There are several more possibilities if a Node.js configuration or BOB is used.
That also comes with a cost: Complexity. … May be more on that later.
If users are aware, what’s going on a client server configuration has some powerful tools. One of them are content-plugins. … I know that you are aware of that possibility.
BUT we need better UI handling for that.
I use the Searchwikis Plugin — search multiple wikis through index (kookma.github.io) to cross search wikis from a working one!
The worst problem with this solution is I always forgot to update the indexes, because it is a headache to update indexes all the time.
But it works if I frozen a wiki for example belong to a finished project.
I remember @saqimtiaz one day told me, it is possible to have automatic update the index files when you use your TWs with webdav (and his developed tool)
Right, the trick is a modified webdav saver that also saves the index to a central location every time the wiki is saved. All the wikis can use these indexes for searching.
In answer to the Original Question although I do use node and bob occasionally, I do in fact use and manage a large number of single file wikis. Fortunately for me, I have the advantaged of years as a Knowledge/information management professional and have no problem curating content across multiple wikis, this also helps with tiddler naming as well. Sadly it is hard to transfer this experience to others, not that I do not often try to do so.
This is “the way I do it”, I feel I have a good process and share it, to provide others with ideas or methods.
I do “research” both TiddlyWiki and other subjects that interest me like cosmology, philosophy and the other sciences but not professionally.
On My main research subject “TiddlyWiki” I have the following dedicated wikis
However TiddlyWiki as a research subject also exists in my “shared purpose wikis”
Just in time
My beading edges
I hope this helps or adds value to someone.
I think one of the most important activities for doing any type of research is keeping track of one’s sources. I don’t do research in the formal sense but I do use a few techniques.
There are of course different ways to implement these techniques in TiddlyWiki. But these are just a few of the methods I use.
edit: another technique is writing down lists of questions. For example in a previous aviation related job I would get audited by customers and government agencies and they would often ask many different types of questions. Of course maybe I didn’t know the answer to the question right away, but I would often keep lists of these questions and answers because invariably someone would ask me the same question again (maybe my boss). My point is research is often about answering questions, so it’s worth keeping lists of those questions and the ones you have answered.
While I have TWs for some family history records, collections organization and photo organization, the TW that I spend the most time on and is the most mature is my TW concerning my research into the railroads of the state of Kansas. I started this a few years ago after my father passed. He was a long time railroad engineer in Kansas where I grew up.
Below is a screenshot of what it looks like on startup.
The sidepanel is my main navigation area with a custom tab to get around. I have a select widget to select between various ways of navigating. Below is the railroad selection where I can do various searches to find the railroad tiddlers of interest. The status radio buttons select what I want to show status on with a Harvey Ball showing up next the railroad to indicate complete (solid) or not (circle).
I can also show the predecessors of major railroad companies shown here:
You will note that some railroads are in lighter font and italicized. This indicates that they are “paper” railroads or railroads that were proposed, but never built. There are many more than what are indicated because this is still a work in progress.
The select widget selections between railroads and varioius type of source material which is also in the TW.
The source material is transcribed into individual tiddlers with links back to the railroads that are mentioned in that source. Images from the source material such as figures or maps use external images to keep the TW smaller (it’s still about 14MB as it is). I do use the RefNotes plugin by @Mohammad for footnotes and I intent to start using it for references in the future.
An individual railroad tiddler looks like this:
This uses a view template to display the information and tabbed interface. Each of the tabs contains more detailed information than the summary tab.
For example, I’m in the process of inputting the construction history for the railroads which is shown in the trackage tab:
I also have charts using the bar chart plugin and echarts plugin to show various status items:
I initially wanted the dashboard to be the initial screen, but the TW was quite a bit slower when I did that so it’s just a few clicks away.
This has been a hugely fun project and is ongoing. It’s a lot of work to dig up the information and I spend way to much time on it. But it’s better than a lot of other things I could be doing. Thanks to @jeremyruston for creating such a great tool and thanks to this community for being patient with some of my silly questions and help that has been given.
Regards,
HistoryBuff (aka Damon Pritchett)
@HistoryBuff it looks like a nicely crafted website. It would be interesting to see the code behind all these beautiful works. Please share a demo wiki (without any personal information) for us to learn, if you are ok with it.
@HistoryBuff’s railroad Wiki demonstrates a key feature of tiddlywiki when it comes to research, by building a research tool that has a well designed user interface into the information it contains, this interface not only makes it possible for the research to be published one day, but is a kind of “self publishing to oneself”. ie the researcher publishes his/here own work to his/herself. This facilitate the ongoing research process because if facilitates the researchers interaction with their own material, helps them discover new links, identify gaps and seek new or missing information.
This also facilitates incremental research projects, side hustles etc… undertaken when the time is available, on a part time basis or returning years later by providing a portal into your research to assist in restarting your research. “Hitting the ground running”.
Hi @HistoryBuff
What you did is absolutely amazing! You showed us how a wonderful app we can make using Tiddlywiki. I see how nicely you have used viewtemplates, tabs, tables, sidebar, charts, …
Thank you for sharing and good luck!
Whoa! Seriously good and interesting!
Not sure if you’d ever want to, but this would be a great TW to showcase in an online “gallery” of TWs used for research.
Best, TT
Ciao Mohammad
It has been a very interesting thread! I always like your practical interest in end-uses.
TBH, what I think we need, to build off this kind of thing is, a permanent wiki dedicated to Showcases of real use of TW for research projects.
In the end I think that will eventually bring more people to use TW than anything.
Just a thought
TT
Thanks to all for the kind words on my railroad research wiki. Quite a bit of work and time has gone into it and it’s good to see it payoff to folks besides myself.
As far as sharing it somewhere, I’m going to have to think about the best way to do that. I say that because there is quite a bit of potentially copyrighted material in it. Since I was basically creating this for myself there is some material that I’ve used directly and verbatim that may be copyrighted. If I can figure out how to deal with this without gutting the wiki too much, I’d be happy to share.
Stay tuned.
@HistoryBuff it could be quite difficult to unweave your wiki and content, so an alternative for you, is to share some component designs people can make use of, or alternatively doing an informal video showing off the features but giving tiddlywiki users some technical insight as to how you achieved it, would also be helpful.
Just some thoughts but dont let me stop you doing the full share. Nice work 
Thanks. Those are great thoughts. I especially like the idea of flagging the copyrighted material somehow. I should also check with copyright holder about what their rules might be.
I will share code behind some of the key features soon. If there are any in particular that folks would like to see, I’ll start there.
That is very generous of you, do start another discussion when you start sharing. Then place a link here. Once that is happening perhaps I would even remove this reply from this thread.
I think your approach has a lot of value for researchers. Especially dealing with missing information and building over time.
A couple of things I would like to know, that I also think will help the community;
In all of the above, for me at least I am interested in your approach, or tips rather than the details but others may have a different view.
Right.
This is a real issue I face too. In my case I recycle movie scripts often.
It has proved very difficult to establish when they are still copyrighted and, if so, by whom.
I would like to solve the issue; even paying royalties; but establishing the facts has proven a nightmare.
This prevents me publishing things I would otherwise.
Just a comment, somewhat negative, but real.
TT
Right.
When was the book originally published? (Copyright expires in time!)
Which version did you take images from? (i.e. was it a recent edition?)
Just comments
TT
All researchers may need to address copywrite, and we could collate some guidance in out community for researchers, do remember there is fair use policies especially for research. First and foremost do not publish something in full, and most of all do not pass it off as your own. Otherwise do your own due diligence and legal check.
Where possible provide references to the source and acknowledgement’s. There are quite a few tools already for this.
Right.
A complicating factor is “expiry dates”.
Many resources are not in copyright due to time passing already.
But if a person or company re-purposes a resource & re-publishes it, even if the original is out of copyright, they can claim rights if you use it.
Much of the complexity lays in this “second-life” phenomena.
Just a comment
TT
Copyright is definitely a complex issue. I don’t want to get the Kansas State Historical Society upset with me. They have been and will continue to be very helpful. I will reach out to them for guidance.
As far as code goes, I’ll try to get some snippets out soon. I’m going to be on the road for the next week or so, but will try to work it in
