Need help making a professional document with TW

[emen]

I'm planning on using TW as a product manual, in this case a 500$
telecommunications device. First of all, what are your thoughts on
this? Is it a bad idea? Is it any worse than releasing a manual as a
PDF which requires the customers to download Acrobat? The way I see
it, we would be able to put the manual on our website, and it would be
easily available for download by a hyperlink to the html file. Both IE
and Firefox come with Java capabilities (as opposed to Acrobat) so
that's another plus.

In any case, I'm looking to do the following:

1) Remove the right toolbar entirely. It is entirely useless for what
I'm trying to do. I don't want people to see the timeline, edit the
document, or save, or anything of the sort once I'm finished with it.
Plus it spills over medium-sized images when the wiki is being viewed
below 1024x768 resolution.

2) Move the Search box to the left toolbar (above the MainMenu) or to
the top of the wiki, since search is actually useful.

3) Remove the tags that appear next to an article, since I will not be
using any tags.

4) Save image files within the wiki and show them. I typed this post
bit by bit over the day so I was able to find the FileAttachment
plugin which does this. One down :)

5) This is the hardest yet...some customers will want to print the
manual to paper. Is there any way to prepare the document for print?
Any alternative ideas?

6) and finally, any other recommendations from you guys in case you've
released an official document using TW. What was the reaction from
your peers and end-users?

[sean...@gmail.com]

I think TiddlyWiki is flexible enough to do almost anything if you're
determined :D I use it as rules documentation for a game, and it
works splendidly (not official though)
~sean

[dawn ahukanna]

Emen,
I've used TW for Project and client documentation for various projects. So with some customisation what you are trying to do is achievable -
If you could produce a visual of what you are trying to do, it would help.

>1) Remove the right toolbar entirely. It is entirely useless for what
>I'm trying to do. I don't want people to see the timeline, edit the
>document, or save, or anything of the sort once I'm finished with it.
>Plus it spills over medium-sized images when the wiki is being viewed
>below 1024x768 resolution.

You need to customise the "PageTemplate" shadow tiddler - See http://tiddlythemes.com/ or http://tw.lewcid.org/ for presentation (one tiddler at a time) TiddltWiki.

>2) Move the Search box to the left toolbar (above the MainMenu) or to
>the top of the wiki, since search is actually useful.

Customise "PageTemplate" shadow tiddler. See comment for 1.

>3) Remove the tags that appear next to an article, since I will not be
>using any tags.

Customise "ViewTemplate" shadow tiddler.

>4) Save image files within the wiki and show them. I typed this post
>bit by bit over the day so I was able to find the FileAttachment
>plugin which does this. One down :)

You can also create links to images using [img[<name of file>][<friendly name>]]

>5) This is the hardest yet...some customers will want to print the
>manual to paper. Is there any way to prepare the document for print?
>Any alternative ideas?

Not sure about this one for the entire document but there is a "StyleSheetPrint" shadow tiddler that could be customised for printing open tiddlers.

>6) and finally, any other recommendations from you guys in case you've

r>eleased an official document using TW. What was the reaction from
>your peers and end-users?
Has always been very positive feedback from clients and peers for using TW but each one has been specifically tailored and especially useful for knowledge gathering and sharing.


Good luck.
Dawn

[Eric Shulman]

> 1) Remove the right toolbar entirely. It is entirely useless for what
> I'm trying to do. I don't want people to see the timeline, edit the
> document, or save, or anything of the sort once I'm finished with it.

add to StyleSheet:
#sidebar { display:none; }
Note: as soon as you do this, it will be impossible to save your
document, since the sidebar containing the 'save changes' command will
be hidden. To work around this "painting yourself into a corner"
situation you should be sure to view the "SideBarOptions" tiddler
before changing the StyleSheet. That way, the 'save changes' command
will still be visible in the displayed tiddler, even after the sidebar
has been hidden.

> 2) Move the Search box to the left toolbar (above the MainMenu) or to
> the top of the wiki, since search is actually useful.

add to MainMenu:
<<search>>

> 3) Remove the tags that appear next to an article, since I will not be
> using any tags.

add to StyleSheet:
.tagging, .tagged { display:none; }

> 4) Save image files within the wiki and show them. I typed this post
> bit by bit over the day so I was able to find the FileAttachment
> plugin which does this. One down :)

As you have already found:
http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePlugin
will embed base-64 text-encoded binary files in tiddler content.
Unfortunately, IE can't handle the embedded binary attachments.
Fortunately, the plugin supports automatic fallback to external files
when embedded data can't be used. Also, when you are publishing your
document, you should use
http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePluginFormatters
which contains just the attachment *rendering* code, but not the
AttachFile control panel interface or attachment generating
functions. This saves considerable space (around 30K) in the final
published document.

> 5) This is the hardest yet...some customers will want to print the
> manual to paper. Is there any way to prepare the document for print?
> Any alternative ideas?

StyleSheetPrint contains media-specific CSS that you can use to hide
various "screen-only" content, or adjust margins, etc. when printing
the document.

To print the entire document, you would need to
a) close any open tiddlers
b) open all tiddlers in a specific order
c) invoke print

You can do this from a single clickable link (e.g., "print this
document"), by using
http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#InlineJavascriptPlugin
to add an "onclick" script to your MainMenu:

<script label="print this document">
var tids=["FirstTitle","SecondTitle","ThirdTitle",...];
story.closeAllTiddlers();
story.displayTiddlers(null,tids);
window.print();
</script>

and, to make it easier to configure the list of tiddlers to print, you
can replace the first line of this script with:
var tids=store.getTiddlerText("PrintTiddlers").readBracketedList();
which interprets the contents of [[PrintTiddlers]] as a space-
separated list of tiddlers to be displayed (like defining
[[DefaultTiddlers]], except for printing). That way, instead of
editing the javascript code to add/change the list of tiddlers to be
printed, you just edit the contents of [[PrintTiddlers]].

HTH,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

[redfuzz]

Thanks Eric.

I'm hacking together a collection of plugins to make a non-editable
website with TiddlyWiki.
When I say hacking, I mean it in the most basic newbie sense, not
anything related to actually knowing what I'm doing ;)

So far I'm using:
InstantTimestampPlugin
LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin
PresentationPlugin
SinglePageModePlugin
SplashScreenPlugin
UploadPlugin
UploadToFileMacro
WikiBar (Doesn't Work!!??)

Emen, you may be interested in the PresentationPlugin. It gives you an
Authoring mode and a presentation mode.

Eric, I had been editing the PageTemplate and AuthorPageTemple,
basically deleting things from teh PageTemplate that I didn't want in
the presentation mode. But it was an eye opener to realize I could
leave the PageTemplate and AuthorPageTemple the same (or point one to
the other), and then use the CSS in the StyleSheet to just not display
the sideBar for example.

Guess it's time to learn a bit more CSS and not imagine I can get by
with cutting and pasting and deleteing.

http://tiddlythemes.com/ has been very illustrative.

Thanks
g

[emen]

Thank you for your replies! I will try your suggestions this week.

I'm glad there was a way to print the document easily (for the end-
user), this is what killed my last proposal.

[Samuel Reynolds]

At 03:29 PM 5/1/2007, you wrote:
>2) Move the Search box to the left toolbar (above the MainMenu) or to
>the top of the wiki, since search is actually useful.

You might take a look at the enhanced search plugins.
My favorite is YourSearchPlugin
http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#YourSearchPlugin.
It makes the search beaucoups better. In particular,
it allows a search without opening all matching tiddlers.
Instead, you get a popup list of matches (with or without
context string), and can open one or many tiddlers.

- Sam

[Didymus]

Hello Emen,

I think that what you need is Saq's Presentation Tiddlywiki - you'll
find out about it, with links, from here:
http://tiddlyspot.blogspot.com/2006/12/saq-excellent-presentation-mode.html

In effect, Saq has converted TW to an authoring system, which will
work very well for the application you have in mind.

I've used it to put up an old 'programmed' textbook of mine and you'll
see that the user only sees what is necessary - you'll see that at:
http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/chain_indexing/chain_indexing.html#Instructions

Hope this helps,

[FND]

> I think that what you need is Saq's Presentation Tiddlywiki

Agreed - SinglePageModePlugin and PresentationPlugin as well as
SplashScreenPlugin are a must for any TWs meant for publication.

OT question: I haven't heard anything from Saq in ages - what's he up
to? (He might be active on the developers' list though... !?)

> In effect, Saq has converted TW to an authoring system, which will
> work very well for the application you have in mind.
>
> I've used it to put up an old 'programmed' textbook of mine and you'll
> see that the user only sees what is necessary - you'll see that at:
> http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/chain_indexing/chain_indexing.html#Instructions

Nice!
You - both Didymus and emen - might also consider using
BreadcrumbsPlugin (http://www.tiddlytools.com/#BreadcrumbsPlugin). It'd
make navigation easier, and it *might* also enable the browser's BACK
button (at least that option had been discussed a few weeks ago - don't
really remember the outcome).

This thread is really interesting - we should do some refactoring and
publish the results somewhere (on a/the wiki maybe?)!

-- F.

[rni...@gmail.com]

FND wrote:
>> This thread is really interesting - we should do some refactoring and
> publish the results somewhere (on a/the wiki maybe?)!

You absolutely should !!! This is great stuff !!! One tip for the
author - don't remove tagging unless you are going to create an
index ... Otherwise ... Tag tiddlers by function or something ... This
would be close to a help system ...

Rich
Ah ... sweet blackberry!

[Simon Baird]

Please consider making a page/section in
Tiddlywikiguides.org
the only (working) community documentation project for TW.
All contributions are welcome. Our motto: anything is better than nothing :)

Simon.

[FND]

Hey all,

I've summarized some of the outcomes of this discussion at
http://tiddlywikiguides.org/index.php?title=Plugin_recommendations

I've only incorporated plugins for now, but feel free to add any further
information (e.g. instructions on printing, or on the use of tags).

-- F.

[lewcid]

On May 3, 7:11 pm, FND <Ace_No...@gmx.net> wrote:
> OT question: I haven't heard anything from Saq in ages - what's he up
> to? (He might be active on the developers' list though... !?)
>

Work has me running around like a headless chicken these days! I
actually have an almost finished improved version of the presentation
plugin thats been sitting around for a few months now. I'll try and
get that posted sometime soon so I can get some feedback before
finalizing it.
Cheers,
Saq