[TW5] Tiddler Naming Conventions

[Scott Simmons (Secret-HQ)]

I appreciate Jeremy including some guidance on nomenclature in the main TiddlyWiki documentation.  Given the changes to TW5 over the last couple of years, though, I'm curious how uers are actually naming their tiddlers — in particular, user-created system tiddlers.

I've been running counter to convention by naming macros and plugins $:/Secret-HQ/macros/mymacro and $:/Secret-HQ/plugins/myplugin.  Other typical naming for me includes $:/Secret-HQ/ui/sidebar/mysidebartab and $:/Secret-HQ/stylesheet/thisstyle.  (I'd rather switch to /css but I keep using /stylesheet because of $:/tags/Stylesheet.)

This keeps my self-created system tiddlers together in alphabetical listings, but since I tag them all $:/tags/Secret-HQ, I can keep track of them with <<list-links>> macros easily enough.

It's nonstandard, though, and it will eventually cause problems if I share any of my content.  So I should probably be naming this way, instead:

• $:/macros/Secret-HQ/mymacro
  
• $:/plugins/Secret-HQ/myplugin
  
• $:/stylesheets/Secret-HQ/thisstyle
• $:/ui/Secret-HQ/sidebar/mysidebartab
  
• $:/tags/Secret-HQ
  

Am I right in thinking these names are more standardized and less likely to cause conflicts/confusion if the wind up in someone else's TiddlyWiki somehow?

—

As a follow-up question:  What's up with

• $:/tags/Macro
  
• $:/tags/ControlPanel
  
• $:/tags/PageControl
  
• $:/tags/Stylesheet

... and the like?

I've reconciled myself to their camelcase, but what was the (maybe purely historical now?) logic behind using these names rather than:

• $:/Macro
  
• $:/ControlPanel
  
• $:/PageControl
• $:/Stylesheet

... ?

Identifying tags AS tags in their name seems a little clunky and counterintuitive to me — which could just be me having trouble wrapping my brain around the faux-tree naming structure.  Emerson warned that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," but I can't help thinking it would be more elegant to have $:/Macro/Secret-HQ/mymacro tagged $:/Macro and $:/User/Secret-HQ.

Maybe that itsn't the best way to go about it, but I DO feel TiddlyWiki could benefit from tighter consistency of naming conventions, especially with it being so community- and contributor-oriented.  My own nonstandard naming developed out of learning to create different kinds of tiddlers one at a time and not seeing a consistent pattern among the names.  (And I suspect others have faced the same issue, as I stil run across plugins named $:/user/plugin/aplugin rather than $:/plugin/user/aplugin.)

Is development a little too far down the line to be raising this sort of nitpick?  Or is TiddlyWiki5 still fluid enough to benefit from these kinds of questions?

[Hegart Dmishiv]

Following some advice I read elsewhere (apologies to whomever came up with this, I cannot attribute you properly, as I've been reading quite widely since starting to use TW), I use the following nomenclature, which keeps all my custom system tiddlers together at the top of the System list, where they are easier to find.

• $:/_Macros/
• $:/_Styles/

I don't know if this is common practice, or just some good advice I came across early on in my TW learning curve, but it works for me. I'd do the same with $:/_Plugins/ if I knew how to, but I've only installed a single plugin so far, and that automatically went to $:/plugins/inmysocks/TiddlerTool by default, which I guess is accurate for a plugin I didn't create myself. No doubt eventually I'll have some $:/plugins/tobibeer/ stuff in there as well. ;-)

Hegart.

[Scott Simmons (Secret-HQ)]

So far, the only plugins I've put together are just collections of related, reuseable tiddlers that I might want to install in new TiddlyWikis as a set of shadows.

But how does one get by without at least a couple of /tobibeer plugins?  :)

[Jon]

Hi,

Noticed that 

• $:/_Macros/

is the recommended approach for self-created system tiddlers given in some guidance on nomenclature 

Regards

Jon

[Hegart Dmishiv]

Ah, thanks Jon, I knew i'd seen that somewhere. It's getting hard to remember where I get such good advice from, and I certainly don't want to misappropriate such knowledge. I'm all about the open source paradigm of "standing on the shoulders of giants". I just wish I could remember which giant I'm standing on at the time, haha.