Is there any reason why core tiddlers don't use created or modified dates? How about an alternative?

Developers
#1

I have always wondered why core tiddlers don’t use created or modified dates? Or we had a version indicator for its last edit.

Because if it did, it would be quick and easy to see the recenly changed tiddlers in a new version or after a clashing or core edited plugin. Or perhaps such recently changes core tiddlers could have a last changed in tw version number, if you wanted to keep the memory requirments low. Perhaps even restricting such indicators to only tiddlers in the current 5.3.x version, then blank earlier ones (except with this single character idea)

  • This could be minimised further to a single character documented elsewhere such as tiddlywiki.com release documentation eg release 5.3.0 “H”, 5.3.1 “I”…
  • This would consume less than 4KB for tiddlywiki.com and the non-core stuff can be seperated from the core.
  • And provide substantial value
  • Some custom filters with knowledge of this field could also be used to find tiddlers.

Someone with a plugin, edition or solution could then review the wiki and possible confilcts more easily after an update.

  • Editing or Cloning a system tiddler for modifications will retain the last published version in it.
#2

As can be seen at a discussion at GH: [IDEA/QUESTION] Why most TWCore shadow tiddlers don't have created/modified dates · Issue #7826 · Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5 · GitHub it mainly was a consideration of TWs file size.

Since the “Timestamp on/off” switch was introduced, the modified and created fields lost their ability to detect changes of a tiddler.

Jeremy suggested:

[. . .] Perhaps we need a new operator that can do a field by field comparison between one tiddler with another tiddler, with optional support for comparing shadow tiddlers.

I think that’s the way to go.

A new manually curated field would only increase the maintenance burden for core devs, which is not really desirable.