I’m the willing victim.
Rock-on. Side note. This thread got into a hot sweat (nicely!) but I kinda think the OP is most about guidance to writers, rather than answering the ultimate question?
THIS. Bang on.
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Agreed!
(And my avatar is the ultimate question)
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3 posts were split to a new topic: Can you filter tiddlers based on whether they contain a transclusion?
Paragraphs (blocks)
Sections (tiddlers)
Chapters (collected Sections)
Book (collected Chapters ~ TiddlyWiki)
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After being on Facebook for years I find it hard to imagine anyone being offended by twMat’s post. It was very common sense and logically written, to me. There is always the danger of a few people wanting to demand that everyone else change their language, and effectively hijack or blacklist words that work just fine and have for many years. There are genuine victims, and there are people who take it upon themselves to be “professional victims.” I would prefer to be sensitive to the former but not hostage to the latter.
In the case of Master tiddler (I hear Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred in my head saying, “Welcome home, Master Tiddler”), it is not the clearest phrase for the kind of tiddler Mohammad wrote about. And Mohammad’s reason for using it was his familiarity with a feature of Microsoft Word, that many Word users are not even aware of. So for me the fact that the word master is losing credibility is only the last nail in the coffin for that option, IMHO. Thus my comments earlier in the thread. Also, I know this forum is international in nature, so I figured some would not be aware of the developments regarding the word master in the USA, so it was worth mentioning. Blessings.
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I missed that. WHO was offended?
Nobody, luckily. Now let’s get back to Mohammads question.
No one was offended, as far as I can tell. My comment was because twMat went out of his way to stress that he did not want to insult or offend anyone. I was just affirming him, that what he wrote was not offensive, at least to me.
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Caro, A non issue you raised, okay!
Thank you all! I want to summarize this topic! Later we can have a poll!
Based on discussion, and my understanding we can propose the below terminology
Plain tiddler
(other names: pure, simple, atomic, independent, static,…)
- Features
- Plain tiddler always shows the same content. It does not depend on any state, or data,
change during the life of a wiki contains this tiddler. - They do not have any side effects
- They can be found in standard search, when one search for content
- Plain tiddlers only have wikitext and NO transclusion of any kind
- Plain tiddler always shows the same content. It does not depend on any state, or data,
Template tiddler
A template is a tiddler that serves as a starting point for a new tiddler. The word “Template” here means "a pre-formatted tiddler that can be used to quickly create a specific tiddler. A template itself is invisible to reader.
Compound tiddler
(other names: impure, mixed, complex, trnascluder, molecular, composite, dynamic, master)
is kind of the opposite of a plain one!
- Features
- They have contents generated dynamically and may be affected with some state variable
- Compound tiddler doesn’t predictably produce the same result.
- They have wikitext including transclusion of different type
- They may cause side-effects.
A special form of compound tiddler which has no content, but its content is created programmatically by dynamic transclusion and is equal to a master document in Microsoft Word is called patchwork tiddler.
- patchwork tiddler created from contents of plain tiddler by transclusion
- patchwork tiddler may not appear in standard search because they really have no content, but get their contents from other tiddler
Some references
I like the new tiddler terminology as below
Tiddler Terminology (Author Point of View)
- Plain tiddler
- Compound tiddler
- Template tiddler
- Patchwork tiddler
- Yes
- No
- I can propose better terms
0 voters
So Sad I came so late to this discussion. This being a favourite area of interest - nomenclature and I believe the experience to back it up, yet the sense to negotiate with others.
I support Mohamad’s objective here, think @Mohammad is taking it in the right direction but I think there are some fundamental mistakes being made.
I hope I still have the opportunity to contribute towards this important discussion.
- As much as I like the use of words for general and conceptual meaning I do not think this is the right circumstances for any uncertainty in the definitions. See next point.
- To give the terms to be used some real meaning I think we can resort to existing tiddlywiki rules, literally the rules pragma. Will the tiddler continue to be of use if only a subset of rules were in use? I will say more about this below.
- Composite/compound are both needed but can have different meanings
- Stand alone tiddlers are not composites or compound tiddler but may be part of others.
- Composite made up of other tiddlers and content ie not a standalone tiddler
- Compound tiddler made up of and dependant upon subtiddlers for its content, these subtiddlers are primarily for the content of the compound tiddler.
- A tiddler may be both composite and compound at the same time.
- Please do not use “index tiddler” as proposed.
- With all due respect to those suggesting that index tiddler is equivalent to a compound tiddler it is not. Some composite tiddlers could be called index tiddlers but most can not be. Index’s have a specific purpose in many parts of computing but this would be an edge case.
- Tiddlywiki internals has indexes, JSON and data tiddlers can act as indexes, One could call a Table of Contents or a glossary an index, even a list field or searchable list would be an index.
- Please don’t use this term generally, it would become overloaded, if not already.
- Fine say some composite or compound tiddlers may be indexes, but the reverse is untrue, not all compound or composite tiddlers will be indexes.
Rules based definitions;
Because I am late to the conversation I am reluctant to do the work unless other support this argument. I believe the “clear terms we use” should be able to be defined in terms of tiddlywiki pragmas.
For example Plain Wikitext/Pure/Standalone/atomic tiddlers remain usable as intended if they complied with a particular list of rules, in fact in some ways these are the most complex because we say what they are not eg;
\rules except macrocallinline import filteredtranscludeinline macrocallinline transcludeinline filteredtranscludeblock macrocallblock transcludeblock
In fact any other tiddler compound or otherwise could be made into a “plain wikitext” tiddler by applying these rules. As per my extending the type field idea (linked below) to support these definitions we could have types such as;
- Plain wikitext (above \rules)
- Compound includes transclusions but not other widgets/macros Plain wiki text + some more rules
- Composite transclusions from anywhere and other widgets and macros
So each of these type(s) will have the rules pragmas applied as per the community definition
Other items
- I think Master is not appropriate except in some very special circumstances but more fundamentally (than race relations, although I do not dismiss this in the U.S. context), Unless it controls the subtiddlers it refers to it is not a master. The subtiddlers are independent entities and can be changed without the master. A special case of compound tiddler which manages and provides access to its subtiddlers but there is no other UI to manage the subtiddlers could be a master tiddler.
- Template is too fuzzy in tiddlywiki, we need to start to qualify them
- ViewTemplate (as currently used)
- Display template used to display the content of the current tiddler
- Tiddler template used when creating new tiddlers or to apply to the current tiddler
- Content templates - content that someone may transclude into another tiddler reusable (although may be used once)
- Content template/templates or content template^2 - tiddler templates specifically for the purpose of cloning, editing and using as a content (possibly just a tiddler template)
- I also argue for the development of user types for tiddlers here Extending the type field for user types? in which case there will be custom Tiddler and Display templates associated with a tiddler “type”.
- In this case we may have a type of user/plain-wikitext OR user/compound etc… that not only calls out what kind of tiddler it is but also applies the rules,
- and promotes understanding of the terminology discussed in this topic.
[edited]
In my proposal users can continue as they do now. However we have a formal definition for the other types of tiddlers that can also be formally enforced. An additional opportunity arrises with such a systematic set of definitions;
- One could take a composite or compound tiddler can change it into a text/plain or user/wikitext and as such it is “deactivated” And acts and documentation. You could then point to another tiddler where it is text/vnd.tiddlywiki or perhaps user/compound
- Perhaps we could also include a filter or field list that allows compound tiddlers to be dragged as one to another wiki. Eg a “streams” compound tiddler.
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Thank you @TW_Tones for your in depth discussion!
My understanding
-
For template, given definition is valid but based on details given by Tony, templates can be furthered categorized into
- Static template: used to create new tiddlers and after creating the need tiddler, there is no connection with template tiddler
- Dynamic template: used for rendering a tiddler (in any mode: view, edit, etc…), tiddler uses these templates always dependent.
-
considering Tony suggestion/explanation the poll still valid
@TW_Tones - I appreciate to summarize this and come to a concise, short and simple terms.
I think patchwork is redundant. Compound is enough.
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@CodaCoder - from above post, I agree that, it is compound tiddler! but as argued for the term master tiddler, here patchwork is an alternative for master tiddler!
by the way patchworks here has no content and generated by something like
<$list filter="[tag[demo]]" template=mytemplate/>
So, they are somehow special compound tiddler! what do you think?
They just have many sources. Patchwork and Compound are synonymous, IMV. I much prefer Compound.
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Patchwork brings up, for me anyway, three less than helpful images: 1) Grandma’s patchwork quilting (old-fashioned image, probably not what we want to project), 2) Something thrown and cobbled together with whatever scraps one could find. 3) Something that needed patching, i.e., something that was defective but got fixed belatedly. The words composite or compound do the same semantic lifting but without any negative connotations. FWIW.
To me patchwork means the careful selection of small pieces of material, colour and pattern. The pieces are cut into different forms to fit into a pattern, that can be rather complex. Out of a lot of small pieces of limited or no use is produced something, that can be useful and beautiful in new ways.
In earlier times patchwork was done due to necessity Surviving examples from long ago are now sold as very costly antiques!
Patchwork was the work of women - made out of love for the family. Just as they historically spun the wool and weaved the cloth - or prepared and formed the fur into useful clothes.
Men and children needed warm clothes to wear!
Today we talk about the times when women did not take part in the workforce - they were staying at home taking care of the home. (I guess work is defined as only stuff you get paid to do? - or is it only work when it is done by men?).
Today patchwork is done by some as an art form and produced in several often rather complicated ways. Some colouring the pieces and fusing them together to form a sculptural feeling - or more like a painting.
Popular as hobby too - try to repeat Dave’s description in a crafty forum . do you dare doing that?
Or just enjoy - Coat of many colours
I welcomed the word patchwork tiddler.
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Hi Birthe,
Many thanks for the beautiful description of the patchwork! You explained the real patchwork where making patchwork is an art!
A type of Persian carpet which is also expensive, is called patchwork = Chehel Tikeh (means forty pieces: چهل تیکه)
and is very beautiful!
Also there are some other handicrafts called patchworks like below (Forty-piece model clay pot)
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