First edition of Grok TiddlyWiki (TW textbook) is live

[Soren Bjornstad]

I'm excited to announce that the first public edition of my TiddlyWiki textbook, Grok TiddlyWiki, is live at https://groktiddlywiki.com/read. Grok TiddlyWiki is (from the book) “a textbook that helps you build a deep, lasting understanding of and proficiency with TiddlyWiki through a combination of detailed explanations, practical exercises, and spaced-repetition reviews of prompts called takeaways.”

I am hoping this book will fill in many of the gaps in TiddlyWiki's documentation / learning ecosystem – right now we have lots of beginner tutorials, and mostly good documentation for experts (with a few gaps), but almost nothing for people in between. GTW is what I wished I had when I was in that position: complete lessons on the features and idioms of TiddlyWiki needed to bring someone from beginner to expert.

The book is free to read and CC BY-NC-ND licensed (you can redistribute it for noncommercial purposes). I am accepting donations to support my continued work on GTW and other TiddlyWiki learning resources. I would also appreciate your help spreading the word about the book, e.g., on TW links sites, notes-related resources, or social media.

A huge thanks to everyone from this community who provided feedback on the prerelease (see the acknowledgments section for details). Barring me getting run over by a bus, there will be updated editions in the future, so please keep the feedback and suggestions coming.

[Odin]

This is HUGE for the TiddlyWiki community! Grok TiddlyWiki is an extensive piece of work that is great to study the advanced workings of TiddlyWiki.
Not only is it a great resource and tutorial on TiddlyWiki, it also innovates with new functionality. The TakeAway is spaced repetition application like Anki, but integrated into TiddlyWiki. The way Grok TiddlyWiki shows code-snippets side-by-side with the output is very clever, and wouldn't look out of place in an official documentation.

In my opinion, even though it is not 'official', it deserves to be highlighted prominently on the TiddlyWiki opening tiddler.

I can and will recommend it to everyone that is interested in TW.

Chapeau Soren!

Op zondag 16 mei 2021 om 16:43:44 UTC+2 schreef Soren Bjornstad:

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Soren,

I’m delighted to be first to offer my congratulations. GTW is a magnificent piece of work, and you should consider it thoroughly endorsed by me!

To pick out some particular highlights for praise:

* Your writing style is fluid and proficient, and gives an authoritative, friendly tone that works really well: it reads like a coherent, professionally written book

* The graphic design is clean and easy to read. I like the confidence of the wide margins, and general use of whitespace

* The interactive features are nicely integrated and work well in the flow

* The exercises are a great touch (my understanding is that such exercises have been proven to be very effective, and so it’s great to see a thoughtful implementation in TW)

Overall, I’m really in awe, it’s wonderful to see all this hard work, and I think it will make a profound difference to people coming to TiddlyWiki.

I’d like to add a link panel from the HelloThere tiddler on tiddlywiki.com. Do you have any thoughts about a suitable banner image? I’ll screenshot the title/subtitle for the moment.

I also wondered if you’d considered including screenshots? A couple of years ago I was working on a TiddlyWiki book with Joe Armstrong before he sadly died. Typically for me, one of the first things I did was coding rather than writing, to make a mechanism to be able to easily regenerate screenshots. The thinking was that we could regenerate the screenshots for each version of TW to keep them up to date. The functionality is in the “innerwiki plugin” under Node.js (it uses Puppeteer to generate the screenshots):

https://tiddlywiki.com/editions/full/#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Ftiddlywiki%2Finnerwiki

Best wishes

Jeremy.

(I’ve included a screenshot for posterity)

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[Mohammad Rahmani]

Hi Soren,

 Well done! You did a really great job!

 A well organized book with interactive contents! It is kind of unique!

 I absolutely recommend reading it not only for beginners but also for advanced users!

Best wishes

Mohammad

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[Joshua Fontany]

Well done! Love the sci-fi nod, Tiddlywiki is definitely something that requires much meditation to "grok".
(For the audience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok)

Devouring now. Mahalo (thanks),

Joshua Fontany

[History Buff]

Very inspirational, Soren. I'm very impressed. Not only will this be a great resource, but I love the layout, theme and styling. 

Damon

[paulgilbert2000]

i am new to tidly wiki , this will be my bible :)

thank you very much

[TiddlyTweeter]

Soren Bjornstad wrote:

I'm excited to announce that the first public edition of my TiddlyWiki textbook, Grok TiddlyWiki, is live at https://groktiddlywiki.com/read. Grok TiddlyWiki is (from the book) “a textbook that helps you build a deep, lasting understanding of and proficiency with TiddlyWiki through a combination of detailed explanations, practical exercises, and spaced-repetition reviews of prompts called takeaways.”

Ciao Soren

Seriously GOOD! In two ways. 

      First, as a great FOUNDATION for understanding TiddlyWiki.

      Second, as an EXAMPLE in itself of its optimal use of Tiddlywiki.

Your generosity in making this public, free, is amazing!!!!

Best wishes

TT 

[Jon]

Fabulous work which I'm sure I'll learn a lot from.

Thanks!

Jon

[David Gifford]

Curious if you have a Paypal option instead of Stripe.

[Soren Bjornstad]

David, I do not at the moment, but if Stripe does not work for you for whatever reason, shoot me an email and we can arrange a PayPal transaction.

[Ray Vermey]

This is GREAT!

You make TW sooo much more easy to understand!

PRAISE and HAIL to you!!

My donation will happen for sure!

Thanks so much for putting this together.

NOW i really can start learning TW!

Ray

Op di 18 mei 2021 om 00:45 schreef Soren Bjornstad <soren.b...@gmail.com>:

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[Soren Bjornstad]

Jeremy,

Thanks for the kind words!

I am thinking about possibilities for cover/banner images in a coming edition. The screenshot is fine in the meantime.

I've kept the screenshots limited because they're hard to update and I've found they can sometimes make people fixate on irrelevant details in the screenshot if something is slightly different, largely aiming at including live examples and relevant icons within the text instead. I hadn't heard about this innerwiki thing though – that could be a neat compromise in some places. I'll make sure to put it on my list of things to consider for the future.

[Nolan Darilek]

Wow, this is great! Thanks for writing it. I was a day or two away from popping on the list, asking about a book or guide, and saying that I really needed one because the existing documentation is very overwhelming. And, well, here it is. :)

A huge thanks to everyone from this community who provided feedback on the prerelease (see the acknowledgments section for details). Barring me getting run over by a bus, there will be updated editions in the future, so please keep the feedback and suggestions coming. --

[Gordon]

It is absolutely terrific! I've been nibbling around the edges of TW for some time and thinking: "This is neat, I can probably use it to...ahh...do stuff." Then, a while back, I read an article about Zettelkasten and thought it would be fun to do that in TW but saw your version and was just a bit overwhelmed. I checked out various YouTube videos but kept thinking that there must be a better way to get started, and — ta-da! — here it is. Thanks so much. It's just the approach I needed.

[Cs Molnar]

I've been waiting so much for this book to go live! I've had the announcement open in a browser tab and refreshed it several times a day. :-)

I'm still at the beginning but I noticed that the story river is set to zoomin mode by default. However, in this context it might be hard for newcomers to understand what do you mean by „open” and „closed” tiddlers. I think it might be hard for them to differentiate between tiddlers they don't see because they haven't opened them or they don't see because the zoomin mode has hidden them, although they are technically  „open”. To tell the truth, in zoomin mode it is pretty useless to look at the "open" tab in the sidebar. The tiddlers on this tab are „open” but I can't see them. So for me they are still „closed”.

Thank you for including an „Outline” tiddler and a conventional, hierarchical Table of Contents. The official Tiddlywiki homepage is in dire need of such a feature. I won't rant on about that here but, in short, I'm convinced that Tiddlywiki is not suited for documenting itself. Or, for that matter, any technical product (software, user manuals, etc.).

Finally, I'm not sure if it's only me, but the internal links have the same color as the body text. This way I can easily miss that a text contains a link.   

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Soren

I've added a quick banner to tiddlywiki.com:

Best wishes

Jeremy

--

Jeremy Ruston

jer...@jermolene.com

https://jermolene.com

On 18 May 2021, at 03:02, Soren Bjornstad <soren.b...@gmail.com> wrote:

Jeremy,

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/dbad5220-c46f-4890-937c-9455a88ebc47n%40googlegroups.com.

[clutterstack]

This is a beautiful piece of work. I think it will make a difference.

Cheers,

Chris

[Soren Bjornstad]

On Wednesday, May 19, 2021 at 9:07:42 AM UTC-5 Cs Molnar wrote:

I'm still at the beginning but I noticed that the story river is set to zoomin mode by default.

Correct, it's not perfect but the feedback I got after the first edition was that it's less confusing than classic for newbies, and I think that's probably right.

 

However, in this context it might be hard for newcomers to understand what do you mean by „open” and „closed” tiddlers. I think it might be hard for them to differentiate between tiddlers they don't see because they haven't opened them or they don't see because the zoomin mode has hidden them, although they are technically  „open”.

Did you watch the tour or read "Structure and navigation" in "How to Use This Book"? I tried to liken it there to the tabs in your browser...you can't see them (except in the list of tabs), but they are still clearly "open" in some meaningful sense.

Also, can you point me to where I was talking about "open" and "closed" tiddlers? I might be able to clarify things there.

 

To tell the truth, in zoomin mode it is pretty useless to look at the "open" tab in the sidebar. The tiddlers on this tab are „open” but I can't see them. So for me they are still „closed”.

Why is this useless? It's still by far the fastest way to jump between all the stuff you've been looking at recently. 

Thank you for including an „Outline” tiddler and a conventional, hierarchical Table of Contents. The official Tiddlywiki homepage is in dire need of such a feature. I won't rant on about that here but, in short, I'm convinced that Tiddlywiki is not suited for documenting itself. Or, for that matter, any technical product (software, user manuals, etc.).

Well, it does have a Contents tab in the sidebar with a hierarchical table of contents! I agree that that table is not all that useful, but I think that's more because the reference documentation for something like TW is challenging to divide into a useful hierarchy. For a textbook, it's much easier because I can come up with an opinionated order in which the reader can proceed through the book…but that's not so useful for tiddlywiki.com where the primary use case is people stopping in to look something up.

 

Finally, I'm not sure if it's only me, but the internal links have the same color as the body text. This way I can easily miss that a text contains a link.

I'm guessing this is the fault of your display's color settings. I embedded the fonts and used only standard CSS colors and hex codes, so it shouldn't look any different on your machine and it's definitely different on mine in both light and dark mode. The contrast between the link color and the text color is a little low, though, especially in dark mode, so I can see how if your monitor isn't adjusted quite right, it would be hard to see. That's something I might look into in the future (that's the fault of the TW palette, not my design, but still my problem!).

I'm also red-green colorblind, so might not see things the same…but that wouldn't cause any contrast difference between blue and black.

[Pietro Abano]

Excellent work, I appreciate it. All the best! Pietro

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[si]

Soren this is incredible. I love your implementation of the mnemonic medium, live editor and exercises. It feels like a genuinely innovative approach, all while being very well written and accessible.

On Sunday, 16 May 2021 at 15:43:44 UTC+1 Soren Bjornstad wrote:

[Pak]

Hello Soren, 

Thanks for the incredible book! I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but if you bookmark a few tiddlers and then remove one of them (either from the clicking the star icon or the bookmark tab) then all the bookmarked tiddlers are gone! Is this intentional?

Thanks

Pak

[Soren Bjornstad]

Pak,

Thanks for the report! This will be fixed in the next version. If you don't want to wait, you can override the tiddler that controls this by dragging and dropping the attached version.

[Pak]

Soren, thanks for quick fix. It works now :)

[TW Tones]

Soren,

I have being a little delayed in responding to your announcement on this. I must thank and congratulate you on a great outcome. As a more experienced user I am still learning how best to make use of your reference work. We have other very capable manuals and references but yours is filling a gap in the way some learners may come to tiddlywiki. I thank you personally and on behalf of our whole community, greate work.

I was chuffed to see you referencing my resource on GitHub "Standard Nomenclature," but it also reinforced my obligation to retain and maintain my online references to support yours.

This made me think there would be a value in collating (programaticaly) in your book all external references for both internal (find where the link is published) and external linking (find which external resources are linked to). It would help them quickly identify if they have content you have referenced. It would also be a useful resource and help people identify new references for you to add in a later issue.

Love your work

Tones

[TW Tones]

Post script,

I would like your advice on how to link back to you from my reference work?

Tones

[ArchiMark]

Congrats, Soren, on releasing GTW!

Been waiting anxiously for it for a while.

It has greatly exceeded my expectations!

Made a donation to support your efforts.

Best,

Mark

[TiddlyTweeter]

Soren,

Small footnote. 

It might be worth mentioning in a note that GROK, has meanings related to COTTON-ON.

Just a fun comment!

TT 

[TiddlyTweeter]

It is interesting that "GROK" was first coined by Robert Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land", about an alien trying to make sense of Life on Earth.

Actually Heinlein was ultimately referring to Exodus 2:22  (“I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”) 

Just a comment :-).

TT

[dieg...@gmail.com]

Soren,

High praise from the man himself Andy Matuschak!

https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1397773765572907013

[springer]

Wow, just coming up for air at the end of a very dense semester.

Soren, I'm looking forward to cruising around your very thoughtfully-designed site and converting countless bits of getting-it-good-enough-for-now (my hastily hacked appropriations of others' work) into proper grokking.

Awe and gratitude from my corner,

-Springer

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Soren

This is an updated comment. Your Grok is very good. I learned a lot from it. 

Basically I think it is a go-to resource/reference for learning TW-ese.

I have one REQUEST. Could you include an SVG of this fish icon? which is  currently only a bitmap ...

WHY? Because if I had it I'd use an SVG version in nice <a> links to direct readers to precise places your wiki.

Very best wishes

TT

[David Gifford]

Hi Soren, I am enjoying the Grok! One possible fix: the Miscellaneous Widgets > $radio example doesn't seem to work.

[Soren Bjornstad]

David and TT, I've made notes of both of these suggestions, thanks!