Beyond empty.html a standard edition

#1

Folks,

This is a personal belief backed up by numerous comments that empty.html should not be the first wiki people make their own.

  • Maintaining empty.html is important because its the blank page or minimal version that especially experience users may want in the latest release version to start building a new wiki on, however I expect many build their own starter editions with their own preferences.

Standard edition
However I propose a standard edition should be pre-eminent for users especially new users so they have a little more to work with from day one. It will after all act as a showcase of tiddlywiki and for this showcase to be so minimalist is not helpful.

[Edited] I have updated the items below that have being done on the demo site.

With this I have proposed the development of a standard.html edition and have posted a proposed one here but would like top open this discussion to seek ideas and feedback. See here My TiddlyWiki — standard starter edition most adjustments so far are trivial except for the installation of the relink plugin.

Open for discussion are;

  • Preinstall additional key plugin libraries? done
  • Add the Sites menu found on tiddlywiki.com? done
  • Links to and suggestions for learning material?
  • Provide access to Open tiddlers from the menu in a dropdown (jump menu) done
  • Add an About sidebar with access to an Introduction tiddler - started
  • Add a more system tags list for all the system tags available even if not in use - done
  • Add additional features to the Tag Pill Dropdowns like - done
    • open/close tagged done
    • New tiddler with tag done
    • Create a sidebar table of contents for this tag done
  • Additional sidebar tabs, checkbox to add/remove such as;
    • Draft tiddlers Done
    • Session history (in menu as well?) done
    • Journal Tiddlers list done
    • New tiddlers (Created today) (in menu as well?) - See recent
  • An easy way to add any tiddler to any item in the TableOfContents tree. ?
  • TOC tab internal - open from Contents Tab done
  • Easy and searchable access to Key System tiddlers via the search - done via masquerading
    • Eg Control Panel, Tiddler and Tag Managers others? done

Remember this is all about giving new users a “kick start” into tiddlywiki.

If you have other enhancements or criticisms please let me know in this discussion.

  • Please name any feature above you think should be included.
  • Please name a plugin that should be included and what if any documentation included for it
  • Some example tiddlers eg TOC tab internal - open from Contents Tab
  • Macros or enhancements
TiddlyWiki XP by Keaton Lao
"Nah... not for me" - Why?
Derailing the Nah - What is TW?
Landing Pages -- Can TiddlyWiki Learn From Them?
"Nah... not for me" - Why?
#2

I like the idea of using the top Menu Bar as more of a standard application menu.

  • The Sites list and links to learning material could be put into a “Help” drop-down menu.
  • The Open tiddlers could be another drop-down.
  • The Tools sidebar tab could even be moved up to the top menu bar

I don’t think any more plugins beyond Relink and Relink Titles are needed for a standard starter edition. Most other plugins tend to move the wiki into specific directions that are better left up to purpose-built editions.

I made a Tiddler Control button that puts the Open Tiddlers list on each tiddler for consistent access, but I would rather go with putting it in the Menu Bar for a starter edition.

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#3

A Possibly controversial addition would be my tiddler-masquerade.json (3.1 KB) solution that allows one tiddler to masquerade as another, for example on My TiddlyWiki — standard starter edition type one or more of the following in the search box to open a tiddler masquerading as a system tiddler but is now searchable. If something critical is not searchable, then “it does not exist”.

  • Control Panel, Tiddler Manager, Tag Manager, Toolbar Settings
    • “Toolbar Settings” is a great example of how system tiddlers can be given pretty titles and searched for. It uses the alt-title field to display the alternative title
  • Any other suggestions?
#4

As discussed in the https://talk.tiddlywiki.org/t/nah-not-for-me-why thread, this is my work-in-progress proposal for a “standard” / “starter” template:

https://starter.tiddlyhost.com/

In this post I’ve highlighted why the current first-time user experience can be improved:

Here I did a quick SWOT analysis:

And adding some documentation best practices:

And here is first feedback of a new user on the above template:

#5

Upon downloading empty from tiddlywiki.com I would like for an option do select plugins that come pre-installed with the tw you download. That way the user could select some recommended setup for whatever his use case is - one example being “I’m a noob, just gimme some general goodies” but also “The music package”, “Productivity suite #25”, etc.

In some sense, this would make “editions” be something else, something that goes beyond mere plugins. I.e an edition would really bring something different that cannot easily be achieved by merely adding plugins. I imagine examples could include TW’s set up for integration with other systems or TW’s that radically alter core features.

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#6

@twMat Would an edition focused Plugin Library do the Job, perhaps with a little guidance?.

#7

To some extent but the ideal would be for the user to not have to dig into any libraries right away, especieally not noobs.

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#8

Unless we load the wiki with plugins and organise them into sets, I think using libraries would be the best technical approach, to install just as needed. but I get your point, perhaps however adding an interactive “curated collection” of plugins with an interface that triggers a set of named plugins to be installed may be the best approach. I am confident this can be done just not exactly how because the library mechanism is still a mystery to me.

  • Of course you can have a “plugin of plugins and other tiddlers” and theoretically if you know the location of a plugin on the internet (in this case a plugin of plugins) we should be able to have an upload to wiki button built, with a prepopulated url (but I have not found this yet).
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#9

I was happy to see, that it doesn’t suffer from “pluginitis” as so many newbie wikis do. I’m concerned, that at the end of the feedback round it actually will. — we will see.

#10

I have gone through your podcast links and extracted the meaningful points. Personally I feel we can address most of their stated negatives.

It seems part of the “Nah… not for me” that we have not being addressing is “who is Me?”. If we can get people to self nominate right away we can guide them accordingly, the problem is as soon as they take a branch in the road will they consider another branch?

  • I think this essential, to keep plugins to a minimum because it should become the go to edition for new users, and regular users needing a little more than empty.html
  • Any more size and complexity that is not dedicated to simplifying new user take up should not be used.

Should we add additional themes and layouts, and some prompts to experiment like in the “Home Tiddler” so users can quickly see the possibilities?

  • I think an option to remove many of the customisations such as unselected themes etc… could be provided in the standard build where we feel obliged to use something to make it attractive but its a little too heavy.
  • For new users the idea of deselecting features makes more sense that forcing them to go hunting;
    • And because, how do they know what to look for?
    • How do they go about looking for it?
  • This is where @twMat’s suggestion is spot on, I am just not sure how yet.
2 Likes
#11

IMO having the navigation pane open (+ always visible search) with a basic set of some general tags setup in the table of contents is sufficient as a starting point. Creating a table of contents (content tree), is a bit advanced, so giving the user a very basic structure and a link to an external resource on how it can be extended is enough. Yes, let’s help the users, but keep things as simple as possible with having a learning path forward. Additionally, I think we need to mention that Search is the primary way how content is retrieved.

It seems part of the “Nah… not for me” that we have not being addressing is “who is Me?”. If we can get people to self nominate right away we can guide them accordingly, the problem is as soon as they take a branch in the road will they consider another branch?

In general best practice is to guide your primary persona (let’s say we agree on a “Selfhoster” persona) but give them the option to explore. I wouldn’t worry about different learning paths (you call them branches) too much, as I thing the template should be very generic. Most deep dive links would then link to the full TW documentation. (restructuring the main documentation is a whole another beast and IMO a different discussion - and this is where you’d be thinking much more about personas and learning paths).

I think it’s important to iron out a “standard” template for complete beginners (persona agnostic with maybe persona specific deep-links to the main docs). The goal of the “standard” template should be to teach the user these tasks in about <15 minutes (happy to discuss/adjust/extend):

  • Have their own TW copy on TiddlyHost
  • Be able to create tiddlers
  • Be able to search
  • Be able to Tag
  • Be able to link tiddlers
  • Embed images
  • Use transclusion
  • Install one custom plugin
  • (optional) Switch template / little bit of customisation

I think this is doable. I picked these tasks because they cover let’s say 80% of day-to-day tasks. I’ve added transclusion and installing a plugin (by drag-and-drop) to get the wow factor (creating their own TW from a template which is done during the setup is another wow factor IMO).

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"Nah... not for me" - Why?
#12

I agree these are importiant and need to be addressed however these are what " we know they will need" the harder part is getting clear what " they think they need". If addressed carfully we may achive both at once.

I raised once before the idea of doing a needs survey, without being evil you can do a “push poll” that is the questions you ask also tell them what they can get from tiddlywiki?

I feel we are realy getting somewhere. I hope others can also trawl through this whole thread and extract things for;

  • a home landing page and modern look
  • arractive introduction to tiddlywiki helping people identify its use for them
  • an appropriate standard edition that helps people adopt and experiment on their own
1 Like
Derailing the Nah - What is TW?
#13

I have updated the items that have being done on the demo site in the Top post.

https://standard.tiddlyhost.com/#It’s%20all%20in%20the%20name

Please review and Comment!

Further Questions

  • Should I add sticky titles and adjust the top of the page ? done
  • Configure $:/config/EmptyStoryMessage? done
  • what about a floating editor toolbar?
  • what color change could hint it is not an empty or tiddlywiki.com edition?
    • What is the css ?
  • Should we make close others visible on the toolbar?
  • Should we add the foldbar ? maybe not if people can get lost.
  • Should I add a journal-date to journal tiddlers so they can still be found even if the name or created date don’t reflect the journal date?
  • Should we have an option to;
    • show open tabs in a tabs bar at the top ?
    • activate the link-to-tabs icon so the tab source tiddler can be located? Requires a plugin
    • activate the editor-autolist? so new line on * # and tab works when typing lists. Requires a plugin
#14

Mobile view - default not good enough?

To cover a broad audience I think we need to plan for this standard image to be valid on mobile. What is the most appropriate layout for this?

Other additions

I have set $:/config/ShowEditPreview/PerTiddler so yes as its a helpful default

I have set Display tiddler titles as links yes, so open titles can be dragged. ie a tiddler link can be dragged and dropped.

  • With the sticky tiddler title you can thus click the title to jump to the top of the current tiddler.

With links draggable I have created a modified version of the toc-caption macro in $:/core/macros/toc such that a title dropped on an item in the Contents/TableOfContents will be tagged with the item in the TableOfContents and thus added to the contents.

  • I am not sure how to stop and infinite loop occurring just yet.
  • I have included the TableOfContents tag pill in the contents tab, with a tooltip, and items dropped on it will be tagged TableOfContents - this allows to top level Contents to be added.

I have added a little tag icon that appears in the subtitle, when a tiddler is itself a tag. It is a tag pill and has its features.

#15

I am looking for community involvement, I am after all making something as a solution to often raised issues. See here https://standard.tiddlyhost.com/

  • Download edition button now working
#16

A small update and a desire to inspire more reviews and suggestions of the standard edition https://standard.tiddlyhost.com/

  • Now you can clone this edition to your TiddlyHost sites
  • CPL and other Plugin libraries available in wiki
  • How to use this edition - added to default tiddlers

Are there other “how to tiddlers” that will help new or standard edition users?

  • Please share the text if you can
  • Any other key customisations that will help all users?
1 Like
#17

Hi, nice work here on this project of standard edition.
As a french guy, I feel concern by “translatability” of TW. I think we should always think for people all around the world.
Jeremy showed us the path to easily translate the UI of TW. So I made some modifications to the tiddlers making the top menu. Adding translatable tiddlers to affect the
captions of menus.
For the content menu I use the existing sidebar menu content caption. For jumplist and history I created specific language tiddlers (here in french).
But instead of pointing to the text field of language tiddlers, I select to point to caption field of the language tiddler. In this way we could have more flexibility to add any other information translatable for a specific function tiddler (description, summary, …) instead of one tiddler per line of text…

My 2 cents…

menubar-language-translatable-tiddlers.json (24.0 KB)

2 Likes
#18

Thank you I will have a go at applying them. I know a little French myself (not much).

#19

I LOVE that Masquerade tool! I was searching for a means of launching/doing more from the search field and found this. So great!

#20

Thanks to @baiguai I’m now discovering this masequerade technique you’ve developed, @TW_Tones

I think in a starter/basic edition, it couldn’t hurt to have quite a few of these in addition to those in your “standard” site. A new user might go looking for “palette” or “shortcut” or “theme” or “cascade” (etc.) and be frustrated, since such concepts are mentioned frequently in discussion here, but yield no results in the standard search interface.

When/if someone has developed public-facing content, it should be easy to wipe out all these system-oriented masquerade shells (or to do so only when in reader mode), so that the search menu yields only the substantive content created by the author.