So I want to make ...

[S. S.]

So I want to make a custom drop down menu on my tiddler's view toolbar that will:

1. . . .
2. . . .
3. . . .
4. . . .
5. AND ALSO ...
1. . . .
2. . . .
3. . . .
   

How much time should I spend on it?
https://xkcd.com/1205/

[Joshua Fontany]

You need an accordion reveal (two $reveal widgets with a button in each) inside of a pop-up reveal.

<$reveal type="popup>

  <$list>

    <$reveal>

      Button <content not shown>

    <$/reveal>

    <$reveal> Button

      <$list>
      sub-list content here
      </$list>

    </$reveal>

  </$list>

</$reveal>

[Mohammad]

S.S

 This is a cascade menu! As Joshua pointed out using reveal widget is possible.

Mohammad

[S. S.]

Sorry guys, it was meant to be tongue in cheek!

Sometimes I spend so much time making a feature that saves less time than it took to make the feature.

That's where the link led:

[Joshua Fontany]

I had been staring at wikitext syntax too long. LOL, should have clicked on the link.

[HansWobbe]

The value of this chart for me is that it suggests I should never do anything advanced.  TW is so rich in optional solutions, that I inevitably spend a lot of time Searching, Evaluating, and Optimizing solutions.  The result is that I would likely never be able to achieve payback from improved operations.

Now, I have reached a level of understanding that lets me learn from others by just lurking until I see a technique that is an obvious improvement in my learning (as opposed to doing).  Furthermore, I am now finding myself getting closer to the (bleeding) edge since my investment in TW is such that I still want to learn more.  This is best (for me) by experimenting with the HOT new features that are under active discussion (which is much better than book-marking them for later attention and then try to find/remeber them).

One final observation; the recent more rapid evolution of TW resources is a true blessing.  My thanks to one and all for making those freely available.

Cheers,

Hans

[Thomas Elmiger]

This gets more interesting than I thought ;–)
The comic only talks about you, a single user. It doesn't take into account that others might save time too. (That's my personal justification to spend unreasonable amounts of time with TW solutions. They are easy to share and many others might use them.)

All the best,
Thomas

[TonyM]

Thomas,

I think you are right, when you place such developments in a community it changes a lot, here is however leakage, when people can't find good prior work, but community is always a multiplier effect.

I would add however this is even in relation to your future self. A productivity improvement now, can inform another productivity improvement in the future. As I commonly point out if you try and keep what you do in a reusable form this may take 10% more effort to do so, however in the second instance it may take 50% of the effort. The benefit is realised in only one similar case.

1. Build a productivity improvement 1 hours effort to achieve according to the provided table. Add 6 mins to your effort to make it reusable (10% more)  = 1:06h effort
2. Build a second productivity improvement by making use of the Prior reusable solution (1) 0:30 mins (half) of the effort (if 1 was not reusable), (make it reusable +10%)  Total Effort so far 1:39 of a possible 2hrs
3. Build a third productivity improvement  based on one or both of the previous improvements perhaps 20mins, + 10% to reusability = 22mins so now we are benefiting from diminishing costs. 2:01hrs effort rather than a possible 3hr investment.

Each of the above still return the benefits reflected in the table.through repetition.

You can change the cost and benefits of reusability in various ways and you will almost always be ahead.

I have spent 100's of hours with tiddlywiki, but now my productivity has skyrocketed.

Regards

Tony

[S. S.]

This post came about after reading an interesting recent (July 2018) blog post from an ex-google programmer : Why not add an option for that?
It had a link to xkcd but not to the little "How Long" chart I posted above.

There is also a link to an April 2000 post by Joel Spolsky (of Stack Overflow) that I read: Choices

Everything I do on my own TiddlyWiki is just for myself. The enhancements come about organically, and so are not "configurable." Changes and additions are hard coded. If I had to make it re-usable for others I would probably not make them, as I would then want to do it perfectly, and it would take too much longer.

One obvious example was the Dictionary Links that Mohammed picked up for his Tw-Scripts. I never bothered to make an interface to add and remove items from the data tiddler that holds the link names and patterns.

Another is a dropdown menu to make new tiddlers for specific topics by using templates. For each particular topic, it adds all the correct fields & tags & puts in the macros that display the fields, the next and previous buttons, etc. This one saves me a LOT of time, multiple times a session. But at the time I made it, if I had to make it for others to use, I would have probably given up! Now, after seeing so many examples of how it is done, I probably could do it, but still probably won't - as doing it WELL is not the same as just doing it!

Cheers!

[TonyM]

S S,

I empathise with your position. One of my personal advances has being building a feature called context, for each tiddler. Containing Domain, Project, Client fields. I found a new tiddler drop down can now generate new items "in context" by populating the current context fields.Some gains pay off forever. One way to know which improvements are of value and others of less value, is evaluating what others do in the community, their hard won gains, as a result we need to share, but sharing should not be too high barrier, or we will share less. Its basically a balancing game.

Regards

Tony

[@TiddlyTweeter]

S. S. wrote:

... Dictionary Links that Mohammed picked up for his Tw-Scripts. I never bothered to make an interface to add and remove items from the data tiddler that holds the link names and patterns.

Ciao S.S. 

I stumbled on that tool of yours in TW-Scripts. It's incredibly useful!

Sure, one could finesse it forever. But just seeing and using it--well  I'm grateful you showed it. Others can then take it and finesse it if they want. 

I'm using it a lot with no real changes. 

I like its self-contained. Regarding using... well all you need do is clone it to make another search set. And data dictionaries are easy to edit and maintain.

So thanks! :-)

Josiah

[Mark S.]

A slightly more abstract aspect overlooked in the xkcd comic is that of learning. What you learn doing a project may help you in making other projects, which will take less time to develop and thus have a better ROI. These kinds of benefits are more difficult to calculate, but equally valid. I find that learning, without an actual objective, is very difficult.

-- Mark

On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 9:17:46 PM UTC-8, S. S. wrote: