How to get started with using the Tidme edition of TiddlyWiki

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#1

'lo all…

I’m trying to get started with the Tidme edition of TiddlyWiki, but I’m completely stuck on what seems like the most basic workflow.

I have experience with spaced repetition systems like SuperMemo, Anki, etc, so I understand the concept, but the Tidme documentation doesn’t explain the process of how to use the edition for that purpose.

I’ve followed the initial steps, but I get lost immediately afterward.

Here is the simple, linear workflow I’ve tried, and where I get stuck:

  1. I use the “squid tool” to see my decks.
  2. I click “Create Deck” to set up a new one.
  3. I click on the new deck I’ve created (e.g., “$:/Deck/new 1”).
  4. The system opens the deck’s tiddler ($:/Deck/new 1), but then I don’t know what to do.

At this point, I see a “Start Study” link. This is confusing as I haven’t added any content to the deck yet. Clicking it just opens the “Tidme” tiddler, which appears to be an “About” page for Tidme.

My key questions are:

  1. How do I add a new piece of knowledge to a deck?

  2. What is the correct process for creating an item to study?

    • Do I use the + button to create a tiddler anywhere and then tag it to link it to the deck?
    • Is there a specific “New Item” button within a deck’s tiddler?

I feel like I’m missing a crucial, simple step that connects the “deck” to the “items to study.” The current “manual” is of little help for a first-time user of Tidme and provides no information on this fundamental process.

Maybe someone has already worked out a clear, step-by-step guide for this basic workflow?

  • How to set up a new deck.
  • How to add new study items (e.g., a simple card or cloze deletion).
  • How to then begin the study process.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a heap.

#2

Welcome to the forum ozboomer!

My first question, out of curiosity, is, since you already use Anki, why do you want to use Tidme?

I’ve never used Tidme, and I worry that it might be abandoned. I looked it over and here’s how I think you would make it work.

After making your new deck, click on the little Cog symbol. There you can set the caption, description, and most importantly, the filter. Currently it is set up to filter on all items tagged with a question mark (?). I would assume that you can change the filter to use whatever criteria you want. Let’s say you tag all your new “cards” with “ob”. Then the filter would look like

[all[shadows+tiddlers]tag[ob]]

Now you want to tag all your new cards with “ob”.

But how to make those new cards? Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be an automated way to make the cards. So what I would do is go through the existing sample cards and pick 3 of them to be your “template” cards for (I assume) the 3 types of cards. When you want to make a card, pick a template card and clone it (it’s under the drop-down of each tiddler), and then change the cloned card to have the tag “ob”, and the contents of your question.j

This may be more steps than you want to do each time, but when you’re sure it’s all going to work for you, it shouldn’t be hard to create “new card” buttons which could live in a sidebar tab or even on each card. Just ask in the forum if you need help setting up a “clone a card” button and I’m sure there will be lots of people to help.

Be aware of a really cool utility, “TiddlyRemember”, which lets you create questions in TiddlyWiki and then send them to your actual Anki deck. This way you get the best of two worlds – the highly polished Anki, and the note-management abilities of TiddlyWiki.

Hope this helps!

#3

Many thanks for the thoughts… and I was trying to use a TiddlyWiki ‘form’ as I thought it might make the ‘scheduling’ a bit more accessible across platforms.

However, I’ve tried bending my brain around it for some hours now and it’s simply too cryptically manual and just too hard to use, particularly without documentation.

Thanks again for trying.