Help needed: how does TW5 boot up its plugins?

Developers
#1

I need some help understanding how exactly TiddlyWiki initiates plugin tiddlers other than the $:/core plugin. Where exactly does this happen: in the startup mechanism, or the boot mechanism prior to startup? How can I programmatically startup some plugin tiddlers that I have stored in the browser’s indexeddb?

I’ve been reading TW’s source code all weekend trying to figure it out, but I feel terribly lost. From what I can tell, you have to run code within the method $tw.boot.startup(), but any word of advice from the core developers will be nice. I’ve also tried doing something akin to what browserstorage plugin does with the wikified raw markup, but I haven’t had much success so far.

#2

I don’t know, how your code looks like, so I only can guess.

Have a closer look at the dev wiki: https://tiddlywiki.com/dev/#StartupMechanism

It depends. Every TW plugin / module / library has a module-type field. If you search the whole source globally for module-type you’ll find the code, that directly deals with that field in boot.js

And you’ll see, which types actually exit. … plugins can only be “executed” after they have been loaded from the store.

Depending on the module-type they are started differently as shown in the first link.

There has been a hangout video in 2013, where Jeremy talks about the startup procedure. https://web.archive.org/web/20161205105740/http://hangouts.tiddlyspace.com/#HangOut_010

There is the video-link, which may help you. …

I personally would have a closer look, how the tw browser-storage plugin does it.
TiddlyWiki5/startup.js at 681f22b66d1e37c1f4bbaf900ed41b3036e8ae81 · Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5 · GitHub because it seems to be a similar mechanism.

hope that helps.

1 Like
#3

@pmario thanks for all those useful links. Here’s sample code to show you what I am trying to accomplish. The code from the demo I shared recently naively adds plugin tiddlers, but it seems they don’t get a chance to be started up by TiddlyWiki.

https://abesamma.github.io/oneplaybook-syncadaptor-demo/#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Foneplaybooklab%2Foneplaybook-tw5-plugin%2FOneplaybookSyncSetup.js

#4

I tried this to no avail and I am not sure why. Maybe I am missing something. I anticipate more digging through source code.

#5

As @pmario points out, the best way to achieve this is to run some JS in a raw markup tiddler that runs before the boot kernel, and simply push the tiddlers you want to create onto the array $tw.preloadTiddlers, creating those variables if needed. The browser-storage plugin demonstrates the technique.

1 Like
#6

I think that’s what I was missing @jeremyruston! Thank you so much. I was burning the midnight oil trying to figure this out. I may have been too exhausted to understand this. I will try this out and let you know. I understood that running some raw markup tiddler prior to the kernel was my best shot, so I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working.

#7

Uups sorry. I should have pointed my link 1 level higher. … Make sure, that you reload the browser tab when you change something in the raw markup tiddler. They need a browser refresh

#8

@jeremyruston, I’ve had a stab at this but no cigar so far :disappointed:. Apparently by the time I’ve pushed tidders into this array, bootjs has already proceeded with booting up the wiki. Typing $tw.preloadTiddlers in the browser console shows a still filled array that hasn’t been processed by bootjs. Maybe I’m missing something else? I’ve only had success with $tw.boot.preloadDirty, but because it marks these plugin tiddlers as dirty and ask for a reload, that’s a no no for me. Any suggestions?

#9

I’m on mobile at moment, but if you have time have a look at the source of Xememex — A place for thinking to see a working example.

1 Like
#10

Grateful for all the kind help sir. I’ll check it out and let you know.

#11

Hi Abesamma,
according to here access to indexeddb is asynchronous, so I do not think loading tiddlers from indexeddb before the boot will work - I think it is possible to unpack plugins later in the boot process provided there is no javascript

cheers

BJ

#12

I think the key is to suppress the tiddlywiki boot process by setting $tw.boot.suppressBoot to true, and then once you have loaded your data, boot tiddlywiki by calling $tw.boot.boot()

2 Likes
#13

Yes, I came to post what @saqimtiaz has above. You have to set $tw.boot.suppressBoot = true in the javascript raw markup tiddler (as this is in the DOM-header it is proccessed first, and “pauses” booting TW when the page javascript including the boot kernel is loaded lower down in the DOM-body), and then put the $tw.boot.boot() call into the callback function triggered when the indexeddb has loaded its data.

2 Likes
#14

Yes, that is part of the problem unfortunately. So, as I’ve gleaned from Xememex’s code and as others have pointed out, the key would be to suppress the bootup process.

TBH, I am embarrassed to say that I had never noticed that $tw.boot.suppressBoot was a thing. I am glad it exists. :relieved:

#15

@saqimtiaz you’re my savior. :fire:

2 Likes
#16

Writing to say that my problem has been solved. I think we should document this somewhere because it was quite a task figuring it out otherwise. Thank you all for your help.

1 Like
#17

I’d welcome that. https://tiddlywiki.com/dev is a good place for a “How to use TiddlyWiki with a boot loader” tiddler.

1 Like