Joe: Excuse me but I couldn’t help overhearing you guys when you are talking so enthusiastically. I understand it’s about some kind of software - ?
You: Yeah, it’s called TiddlyWiki. Oh, you should really try it! It can basically do anything!
Joe: OK, but what problem does it solve?
You: Well… it kinda depends what you want!
Joe: Hmm… what do you mean “want”? Like most people, I don’t know that I really need anything in particular. How would TiddlyWiki make my life better? Besides, would TiddlyWiki solve it better than other alternatives?
"Joe, other notetaking and productivity tools lock you into one rigid way of organizing your notes, tasks and contacts. And to get the most out of them, they charge you a subscription fee, and your information is ‘out there’ online waiting to be hacked.
TiddlyWiki is different. You store it locally (or online if you wish). It is 100% free. And it is infinitely customizable to match your style. Links, lists, tags, fields, templates, transclusions, widgets, plugins, stylesheets and macros give you many ways in which to organize and display your content. You don’t need to learn all of those things at once. TiddlyWiki is something you can continue to grow into.
Also, you can download as many TWs as you like. I have one for my to do lists, one for my contacts, one for my important on hand information, and one for my reading notes. And as a teacher I organize TiddlyWiki files to give content to my students. And I have other files I use to generate public wikis made up of statc html pages, for publishing on the web.
If you need a collaboration tool, need to import images, or need to do handwriting on your text notes, TiddlyWiki is probably not the tool for you. But if you need to save textual information quickly and organize it in multiple ways that match your way of doing things, TiddlyWiki is the tool for you.
Also, if you don’t give TiddlyWiki a try, Joe, you are no longer my friend."
“Elevator pitches” are meant to be short and create excitement so they WANT to ask more questions…
TiddlyWiki is a single downloadable file that works as a self-contained personal, private, programmable platform for productivity.
TiddlyWiki lets you create highly interactive presentations, portable databases, and mobile applications that you own (and share) like a document, but use like an entire website.
TiddlyWiki is free and open source, and uses common “web tech” – HTML, Javascript, CSS and JSON – so it’s 100% cross-platform compatible. It’s also serverless, so you can carry it in your pocket and use it on any system without installing any extra software.
TiddlyWiki (TW) is an open source tool for writing, thinking and knowledge management. A whole content management system in a single web page. You can store and run your app and data wherever you want – publish or keep private. Did you ever realize how many things in life are lists? TW is perfect for lists and adds the power of transclusion, filters and widgets. The phantastic community shares themes, macros, plugins, … it’s also an application development framework. Future-proof thanks to popular standards: HTML, CSS and Javascript. Thatʼs it.
Thank you all - intriguing stuff! There are clearly many strengths to TiddlyWiki but for that to be of value for me – or anyone, really – the first thing to establish is my main question about what basic problem/need it solves. So, structuring your replies I conclude the following:
development framework / IDE for creating portable applications and websites
…primarily for handling text based information.
It enables you to take/capture, produce, organize and manage:
notes (e.g “reading notes”, and “on hand information”)
presentations
various forms of lists such as
-tasks /to do lists
-contact lists
At this fundamental “what does it do”-level it is critical to know that while the information/notes can be shared (including spawning new wikis), it is not per se a “collaborative tool”.
Am I missing something? I have heard tiddlywikians mentioning it as a rapid prototyping tool, implying it as an early and temporary step in a more elaborate dev process - does anyone actually use it as such? Do people use it as a front end for external databases? Do people actually use TW as an authoring tool in the traditional sense? …
P.S Dave - I both want to give TW a try and be your friend. I just need to understand why I should give it a try first
I dunno? Do I have a problem? I just overheard your enthusiasm for it. But then, I didn’t realize I needed a mobile phone until I had one and now I can’t live without it. And “that internet thing – surely that’s just a fad!” I was definitely wrong about those things…BUT I am also happy that I have not picked up on 99.99% of all the supposedly great stuff that is available.
Second try: “TW solves the problems of subscription costs, privacy concerns and inflexibility in other systems for productivity and knowledge management. It offers for free a moldable ui and an extensive set of tools for storing, relating, displaying and sharing text-based information. All in a single, cross-platform (html) file that you can use offline and store wherever you wish.”
You mean because they are dying soon? I will talk to them about Jesus, not about TiddlyWiki.
But seriously, my answer, “The basics of TiddlyWiki use are quick to master. Write. Link. Tag. Search. And there is both documentation and Grokumentation to help you learn to adapt the ui and use the extensive tool set inherent in TiddlyWiki. Most plugins come with their own extensive documetation. And when you get stuck, there is a helpful TW community at Discourse.”
You asked for an elevator pitch for TW, generally. I have done that. Then you asked me how to tie that in to people who feel pressured by time. I did that. Instructions for specific applications are off topic.
