It’s also at the top of this forum.
The PR Maker is just for TW docs. The links project is a different github repository.
@vilc thanks for bringing this up (again)
I set up https://plugins.tiddlyhost.com/ to provide all plugin libraries I could find. Please provide any others you know. By message here.
- libraries permit access from different sites and wikis while retaining a single copy or source of truth.
- you can presently only search a selected library not all libraries.
- I appreciate the effort to build links.tiddlywiki but I am quite critical of its usability and presentation. however, I was disappointed at the responce I got when being critical, and backed off.
- I contemplated building a new links site from the existing site to demonstrate how much better it could be, but found the data structure difficult.
- I may revisite with the tw features and skills I have developed since then.
- I have my own collected plugins wiki offline but every time I use it I need to check if updates are needed, now running at 22Mb in a single file wiki.
- With most plugins licences, I could repubish these plugins but then I would become responcible for updates.
- Libraries, perhaps with a multi-library, search mechanisum is possibly the best way to go.
- Unfortunatly the only documentation on generating libraries is how to from the command line. Trying to reverse engineer the process to generate library files to bublish on a website has proven complex, the process and requirements is not documented.
Oh one honorable mention to the CPL resources, however I personaly get very confused with the chinese script and find it too difficult to use. I wish this were not the case, and I could read it.
I would go so far as to say “I love this community” and concider many of you virtual friends, but I think we need to allow polite contructive critisisum where due, and more collaborations, to move forward together.
Hiding from me in plain sight 
Well, maybe it’s just me that had ignored all the obvious references for so long.
I know, I had improving TW docs in mind as well. For example the Community tiddler:
was last edited over 2 years ago and it describes the process of moving things from there to links as still not finished. To me, this gives an impression as if links were abandoned or still WIP.
Now this seems like a serious obstacle towards a common plugin library. I guess this is why only some plugin creators have made their libraries.
I was thinking of a process similar to how links are functioning. A process that would get the data from known libraries (just as links collect data from known wikis with links) and reorganize it into a single library. Assuming there are no copyright concerns, of course, but I’m talking about modifying/redistributing references/metadata about plugins, not the plugin code itself (this would be still hosted by the creator).
The undocumented process of creating libraries in the first place might be the biggest problem in this approach.
Edit: Or do I totally misunderstand how plugin libraries are working? I was always thinking they are just a set of plugin metadata, like “I have this Plugin, that does That, the latest version is 1.2.3, you can import it from this URL”. However, if the libraries are an interactive thing, that serves the plugin code on request, then what I proposed above doesn’t make much sense.
I think the underlying problem, which we have to adapt to, as we cannot solve it, is that no one has enough skill, vision, and time (all 3 at once) to make the necessary improvements to bigger things needing some rethinking, like links, or TW landing page. We all agree they need improvements, there are many good ideas floating around and many people with the skill to implement, but it hasn’t moved further yet.
Maybe you could learn about CPL.
https://tw-cpl.netlify.app/#Index:Index
https://tw-cn.netlify.app/#%24%3A%2Fconfig%2FChinesePluginLibrary%2FGitHub
Welcome to the ‘’[TiddlyWiki Chinese Community Plugin Source]’’!
This plugin source is maintained by the [[TiddlyWiki Chinese Community]] and is dedicated to collecting all TiddlyWiki5 related plugins on the web, hoping to provide a one-click installation and update plugin experience for TiddlyWiki users in China and around the world.
If you don’t know how to use TiddlyWiki and this source, you are welcome to read the plugins related section in the [[TiddlyWiki Tutorials for Chinese Communities|https://tw-cn.netlify.app]]. As mentioned above, both the plugin source and the tutorial are open source projects, you can find them in [[GitHub|https://github.com/tiddly-gittly]] and participate in contributing! If you like, you can join us through QQ groups and other means, see the Chinese tutorials mentioned above for details.
To add this plugin library to your Wiki, just drag this link with your mouse into your Wiki: <$link to=<>{{!!caption}}</$link>
Note: The source version of this plugin is the ~GitHub Page version, which is faster to update, but may require scientific Internet access. If you are in China and are not sure what GFW is, please use another [[version|$:/config/ChinesePluginLibrary/Netlify]] that is accelerated by netlify.app, although there is a certain delay in updating, but it is more friendly to domestic users more friendly.
Thats is why I feel we coul;d encorage a little more team work or collaboration. A few people working together.
The plugins.tiddlyhost.com site is the first thing I pull up, as a user who knows what I want to add, and just wants to drag over all the library tiddlers in one gesture.
It does seem to me that at least a select set of (up-to-date, active, original-author) libraries ought to be available with any off-the-shelf instance.
If they are included, presumably there should be some caveat (at the Plugins control panel tab, near the “Get More Plugins” button) to the effect that third-party plugins are not part of the core, have generally been tested and updated but are the independent open-source free or donation-ware projects of their developers – or whatever that boilerplate caveat ought to be.
The link is TiddlyWiki toolmap - Dynalist. The links.tiddlywiki.org project was meant to replace my one-man labor of love toolmap. I know @Mark_S who already replied in this thread put a LOT of work upfront into adding links there, and I see you have been adding a lot recently. Good on you!
I think improving links.tiddlywiki.org would be the most feasible route.
- Distinguish between plugins, tips and solutions, themes, palettes, and webpages with multiple plugins and solutions.
- Search results should show full information, without ellipsis cutti…
- I will be honest, it is really confusing to click a web url and have it open the tiddler rather than the url. There isn’t even any reason to show the entire url if there is already a button right next to it. I think the idea of it being a “list of links” adversely affected the design of the way the entries are presented. It should be a list of resources - plugins, themes, tips, palettes, etc.
My preferred UI would be:
a. Row 1:
i. Descriptive title, preferably with name of the creator of the site or plugin or theme [e.g., Documenting TW, a list of tips and solutions (Dave Gifford)]
ii. button to go to webpage,
iii. button to view the entry (the tiddler),
iv. button to download.
b. Row 2: a little larger than it is now, a list of the tags.
c. Row 3: At the bottom, in smaller text, Submitted by …
d. Text box below the rows: Any additional information the submitter wants to add.
4 Likes
Maybe you could make a little mock-up?
I was actually working on it right now!
So originally we were told to keep the text down to about 25 words or so. I spent hours honing descriptions to make this possible with my contributions. I think the fear was that the federation process would take too long if the descriptions were too long. However, as it turns out so far, federation is very fast (maybe because there’s not that many contributors). Since the descriptions were (mostly) short, the ellipsis would only occur infrequently.
Then … the policy was reversed. Now there are contributions that are the size of small white papers. So if you don’t use the ellipsis it will be hard to scan through a list of results.
Okay, here are the current search results and entry tiddlers.
My problems with it are
A) the search results crop the title unnecessarily. No meaningful description is that short Make it show the entire “original-title” field.
B) The large tiddler title provides information that is useless and distracting to the user looking for a resource or solution. This could be hidden by normal TW means.
C) The information on the contributor is above, and in larger font size, than the information that the user is looking for. Just move this below that information and put it in smaller font size. And put “submitted by” so the user doesn’t think this is a link to something of Saq’s (it is a link to a discussion in which Saq didn’t even post).
D) The hyperlink does not take you to that location, but to the tiddler.
Here is a crude mockup of what I am thinking of for the SEARCH RESULTS and what shows up in the “Topic:” results:
The layout is similar to looking at a tiddler. It uses the information already available in Saq’s tiddler (but the description at the bottom is mine, just a little more info to show what it is).
- It is clean
- it puts front and center what a typical user would be looking for.
2 Likes
That looks good! Keeping in mind that we’re talking about when the user has asked to see original titles. Also, not all original titles are really good titles (because originally the titles weren’t even going to be used). We should get some feedback from Tones and others and then wave at Jeremy.
That explains a lot (picture my eyes rolling and the words “oh brother” coming out of my mouth). Someone decided that the site was going to be a collection of ‘links’, so then ‘links’ became the abstract, organizing concept that guided the design rather than a user-focused approach.
A link is only worth following if one has an idea that it will be helpful, unless the user wants to just blindly open links one by one and see what pops up. So the link is secondary to some kind of descriptive title that acts as a timesaver (as are the tags). Tags help narrow the search, but they are no substitute for an answer to the question “What the heck am I looking at?”
The title should be the primary focus and should give a brief indication in human words of what the link is to (the plugin name or a brief idea of what it will do for the user. And if need be, the additional text will supplement that.
3 Likes
It was (as I understand it) modeled after del.icio.us: “a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks” (Wikipedia). I think that part of the problem is that something like that requires a lot of participants and an easy on-ramp. But it’s not easy to make an onramp to a project and have it work just like a tiddlywiki (“eat your own dogfood”).
The current requirements are not too arduous: Sign up for Github; Enter your website id in the repository; Host a TW website with properly formatted tiddlers to share URL’s/info.
Only the first two steps are somewhat complicated. Once you have your site going, it’s not much work to add new entries. But it’s probably a bit much for someone that just wants to quickly add a new site they just discovered and want to share.
Some minor changes to @DaveGifford’s great mockup:
- Open-window icon to the left of the clickable title, a common convention in TW buttons, tags, etc.
- Underlined external link, again to keep with TW convention of differentiating internal and external links.
- More space between the title and additional buttons, maybe right-aligned buttons, similar to tiddler view?
- This is more preferential, but I think the info icon conveys the message “more about this thing” better than the eye, which clashes with the external link used to actually view it.
- Remove the download button from this compact view, reserve it for full tiddler view. Btw, seems it doesn’t even work on links right now, I get just an empty txt file.
- Keep the date, I think it’s relevant, even in the compact view, how long ago was this link updated.
- Cropping the description around the highlighted search term is okay for me, it permits long descriptions, but brings focus to the relevant fragment. Only, I would wish these to be longer than currently.
3 Likes
I like this idea very much, independent from the discussed improvements to the links. This would be a very good approximation of what I ideally imagined (all community plugins available right away), a good enough starting point for both newcomers and experienced users (who uses any TW with more than 5 tiddlers without Relink anyway 
). Most importantly, it is possible to implement right away, without much effort.
1 Like
Yes I was in a hurry and forgot to add the date, and grabbed the eye icon quickly. The info button is better. These are great changes. My only request is that the title link not be blue. I like how you have it, bold and black. Blue would make it less easy to read quickly. And like I said, this for me is what the user is looking for.
2 Likes
Great to see all this work, I spent a large part of my day creating a layer to add to improve the presentation, organisation and searchability. Its not rocket science, but it gets a little complex due to the existing design.
- The existing links site has some fantastic technology behind it for submissions, we just need to improve access to the data it now holds.
My Work in progress
When viewing a link tiddler I replace the title with the original-title, but the title has not changed.
I am enhancing the pill that appears on the topic pills, the ones in the links will change eventualy. Notice how you can goto advanced search filter with this topic, open all or close all in this topic.
I created an alternative list where you use a details widget to see the text field; Later I will add a search to reduce this list according to the search term
As you can see the Plugin topic has 144 entries so we need to add additional filters so we can divide this list.
1 Like