"Preserving Information Context" ??? Help: I need a vocabulary lesson!

[Charlie Veniot]

Trucking along with my intertwingled ADHD/IntertwingularityMapping/TiddlyWikiUsage project, I want my first topic to be about "Preserving Information Context", but I'm not quite sure I'm in love with that title.

One of my greatest annoyances is to be looking at information on a web page (or a tiddler), wanting to see some details of some kind, which leads to moving away from the web page (or tiddler) I was focused on, and my focus now on a new page or tiddler.

Same thing when looking something up in a dictionary: I look up a word, and the definition of that word has me looking up some other word, bouncing around the pages in the dictionary.  Ugh.

The "information context", or the view, or this watcha-ma-callit has changed, and I'm now looking at something no longer within the focus I had.

That kind of annoyance of mine gets easily solved in TiddlyWiki with my favorite solutions thus far: the DetailsWidget and/or modals.

All of that rambling to ask:  this thing I like (preserving infomation context), does anybody have any alternative expression(s) that might make more sense, or (to not reinvent the wheel) an already existing expression?

Thanks in advance to all you tiddlywiki  / hyperlink thinking / non-linear thinking brains !

[Eric Shulman]

On Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 1:00:00 PM UTC-7, Charlie Veniot wrote:

All of that rambling to ask:  this thing I like (preserving infomation context), does anybody have any alternative expression(s) that might make more sense, or (to not reinvent the wheel) an already existing expression?

Give my "History" toolbar button a try:

http://tiddlytools.com/InsideTW/#TiddlyTools%2FHistory

The TiddlyTools/History tiddler adds a toolbar button to the tiddler's ViewToolbar.  When clicked, it presents a drop-down panel that shows a list of all tiddlers that have been viewed during the current TiddlyWiki "session" (i.e., since you loaded the file in the browser).  The currently viewed tiddler is indicated by the text, "You are here".   The panel also provides a "delete history" button (trashcan) to clear the history list (except for the currently viewed tiddler and any DefaultTiddlers).  There is also a "show details" button (double down arrow) that displays internal details about how the history list has been computed, which combines the contents of the $:/HistoryList, the $:/StoryList, and the DefaultTiddlers.

To install:

1) visit http://tiddlytools.com/InsideTW/#TiddlyTools%2FHistory

2) Drag the title ("history") to your open TW and import it

Similarly, for faster navigation, you can also install TiddlyTools/History/Previous and TiddlyTools/History/Next:

1) visit http://tiddlytools.com/InsideTW/#TiddlyTools%2FHistory%2FPrevious

2) Drag the title ("previous") to your open TW and import it

3) visit http://tiddlytools.com/InsideTW/#TiddlyTools%2FHistory%2FNext

4) Drag the title ("next") to your open TW and import it

Note: You can adjust the placement of the buttons within the tiddler ViewToolbar:

1) Open TiddlyTools/History (or TiddlyTools/Previous or TiddlyTools/Next)

2) Click the "tag pill" for $:/tags/ViewToolbar

3) Use drag-and-drop to change the order of the ViewToolbar items

enjoy,

-e

[Mat]

Keeping context? Context-keep(ing)?

<:-)

[TW Tones]

Eric,

Friendly observation and my experience.

Of late when I follow your links to tiddlytools, I get something like this below.

I am then at a loss what to do?

I know this site is heavily customised as a documentation resource, but I find it hard to find my way around without learning you specific implementation.

Otherwise it looks great. 

Best wishes

Tony

[Eric Shulman]

On Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 7:49:26 PM UTC-7, TW Tones wrote:

Of late when I follow your links to tiddlytools, I get something like this below....

I am then at a loss what to do?

In this particular instance, the "history" tiddler (actually TiddlyTools/History) is just an internal component of the InsideTW documentation framework, so it only displays the actual button as content.  In my previous post, where I linked to this tiddler, I also said: Drag the title ("history") to your open TW and import it.  Other than that, there is nothing for you to do with this specific tiddler. To see it in action, click on the "clock" icon in the toolbar.  That will show you the History popup interface.

... and yes, InsideTW has a highly-customized interface, as it is intended as a "documentation delivery system", rather than a general-purpose TiddlyWiki resource.  If you really want to look at the "innards", you can access the standard TW SideBar:

1) Unlock the document by clicking the "padlock" button (upper right page toolbar)

2) This will reveal additional toolbar buttons, including the standard "toggle sidebar" (double arrow) button

3) Click this button and you will see the standard SideBar.

In addition, there are "page toolbars" (upper left and upper right)

The upper left page toolbar shows the following buttons (from left to right)

* Toggle left side TableOf Contents panel

* Home: clears history, locks document, opens CoverPage

* Favorites: show list of tiddlers marked as "Favorite" (star in tiddler titlebar)

* Search This Book: search title, caption, text (limited to InsideTW content tiddlers)

* Print: Prints entire book with full page breaks and formatting

The upper right page toolbar shows the following buttons (from right to left):

* Settings: various theme-like display options

* Themes: pre-defined groups of settings

* Toggle "stretch-to-fit": adjusts "page" margins (landscape vs portrait)

* Toggle "lock/unlock": shows/hides "author mode" interface elements

If "author mode" is enabled:

* Recent changes: the SideBar "recent" tab, shown in a popup

* Search: "Goto tiddler" custom search/navigator, plus TWCore $:/AdvancedSearch, plus a link to "PowerSearch" filter constructor

* Save: custom "Save changes" popup with optional logging of changes (see "view log" button for previous changes)

* Sidebar toggle (as described above)

The Tiddler itself display shows navigation icons in the corners:

* Top Left: view "previous" tiddler (based on TOC structure)

* Top Right: view "next" tiddler (based on TOC structure)

* Lower Left: popup with links to "Chapter" tiddlers

* Lower Right: popup with links to "Appendix" tiddlers

The Tiddler "titlebar" area shows:

Left side:

* Breadcrumbs: path from CoverPage to current tiddler (based on TOC structure).  Click items in the breadcrumbs for popup list of other tiddlers in that branch.

* Tiddler icon/title: if tiddler is not a "leaf node" in the TOC, click to view links to child tiddlers

* Favorite toggle: filled/empty star.  Click to add/remove the tiddler from the "Favorites" list

Right side:

* History/Previous button

* History/Next button

* History popup button

* Print Page: prints just the current tiddler

* if document is "unlocked", additional TWCore standard toolbar items appear in a floating bubble: More, Info, Edit, Close

The bottom center of the tiddler show:

* previous/current/next links (based on *flattened* TOC tree)

* clicking previous goes back/up one tiddler

* clicking current or next goes to the next/down one tiddler

* you can use these buttons to traverse the entire TOC tree

That should give you plenty of way to navigate around the document framework.

enjoy,

-e

[TW Tones]

Thank you Eric.

[David Gifford]

Hi Charlie

In Stroll (https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html) or Drift (https://akhater.github.io/drift/) the tiddlers have an area where backlinks show up. So if you follow a link, you can always get back to the previous tiddler by clicking a backlink. Drift also does the same for tags and keywords. These items only show up if the tiddlers exist. But what I am trying to say is that the links, etc, are a context area for the tiddler, to see all related tiddlers.

[Charlie Veniot]

I'm thinking I am clear as mud because, really, I'm not finding the words to express things as coherently as I'd like.

Say I'm on a wikipedia page that discusses World War II.  And there is a link to Winston Churchill, and I decide I want to look at the Wikipedia article about Winston Churchill in the context of World War II.

Clicking on the link and having the World War II article disappear on me, my focus is now entirely on Winston Churchill when I really want to be looking at the Winston Churchill article within a focus on additional details about Churchill related specifically to World War II.

It irritates me to be on a new page and the context of World War II is gone.  Getting back to the World War II article is only a click away (click the back button!!!), so I should not be irritated.  Whether it is related to ADHD or some other bat-poop-crazy thing going on with me, I am irritated/agitated/stressed because although my focus is World War II, I am now only seeing  Churchill.

Bouncing back and forth (via back/forward buttons, backlinks/links), that makes for "big" contextual focus switching, and the transitions are pretty exhausting.

But I am right zen when I "open in another window" the Churchill article, and I put both articles side-by-side.  I know:  bat-poop-crazy, ADHD or otherwise ...

Me and my wonky brain aside, the ability to see all of this info together in a certain context (or with a particular focus), what would we call that?  Preserving Information Context?  Viewing additional details related to a particular focus without having the main content disappear?  Surely there must be some already existing awesome expression for this?

TiddlyWiki's "story river" allows seeing a chain of tiddlers within an information context/focus.  It's just that I see each tiddler as neatly separated things: hence why I prefer a tiddler with DetailsWidget instances and/or Modals that show on top of a focus tiddler that's right there, versus the focus tiddler being somewhere downstream (or is it upstream) such that it isn't visible anymore.

So not interested here in changing TiddlyWiki to somehow fill some kind of ADHD-related need.  Just trying to find the words to express viewing extra details within a context without having the primary information going out of view.

Wow, that's a mess.  Try to find the words to express a concept when not particularly good at relaying the concept itself.  Kind of like a puppy chasing its tail ...

[Charlie Veniot]

Arg.  Just noticing your reply now.  "Context-Keeping."

That's short and sweet, and there ain't ever anything wrong with short and sweet.  I like short and sweet.

All of these things I'm trying to convey in a short blurb, it might not be possible to say it all in a short blurb.

So short blurb with a "this is the whole mess of thinking I mean by that" ramble, that will do the trick at least temporarily if not permanently.

Thanks !

On Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 5:38:37 PM UTC-3 Mat wrote:

Keeping context? Context-keep(ing)?

<:-)