TiddlyWiki On A Stick (particularly for iOS)

[David Masterson]

Still looking for information on whether TiddlyWiki can be used on a USB Stick under iOS...

My use case would be to setup a secure wiki for my family records on a (somewhat) encrypted Wiki that is stored on the USB Stick.  This Wiki would need to be friendly and easy to use for my wife and daughter, so I would expect that it would not be purely read-only.  They might need to take (controlled) notes on the information and create tasks based upon the information that I would setup ways for them to do on the stick.  The stick provides the security that nothing gets out on the Internet unless they want it to.  They might access the stick via their (iOS) telephone or the home Windows computer.  Years ago, classic Tiddlywiki was a *GREAT* option for this as the add-ons provided a lot of nice interfaces for building the wiki and the wiki could save any information needed to the stick.

Is it still an option with restrictions on saving?

[TonyM]

David,

When you say iOS I presume an iphone or iPad not a laptop or mac mini

I am not longer using an iPhone, so can not give a full outline, But I believe you will need to have the settings to save a tiddlywiki in your browser of choice (or application), plus an OTG Usb Style drive connector, then the only slightly uncertain thing here access to that drive from the browser or app you use to read and save.

So get it working on on the phone, then try and save and access the USB drive would be the approach I would take.

Best of luck

Tony

[Silverfox]

I use TiddlyWiki in iOS through Quine (iOS app), and the file is, in my case, stored on iCloud, but is should be possible to do it on a USB key as well.

It works well also to sync with a Mac.

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi David

Sadly, as far as I know, it is still not possible on iOS to save and retrieve files other than photographs to a USB mass storage device. There are USB drives that advertise iOS compatibility but they actually connect to iOS devices via an integrated WiFi base station, and not via the USB plug. All of that means that they are quite expensive and have limited compatibility with standard iOS techniques.

I think the next best option might be to use iCloud Drive combined with TiddlyWiki's own encryption.

Best wishes

Jeremy

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Jeremy Ruston

jer...@jermolene.com

https://jermolene.com

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[David Masterson]

Ouch!  That's sad.

What's the difference between save/retrieve a photograph and save/retrieve any other type of file in this case?  Are they requiring a special App to read/write the USB drive that only recognizes the photographs?

[Jed Carty]

It is an intentional limit on iOS.

iOS doesn't let developers have real access to the underlying filesystem without a lot of trouble and the access you have is very aggressively sandboxed. But you do have access to the built-in media browser which lets you see any video or images on the device or connected storage media.

[TonyM]

David,

Whilst reasons such as this have moved me away from the Apple eco system I believe you may be able to achieve the equivalent by other means. 

Perhaps you could share the requirements you have that prompted you to choose a USB drive as the way to deliver a TiddlyWiki to the iPhone.

In many cases tiddlywiki will work offline because its effectively cached in the browser, or can be held on local disk. If you then want to save it or export changes to another location you can do so once on Internet, or LAN/Intranet.

Personally I like having TiddlyWikis served by Node on my phone, so when on the home wifi I can access it from my desktop, at which point I can make extra backups etc...

I think this can still be kept simple for users, but if you can voice your goals let us know and we can help.

Regards

Tony

On Wednesday, October 10, 2018 at 11:03:59 AM UTC+11, David Masterson wrote:

[David Masterson]

Aww.  That's a real shame.  USB keys provide a simple security solution for families in that their information is not on the Internet where it can be hacked.

[David Masterson]

The main reason is absolute and easy security.  It is really simple to give my (not too computer savvy) family a USB key to plug into their iPhone when needed to access things like medical records.  It would also be nice if they could, in a controlled manner, update the information on the USB key if they need to (like record that they went to a doctor's appointment and what the results were).  Everything would be neatly stored on the USB key with no chance for a hacker to get to.  I could make daily encrypted backups of the USB key at home as well for safety.

[Jeremy Ruston]

One possibility is to think of the iPhone(s) as being the USB keys: iOS gives each app a sandboxed area of storage that is accessible if you plug the device into iTunes via USB: you can see the files and drag and drop new files into it. From the perspective of the PC, the device pretty much is a USB stick. (Indeed I’ve often used my iPhones as a sneakernet file transfer device just like that).

So, an Internet-less strategy for distribution would be that you periodically connect each device to your iTunes machine, pull out any changes the user has made to the file, and update it with the freshest version.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

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[David Masterson]

Interesting possibility.  My concern was potential size of the financial records over time chewing up significant space on the iPhones internal storage (daughter likes to fill storage with her self-produced videos).  Use of a USB key can add to the storage significantly, but I'm not sure yet of that possibility.  I have found at least one USB key (with SD card)  that connects both to Windows/Mac and to iPhone lightning and supports HTML (among many others) files.  Not sure what the extent of the support is, though.

Don't you think this would be use-case to partner with one or more companies to work on providing an off-the-shelf TiddlyWiki setup that works with their USB key to provide (virtually) unlimited and secure storage and application tools that works across all system types that support USB interfaces?  I would think it would be a good way to get a big cash infusion without taking TiddlyWiki closed-source.

[TonyM]

David,

With all due respect I think your solution ideas would be much easier on an Android device. The elephant in the room is Apples propriety approach and how creative solutions are often restricted unless apple has a product of their own. It belies their messaging that says they lead, are simple to use, they are creative solutions providers, when so much of what they do is stop third party innovations in a number of areas making the iPhone look good when the innovation is delivered by them, because they hold the propriety keys and no one else can deliver some innovations on apple products.

In Contrast my LG V20 Phone can take SD cards greater than 128GB, can access an OTG usb drive out of the box and a lot more.

Just a little grumble, and something I, you, we, cant change soon.

Regards

Tony

[Mark S.]

I'm not a Mac person, but I'm following along.

Do I understand this correctly: You can only access a USB stick via an App specifically made for that stick? And can only access files that that app allows? So if a usb manufacturer doesn't provide good codecs, you might not be able to view videos directly on the stick? Wow, that's limiting.

Given that many USB sticks allow transferring of videos and none (or is there one? which one BTW?) allow HTML, wouldn't it be better offload the videos to a stick instead? Your daughter's bound to run out of space if she keeps making videos on the device.

I would be surprised if your personal data weighed in at more than 10 megs. On my ancient 6 year old Android devices, 10 Megs is about the upper limit. But 10 megs is an awful lot of information in text form. 6 megs can hold an entire Bible for instance, which is about equivalent to 6000 one page documents.

Good luck!

-- Mark

[TonyM]

Mark,

As I understand it it is always photos videos and other media files that tax storage. The apple environment deals with this data likitation with larger memory more expencive phones and icloud.

Since iphones means you must use icloud I would trust icloud and look for a solution there, keeping in mind tiddlywiki can use a local file or browser session when off line.

Regards
Tony

[David Masterson]

I understand and fully appreciate what you're saying.  The lock-in factor with Apple is very big and hard to walk away from.

[David Masterson]

Interesting point.

The other point is sneakernet.  That is, providing a communication where they can communicate changes to the financial data (results of doctor visits, big banking transactions, etc.) which would be done by TW writing data to the USB key and then passing that to others as needed.

This issue is getting to be almost as big as simply encrypting a file in the cloud.  Hmm.

[TonyM]

David,

Another question to ask is how much data costs, and is it always available. As the price drops and tiddlyiki can be hosted over https the cloud option becomes more compelling. Sometimes when the direct approach is not available we are forced to find a way around and we can find better solutions in the long run. The next release will be moving tiddlywiki forward and variouse serving options may go a long way.

Best of luck anyway, and keep the conversation going.

Tony

[David Masterson]

I understand.  The hacker incidents of stolen data makes trusting websites with precious data harder, so the idea of USB keys for secure data storage seems like (at least for the common man) a relatively inexpensive, yet secure approach.  It's also (might be) relatively easy to plug in the key and have the TW app pop up to lead a newbie through the data with no special requirements (other than a family password).  All that has to be done is make backups of the key from time to time (which can be locked away in a safety deposit box).

[Arlen Beiler]

What I think you should do is host it on the network then access it from your iOS device. You could setup a secure VPN solution that would allow them to connect to the home network remotely. Or you could just have it sync changes once they get back home. I really think that would be a lot easier than anything else on iOS. Otherwise someone would have to write an app specifically for that, and I don't know who will. There is the Quine app, but I don't know if it covers your usecase. Have you checked that out?

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[David Masterson]

Looking at Quine and considering, but, yeah, things are not quite there yet for local storage with iOS.   Not sure how much I want to get into new territory.