Using TiddlyWiki As A Home Page

[Alvin]

Since this is my first post, kudos again to Jeremy for TiddlyWiki (TW),
and for being so accessible. I feel much more comfortable
communicating with him here, and I'm happy to hear from other fans of
TW as well.

I'm torn about which group to enter this in, so I apologize if this is
the wrong one.

I begin by saying that this is a request for Classic TW, the one that
does not have server-side write abilities. As such authors can put
their TW file online and be assured that the content is always under
their control. I see a future for TW Adaptations that provide
server-side write; in fact I'm looking for one that uses a flat file
DB.

But there is a feature I would like to see in Classic TW. I'd like to
replace the (for all practical purposes useless) "Edit Tiddle" option
with an optional "Comment On Tiddle" option that would bring up a
mailto or point to a mail-form. This without having to go into the
source and change something before uploading the file. I can only
imagine an additional/optional file (tiddlywikiinit.js maybe) that
would reside on the server and contain a switch variable or function.

So this is a request for Classic TW. And here's another one for the
group. Please use this topic for other
discussions/pointers/suggestions about using Classic TW as a Home Page.
Thanx on both counts.

It's 11:45 a.m. here in Chicagoland, USA. Temperature's predicted to
get up to 93 degress fahrenheit, but right now it's perfect in the
shade.

[Tiago Dionizio]

On 6/23/05, Alvin <al...@myfirstwebpage.net> wrote:
>
> I begin by saying that this is a request for Classic TW, the one that
> does not have server-side write abilities. As such authors can put
> their TW file online and be assured that the content is always under
> their control. I see a future for TW Adaptations that provide
> server-side write; in fact I'm looking for one that uses a flat file
> DB.

Would an SQLite database file work for you?

I am planning to use TiddlyWiki as a homepage in the near future too
and made some changes for server side storage using tcl and sqlite3
database. It also contains a login system so i am sure no one else
will change its contents unless i want them to.

> But there is a feature I would like to see in Classic TW. I'd like to
> replace the (for all practical purposes useless) "Edit Tiddle" option
> with an optional "Comment On Tiddle" option that would bring up a
> mailto or point to a mail-form. This without having to go into the
> source and change something before uploading the file. I can only
> imagine an additional/optional file (tiddlywikiinit.js maybe) that
> would reside on the server and contain a switch variable or function.

I can't speak for the Classic TW but you could place an external link
on the MainMenu.
ex: [[contact me|mailto:myad...@domain.etc]]
Not the best solution but it would be a start.

Tiago

[Jim Barr]

I personally would love to see a "marriage" between the "classic" and
the server side concept. But I must admit that I'm a bit server side
biased having used full-blown CMS apps like PHP-Nuke and Mambo. But
there is a certain "coolness" and "slickness" about the "classic"
concept of TW. The interface is so elegant and just plain cool to work
with. I just personally feel that the "classic" save/upload concept is
at times clumsy.

So, for me, a combination of the two would be ideal ie: being able to
use it portably as desired with the facility to not only save, but also
sync any changes with a server-side version without necessitating a
typical upload (which can sometimes be very inconvenient.)

Also, I'm a MySQL user because that's what my Web host offers.

I've tried the PHP version, and it works like a charm, but
unfortunatly, it lags behind in features because it's several revs
behind TW.

[Marco Roepers]

Hello,

I have uploaded Tiddlywiki for my website, written in Dutch about
kerktuinen (churchgardens), as a calendar ("agenda" in Dutch). The
file can be found here: http://www.kerktuinen.nl/wikiagenda.html . I
have adapted it so the colours are more or less the same. It is a
experiment, i am curious how my fellow webmaster, who is on vacation,
thinks about it.

Wahat a like abou Tiddlywiki is that is a wiki written in JavaScript,
HTML, en CSS. It is fully cliëntsided and that makes it in my opion so
elegant. The tiddlers are a beautiful feature.

I wrote a "calendarmanual" in which i state that people can save the
file, put their own churchgardens events in it and send it to the
webmaster.

I thougt it would be a nice feature to put a "mail to" link in
Tiddlywiki by which file itself can be sent to a certain adress. Or,
what also would be nice, a own ftp-program by which the file can be
uploaded to a server.

I don't know if these ideas are realistic.

Greetings

Marco Roepers

[Steve Rumsby]

> I've tried the PHP version, and it works like a charm, but
> unfortunatly, it lags behind in features because it's several revs
> behind TW.
>

It is very easy to port, though. I've got YATWA running with the
PHPTiddlyWiki back end. If there's interest, I can put that up where
people can get it. At the moment, I want to keep YATWA as a simple
offline only wiki, so I'd create a second version (PHPYATWA,
anybody:-) Or I could do a version for the latest TiddlyWiki.

In either case, it is probably better to wait for the next release of
TW before doing it.

Steve.
--
Steve Rumsby

[Jim Barr]

Steve,

Oooo, please post PHPYATWA!

I was thinking about this just last night, and conceptually, it seems
pretty simple. I would love to try it out and examine the code. And I
wouldn't wait until the next version of TW. My problem with the current
(though excellent) version of PHPTW is that it's implementation is very
basic without any formatting or tag capabilities. The simple addition
of tags will enhance functionality significantly.

Looking forward to your new version!

[Tim Morgan]

Shameless plug ahead...

ZiddlyWiki is a decent "marriage" between the classic TW and serverside
storage/hosting. You can edit tiddlers through the web without
re-uploading the TW file, or you can *import* a TW file into
ZiddlyWiki, to get the offline changes.

Also, ZW is written in a way that it should never lag behind TW by more
than a day.

http://timmorgan.org/ZiddlyWiki

[Elise Springer]

Hear, hear! I had thought of replying just to that effect -- that
ZiddlyWiki gives you all the interface neatness plus the convenience
of (almost-)anywhere access. And since the Zope server space is free
(!), there's no need to worry about what database your ISP provides.
Plus, you can allow group editing over the web! And, Tim has made it
possible to almost *instantly* extract a portable TW file for use if
you'll be away from web access.

For folks who want a simple portable document only, I might mention,
also, that QwikiWeb (or TiddlyWiki) can be regularly housed on your
server and edited *from* the server, with live changes and no ftp
hassle, *if* you can get an afp: or smb: connection to that server.

Cheers.

-E

[Jim Barr]

Cool. I just have one small problem. I registered an account on
Objectis.com, created a "space", created an import directory off of the
root, uploaded the ZiddlyWiky file, and tried to import it and
consistently get errors. Would love it if someone could hrow together a
quick 'n' dirty HOWTO. Sounds like a GREAT app, but I can't seem to get
past the Objectis interface. Bummer.

[Jim Barr]

never mind. Had I actually READ the docs more closely, I would have
seen the "Quick Import" in the dropdown mentioned. Once that was done,
it works like a charm!

I'm finding the ZiddlyWiki implementation to be most excellent. Its
functionality really seems to be top-notch. It seems to provide the
"best of both worlds" in that it allows me to maintain the original
intent of TW by providing "standalone" versions using the Import/Export
functions, while giving me the server side stability and security that
I have grown to rely on. Major kuddos to the developer. It works, and
it works well.

Now, my only wish is that I could drop in OTHER TW alternative versions
and have it still work. For example, Simon Baird's implementation found
at http://homes.jcu.edu.au/~ccscb/ because of its unique handling of
Tags. It just makes sense, and is very powerful.

But, the great news is that ZiddlyWiki incorporates the latest and
greatest version of TW, so we at least have that functionality.

Looking forward to diggin into this a lot more...

[Alvin]

Tim Morgan wrote:
> Shameless plug ahead...
>

> http://timmorgan.org/ZiddlyWiki

Nothing more American than shameless plugs, Tim. :-)

But I'm confused. Or maybe the opening to this topic wasn't clear.

When I think about using TiddlyWiki as a home page, I'm thinking the
only thing I needs must put on the server is the TW file. Since it's
self-contained and no one but the original author can change it,
server-side storage is not a requirement. The way I'd update the home
page is the same way I'd do now with any other home page; I'd FTP the
whole file after I'd made my changes locally.

In light of that, is ZiddlyWiki a good candidate to use as a home page,
or is ZW just an entertaining tangent?

[AlanH]

FYI, I am planning on updating QwikiWeb (which is a version of
TiddlyWIki that is designed to be used as a website) with the new
1.2.23 features. It doesn't have server-component, so you have to FTP
your edited wiki file just like with TiddlyWiki, but you can simplify
how the site will look for web visitors. www.snipurl.com/qwikiweb

I was actually just finished adding hte .22 Tag support when Jeremy
released .23. Now it's back to the drawing board as Jeremy has taken
several different approaches with some of QwikiWeb's features -- for
example, hiding tiddlers and excluding tiddlers from searches. [my 2
cents: I personally prefer my approach which lets you add/remove a slew
of hidden tiddlers by simply editing the HiddenTiddlers tiddler --
instead of having to edit the tag for EACH tiddler you want to hided
(or exclude from search)]. There's little sense having both of these
methods for the same feature, and, future updates will be easier if I
just roll in the .23 code in place of the previous QwikiWeb feature.

The same is true of the handling of LanguageTranslation which Jeremy
has now incorporated.

I'll try to rework and simplify the UserMode feature so that it "plays
nice" with any future TW mods for the page layout, etc., but TW 1.2.23
is a big step forward in terms of bringing TW more in line with the
feature set of some of the other adapations out there (including, but
not limited to, QwikiWeb).

~AlanH

[Tim Morgan]

You are right; you can simply upload your TW file to your server via
FTP. I was simply responding to Jim Barr's post where he stated he was
looking for a marriage between the classic TW and server-side storage.
The differences between server-side and client-side wiki systems is
explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki#Server-Side_versus_Client-Side_Wiki

ZiddlyWiki is simply a hack that makes TiddlyWiki into a server-side
wiki system, but keeps all the nifty TW client-side features. In my
mind, its a great "marriage" between the two concepts.

[Quadsk8]

>There's little sense having both of these
methods for the same feature, and, future updates will be easier if I
just roll in the .23 code in place of the previous QwikiWeb feature.

Ouch Alan,

Are you going to give clear explanation how to upgrade an old QwikiWeb
Revision?

Lawrence of Quadsk8
http://www.xs4all.nl/~quadsk8l/QwikiQuickStart.htm

[AlanH]

It's unfortunate that the next version of QW will need to be a clear
break from earlier versions. That's part and parcel of an open source
project like TiddlyWiki that has a "single point of origin" (i.e.
Jeremy). The good news is that his implementation for "lingo" is very
clean, as are the other enhancments with 1.2.23+. So can I still go on
record as being the "first" adaptation with translation capability?

Jeremy, if you're reading this, PLEASE consider allowing users to
stipulate a layout setting when viewing via "http://" and another one
when viewing via "file://" (aka UserMode on QwikiWeb).

Quadsk8 wrote:
> Ouch Alan,
> Are you going to give clear explanation how to upgrade an old QwikiWeb
> Revision?

Yes, I will try to have accompanying that outlines how to upgrade from
the previous QW version.

~AlanH