[TW5] exporting tiddlywiki file to multiple html files

[Raymond McDowell]

Consider me a novice. 

After years of reluctance, I started using TiddlyWiki. I am now invested and my TW5 is my pkm. I use it for writing, tasks, projects, catalogs, brainstorming and journals. All inter-connected in a many to many structure and neatly accessible via TW's tags, sophisticated search, outlined TOCs and Checkboxed lists. Having said that, one of the deal breakers of the past (but which I ignored because TW5 can now import plain text files and since I can use TW5 across all my 5 Windows devices and 7 Android devices) is the ability to export the entire body of my tiddlywiki as individual plain text or html files.

This is important because I hate marrying any tool that I cannot divorce should it cease development, become proprietary, or suddenly blow up in my face.  Backups are cool, but I would like to have an option whereby I can export, fiddle with, re-import or use a a plain-text wiki  if no other options are available.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Ray

[Jed Carty]

If you click on the advanced search icon next to the normal search in the menu on the right one of the tabs is 'filter', in that tab you can enter a filter and export all the tiddlers that are returned by the filter. Currently you can export as csv, json and static html.

Any one of those options would let you export and manipulate all the data you have in a format that is pretty easy to manipulate with other tools.

The filter [all[]] will return all tiddlers, so it would give you the entire wiki on one of those forms, the filter [!is[system]] will give all non-system tiddlers, so if you are using it like a normal wiki it would give you all of your content without any of the backend.

One of the reasons I like tiddlywiki so much is that the only thing it does to convince you to continue using it is being useful.

[Raymond McDowell]

Thanks Jed. This answer, while being quite comprehensive, doesn't actually answer my needs. Nor do I see an export option for the listing.  From what I can tell, the export list is simply another way to accomplish what I get with the standard export option. 

Perhaps there is something here I just don't see. As noted I'm a bit of a novice, a practiced one, but still a novice.

Again, thanks.

Ray

[Eric Shulman]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 5:00:04 PM UTC-8, Raymond McDowell wrote:

Thanks Jed. This answer, while being quite comprehensive, doesn't actually answer my needs. Nor do I see an export option for the listing.  From what I can tell, the export list is simply another way to accomplish what I get with the standard export option. 

Perhaps there is something here I just don't see. As noted I'm a bit of a novice, a practiced one, but still a novice.

After you enter the filter expression, [all[]], and get the results, there will be THREE icons next to the input field:

* down-arrow (to select a pre-defined filter from a droplist)

* X (to clear the current search results and start again)

and...

* a "half box with up arrow"

This last one is the "export" button.... and yes, it IS easy to miss!

Click it the export button and you get a droplist of formats.  Select a format, and the TWCore then constructs the output file (this may take a bit of time if there are lots of tiddlers to render).  You will then see a standard "file save" for your system, allowing you to save the results.

Q.E.D.

enjoy,

-e

Eric Shulman

TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

"Inside TiddlyWiki: The Missing Manual"

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/inside-tiddlywiki-the-missing-manual/x/8816263

YOUR DONATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT!

HELP ME TO HELP YOU - MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO MY "TIP JAR"...

   http://TiddlyTools.github.com/fundraising.html#MakeADonation

Professional TiddlyWiki Consulting Services...

Analysis, Design, and Custom Solutions:

   http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#Contact

[PMario]

Hi Ray,

>I would like to have an option whereby I can export, fiddle with, re-import or use a a plain-text wiki  if no other options are available.

I think, the important part her is "export - fiddle with - re-import". Export / Import is solved with the answers Jed and Eric gave. ...

So if you export in json format, it's easy to import your stuff into a TW again. ... but json isn't easy to "fiddle with" :)
Exporting as csv can be easy to "fiddle with" but you can't import it with drag and drop. ...

TiddlyWiki has a possibility, to convert a single file TW into *.tid files. Each .tid file is a standard text file.
eg: https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5/blob/master/editions/tw5.com/tiddlers/hellothere/HelloThere.tid

These .tid files are actually used to build a file TW. As you can see, there are all the fields. modified, type, created, tags .... and the content.
This format can be drag and dropped into an open TW in the browser and it is easy to fiddle with in a standard text editor.

What you need is:

A working nodejs installation for your operating system.
Several command line commands to extract and rebuild your wiki file.

IMO the export - fiddle - import workflow isn't very efficient, but it's possible if you really want it.

have fun!
mario

[Raymond McDowell]

Having played about a bit with the offered suggestions, it looks like TiddlyWiki cannot readily export a body of tiddlers into individual discreet files. At least, not yet. Too bad. Something to keep looking for.

[Andreas Hahn]

Hi Ray,

that is the reason why PMario suggested to use the nodejs version of TiddlyWiki. There are commands available, namely the renderTiddler[1] and saveTiddler[2] commands to export tiddlers (based on a filter) into individual files.

/Andreas

[1] http://tiddlywiki.com/#RenderTiddlersCommand
[2] http://tiddlywiki.com/#SaveTiddlersCommand

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Raymond

> Having played about a bit with the offered suggestions, it looks like TiddlyWiki cannot readily export a body of tiddlers into individual discreet files. At least, not yet. Too bad. Something to keep looking for.

Just to be clear, TiddlyWiki doesn't support exporting multiple tiddlers from the standalone HTML file configuration. The reason is that the browser doesn't really support the idea of downloading multiple files (except by packing them into a single ZIP file).

But you can easily export tiddlers as discrete individual files using the Node.js configuration (since Node.js supports ordinary file APIs). In fact, under Node.js, individual tiddlers are stored independently in separate files anyway. This is done for the reason you state in your original post: it provides future proofing by ensuring that your data is accessible at all times.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

--

Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jeremy...@gmail.com

[Raymond McDowell]

Thanks everyone. This gives me what I wanted. Not something I'll use on a daily basis because if I am correct, the node.js version does not work on Android, That ability is the reason I migrated to TiddlyWiki. With an encrypted TiddlyWiki, coupled with Andwiki on my Androids, I can use Google Drive (the only cloud service not blocked at my firm) and Drive Autosync on all my Androids to keep everything easily synced and available all around without jumping through any hoops. 

Now that I know I can keep an archived copy of my "notes" in plain text format I can rest a little easier and will continue to work at learning how to optimize  my tiddlywiki experience.

For the record, over the past several years I have used ConnectedText (No android version), ResophNotes (syncing is unstable), Evernote (linking is awkward), SimpleNote (no linking at all), TreePad (linking is unwieldy and the android app requires too many steps to sync), Wiki On a Stick (obsolete and no android version), Emacs (an even steeper learning curve than TiddlyWiki) and my old reliable text editor NoteTab (wiki-linking works great but I have found no Android text editor that allows for wiki links).  I've played with several other apps, but those are the ones I still keep an eye on just in case lightning strikes and any of them suddenly break out with something really special. I had been doing that with TiddlyWiki for years as well, until I discovered I could now import my thousand or so plain text files into TW5.

[Suzanne McHale]

Would it be possible to include that function in future editions of TW - or would that be beyond TW's capabilities? It would be useful to have a self-contained method of generating individual HTML files rather than have to install Node.js.

[PMario]

On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 12:30:17 AM UTC+1, Suzanne McHale wrote:

Would it be possible to include that function in future editions of TW - or would that be beyond TW's capabilities? It would be useful to have a self-contained method of generating individual HTML files rather than have to install Node.js.

As Jeremy pointed out, that's not really possible.

See Jeremy's post.

Just to be clear, TiddlyWiki doesn't support exporting multiple tiddlers from the standalone HTML file configuration. The reason is that the browser doesn't really support the idea of downloading multiple files (except by packing them into a single ZIP file).

-m

[PMario]

There have been some discussions, about implementing a very basic zip algorithm (with no compression) to download multiple tiddlers. A compressing zip algorithm would be quite big. ...

-m