field" (word-on-one-line followed by a colon) and type away.  Save it as a tid file in the right folder and voila! a new tiddler

On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 1:43:23 PM UTC-6, Steve S wrote:

Not on Linux. So I think I understand that its not just a matter of having a text file but that it needs some kind of formatting or needs certain fields. So this script takes the file that you put in the tiddlers folder (or puts them in there?) and gives them the right fields?

Regards

Steve

We need to learn and remind ourselves every day that God's favour - His blessings and answers to prayer - comes to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.

- Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Everyday Life 

(+61) 0435 097 077

On Tue, 29 Oct 2019 at 00:55, Dave <ceda...@telus.net> wrote:

Oh, sorry, newTiddler.sh is a bash script I wrote for this purpose.  If you're on Linux it would work and I can post it for you. But basically you could theoretically make a shortcut in any system that would say open a file already set up with the fields you want and when you're done with it you could "save as" "my tiddler.tid" and you're good to go. (Drawback is the date fields wouldn't be correct, but they just have to be present to work)

If you're on a Windows system you could write a similar script to make the file using Autohotkey I suppose.

Anyway let me know if you want me to post my script. You'd also have to be able to install the bash Gui program called "Yad" (short for "yet another dialog")

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