Easy Syncing Options for New User?

#1

Newbie here. I’ve been trying to sort out a straightforward mechanism for keeping my TW up-to-date on 3 devices.

Problem statement:

I have three devices, 2 Windows laptops and an Android phone. I’d like to keep a single Wiki synchronized across these three devices. For me, an ideal solution includes some sort of autosave feature. I don’t want to end up losing tiddlers because I forgot to click “save changes” on one device after which I edit different tiddlers on another device and click save.

Approaches considered:

My first thought was that I could use Tiddlyhost. A minor downside is that it requires network access at all times, but I’d be willing to live with this. More significant to me is that I see no good autosave solution. Tiddlyhost intentionally unsets the autosave flag as described here.

I also considered Tiddlydesktop, which has an autosave feature. Unfortunately, it’s not available for Android.

Yet another possibility could be use of something like Dropbox or Onedrive, though I’m not sure how to set that up. (Or perhaps one of the other Savers in conjunction with local Windows and Android platforms?)

As an experiment, I tried Google Drive. I copied a small TW to GD and could see it on both desktops. Then I edited a tiddler in one and saved it as well as the entire Wiki via ‘save changes’. I then went to the other desktop and refreshed the tab, but I didn’t see the changes. What I noticed is that clicking the ‘save changes’ button causes a new file to be download locally rather than saving. Perhaps I need some other Saver, but I don’t see one for Dropbox. Use of TiddlyDrive Chrome extension might help, but I gather it’s not available for Android Chrome.

Still another possibility I can imagine is to use Tiddlyhost with some way to automatically reset the autosave flag every time I revisit it. This might be the simplest but would subvert Tiddlyhost’s legitimate concern.

I did look at this topic, but I didn’t see anything that addressed my situation.

#2

I use Tiddloid on Android, TiddlyDesktop on Windows and sync with Syncthing

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#3

Just a general overview to start with;

As you have already voiced, four are different approaches.

  • Keep it online in a single place and manage the use via different devices
  • Synchronise copies between different devices
  • Maintain it on portable storage (perhaps annoying on mobile), needs physical intervention.
  • Maintain it on the device you always have

This last option is the one I prefer. I always have my android phone with me so that is a good place to keep the source of truth (and copies elsewhere), so you need obtain a way to access you phone when it is on your wifi/usb connection with your desktop.

  • unfortunately with single file wikis you still need to manage who “currently owns” the wiki, and indicate when the current owner is finished with it, so another can take it over. But with this method they can be in the same room/network as you switch.

Post Script;

  • I only maintain stuff I also need when mobile one my multi-device wiki. I may take notes for a book on my mobile, but I only write the book on the book wiki at my desk.
#4

On the topic of Tiddlyhost and autosave, I think this proposed feature [IDEA] Autosave frequency throttle · Issue #6979 · Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5 · GitHub would be a nice solution.

The concept is that autosave is switched on, but it is clever enough to limit the frequency of autosaves so the TiddlyWiki isn’t endlessly uploading to Tiddlyhost.

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#5

And in that proposed feature, you refer to an existing autosave tool, which I may be able to use.

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#6

+1 to syncthing; use it to sync the directory where your wiki lives, and then just edit the local file on every platform as you consider most convenient

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#7

On the other hand, I’m not sure the autosave tool (or syncthing) would work with a Dropbox-based solution. As mentioned above (except that I meant Dropbox, not Google Drive):

The TW Save button acted like a ‘save as’ and saved to my Downloads directory instead of to the original file. I haven’t tried the autosave tool but suspect it would have the same issue.

Perhaps there’s something more basic I’m doing wrong that prevents saving to the original file?

#8

that is the behaviour you get when editing your wiki from a browser, and the wiki doesn’t have any saver configured.

To avoid that, and still be able to edit your wiki locally, you can do any of the following:

  • Use a platform-specific app to edit it, like Tiddloid or TiddlyDesktop
  • Use a browser, after installing a browser extension to save the wiki file locally, like Timimi — One saver to rule them all ; once installed, clicking on the ‘save changes’ button will just overwrite the original wiki file instead of downloading a new copy every time.
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#9

Just to add to what jerojasro mentioned, there’s a saving tool for saving directly to Google Drive:

https://tiddlywiki.com/#TiddlyDrive%20Add-on%20for%20Google%20Drive%20by%20Joshua%20Stubbs

I don’t know what its current state is.

There are 20+ saving techniques, to suit a variety of platforms, browsers, and situations.

#10

By default, TiddlyWiki uses a “download saver” to save changes to your file. This is a very robust and secure process that works on almost every system (as long as you are using a “modern” browser) because it uses the browser’s native ability to download files without requiring you to install any custom file saver add-ons or “helper” applications.

The one caveat (which you have noted), is that most browsers default to automatically saving downloaded files to a designated “Downloads” folder. Fortunately, this is usually a relatively easy setting to change.

For Chrome, the process is:

  1. Click the “3 dots” menu button (upper right corner of the window) and select “Settings”.
  2. From the Settings page, select “Downloads”.
  3. Enable the “Ask where to save each file before downloading” toggle switch.

For Firefox, there is a similar process:

  1. Click the “3 lines” menu button and select “Settings”.
  2. In the General Panel, find the “Downloads” section under “Files and Applications”
  3. Enable the “Always ask you where to save files” checkbox.

That’s it. From then on, whenever you use TiddlyWiki’s “Save changes” button, your browser will ask you where to save the file by displaying a standard system-provided “pick a folder and file” dialog box. By default, this dialog will start in the “current folder”, which is typically the folder from which you opened your TiddlyWiki. You can then select the original file (to overwrite it), or accept the suggested filename (usually the original filename with an added “(n)” suffix).

Note that accepting the filename with the added “(n)” suffix is a very convenient method for saving interim “checkpoint” files without overwriting your original file, just in case you made a mistake and need to revert to a previously saved version of the file. As you continue to work, additional numbered files are saved. When you are confident that all your changes are “good to go”, you can do one final save action, selecting the original filename to overwrite it. You can then go to the folder with the accumulated “checkpoint” files and delete them (or move them to a “scraps” folder) to clean things up.

enjoy,
-e

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#11

Thank you all for the various solutions and overall support/education.

#12

A problem with Git and Google Drive savers is that the data does not load from them automatically.

These plugins solve one-way sync, storing data from the browser to the cloud storage.

But the next time you want to load the cloud-stored TW, the process is cumbersome. You need to open Google Drive and download the latest copy.

I had created a shortcut to my TiddlyWiki on the mobile home screen, thinking that the local copy would be in sync with the cloud copy. But it wasn’t so.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

#13

On Android, RCX (Rclone for Android) should let you mount Google Drive and serve it over WebDAV. RCX works really well for me on Android to serve local TW files over WebDAV.

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#14

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I periodically follow the discussions on the forum and it seems to me that programmers and technically literate people do not quite understand the mass user. This window with the choice of saving methods is a huge barrier for non-technical people. Most people will not take the time to do this, turn around and leave without realizing what Tiddlywiki can give them.

TW needs one official save method for desktop and one for mobile. It should be intuitive without reading instructions, so intuitive that a child without English knowledge can understand and cope by watching a short video. All alternative saving methods should be removed away from the main page in a separate tiddler. Those who need it will go and study. Most ordinary users at the initial stage do not need this and only repel.

As for me, for the desktop, this way should be the add-on GitHub - buggyj/savetiddlers . True, it is not suitable for the mass user now either, because it is desirable that it be in the firefox and chrome application catalog and be installed in one click. It can also be completed so that it saves the wiki at a certain time interval on sites like tiddlyhost.

For mobile https://tiddlywiki.com/#Saving%20on%20Android . But it still doesn’t fit. There is no way to work with files yet (however, there is no normally intuitive way to work with files in the whole tiddlywiki, not only in mobile)

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#15

We are aware of this @moosh and you are not the first to say it, it is not however as easy as you would think. It really does depend on the device, platform, browser, operating system and user skills, because the browsers actively try to resist saving to local files because this can be a security hazard. That is why the checkboxes are provided to list possible save methods.

We want to change this but its a bit like trying to recommend a part for all vehicles in the world, there is not one answer. If you can help us find a way please do.

I personally use Timimi so that once installed I need not worry anymore, but this does not help some users that want to share on the internet (Tiddlyhost.com) or on an apache server (Tw-reciever), share on their local/wifi network (use Node or Bob), or access local files without security limitations (TiddlyDesktop) etc…

Many other solutions do not have this flexibility so users don’t get this flexibility, and less choice as a result.

It is a dilemma

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#16

It would be interesting to know if this works. Within apps, Google wants you to connect to Drive only by file streams. Part of their ongoing security-through-obfuscation approach.

Since you said “files” , I’m wondering if you have a way with RCX of serving more than one file from one directory. As far as I could tell, you can only serve up one directory. Not a show-stopper per se, but another complication to deal with.

#17

Developers are well aware of the problem. However, there isn’t just one ideal approach. Your choice here illustrates that:

savetiddlers isn’t available through the Firefox or Chrome stores, and saves only to a sub-directory of the download directory. Timimi is available through the main extension stores, and allows you to save anywhere on your disk. So it’s the best choice for most people. But … it requires a small executable, which is a non-starter in some offices.

Each of the various savers has its own pluses and minuses. This complexity is the price you pay for having an open source product that runs exactly the same on 5 different platforms and multiple browsers. Commercial products, like Evernote™ or One Note™ get around this problem by having whole teams of developers that work to make a product look the same on multiple platforms. But that takes lots of money and it’s not actually the same product – each implementation is different in subtle ways (or not so subtle, per the complaints in the EN forums).

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#18

The steps required to accomplish this are described in the wikipost for webdav options. Last time I tried it, which was about a year ago, it worked just fine.

By files I just mean the contents of a single directory. I think you could perhaps set up multiple webdav servers at different ports to serve multiple directories, but that just sounds very messy.

#19

With Rclone I could do that. But I don’t see any way with RCX to run more than one server. It would be messy, but is unfortunately not always possible to put everything you need to serve under one directory.

#20

All keep in mind that many of the cloud storage solutions offer a local device synchronisation services and the cloud files simply appear as local files. We can just change files localy and have them synced between our devices.

  • You have to ensure the sync occurs before closing a device to have access elsewhere
  • Contention is not addressed

There are some great solutions that allow more devices and going direct to the cloud file, but it is important to acknowledge this access to the raw files as synchronised with a cloud services sync client.