Core design ideas: Inter Wiki links, sub pages, pinned fields

[Arlen Beiler]

I have been thinking about this for a while now. It seems like we should have some way of being able to transclude tiddlers from other wikis. And we should have a syntax that makes this easy. This one might be better done as a plugin.

Another thing I have been thinking is that we need a simple way to group pages according to folders. Maybe all this entails is a macro like TOC that lists all the folders under a prefix. It seems like a filter of some sort should work.

Another thing that would be nice is the ability to add preset fields to the edit template between the title and the body. That way I could specify that I always want the caption field available, for instance, even if nothing has been specified for that field yet.

Thoughts?

Arlen

[PMario]

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 2:52:31 PM UTC+2, Arlen Beiler wrote:

Another thing that would be nice is the ability to add preset fields to the edit template between the title and the body. That way I could specify that I always want the caption field available, for instance, even if nothing has been specified for that field yet.

IMO adding empty fields by default may cause unwanted, hard to find, side effects (aka problems). ...

We do have the has:field[xyz] filter operator which triggers actions on the existence of the field, even if it is empty. Eg: the existing TOC would fail to display something useful if the caption would be empty.

So you either have to assign eg: caption: enter a caption here! by default, or it will cause backwards compatibility problems.

On the other hand: the enter a caption here! (hardcoded) string will cause a translation problem!

just my 2 cents

-mario

[PMario]

Hi Arlen,

For me it seems you are re-inventing TiddlyWeb / TiddlySpace functionality from scratch, without using it's spec. 

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 2:52:31 PM UTC+2, Arlen Beiler wrote:

I have been thinking about this for a while now. It seems like we should have some way of being able to transclude tiddlers from other wikis. And we should have a syntax that makes this easy. This one might be better done as a plugin.

We had a long discussion in the TiddlySpace group about this, several years ago.  ... It was implemented as a TS-plugin on the client side. ... But the usability was/is pretty poor!!

 

Another thing I have been thinking is that we need a simple way to group pages according to folders.

You should have a closer look to the TiddlySpace inclusion mechanism. ... Or I could tell you ;)

 

Maybe all this entails is a macro like TOC that lists all the folders under a prefix. It seems like a filter of some sort should work.

IMO server side filters should be used using "recipes". TiddlyWeb has "a spec".

-m

[Arlen Beiler]

I should have made it clearer that these are three unrelated ideas

 

I have been thinking about this for a while now. It seems like we should have some way of being able to transclude tiddlers from other wikis. And we should have a syntax that makes this easy. This one might be better done as a plugin.

I'm thinking that the NodeJS server command would be useful as the server-side component for this one. I know federation has also done this, but it involves loading the client wiki into an iframe. I guess that could work fine in some cases, but it is definitely more data to transfer. The TiddlyWeb spec looks daunting to implement in some ways. You're right, TiddlyWeb is probably the way to go on this one. I was thinking more in terms of transcluding individual tiddlers, so recipes and filters might be overkill. 

Another thing I have been thinking is that we need a simple way to group pages [should be tiddlers] according to "folders". Maybe all this entails is a macro like TOC that lists all the folders under a prefix. It seems like a filter of some sort should work.

For this one, I am talking about tiddlers within one wiki. I'm thinking of the way the Mediawiki software gives you the option to treat slashes in the page title like a folder path. When you enable this option, as Wikipedia does, it will treat page titles with slashes as a subpage. So in our case, we would write a macro that looks like the TOC macro, but groups the tiddlers using the title field instead of tags. For instance, the shadow tiddlers of the core plugin would look like this:

$:/core

• modules
  
• macros
  
• parsers
  
• startup
  
• utils
  
• widgets
  
• templates
  
• ui
  
• Buttons
  
• ControlPanel
  
• EditorToolbar

Another thing that would be nice is the ability to add preset fields to the edit template between the title and the body. That way I could specify that I always want the caption field available, for instance, even if nothing has been specified for that field yet.

I mean, we could just give this the same functionality as the field editor below the body, where it would have the field name preset, but you would still need to click create before it would actually save the value. Or require the user to click create before it will show the value edit box. Would that work? This is something I run into quite a bit with some of my wikis, and I usually figure I'm not the only one. 

Thoughts?

Arlen

[PMario]

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 3:59:31 PM UTC+2, Arlen Beiler wrote:

Another thing that would be nice is the ability to add preset fields to the edit template between the title and the body. That way I could specify that I always want the caption field available, for instance, even if nothing has been specified for that field yet.

I mean, we could just give this the same functionality as the field editor below the body, where it would have the field name preset, but you would still need to click create before it would actually save the value. Or require the user to click create before it will show the value edit box. Would that work? This is something I run into quite a bit with some of my wikis, and I usually figure I'm not the only one. 

The problem here is: As soon as a field is shown in edit mode, it will be active. So if you click "done" it will be saved with an empty value, even if it isn't "added" yet. ... The same behavior is true for tags.  

I can see the usecase and I'm in favor of a function like this.  We just need to take care, that we don't accidentally save fields and create side effects, that the user didn't intend.

So the UI needs to make it clear for the user, what's going on and what happens, if she clicks "done" and the tiddler is saved.

-m

[PMario]

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 3:59:31 PM UTC+2, Arlen Beiler wrote:

Another thing I have been thinking is that we need a simple way to group pages [should be tiddlers] according to "folders". Maybe all this entails is a macro like TOC that lists all the folders under a prefix. It seems like a filter of some sort should work.

For this one, I am talking about tiddlers within one wiki. I'm thinking of the way the Mediawiki software gives you the option to treat slashes in the page title like a folder path. When you enable this option, as Wikipedia does, it will treat page titles with slashes as a subpage. So in our case, we would write a macro that looks like the TOC macro, but groups the tiddlers using the title field instead of tags. For instance, the shadow tiddlers of the core plugin would look like this:

$:/core

• modules
  
• macros
  
• parsers
  

IMO http://tiddlywiki.com/#Customising%20Tiddler%20File%20Naming should do this?

-m

[Arlen Beiler]

Interesting, I never knew about this. But I am actually talking about a Table of Contents to be used inside the wiki exactly like the TOC macro, except based on the "path separator" (forward slash) in the tiddler title instead of the tag hierarchy. So it would actually render the table of contents the way the TOC macro does. I'm curious if this can be done with a filter or if someone would need to write a javascript macro for it.

On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 12:50 PM, PMario <pmar...@gmail.com> wrote

[PMario]

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 7:10:55 PM UTC+2, Arlen Beiler wrote:

Interesting, I never knew about this. But I am actually talking about a Table of Contents to be used inside the wiki exactly like the TOC macro, ...

Today is not my day :)

Right Sidebar at: http://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/: More: Explorer  or 

http://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/#%24%3A%2Fcore%2Fui%2FMoreSideBar%2FExplorer or

http://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/#Release%205.1.15:%5B%5BRelease%205.1.15%5D%5D%20%5B%5Btree%20Macro%5D%5D%20%5B%5Btree%20Macro%20(Examples)%5D%5D%20%24%3A%2Fcore%2Fui%2FMoreSideBar%2FExplorer

have fun!

mario

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Arlen,

I have been thinking about this for a while now. It seems like we should have some way of being able to transclude tiddlers from other wikis. And we should have a syntax that makes this easy. This one might be better done as a plugin.

I suppose a macro will do. And I will definitely build one should this come to pass.

 

Another thing I have been thinking is that we need a simple way to group pages according to folders. Maybe all this entails is a macro like TOC that lists all the folders under a prefix. It seems like a filter of some sort should work.

Something like this should provide a starting point.:

{{$:/config/OriginalTiddlerPaths##About}}

...provided, that you implemented the mechanism that does this for tiddlywiki.com.

 

Another thing that would be nice is the ability to add preset fields to the edit template between the title and the body. That way I could specify that I always want the caption field available, for instance, even if nothing has been specified for that field yet.

Simply add a tiddler tagged like:

title: $:/_my/ui/EditTemplate/before

tags: $:/tags/EditTemplate

list-before: $:/core/ui/EditTemplate/tags

<$edit field="caption" class="tc-edit-texteditor" placeholder="caption"/>

...styled the way you want it, though.

best -tb

[Hans Wobbe]

+1 !!

Not something I can code, but I certainly would be an avid user!

[Diego Mesa]

Hey all,

Great discussion - as far as transcluding tiddlers from other wikis - this is something I've been thinking about as it relates to having some kind of "update" mechanism for plugins. Correct me if Im wrong, but would that enable all plugins to be stored on github and have them be "auto-updated"? 

Also, not sure if you all have seen this before, but I just came across:

https://ustuehler.github.io/tw5-github/

Diego

[TonyM]

Arlen,

On simple way to group pages [should be tiddlers] according to "folders".

Did you look closer at the tree macro https://tiddlywiki.com/#tree%20Macro%20(Examples)

Which branches on "/"

See treemacro.jpg

Which I have also cloned and customised to a date tree breaking on "-"

Also example Attached.

see datetree.jpg

I then went on to customise the tree macro to show wikilinks, Tagging / TagPill (using a modified <<tag>> macro

<<tree prefix:"$:/core">>

See my example attachwed

coretree.jpg

What else is missing in your view?

Tony