OK, I agree with all of these in a general sense but only #1-3 seem are replies to the OP here - but they are, of course, too vague and don’t actually say what the problem is. #3 is probably the most specific one. Would you think that #3 is what made the hypothetical user give up?
Peter, that is very interesting. So, as it is currently presented, it invites for misunderstanding of what it actually is.
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I would promote Twexe as the primary method of saving; You don’t even have to say on the first page that there are other ways - have that in the tutorial pages. I’ve tried pretty much all saving methods and twexe is the one that ‘just works’ on your local computer. Tiddlyspot is a good recommendation for those who want their wiki in the cloud.
Also I think the average person is put off by having to write in markdown language. I personally don’t have problem with it, but the average potential user is used to having everything wysiwig. Maybe a variant that has a plugin for that installed by default? Just thoughts.
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If I may chime in here, I would like to tell my TW story:
As far as I can remember when I came to TW about ~9 years ago (by then still TW classic I think), I did like the idea of having everything together in one file.
However in the end I went for Docuwiki because of the inconvenient saving procedure. When I did not use my wiki to the extent I originally planned I left the whole Knowledgebase field for ~1,5 years.
When starting my studies and also taught myself programming (circa 2014) the need for keeping records arose again and when searching for a wiki solution TW popped up again. If I remember correctly by then TW 5 was released so I installed the Firefox extension and used the single file option for a while.
Around 2018 my interest in hosting my own software started and I got myself a Raspberry to host some things I regularly used. Soon after I discovered TiddlyServer by Arlen and migrated to running TW on my server. Today I run multiple TW Node instances in Docker containers behind a reverse proxy.
What I want to say with this: I am pretty sure beginners are confused because there is just too much information about twenty different ways to save a TW even though for the average Joe one simple solution would suffice. At least that is what I can remember of my first encounter with TW. Also my SO (Mac user and not very technically inclined) said something along those lines as well and ultimately went for Evernote. If there is interest I will ask her what made her not consider TW further.
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First rule of UX; you are not the user. Don’t guess, ask.
Amazing then that our newest users here, @Peter and @morgainebrigid, jumped into this discussion forum to confirm just this. Thank you! Also, @tjout – of course we want your story.
This was actually the major hurdle to getting started for me as well. Not to brag, but I’ve been a programmer and heavy computer user for decades. And still “Getting Started With TiddlyWiki” almost made me break down and cry.
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But again, this has all been discussed here: How to stimulate User Growth of TW? - #36 by DaveGifford
Guess: “The website was a bit too jumbled up for me to figure out where to start, and many of the tutorial ‘tiddlers’ examples didn’t work when I copied them into a fresh tiddlywiki, I don’t know what to do!”
TL:DR, the documentation is very good, but not formatted in a matter friendly to new users, nor does it provide them with a strong direction to start from.
Strange comparison to draw, but game design comes into play here, as someone whose played Minecraft since it’s first launch, I’ve seen how it’s grown, and one of the early early concerns, was how it was an open ended sandbox with no direction or assistance.
the resolve was achievements and later on a crafting recipe book, and while TW can’t really do the same, I feel like we can take a block or two from the much loved game, and tiddly it up, yea?
Food for thoughts!
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I’m not actually new; I’ve used TW for years. I was on the old Google Groups list previously.
Saving
I think that understanding why a partial barrier exists can sometimes moderate perceptions of it.
In my earliest days of using TiddlyWiki I found the saving clunky but it never irritated me because I had enough background knowledge to know that browsers are cautious for security reasons when it comes to saving files to local disk as a result of activities on a webpage and different browsers and OS systems deal with this in different ways.
The flip side it is on account of the universality of HTML, Javascript, CSS and increasingly standards compliant browsers we can take our standalone tiddlywiki from one device to another without installing any software (browser assumed).
I viewed the ‘save’ issue as the payoff for the fantastic freedom I had courtesy of Tiddlywiki being both a quine and yet a regular page of HTML/JS/CSS - not dependent on OS or any particular software other than the ubiquitous browser so I saw it as a price to pay for the many positives - especially being a Linux user - great I could use the same base product as everyone else and no installations.
Not sure if it’s a selling point but some new users might think that the OS dependent methods for saving standalone Tiddlywiki’s reflect badly on the quality of the software without realising the dependencies on OS and browser and the plus points this design brings about.
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Hugs to jonnie and twMat.
I think twMat loves TiddlyWiki and wants to see it overcome the hurdles that keep it from flourishing and impacting a lot of people.
I think jonnie loves TiddlyWiki and maybe is concerned for it not to change in negative ways and lose its valuable current features because of too much growth.
Both are valuable concerns, and both are out of love for TiddlyWiki.
It would be a shame if, in talking about how to invite others to discover TW, we make it lose one of its biggest strengths: a kind and helpful community that supports it.
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Interesting and helpful comparison to Minecraft, Justin. TW is something so open-ended, something that one can do so many things with, that it is hard to know how to point new people in the direction that would be most helpful for them to see.
Maybe there could be a html front page with links to several tutorial TW files, one for notetakers, one for productivity people, one for programmer types, one for people who want to use it for statistics and databases, etc. The tutorials in each could be aimed directly at each group.
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Welcome to the forum !
A saving tech that doesn’t work on Mac is a non-starter as a universal solution. Also, a tech that depends on an executable will be off-limits in many business places.
Large companies get around the multi-platform problem by having teams of developers that create solutions for each platform that resemble (though are not really identical to) the solutions on the other platforms. AFAIK, only the open source program Joplin follows this route.
We don’t have those resources, so instead there is a different solution for every platform or situation. In some ways this is a plus. You can make TW work even if you’re in an office that doesn’t allow you to install executables.
Personally, I’m finding rclone to be a great solution. And you can use it as RCX on your smart phone, and even turn your phone into a server so you can use it anywhere.
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Right. A lot of people don’t realize that easy=compromise. Not until they want a special report or want to transfer their data do they find the limitations of turnkey solutions like Evernote or Onenote.
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I agree with that - freedom can be a daunting place as well as an exciting one - tomorrows irritating restrictions are todays comforting guides.
I left the world of software engineering but during that time I hated editors like emacs precisely because I hated the endless configurability I was interested in the software we were writing and not the editor used to write it - others felt very differently.
Ironically I love the configurability of Tiddlywiki
I think it has something to do with the way we view these tools - are they just tools to get the job done and of no interest in themselves or do they take on a life of their own that interests us.
Some people may decide they like spending the time working with Tiddlywiki’s endless possibilities, others may be frightened off by them and some may not be very interested and just resent the extra fluff that seems to get in the way.
You can’t please everyone.
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Yup - my Tiddlywiki content represents thousands of hours of work I would not feel comfortable entrusting it to any propriety format or software.
Sure Microsoft may be around for ‘ever’ but they do kill off products now and then - same with the big G - people can and do get stranded sometimes even when dealing with the big ‘steady’ providers, not to mention hikes in costs or changes in software delivery ( rent vs buy software model ) - ok as far as I know these guys don’t provide Tiddlywiki alternatives - just suggesting that if there are angry MS customers around then what guarantees do we expect from small start-ups providing paid for variations on the Tiddlywiki theme?
I hesitate to go so far as to say that Tiddlywiki users are not even dependent on the continued development of Tiddlywiki because of course in that scenario some change in HTML or JS might eventually cut them off when browser providers decide to withdraw support for the outdated thing so perhaps that its taking it a little far - but all the same I think it’s probably about as safe as you can be given the alternatives, certainly I think if the unthinkable happens to me it will be down to my carelessness and not down some remote corporation - ( backup copies stashed all over the house and online ).
Surely for some new users whether they know it right now or may find out later a sense of security of their invested time on content may become one of the primary concerns, if you are using Tiddlywiki for ten or twenty tiddlers you might care to a moderate level - if later on you end up with thousands you will probably care more than you first did.
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That comment hit me in a powerful way. I went back to GettingStarted.
When I first saw GettingStarted, I thought it was helpful - whittle down the options then read the few that are left. But there are still so many options even after checking both. What to do.
One thing pops into my mind:
Have one tiddler with three options:
a) “I’m new, just let me try my own personal copy online first!”
Which points them to ONE super easy host-and-save-changes online option.
b) “I’m a programmer! Give me the flashy, techy options!”
And point them to node.js and a couple other advanced options.
c) “I want to download a TW file and add a simple extension to my browser for saving changes!”
Which points them say, Timimi as the first option since it seems to be the easiest and works on Chrome and Firefox. And there is a link to see other simple options for other browsers.
d) “I’m a discerning connoisseur! Let me see ALL the options!”
Which points them to something similar to what GettingStarted looks like now.
The value of doing it this way is that the instructions are few and sparse, they divide and conquer, and there are links to more options for those who need it.
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I think a big step up would be to just get an explicit recommendation and it would probably be fine to first tick a few checkboxes (PC vs Mac, private vs work, online or machine, etc) as long as you in the end get a clear recommendation.
Note that a “recommended saver” doesn’t have to solve everything. It is a step to make them go a bit deeper into the TW rabbithole. If they later find that they want something more sophisticated saver then they can change and by then they’ve discovered the power of TW.
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I think thats a good idea, having preset howtos for each archetype of user could give new users ideas for things to try if they arent used to those features or other platforms they used prior did not offer, and could also promote more features tiddlywiki offers, tso birds with one stone!
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Not reading through all posts!
But it is like to advertise for Python language! An end user has little attention to what programming language a designer used to create a tool/product.
I think Tiddlywiki needs to have some editions/apps for end users where the majority of target audiences are there!
You may note Stroll from @DaveGifford has got a lot of intrest from people in Twitter!
Or Grok Tiddlywiki or Zettelksten from @sobjornstad, but Tiddlywiki itself has only near 7k stars in GitHub!
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… I looked at the documentation and the process to collaborate on documentation.
… I looked at Talk.TiddlyWiki
… when I realized that all of the technologies/tools/processes/whatever meant to support TiddlyWiki do not technically support what makes TiddlyWiki so frigging outstanding; we cannot eat our own dog food (either have those support tools built with TiddlyWiki or use support tools that mimick to at least some degree the goodies in TiddlyWiki.
(For example, TiddlyWiki is so frigging awesome to support non-linear thinking. Talk.TiddlyWiki is so frigging awful to support non-linear stuff. (Maybe it is good at non-linear stuff, but I can’t stand Discourse, so zero desire to find out.)
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