Journal Tiddlers in Tiddlywiki: Why journaling is dismissed in official Tiddlywiki?

[TiddlyTweeter]

@PaulH

Since the needs in a journals vary greatly it’s difficult to create a pre-canned solution. I

That is exactly right! Journaling / Tracking / Diaries is a vast topic in itself. Journaling as “written conversation with oneself” had been going on for a long, long time before the net even existed.

Loading up tiddlywiki.com with that complexity is unworkable. Far better an enthusiast develops a journaling “edition” that acknowledges the variant methods that have been used to provide a flexible system. IMO, that would be wholly dedicated to Journaling. There is no way TW central could incorporate, given other things it needs do, the full scope of Journaling methods or objectives.

FYI I think you own approach is testament to the wider need amongst potential “Journal Writers” for examples. I thought it relevant to that!

My 2 cents
TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

@pmario

Can you please explain what … OOTB stands for?

"Out Of The Box." It means “immediately useable” or “start it and it works.” FYI the saying predates the internet.

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

@boris

Very quickly we can see that including some quality of life improvements out of the box will make even something simple like Journals much more usable.

Journaling methods are vast; with a long history prior to the net. I do agree with you in expand scope for journaling . IMO, it needs a dedicated “edition / exampler”, that tiddlwiki.com can’t possibly provide.

[jbaty]

@boris

This is basically Gentoo vs Ubuntu Desktop.

Right, which is one reason I don’t use Linux. What if I choose the wrong distro? It’s paralyzing!

I feel there’s consensus that “empty.html” might be too empty for new users, but needs to remain available for more advanced users.

The TiddlyWiki community is never going to agree on what should be included in a “standard.html” version, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. It’s up to @jeremyruston to decide what gets in and what’s left out. He’s got good instincts Although I don’t envy the task.

“Editions” are cool, but as I alluded to above, the barrier of having to decide up front on an edition can be just as intimidating to new users as “empty.html”. I would never have known, when starting out with TiddlyWiki, whether I needed the Journal Edition or Zettelkastan Edition or whatever, even if I thought I knew what I was planning to use TW for. I’d love to know what percentage of new users have a specific use in mind vs just exploring what it might do for them.

And with Journaling specifically, even “empty.html” is 3/4 of the way to sensible defaults for journaling. Of course the defaults couldn’t cover every variation of journaling, but I bet there are some basics that could work out of the box and improve the experience for most new users, while allowing those uninterested in the feature to ignore it.

TiddlyWiki is good at just about everything and should avoid being overly prescriptive out of the box, but I’d be willing to bet that adding some common baked in functionality with sensible defaults would improve onboarding and new users’ experience enough to offset any initial complexity or unwanted features.

Good thread!

[TW_Tones]

@jbaty

The TiddlyWiki community is never going to agree on what should be included in a “standard.html” version

I actually think we can, especially if its minimalist. I am a strong believer in editions but I also think there could be a few prominent ones;

• empty.html available but typically for experienced users.
• Standard - almost empty.html but a few additions to help such as;
  • Contents tab
  • A possible user templating plugin New Tiddler and New Journal Templates
  • A few other tweaks, perhaps a settings tab to allow quick customisations such as theme and pallet to excite potential users.
  • Less certain plugins internals/relink ?
• The perhaps a learning.html which would be a copy of tiddlywiki.com and all its documentation
  • personal note taking and code experiments
  • Published libraries included
  • Other new user support
• Finally add short description of selected editions for new users to experiment with. Don’t share complex and technical ones here. Just introduce the concept of editions and point them to the current listing.

I don’t care what we call standard but a lightweight empty.html plus common and supportive tools a little more friendly and a simple showcase to new users is needed. I urge not to make this a for purpose wiki, just a little more open and expansive than empty.

[jbaty]

@TW_Tones

@jbaty

The TiddlyWiki community is never going to agree on what should be included in a “standard.html” version

I actually think we can, especially if its minimalist.

I love your optimism! You may be right, since I think everyone has basically the same goals.

[Charlie_Veniot]

To have a standard edition, to then have folk trim it down to something somewhere in between empty and standard, why not just have empty with recipes to add each component, such that adding each component is part of a processs of getting to know TiddlyWiki ?

Maybe the flip-sides of the same coin, but it just seems to me more intuitive to show how to add things than it is to show how to remove things. In the early stages.

Eventually, showing how to remove things is good too. It just seems to me better to add before remove in regards to a learning process.

I dunno. Maybe I have it backwards.

[TW_Tones]

The thing is we would have a reason to provide such an edition, to help new users. Whilst keeping it minimalistic I think it may be easy to arrive at. Some may want more, ort particular for purpose inclusions, but that becomes an edition.

[TW_Tones]

I would just add an online playground, eg an updated version of my own but owned by the community which uses local storage for some persistence.

[pmario]

@Charlie_Veniot

To have a standard edition, to then have folk trim it down to something somewhere in between empty and standard, why not just have empty with recipes to add each component, such that adding each component is part of a processs of getting to know TiddlyWiki ?

That’s what I suggested at:

@pmario

It may be possible to dynamically load a “special plugin library” with settings and even smaller “Introduction Workflows” for 1 very specific topic.

If the “recipes” only contain wikitext, it’s possible to activate them, without the need for the wiki to be reloaded. So the recipes will be active immediately.

It is possible, that a recipe contains a button, that creates eg: a new “Journal” tab in the sidebar. … Since the code created by the recipe isn’t needed anymore, after it has been activated, the plugin can be deleted.

The sidebar will stay in the wiki even if the recipe is gone.

So the user has the possibility to load and apply different recipes. After they did their setup the can be removed.

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@Charlie_Veniot

Maybe the flip-sides of the same coin, but it just seems to me more intuitive to show how to add things than it is to show how to remove things. In the early stages.

I personally think removing content is simpler than adding it. …

Adding content and then removing the stuff you don’t need can be achieved with “bundles”. Bundles can contain pure “content” tiddlers, they can be deleted after import.

In contrast to plugin tiddlers. If you change a plugin tiddler and then delete it, the original shadow tiddler takes over again. To get rid of plugin elements, you need to remove the plugin itself.

With bundles every single tiddler can be deleted and it’s gone. To get it back the bundle can be imported again …

[TiddlyTweeter]

@pmario

Adding content and then removing the stuff you don’t need can be achieved with “bundles”. Bundles can contain pure “content” tiddlers, they can be deleted after import.

In contrast to plugin tiddlers. If you change a plugin tiddler and then delete it, the original shadow tiddler takes over again. To get rid of plugin elements, you need to remove the plugin itself.

With bundles every single tiddler can be deleted and it’s gone. To get it back the bundle can be imported again …

I just wanted to affirm @pmario’s post. His Bundler plugin / system is likely the most useful tool TW has for setting-up and managing wikis. Essentially it is a superb system for import/export. It could easily form the “mechanism” for applying changes that convert an “empty” into anything needed, or modifying very complex established wikis, well.