Is the lack of a GUI browser a total show stopper for using TiddlyWiki?

#1

I was reading the TiddlyWiki vs Obsidian thread (which ended being very thought provoking, despite my first impression was that it’s more of a marketing perspective rather than a technical one) and suddenly realized that I don’t know much about making use of TiddlyWiki in more exotic environments, where there are no strong competitors like Obsidian, but usage is rather tricky due to technical limitations, given the very hard dependency of a full featured GUI web browser.

Is there anybody using TiddlyWiki in CLI only environments (think very old low RAM machines that can’t handle a GUI browser)? Are there any clever tricks / programs that make it possible to have yet restricted, but still more complex workflows than just exporting static data from a TiddlyWiki to plain text/Markdown?

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#2

The nodejs server has an API, so you could potentially use curl to get/put/delete tiddlers from the command line, script, or some hypothetical cli wiki client program.

By default tidders are rendered as html. I think you can control how the tidders are rendered though a server option tiddler-render-template and a custom template.

#3

I can’t think of any note taking software that works well in the command line, where everything is text. I don’t understand this problem.

#4

TW with pure text UI - I bet it could be done! After all, isn’t that what screen readers do? (BTW, you can test TW with no themes installed. It works, but…)

Some inspiration: https://www.pcmag.com/news/7-classic-pc-games-with-ascii-graphics

#5

It could be done. ENQUIRE (ENQUIRE - Wikipedia) would have been close. GNU info (Info) would be another good comparison. Terminal formatting codes can be used to render something resembling rich text.

#6

@vuk some browsers allow a minimalist text view of a webpage perhaps it is possible just to put it into a text display mode without GUI.

  • TiddlyWiki can be considered a platform and by selective replacements of view templates etc… you could make it substantially different. I would be tempted to keep it in its native form and allow it to be exported as the alternate form so you can always drop back to its full interface.
    • For example you could have an alternate layout you can switch to and from, one text based, one standard.
  • However I really wonder if this is the best platform for such a “dumbed down” view of data. If its minimalised perhaps it is better to build some thing basic from the ground up, even if you use TiddlyWiki as a supporting development kit.

Notes:

  • The full tiddlywiki has being run on raspberry Pi and other small platforms by others and works well inside their browsers.
  • A tiddlywiki could be designed to load a text interface but still have the full gui behind. In effect switching into a Kiosk mode.
  • Look at featherwiki if you are after ultralight.
#7

I know about featherwiki, but I look more towards setups where TiddlyWiki itself isn’t the issue, but running a reasonably modern, Javascript supporting GUI browser is. Think of 15-20 years old laptops with low RAM. Since TiddlyWiki can’t function without Javascript, it’s a problem. I’d be more than happy to sacrifice stuff like image support, or using complex GUI plugins like TiddlyMap, for the sake of being able to run TiddlyWiki in a browser like lynx or links, but alas, without Javascript that is not possible.

#8

Have you looked at the way tiddlywiki is used to generate static websites? this sounds similar to what you are after.

  • It is my view for what you are looking for its best to not touch tiddlywiki, but use tiddlywiki to generate the site.
#9

This is indeed a good suggestion, because there’s no shortage of no-JS no-GUI TUI web browsers. At least it makes possible to use an exported TiddlyWiki in read only mode. As for adding new, at least static content, I suppose I can just add new tiddlers as separate Markdown files in a different directory, and just import them all into the wiki whenever I move back to a modern computer, then re-export the whole wiki containing the new additions one more time?