Backlinks

[ludwa6]

Q: Is there a canonical method to implement this feature?  The way Stroll implements backlinks works for me, but i would like to isolate that feature for implementation in a standard wiki.  What would be the simplest way, i wonder?

/walt

[Mark S.]

It depends what you want to do. Any tiddler with this macro in it:

<<list-links "[all[current]backlinks[]]">>

will return a list of all the tiddlers that link to it. You can put that into a tiddler, tag it $:/tags/ViewTemplate and then every tiddler will list it's backlinks. But that's going to use a lot of computing power. So it all depends what you are intending to do.

[ludwa6]

Thanks, @Mark : This works great in context of a single page... Also site-wide, in context of a small site where i've added to ViewTemplate per your suggestion.  I would like to extend the latter case to a larger site with many links, but i should do some testing first, as i don't know what impact it will have on performance.  I do however know that i've got a Stroll-themed wiki on my desktop that has some hundreds of content tiddler already with backlinks integrated, and performance hit is not (yet) an issue.

As to your Q about intent:  It is to weave wiki with the quality of Intertwingularity, essentially.  That was the quality that i found so compelling about Ward's Portland Pattern Repository back in the day (well before Wikipedia appeared on the scene), where backlinks was for me an essential part of the experience -the only way i know how to preserve the context that is needed to make sense of linked content.

[Mat]

Also worth noting that all tiddlers already show backlinks in their toolbar menu > more (i.e the down arrow) > info > Backlinks tab

<:-)

[ludwa6]

Ahh... Following your breadcrumbs, @Mat, only now i see the "References" tab (a synonym for Backlinks, it appears) -coupla clicks away from view, but it'll do for when one really needs to discover context.  If i could pop that view w/ a simple key-combo, i'd call it the best of all possible worlds!

[Mat]

ludwa6 wrote:

Ahh... Following your breadcrumbs, @Mat, only now i see the "References" tab (a synonym for Backlinks, it appears)

Someone has not been upgrading his TW to the latest version of TW, I suspect... The tab is now named Backlinks :-)

 

If i could pop that view w/ a simple key-combo, i'd call it the best of all possible worlds!

Prolly doable with the keyboard shortcuts but I don't know how.

<:-)

[ludwa6]

Hm... Once again @Mat you've clued me in to a nuance that somehow escaped my notice:  I've got two wiki's under management via TiddlyDesktop that are different in this key respect (i.e. "References" vs "Backlinks" tab) though i was under the impression that both are with most current version.  The one that's still w/ "References" on that tab is not of the single-file type, tho;  does this mean it's a node.js wiki?  Am still fuzzy on this point... And so i'm not clear from the upgrade documentation if i should use that standard procedure "Upgrading'" procedure or the "sudo npm update" method (am on Mac, so npm doesn't work).  Complicated!

[Mat]

ludwa6 wrote:

[...] The one that's still w/ "References" on that tab is not of the single-file type, tho;  does this mean it's a node.js wiki?  Am still fuzzy on this point... And so i'm not clear from the upgrade documentation if i should use that standard procedure "Upgrading'" procedure or the "sudo npm update" method (am on Mac, so npm doesn't work).  Complicated!

Yea, so if it is not single file TW, then it is the node.js version of TW. I don't use the node.js version so someone else will have to answer about how to upgrade it.

<:-)

[strikke...@gmail.com]

How did you install the node,js wiki in the first place? Didn't you need npm for that also?

[ludwa6]

It was a while ago, @strikke... But TiddlyDesktop is a clickety-click install, and then IIRC there's an option to decide how you want the wiki saved -i did one of each (single file vs individual tiddlers)- and that was that.  So it seems the node.js tech is transparent to the user.  Until it comes to upgrade time, that is... Now the plot thickens!

[Mark S.]

TD carries it's own edition of TW. So to upgrade TW you need to upgrade TD. Currently TD is at 5.1.23-prerelease .

[strikke...@gmail.com]

How do you intall plugins and themes then? I though that was different for node.js wikis.

[ludwa6]

In this particular instance @strikke , i don't have a lot of plugins... But i do have a few, all of which were installed from within TiddlyDesktop via the Control Panel : Plugins : "Get More Plugins" dialog.  /walt

[Mark S.]

On Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 7:32:46 AM UTC-8 strikke...@gmail.com wrote:

How do you intall plugins and themes then? I though that was different for node.js wikis.

Good point.

ludwa6 must have installed them before the change.  

If he/she upgrades to v14+,  they'll have to use the  tiddlywiki.info file. Or add other plugins underneath the local plugins folder. 

You can also drag and drop 3rd party plugins from other tiddlywikis.

[ludwa6]

OK, with a TD instance 2 versions out-of-date already (0.0.13 vs 0.0.15), i decided to bite the bullet and upgrade it to most current version.

The Good News: it upgraded my out-of-date (v.5.1.16!) multi-files wiki to current 5.1.23.

The Bad News: you guys are right, Mark S. & Strikke : installation of plugins from within TD, via Control Panel : Plugins: "Get More Plugins" button, no longer works;  in fact one cannot even follow step 1 of the rather complicated instruction-set it throws up, i.e.

>  1. Identify the plugins you want to install using the Plugins tab of control panel (don't install the plugins from here, though).

... Because that tab does not even give a browsable list of plugins anymore; click on tab just returns: "The official plugin library is disabled when using the client-server configuration. Instead, plugins should be installed via the tiddlywiki.info file, as described here" (i.e. the step-by-step instructions that Mark references).  I'd have to call this a bug in the process.

Moreover: the upgrade to version 5.1.23 of the wiki didn't fix the tiddler Info tab problem; tho the view is updated, that tab i questioned above still says "References" instead of "Backlinks" (not that i care anymore about this, now that i know they are synonyms; am just sayin'....  :-)

/walt

[strikke...@gmail.com]

The tiddler $:/core/ui/TiddlerInfo/References has a caption field with the $:/language/TiddlerInfo/References/Caption transcluded. Maybe you tiddler is overwritten earlier?

Birthe

[ludwa6]

Thanks @Birthe : i'm looking at that tiddler, which does have a caption field holding the string "{{$:/language/TiddlerInfo/References/Caption}}" -is that as it should be? 

Whether it is or isn't, i'm hesitant to make any edits, in light of the warning i got on entering edit view: that any edits i make could make future upgrades non-trivial (trivial being more my speed, i must admit! :-)

/walt

[strikke...@gmail.com]

That is correct. But when you upgraded the language tiddler should have been upgraded too, If you look at Tiddlywiki.com

the tiddler has Backlinks in the text field.

Birthe

[Mark S.]

I believe you're actually on 5.1.23-prerelease. Which represents a several month period. Or at least that's what the release notes say. 

For uploading, I'd be tempted to download an empty, open it in TD, load it with the plugins the way you're comfortable with, and then drag/drop them back into your main TW. It's up to you then to make updates whenever you update TD.

Having your only alternative to edit a JSON file is ... sad. This puts up a barrier a lot of people won't be able to surmount. I *think* I know what I'm doing, yet I make mistakes all the time with JSON files. They're very unforgiving, one misplaced dangling comma and it's broken. And what is the gain? Avoiding conflict with plugins that almost never change anyways. Is it worth it?

[Mark S.]

@strikke The TW 5.1.23-prerelease that is part of TD 14 might not have incorporated those changes yet.

[strikke...@gmail.com]

Sorry, Mark S! You are of course right. I do not normally use tiddly desktop. I do not know why, but it takes about 10 years and a war to start it on my computer.

Birthe