A few beginner questions

[PoloPoPo]

Hi everyone, I am new to TiddlyWiki and looking for a way to save and structure work-related information in a clear digital notebook. Currently I have lots of different .docx files I want to get rid of eventually.

I’ve installed the desktop app v0.0.20 on Win10 and started my first Wiki.

1. On the right side of the app I have the tabs “open”, “recent”, “tools” and “more”. Is there a way to add a “contents” tab that displays all my wiki entries at once? If so, how can I sort the entries the way I want?

2. When adding a new entry, is there a way to add tables (rows and columns)?

3. Is there a way to switch from text editor (what you see is what you get) to html editor?

4. All new entries show a date below title. How can I remove the date? Don’t need it.

5. When should I use the desktop app and when just the direct link to my wiki in my browser? Browser is more convenient but maybe there are good reasons to use the app from time to time.

6. How can I add hyperlinks to the www instead of links to other wiki entries?

7. Basically all I want are a few dozen entries, all displayed in one contents tab, and the possibility to add sub-entries to an existing one. Pretty basic, don’t need tags or anything, maybe tiddlywiki is too powerful and complicated for that use?

Thank you in advance!
PoloPoPo

[Scott_Sauyet]

Welcome to the talk community, @PoloPoPo!

@PoloPoPo

Is there a way to add a “contents” tab that displays all my wiki entries at once?

Yes, it’s covered in Adding a table of contents to the sidebar.

@PoloPoPo

how can I sort the entries the way I want?

If you’re looking to sort the top level, easiest is to click the tag pill for TableOfContents (found on any tiddler that has that as a tag) and drag and drop the element to sort them. For more complex needs, see How to change the sort order of sub-branches in a TOC macro.

@PoloPoPo

• When adding a new entry, is there a way to add tables (rows and columns)?

You can always create them in HTML, and you may need to do so for dynamically created ones, but you can also do it in wikitext like this:

| !Header1    | !Header2  | !Header 3  |
| Cell 1-1    | Cell 1-2  | Cell 1-3   |
| Cell 2-1    | Cell 2-2  | Cell 2-3   |
| Cell 3-1    | Cell 3-2  | Cell 3-3   |
| Cell 4-1    | Cell 4-2  | Cell 4-3   |

@PoloPoPo

Is there a way to switch from text editor (what you see is what you get) to html editor?

I’m not sure what you want here. You never edit the HTML directly; that is rendered from your wikitext by TiddlyWiki, and it’s the wikitext you get to change. Note, though, that wikitext can include HTML

@PoloPoPo

• All new entries show a date below title. How can I remove the date? Don’t need it.

If you edit the shadow tiddler $:/core/ui/ViewTemplate/subtitle and remove the tag $:/tags/ViewTemplate, that subtitle simply won’t show up. Or you can keep the tag and edit the contents to show what you would like in that subtitle spot.

Explanation: This is a shadow tiddler, buried inside the core plugin. When you edit it, you make a copy of it that will appear in its place. Any content you have will now be used instead of the core version. But, if you ever want to restore the core, you can just delete your version and the original will show through.

To open that tiddler, you can search in the Shadows tab of Advanced Search (brought up by the little magnifying glass next to the search box in the right sidebar), or you can look in the sidebar More tab, under Shadows and scroll through the list. (More / Explorer shows the same thing as a tree.)

@PoloPoPo

When should I use the desktop app and when just the direct link to my wiki in my browser?

I don’t use the desktop version, so I can’t really speak to that. I often use the Node version, which has several advantages for my own workflow. But plenty of people happily use the browser version for everything. But never forget the first rule of Tiddlywiki: Back up your data! Make defensive copies regularly. You can delete them later.

@PoloPoPo

How can I add hyperlinks to the www instead of links to other wiki entries?

[[Link to tiddler|Tiddler title]]
[[Link to website|https://example.com]]

@PoloPoPo

Basically all I want are a few dozen entries, all displayed in one contents tab, and the possibility to add sub-entries to an existing one. Pretty basic, don’t need tags or anything, maybe tiddlywiki is too powerful and complicated for that use?

You will probably want to use tags to handle your table of contents.

Tiddlywiki does have a steeper learning curve than the tools its usually compared to. But it’s substantially more powerful and tremendously more flexible and customizable than them. It’s your call, of course, but the community here is friendly and willing to help you learn.

[pmario]

You may be interested in my Cheatsheet plugin that gives you an overview about the TW formatting.