Hi folks, I need some help, besides I’m an old dog, I’m very new to TW. Just found it recently, I’m learning some Erlang and found late prof. Armstrong blog, which you probably already know, have migrated to TW when he was still alive, and I just love it! Thanks again prof. Armstrong, you’re in heaven for sure! This discovery arrived in a very good moment, as I was struggling with note-taking software for a while. Evernote, Onenote, Notion, Google Keep, Turtl and Remnote. Too many problems, too few solutions.
Lately I was using RemNote and thought that it was a decent product, till I started to have hard problems. The last version (1.18) is a flaw. I lost an entire afternoon work that simply vanished from it (and I’m working with the local client, no cloud sync) and I freeze when a minor update just didn’t work anymore, didn’t even run, and got 2 weeks to be fixed; and the fear (oh the fear!) to lose months of notes of my courses. Anyway, TW is really what I was looking for. I’m already doing the basics, thanks Soren Bjornstad and Grok TW!, and I’ll master it in some time, but I’m in a hurry to get my notes organized. So I would like to kindly ask some suggestions of how to get some structure, some organization. I know I’ll find my way, but It would help and spare me some time if I already start with some. My main use is Note-taking and subtitles saving of the courses that I take. Mainly Coursera for now.
In Remnote I used to create a local knowledge base for each course and make a folder for each week, which most of the time are 4, then make subfolders for each topic inside that week and add the class as a topic in that subfolder. At the end, I got a similar structure of the course: Weeks->Subjects/Modules->Class 1, Class 2, etc…
I will make a TW for each course, but I would like to do something like that. What do you think would be a good way to do that ? Thank you, @jeremyruston, for this great (and free! 
) tool, and hope to help you more in a near future. Have a nice weekend, folks.
Oh boy, @FabsMuller, this is a big question. The world is your oyster when it comes to organization in TW.
- You can create a “top-level” tiddler. I don’t know what to call it, so I called it top-level. Then you can tag other tiddlers with this one. Inside the top-level tiddler, the following is my favorite code to list tidders tagged with the current one. There is more to say here, but it’s one of my favorites as the structure is managed through tagging mechanisms.
<div class="tc-table-of-contents">
<$macrocall
$name="toc-selective-expandable"
tag=<<currentTiddler>>
sort=sort[title]
/>
</div>
-
You can use the list field, manually or programmatically.
-
You can create a “top-level” tiddler and then manually write the titles in the body to create links to the individual tiddlers in any form you prefer.
-
You can create individual tiddlers of content and combine them together with transclusion.
-
Any of the above combined in different ways.
Manually anything can be done. Then, since TW is so powerful, dare I say almost anything you can do manually you can do through macros, code, buttons, lists, etc. TW is powerful, but with great power you can get yourself into interesting pickles. So I would say start simple, use tagging, and expand incrementally when you find repetition in what you do.
Simple is the best way to go as you build your understanding of how TW works internally. When I first started to do things programmatically, my initial thoughts were to go to custom javascript code. I’d say stay away from that at first because when comes internally with TW is so powerful, if you use TW’s builtin mechanisms what you create is simple and powerful.
Good luck!
For note taking I’d say get some solution to easily add and access “main topic” links, e.g the official Menu Bar plugin or perhaps my LeftBar plugin. There are probably many other options as well. I would not recommend merely adding a tab to the native sidebar because you’ll probably find that it interferes with your use of the tabs for Open and Recent.
Then make sure you can easily add notes to those main topics. One solution is by adding a button next to each main topic link that opens a new and pre-tagged tiddler, i.e tagged with the name of the main topic. Shout out if you need help.
I think it is worth mentioning that TW - in spite of being referred to as a “note taking app” - is frankly not superior for the very taking of notes. It demands quite a few clicks and mouse movements. It is superior for managing notes and organizing them, but the native process to take notes is not super smooth. Adding the aforementioned buttons smoothens this at least a tad.
Use tags a lot to associate stuff as the tags mechanisms are totally integrated in how the core handles stuff, more so than e.g custom fields. You can make a search in the forums for how to approach tagging, there have been many discussion including recent ones.
Other than this I personally use my SideEditor all the time for the editing, but I there are many other solutions including - as I’m sure you already know - external editor solutions.
I have soo many tips for this but here is a few.
One of the starting organisation methods is simply tagging, and using the new here button makes this easy, as suggested using one of the TOC macros is helpful. Do look behind the Info Button for references etc…
If you want to take notes in class, and anyway, I recommend getting the EditButtons from here Plugins — Utilities for TiddlyWiki so you can save changes but keep editing, and there are a few keyboard fanatics around that can help you avoid mouse use.
On the right sized screens, consider taking notes with the preview window “output” displayed.
Create missing tiddlers with text containing [[subject area]] then have a custom list to show them for subsequent follow-up and content. This way you “task yourself” with following up particular material.
Play with selecting and drag and drop of content into the editor for quick captures.
Search here for more. some examples;
Keep asking Questions
Hi @mrmattson
As suggested by Tony and others above, using Tags is a way to create virtual folder in Tiddlywiki. This is similar in what Gmail or similar software do. They do not have real folders, but use tags instead. In simple words, having a common property allow you to structure your notes (one note = one card = one tiddler in tiddlywiki).
You may also use Favorites Plugin: Update 4.6.8 - Discussion - Talk TW (tiddlywiki.org). It allows you to create two level structure in Tiddlywiki manually or semi-automatic.
Side note: you may also have a look to editions. See Mehregan, TZK, Stroll, and some starter editions in the Talk forum.
Thanks Matt, great tips too. I’ll check the button, thank you.
I like Streams Mark, Thanks, very similar to what Remnote does for Note-taking.
Thanks for the tips and exmaples, Anthony. Drag and drop it’m amazing with some content that I need.
And finally thank you, Mohammad, working with folders it’s exactly what I already did in Remnote and if I could replicate it here, it will be a smooth transition. Together with everything suggested before, I’m more confident and replicate the same way of working that I’m doing and the worked so far to me. My problem was not the way to do the things, but the previous tool, which downgraded very quickly. But thanks to this I found TW! And now I’m sure I’m in a better place. Thanks to you all folks ! you were of a great help to me.