[Opinion] Is TW's flexibility its achilles heel?

[@TiddlyTweeter]

I strikes me often that we now give so many ways to save and use TW that its actually off-putting.

Let me qualify that. Off-putting for an end-user looking for a decent "text-base."

On the one hand we have all the methods. On the other hand we have users looking for the minimal way forward.

IMO two or three main options are better than four or more. Yet we treat every method as equal.

I think that is a mistake for wider uptake.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Stobot]

My personal opinion and experience is the save / setup piece definitely hurts adoption, but use-case less so. 

Coming from a non-technical, Windows background, if I was running TiddlyWiki, I'd develop my landing page towards:

• Web first: Start with a sign-up to get you into a TiddlySpot (or similar) site in as few clicks as possible. Other options below in "local / other hosting options"
• Web or Desktop: Side by side have the above option on one side, and Desktop (link downloads TiddlyDesktop) on the other side - since some users won't be looking for a web option (privacy etc.) Other options below in "other hosting options".
  

Frankly, although I don't think either of those are the absolute "best" of the options, (although I use and love TiddlySpot, I use SharePoint .aspx and BOB exclusively) but I think they're the "best bang for the buck" in terms of simplest, and most like other things that end-users are used to - again at least other non-technical Windows users like me. I find that when showing people TiddlyWiki the first time, it's *harder* to get them to open one and make sure it saves, than to show them the basics of it working. That's... not good.

As far as "many ways to use", when I sell others at my company on TiddlyWiki, and they ask what it does, what it's for, I usually explain it's "like Excel for text". I use that analogy because Excel is extremely popular, and also commonly used / misused for *everything*, there's not really a right / wrong way to use it, and part of it's value is it's flexibility.

If I'm being honest, the other two biggest hurdles when getting my co-workers on the bandwagon are:

1. Name: I have hard time getting people over the TiddlyWiki name unfortunately - it doesn't bother me, but when I'm talking to executives I either get laughs, or I lie about it's name.
   
2. Look / Layout: Because it looks so different from other software / web software my co-workers get confused as to how it works. Note that the "Material Theme" out there helps because it kind of makes it look like SharePoint to some degree - more business friendly. Not that I think SharePoint is very good looking, but it's one barrier removed. In fact I'll sometimes now get "it kind of works like SharePoint, but much faster" which helps.

Anyways, I love the tool and the community, just want to throw out other perspectives.

[TonyM]

Josiah,

I suppose my own journey from TiddlyWiki Classic is an example of TW being off putting, Every time I looked at TW5 I got confused. I must admit looking back at what feature came in which version I see now it was not so mature back then. So is it much more mature now?, yes, it is as a platform, but I am not sure it is so strait forward for many non enthusiasts to use, its taken me months to get to the point I am at in my understanding but what I have being building is tools that help me build solutions on tiddlywiki.

TiddlyWiki makes a lot of promises (and can deliver) but not without some effort, Its maturing needs to take place in the middle ground, fast paths to methods at a less granular level. The middle ground is not plugins or core, or code but ways to get what the user wants, between the conversations in Google Groups and WIki editions that do a task. I for one have built dozens of these and will share, but I had to build these blocks before I started building with those blocks.

Thanks for encouraging the conversations

Tony

[talha131]

Stobot has put into words very clearly what I had in the back of my mind.

Name

Name is definitely an issue. A long time ago I mentioned TiddlyWiki Classic to my coworkers and all I get laughs. In those days when JS wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today, a whole wiki system enclosed in a single file was nothing less than revolutionary. But they didn’t take it seriously.

Of course, anyone seriously looking for versatile todo and wiki app should have an open mind and mustn’t be put off by the name. Moreover, tiddly is not alone. There are other equally hard to pronounce and funny sounding apps with considerable user base like

1. Anki
2. Vim
3. Mnemosyne

Nonetheless, a friendlier name would not have hurt.

Documentation

TW site and this forum has plethora of information. Seasoned users here are very active and helpful.

As a new user when I am trying to understand TW and its idioms, the site seems hard to navigate. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good idea that TW hosts its documentation using itself. It showcases the features and strength. But it’s hard to navigate in the beginning, when you don’t know what a tiddler is or how tiddlers are linked together, or what a tag is. So a novice faces two problems

1. Get familiar with TW, and at the same time,
2. Learn from an unfamiliar UI

I don’t mean TW documentation should be moved to some other static site generator like Hugo or Pelican or Gatsby. Perhaps, a friendlier and familiar theme like the material-ui Stobot suggested would be easier on beginners.

A Gitbook like software is very useful for documentation. Writer can arrange the content in an order he deems suitable for the reader. Reader will know he is supposed to read from chapter and onward. Checkout these two examples

1. https://basarat.gitbooks.io/typescript/docs/quick/nodejs.html
2. https://redux.js.org/

May be it’s just me, but their order is very clear. TW on the other hand is more like a mind map. You create different tiddlers and then link them together using tags and transclusion. TW homepage can do with a overhaul to make it more friendly.

Syntax

What bugs me most is that TW syntax has d/f variants and all work the same with littler differences. For example, macro parameter can be defined using : or =.

\define example(p:'default')
\define example(p='default')

Variable can be access using <<__var__>> or <<var>>. But inside a filter using single angle bracket [tag<MyTag>]. I always second guessing myself the my syntax is correct.

Programming Tutrial

A tutorial on programming TW would be nice, like we have for so many other languages. TonyM has a book in the yammer group which is a good start.

Plugin library is incomplete

The option of installing TW plugin and themes without leaving TW is nice. But the default plugin library is almost barren. You will find more options in this Dynalist then in the plugin library.

JD has create a very useful revision plugin but you will never know about it unless you visit the forum regularly.

Community

A StackOverflow like site is better suitable for QA then this forum because it offers better search. I think even Discourse has better search and navigation then Google groups which is archaic. Don’t remember when was the last time Google updated it.

A monthly newsletter would be nice too.

All in all TW is a fantastic piece of software. I am sure the community it has will make any other software users envious. But it has a leaning curve which can be flattened.

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[TonyM]

Talha,

In relation to your syntax question, jeremy explained it well, but we need to help new people learn this early. The reason <<>> is used as in <<macro>> and <<variable>> is used in wikitext is to not compete with <htmltags></htmltags>  so when you are inside a widget we need not keep up this << >> and we fall back to < > and since these are delimiters as well we can abandon [ ] when we place a <macro> or <variable> in widgets, that we may have been tempted to use by the filter operators definition.

My use of tiddlywiki recently matured and it is this kind of knowledge I wish I understood at the outset.

and includes

• The use, or not, of the variable= in lists widgets to let the current tiddler change or not
• I now write most macros to 
• change the currentTiddler if they are listing other tiddlers
• not change the current tiddler if they are returning a value I want to use (now or further in)
• The use of <$macrocall for any macro, or widget when wanting to include a <<macro>> or<<variable>> in the parameters
• Using {{!!fieldname}} in wiki text {!!fieldname} in filters (to replace it with the content) or field-name in operators.
• Using the emptyMessage (in list) and emptyValue (in Set) to great effect
• Using logical type test like has[fieldname] in filters or when generating multiple items limit[1]
• empty message allows you to return a "false"

There is plenty of material like this to share, we just need an interactive and easy to contribute repository. I plan to work on one soon.

Regards

Tony

[talha131]

Thank you TonyM for the explanation

Using {{!!fieldname}} in wiki text {!!fieldname} in filters (to replace it with the content) or field-name in operators.

I was stuck on an issue with filter operator. But this exact explanation helped me resolved the issue without opening a new thread on the forum. I was using {{!!fieldname}} and it wasn’t working.

There is plenty of material like this to share, we just need an interactive and easy to contribute repository. I plan to work on one soon.

Without doubt this would be of great help.

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