Your main Tags - Your main Tabs

[Atronoush Parsi]

Recently there were some interesting discussions on better utilizing Tiddlywiki for Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

Tiddlywiki is an amazing tool, but one quickly lost in the jungle of tiddlers, tags, tabs, etc...

You can easily add tags, tabs, tiddlers, ... Tiddlywiki tends very much to increase its entropy!

Example:

I do not know if I should tag link anything I find from the internet and add to my wiki, or tag it as a reference?

Should I add a sidebar Tab as soon as I have several tiddlers on the same topic or not?

Soren in his Zettelkasten shows some workflow for this! I wish to know how I can effectively use Tiddlywiki as PKM?

- Do you recommend some main tags?

- Do you recommend limiting the number of tags? Or the number of tags in your wiki are more than the number of tiddlers?

- Do you recommend categorization?

- Do you recommend unlimited use of sidebar tabs or limited?

In overall how to have a useful PKM using Tiddlywiki? I am talking general

Question: Does using TW as PKM needs some design practice?

--Atro

[Mat]

While I didn't use TW as a "Personal Knowledge Management" system, at least not specifically, I'd say the general answer to your question is how direct your access to the data needs to be, and put this in relation to how cluttered you want your UI to be.

For example, I would personally not want a lot of sidebar tabs. But then, if there's something I use a lot, then why not. But if there are *many" things that I use a lot then, again, I wouldn't want them as sidebar tabs. But then, if I could make the sidebar tabs more subtle or e.g hide them so they don't clutter, then I might want them there. But that comes at the cost of the direct access, so... etc. The conclusion is that it's a question of finding a balance and this is a subjective preference. I wish there were be some kind of measurement system that counts the number of times you actually use a feature and then proposes that you should make it more or less prominent in the UI but then what does "use a feature mean"? For example, sometimes it's enough that I see a title, not open the tiddler. Obviously no (current) way to measure this.

From a more pragmatic perspective I say; make reasonable guesses for your design, and then master TW. Over time, you'll modify your system according to your needs. In addition, I find that my needs shift over time, depending on what I focus on. Consequently my TW's shift. All UI's are compromises. All implementations balance cost-benefit. So the secrete is not to find "the perfect setup" but rather to gain the knowledge how to tweak it.

<:-)

[Anjar]

A few inputs;

In my head, things became a bit easier with the keyword field in drift; https://akhater.github.io/drift/#Example%20Keywords%20Source Then tags can be reserved for broader topics and I add specifics to the keyword field.

A generalization of that approach, I guess, is that every field is a tag field, and that fields are in a sense tags themselves. In your case; would it make sense to have a URL field in the tiddlers you use in the example? Then you know that the tiddlers with a URL field have stuff from the internet and can use that for filtering. This approach is also establishing relationships between tiddlers, e.g. the tag "Sigmund Freud" is very broad, but you can add a field "author" with value "Sigmund Freud" to tiddlers on his books, link to [[Sigmund Freud]] in tiddlers where you critique him, have a field "relatives" in the tiddler on Anna Freud where [[Sigmund Freud]] is listed or a field "inspired.by" where he is listed in a tiddler on Carl Jung and so on

Another take on tabs is thinking more along the lines of "board", e.g. https://andjar.github.io/TiddlyMenu/board.html

Best,

Anders

[Jon Light]

Hi,

I think your term 'entropy' is a good one here - do things spread out or do they condense - for instance as more connections form do they simply create more questions?

I think what is best for you will depend a lot on your subject matter - by way of example my Tiddlywiki is in an area where different people have varied opinions on the same principle areas of interest - so the now I have 176 tags but they get re-used a lot and I do not have to add new ones very often but tiddlers sharing the same tags may represent different views and opinions on those tagged subject areas. In contrast if my Tiddlywiki was in the area of say Mathematics I would expect less diversity of opinion so perhaps one or two tiddlers might suffice for one well defined tag subject area. Putting this differently I think my tag count is low, tiddler count is medium but 'use count' of tags ( how many times each tag gets used ) is very high - so many connections - very much more a web or graph than a tree.

I find a high number of links beneficial because it helps me find connections I would not be able to find otherwise - but I think each link has to have value, I spend time thinking through connections carefully, its organic, I am constantly adding more connections, removing others and finding better relationships - sometimes I create what I call a 'hub' tiddler which has very little content apart from a single idea or hypthosis and then as part of it's content I add links to tiddlers that only make sense if that hypothesis is true so I might not want to link the tiddlers directly in case the hypothesis is false.

I think the only way to find what works best for you is to start the process and exploit the amazing flexibility of Tiddlywiki to adapt to you, your subject area and the evolution of your path through it, so far I have not felt I had to fight with Tiddlywiki as my use of it evolved - it always seemed to be able to adapt to my direction. I don't think my design is constant, it is changing as I discover better ways of working and learn more - the hours I spend on maintenance are never wasted because always it reflects a new understanding and asks me to re-read and consider content not just Tiddlywiki.

I would recommend Bidirectional linking ( stroll or tiddlyblink ) unless you know it will not be required - I added it to my Tiddlywiki after one year - I just hadn't spent much time on the forum and did not know the plugin existed, immediately the connections doubled which resulted in a whole lot of new thoughts and understandings.

Some people advise keeping tiddlers atomic so that they do not cover multiple topics - this seems sensible advice unless there are strong reasons not to do so, I often break the rule but I usually have a good reason when I do - for instance an article written by someone else - I might prefer to keep it in one tiddler.

I think it makes sense to consider new tags carefully - sometimes I find myself want to split a tag into two different subject areas or join two tags into one and that can be time consuming. 

[TW Tones]

Atro

I think the answer to your question is like "how long is a piece of string", it depends. However the advice from others may prove useful, as they have already being on this journey.

I have being on this journey many times but here are a few high level points, much of which is ONLY possible in a tool like tiddlywiki And thus may be foreign to new users

• You can take tiddlywiki in any direction you want, so it will not dictate to you, the greater impact is what information from the real world you want to bring into it, how is it organised.
• Always endeavour to not loose any information during the capture into tiddlywiki. For example when I paste good content from the Google Groups I place a link to the discussion in a discussion field.
• Tags are great, especially for rapid organisation and capture of data, however I always move them into fields as soon as practical so I do not "Overuse, or pollute the tag space".
• TiddlyWIki permits an evolutionary process where by your wiki evolves to suit your data and needs, do not compromise this but exploit it. You do not need to fully define the end product from the beginning, just start. It is easy in TiddlyWiki to build methods to bulk alter the way your content is organised.

Eventually I expect to publish generic enhancements to tiddlywiki that makes use of its innate qualities. For example this set attached, reimagine tags, adds to the tag pill menu useful extensions. I hope this will allow more rapid transformation as your wiki evolves.

I think in time, we will have published easy adoption methods for keywords and categories etc... which are other logical organisational methods to help in the "ingestion" of information and knowledge and its organisation. An example is when data can only have one category, or another categorizations system allows zero or more categories.

I use an object-type field to categorise the type of a tiddler, this can have only one value by design.

Active designs that allow you to decide what is in the sidebar tabs is a way to manage the display of tabs. Large and many tabs may impact performance in the long run because every change to a tiddler they are refreshed. Consider closing the tab or whole sidebar when not needed in large wikis.

Regards

Tones

[Mohammad Rahmani]

This is a difficult question! I think effective use of Tiddlywiki needs education!

I mean you should learn them and it is knowledge! To be clear, assume you have bought CorelDraw or Photoshop, and because you have it, you think you should be able to draw incredible drawing/painting! THAT IS NOT TRUE AT ALL! You not only have to have an artistic taste but you also need to know the principles and basics of painting and in addition you have to know how to work well with software!

After having good knowledge of Tiddlywiki, it does not mean you are good at knowledge management!

So, I believe how to manage personal knowledge, how to effectively take notes, how to write a good article, ... are other things you need to learn!

I share some my own experiences

1. I use Tiddlywiki just like a Word document, but TW is much more flexible

2. I use a central wiki, when I open it in my browser, I see a list of wikis in the sidebar, so for example, a talk will be held next week at department on, climate change and hydrogen solution, I just have a dedicated wiki!

3. I use a few tags!

3.1  I may add/remove/modify tags later! I use Tiddler Commander to do this without hassles

3.2 I normally refine tags, I use a dataTiddler explaining a tag will be used for what! So tagging is done with care

3.3 I use Keywords field, The Kookma Solution Plugin lets you a sublevel of information

3.4 I use colors! Color if correctly used is a very powerful tool for differentiating among things

4. I use a table of content, it is always there, it helps me to have a linear TW when I need

5. I use the Kookma Favorites plugin to pin important, favorite tiddlers for quick access

5.1. I use the Kookma Favorites plugin also to freely categorize/bundle some tiddlers and see them as a folder 

6. The sidebar is very useful, I use a template that lets me quickly add tiddlers to those sidebar tabs!

6.1 As an example for " climate change and hydrogen solution" talk wiki I use (-global warming, -future energy outlook, -hydrogen as a solution, -challenge and opportunities,...), so when preparing the talk, I quickly click on a button which creates a tiddler in that section! All of these are simple and created already

6.2. Mario Link-to-Tabs (from Wikilabs) is a king here and simply lets you open the tab tiddler and modify it or duplicate and add a new tag

7. I believe search is a barrier in Tiddlywiki! So, I use fields carefully! I rarely hide things in the tiddler, fields are used for further processing and filtering, and like that, I never store data that needs to be searched in fields!

7.1. Based on the case I also use Locater from bimlas or Filedsearch from Mario (Wikilabs)

bimlas has some good discussion on using meta data and effective use of Tiddlywiki! Soren Grok Tiddlywiki is a good example of effective use of Tiddlywiki, there are other examples around! TW-Script is not a bad example but it is too wild!

Best wishes

Mohammad

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