New user struggling with the philosophy of tiddlers

#1

Hello all! I’ve been lurking on here for a few months and thought I’d finally chime in as a new user of TW.

I’ve come across TW a couple of times over the years and thought of it as a really cool concept but ultimately didn’t have a pressing need to deep dive. The third time around, I was actively seeking ways to organize my notes. I absolutely love the idea of a single future-proof self-contained file that can store all my notes and isn’t tied to some proprietary product.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading the TW site tiddlers and the excellent Grok Tiddlywiki resource by Soren Bjornstad. I’ve also watched the small number of videos I could find and perused the subreddit.

I know how easy it is to get caught up and/or overwhelmed with filters, macros, widgets and all that fun stuff. But as a new user coming from typical hierarchical folder-based systems, the one thing I’m absolutely struggling with is the philosophy of “everything is a tiddler”. I can appreciate the idea of digital gardens and linking thoughts and such. However, I find implementing this idea absolutely exhausting! For example, at least for me, most work meetings lead to actual work that still needs to be done. Going through my notes to break things up into multiple tiddlers for the sake of “getting the most” out of TW seems like I’m working for the tool instead of the other way around.

Has anyone else contended with this? Maybe my brain is just wired in a way that makes TW feel haphazard. If I use TW without breaking every idea up into its own tiddler, am I wasting my time?

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#2

Some of my Tiddlers are whole articles because I wanted the article to remain whole, perhaps a good read whilst on a train or waiting for a bus or maybe I just wanted the whole thing as the author wrote it because it reads best that way.

I think it ends up being a skill deciding on granularity - it depends on subject matter, how you think about the subject matter and how you wish to access and relate things.

Many times I have the whole article in one tiddler and then smaller chunks or paragraphs from that article as separate tiddlers that represent single concepts that I wish to refer to in tiddlers that I have authored where I will usually use a link or a transclusion to refer to the single concept tiddler - if I use a transclusion I will usually add links back to the complete parent article. I find duplication in the sense of the whole article in one tiddler and then specific paragraphs or sentences from that same article in other tiddlers beneficial. I fold longer tiddlers with a “read more” link so that they do not appear overly long on the screen I usually try and leave some meaningful sentences exposed before the “read more” so that I can get an idea what the longer article is about before I chose to open and read more.

I think only you can decide what “getting the most out of Tiddlywiki” means and it may very well change over time as you develop your ideas on how you wish to work.

A very common pattern for me is that I start off with an entire article or a major part of one in a single tiddler. Over time I start to understand it’s relation with other tiddlers in the wiki pertaining to the work of other authors. As I start to spot underlying relationships which are not always obvious at the start then I create secondary tiddlers to capture a more atomic concept or idea from the parent article - perhaps one paragraph or even just a sentence which can then be interwoven with related tiddlers. So I do not see it as an “either or” because I do not mind having duplication in the form of an entire article and then interesting bits that are hived off into separate tiddlers ( which always link back to their parent ) - it develops over time - it’s organic - there does not have to be a single level of granularity.

Absolutely! Not to mention that you can save tiddlers back out to the world outside of Tiddlywiki easily enough so that you feel even more secure regards the future - for instance since most browsers offer saving as pdf under the print menu then you might choose as I have done - create a little CSS to format for printing only and then have very quick pdf files of your favourite tiddlers to archive somewhere safe. Beware that the print will print the entire story river so if you wish to print one tiddler find the “close other tiddlers” button and ensure only the tiddler you are interested in is on the story river before printing.

So far I don’t feel Tiddlywiki imposes anything on me - I feel able to work the way I want to, I would give it time if you feel it is imposing a pattern on you - you might find things start to work out after a while when you develop your own style and work practices with TiddlyWiki.

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#3

Hey Jollygoose, welcome to the forum!

You are not required to break anything down into separate tiddlers that you don’t want to.Use TiddlyWiki however you find it most practical. Those who tend to break things down into pieces, do so because they have extra long or extra complicated tiddlers, and it can get messy editing them when you need to go back to them.

I tend to use the tabs macro in one default tiddler to set up 3 or 4 key tiddlers that are instantly available to me when I open the file. Then I link to other stuff from those. Or if you prefer, put links to those key tiddlers in a sidebar tab. Just tag a tiddler with $:/tags/SideBar, give it a short name, and add the links there.

Everyone here loves shiny new plugins and features, myself included. But don’t allow us to make you think you need to overcomplicate things.

And take your time learning the ropes. Use TW at one level, then progress gradually. There is no hurry.

1 Like
#4

G’day jollygoose.

The basic unit of “storage” in TiddlyWiki is a tiddler, a thing with fields associated with it: title, text, etc.

Everything you enter in TiddlyWiki goes in a tiddler, but whether something goes into a distinct tiddler or get added to an existing tiddler, you decide based on whether or not, and how, you want to componentize information

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a really long Tiddler that you treat like a long document.

You only need to " exicse " into a distinct tiddler a part of a long document when you need to track that part independently, or have that one part showing in many places for different purposes or different “view aggregations” (so little chunks of info brought together in different ways for different information contexts.)

You get the most out of TiddlyWiki as you incrementally / iteratively / organically, over time, wonder: what I’m doing at this moment (repeating content everywhere, repeating multiple steps all of the time to do certain things, etc.), how can I make this less of a pain in the caboose, and what little TiddlyWiki goodie can I take advantage to help me out?

TiddlyWiki is flexible as hell: it is meant to fit you. There’s nobody else like you, and TiddlyWiki is for you to mold into your perfect fit.

Your perfect fit will change over time as you make discoveries, and you’ll adapt TiddlyWiki as your requirements/knowledge evolve.

The more info you put into TiddlyWiki, the more you use it, the more you learn: no waste of time.

You might very well be wasting your time it you aren’t doing what feels natural. Do what feels natural, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. TiddlyWiki is like a blank canvas to an artist, a blank sheet of paper to the writer at the typewriter. Just add content, and let the content you put tell you what needs to be organized / done differently.

Learn by doing, do as feels natural, change what/when/how/where you do when it makes sense.

Rock’n roll !

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#5

I am not sure this is quite what you meant by your statement above but I just wanted to point out that some tiddlers are created when you perform certain actions yet you may not wish to see them - it’s a consequence of the philosophy that everything is a tiddler.

Be aware that if you import an image a “container” tiddler will be created to “hold” the image.

Container tiddler is not as far as I am aware an accepted term - just pointing out consequences of the philosophy that everything is a tiddler - when you import an image it needs to be stored somewhere and so it is stored in a “container” tiddler.

This didn’t suit me because I only ever import images to be included with text in other tiddlers - I did not like having the addition of a tiddler hanging around whose whole job was just to be a container for the image - my storyline was ‘polluted’ with “container” tiddlers.

If you like I was seeing the image twice on the story river, once where it was actually intended to be seen - in the middle of a tiddler article and once again when the container tiddler was on the storyline.

In the end I went pragmatic with this - I simply created a tag called “z hidden” and changed a few things here and there so that tiddlers with this tag do not usually show on my story river. I named the tag “z hidden” so that it would appear at the end of alphabetically ordered lists - easy to locate if always at the end.

Whenever I import an image I give the container tiddler the tag “z hidden” and so I don’t need to see it anymore on the story river except I have specifically added it as content to a another tiddler - perhaps an article I have written - I also use this to hide tiddlers that are created when I change the colour of tag.

Not sure how much sense this will make until you see it for yourself.

1 Like
#6

After importing images, their “container tiddlers” should only appear in the Story River if you deliberately open them for viewing. Otherwise, they are just added to the list of tiddler titles in the sidebar tabs.

If you want to omit those “container tiddlers” from the sidebar lists, you can rename them to start with $:/ so they will only appear in the sidebar’s “more > system” tab.

I also suggest renaming the image tiddlers using a prefix of $:/images/ to effectively group all the images titles together within the sidebar list.

Of course, you also will need to use that prefix when embedding a reference to the image tiddler within your “tiddler article” content.

enjoy,
-e

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#7

That quote is most certainly true when talking about the TW UI – everything else is entirely up to you. Like Charlie said…

Couldn’t have said it better. Forget everything is a tiddler, forget slicing and dicing your data (for now) and start jamming your stuff into TW and then see where you are. If you get sick of typing out the same thing over and over, that’s the sound of transclusions and linking knocking at your door.

Getting the best out of TW won’t start until you start using TW! :sunglasses:

Good luck!

#8

Thank you SO much for taking the time to respond in such detail! I appreciate you sharing your way of using this tool.

This last paragraph is especially enlightening, especially the parts I put in bold:

A very common pattern for me is that I start off with an entire article or a major part of one in a single tiddler. Over time I start to understand it’s relation with other tiddlers in the wiki pertaining to the work of other authors. As I start to spot underlying relationships which are not always obvious at the start then I create secondary tiddlers to capture a more atomic concept or idea from the parent article - perhaps one paragraph or even just a sentence which can then be interwoven with related tiddlers. So I do not see it as an “either or” because I do not mind having duplication in the form of an entire article and then interesting bits that are hived off into separate tiddlers ( which always link back to their parent ) - it develops over time - it’s organic - there does not have to be a single level of granularity.

1 Like
#9

Thanks Eric, I have a number of pre-configured buttons to populate the story river with tiddlers according to different criteria - like show in order of date created, show random 50 , show latest and so on - the “container tiddlers” inevitably end up on the story river unless I take steps. Similar for when I change colour of a tag - a new tiddler is created to “contain” the new color, again I just tag them with “z hidden” - all my pre-configured buttons know to filter out tiddlers with “z hidden” tags.

#10

I tend to use the tabs macro in one default tiddler to set up 3 or 4 key tiddlers that are instantly available to me when I open the file. Then I link to other stuff from those.

I think I’m going to try this. I currently have a default tiddler that would work much better this way.

Everyone here loves shiny new plugins and features, myself included. But don’t allow us to make you think you need to overcomplicate things.

I know there is another thread about how to stimulate user growth. I’ll just say that even once I had overcome the initial barriers such as saving, non-traditional user interface etc., this is what felt a bit intimidating to me. It almost felt as if unless I was doing all of these complicated things, I was “using it wrong”.

#11

The non-linear part is the hardest to overcome. We all want things in a sequence, things organized. But our mind does not work that way - is a jumble of thoughts and ideas. Save these disorganized thoughts in TiddlyWiki and review/organize tomorrow with tags. The sidebar->more->all will show all the tiddlers you added.

You will get addicted. Make a bunch of TiddlyWiki’s - drag ‘n’ drop tiddlers. Next thing you know will have a bunch of wikis with your ideas organized into subjects.

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#12

No problem - for what it’s worth I see Tiddlywiki as a learning and research tool. The patterns in the wiki reflect the patterns and connections in the brain. To get it “right” in one go is probably not realistic because the whole pattern of learning involves construction of conceptual structures followed by refinement and often partial rebuilds and re-wires. I am constantly refining old tiddlers, adding tags that did not even exist when the tiddler was first written and restructuring - I don’t see it as “work” but rather an expression of the learning process happening inside my head. I think part of the “art” of tiddlywiki is being able to negotiate this constant state of flux and refinement and to enjoy it and take delight when once in a while a new connection almost seems to pop out in your face as a result of previous months or weeks of gradual refinement.

#13

I think I’ve been coming at this from the wrong perspective. The message I’m taking away from several of the responses is that continuous refining is the norm. Having to go back and change tiddlers doesn’t mean I’m using it wrong but rather that I’ve identified an opportunity to make a connection to an idea.

Sounds like I just need to get going and ask questions later :slight_smile:

1 Like
#14

Zackly. It’s true that TW is a tinkerer’s paradise, but that’s why I and many others love it.

#15

Yes, this is absolutely right. I am a non-programmer and I am still learning moderately basic things even today after working with TiddlyWiki since what feels like the 1970s.

#16

As you furiously write/create, the questions will come. Some of them you may decide to write down (in some TiddlyWiki, if not the one you are actively working on) to look into later, some may too interesting to not tackle right away.

Go with the flow, surrender to whatever is the most important/interesting/distracting thing of the moment.

Whatever you do, keep doing what moves you best towards the target, however sharp/blurry it is. (Sometimes, you need to take some sidetrips and scenic routes. Pro bodybuilders know that 80% of the equation ir rest and nutrition.)

“If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving. Martin Luther King Jr.”

With time and practice, one gets better at knowing what the target will be and get quicker at getting there. But no matter how seasoned at it, the final picture will to some degree counfound starting expectations.

The journey is everything, baby.

#17

Welcome @jollygoose I am presently writing some text for new users so I will respond to the following soon;

Great contribution @jonnie45 but I want to improve your method here;

  • Open the tiddler and choose the open in new windows button
    • usually under the tiddler more dropdown
    • Use ctrl-P to print
  • Other
    • Alternative new window views can be made if you want the print to include more like the title.
  • One simple way to to wrap a line/even paragraph in [[ content ]] which allows you to click and create a new tiddler, or review a list of missing tiddlers see the [[*]] button in the editor.
  • There are so many ways to support this, like the excise tool, or even to avoid it all together by taking notes into multiple tiddler’s as you go.
    • Have a look at streams for a structure note taking tool that does this, you can also turn these into standard tiddlers or merge them into a tiddler with streams fusion found elsewhere.
  • Also have a look at the section editor which starts with items under headings being separately editable.
  • You can also find yourself building your own way to simplify processes according to how you work and think.
  • Mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop form factors also influence choice here.

Yes many of us all the time, and as a result there are a whole lot of solutions out there.

  • There may be value leaving this thread to “The philosophy of tiddlers” and start a new one;
    • “DIviding tiddlers into usable pieces” or what ever you fancy.

I think this is an important thing to address for new users. I will also give this more thought.

#18

The only mistake would be not to start using Tiddlywiki. I really enjoy that we are able to just start a new wiki and write. Planning is good, but how do a new user plan to get the most out of TW before learning more?
I often look at some of my older wikis and laugh seeing how they developed in unexpected directions.
I think we all love to see other peoples wikis - how do they use TW - and how did they achieve the functionality. Always something to learn - and “steel”.
One day you will feel your wiki is just soooooooooo right for you. Kind of feel in love with it. When I started - it was TWClassic then, I was lucky and had a teacher. When he realized, that I was in love with my latest wiki, he said, sure you are: You are looking in a mirror seeing your self - or at least you brain. he he.
Expect your wiki to change over time as you learn new tricks that fits even the needs you do not even know now that you have. (It is quite fun, that is why we love it).

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#19

The Wonderful thing about Tiddlers
Is Tiddlers are wonderful things

You can create longer tiddlers that only use links to connect them to other tiddlers as needed.

Example: Meeting Notes…

Today we had a very concise, not-at-all-rambling staff meeting where we went over the MANY finer points of [[Project 1]], [[Project 2]], next month’s [[Team-building Event]] and very politely debated which plumber should be called to fix the leaky toilet in the third stall. And maybe get around to buying a door for it too.

If you already have tiddlers titled Project 1, Project 2, and Team-building Event then you can all tiddlers that link to them by viewing, say, the Project 1 tiddler. In the tiddler View Toolbar (top-right), click on the Info icon and go to the Backlinks tab.You Meeting Notes tiddler will show up here, along with any notes regarding other staff meetings, phone calls, emails, bulletins, etc… that you took note of and linked to Project 1 from.

You might not need anything more fancy than this: tiddlers that pertain to specific subjects and other tiddlers that link to the subject tiddlers as needed. You’ll have semi-auto-built Backlink lists that lead you back to relevant notes of the subjects.

If your notes are only going to be this fine-grained, then you don’t need to split paragraphs or sentences into individual tiddlers, just write as much in each tiddler as you feel is needed.

If you happen to have a snippet of text that you would want to re-use often, like a reminder to keep Dave under control when the topic of T.P.S. Reports comes up, then put that text into a tiddler and transclude it at the top of each Meeting Notes tiddler.

#20

19 posts were split to a new topic: How to create a sidebar, which shows back-linked lists?