On slow save, turn save button yellow while saving

Hi @C_Bacca I agree that it would be useful to be able to have an indicator that a save is in progress. I looked briefly at the code for $:/core/modules/saver-handler.js and it looks feasible to set an additional class on the root element while a save is in progress, which would allow us to colour the icon orange during the save. Perhaps somebody could create a GitHub ticket to keep track of the idea?

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Thanks Jeremy, if it’s not too hard to do. I think I’m the only one with this problem and my solutions are limited, one reason is Tiddlyhost is blocked from my work network. I really appreciate it.

Possibly if you externalised the core the save times would be reduced.

Thank you @Mark_S much appreciated.

This is normal browser behaviour unless you have a save mechanism. I use Timimi as the saver in FireFox and Chrome. It needs a locally installed component plus browser extension.

  • Most browsers have an option to save to the download folder, or select where to save. In the latter option the folder may open in a recently used folder, which changes.

I could see a tiddlywiki file being scanned for URL’s and JavaScript by a sophisticated malware protection process and possibly slowing saves. I have also found HTML files treated as threats.

  • The external core suggestion is a good one as you reduce save but particularly the core which may trigger the malware scan.
  • If your save problem persists perhaps try saving a copy of your wiki as another file extension. eg wikiname.tw if you then try and open this file most browsers see the internal html header/meta and still treat it as html. Most savers can still save back as a .tw file.
    • Perhaps the malware protection will not be so concerned about a non-html file.

You may be one of only a few with your particular version of the problem. Still, I do find it inconvenient that the starting to save wiki... indicator is on a short timer, and can (if I recall correctly) disappear from view even when the save is not successful. (This is hard to reproduce, since tiddlyhost is usually responsive either with a save confirmation or with an alert indicating a problem — such as a more recent edit from another tab/session, or not currently being logged-in.)

Some visual cue that we’re hanging out in this unresolved attempting-to-save state would be very helpful.

Actually, I’d love for that cue NOT to be stuck within the save-status-icon area (even while the thought put into that status icon has been much appreciated). Having the “starting to save…” notification remain prominent until the save is complete would help even in cases where the status icon is not in view (sidebar is collapsed, etc.).

-Springer

I agree that the notification also deserves some improvements.

If I may add to the list of wishes/ideas for consideration, I’d propose this look:

  • “Appear” animation.
  • Notification with text “Saving wiki…”, stays as long as the saving process takes place.
  • Change color and change text to “Saved wiki”. Maybe rearrange it to “Wiki saved”, so that it stands out from the previous message. I think it also sounds more indicative and reads more like wiki is saved rather than saving is now complete, but let the native English speakers be the judges of that.
  • “Disappear” animation after save completion + notification timeout.

The current situation is, independently for both “Starting to save” and “Saved” notificaitons:

  • “Appear” animation
  • Is visible during the timeout, unless covered by the next notification
  • “Disappear” animation

This leads to two problematic situations:

  • If saving is quick, both notifications are overlaid, and the first one slides away from the second one in a weird way. I think there is no need for the “Starting to save” notification to be there at all, even covered, after the wiki has been saved.
  • If saving is long, there is a gap where no notification is present.

And now a wise, relevant quote:

Everything not saved will be lost.
— Nintendo quit screen

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This is caused by a setting in the browser configuration.

  • If you open your FF browser settings
  • General
  • Scroll down to “Files and Applications” → Downloads
  • You probably have “Always as your where to save files” option checked.

If you disable this option, you will be not asked again but everytime you save a wiki, it will get a new name by the browser. …

So if you want to use the browser native save option, you probably keep this option checked and always overwite your current wiki. Or you create a new “milestone” wiki as a backup.


As Tony wrote, you can use the Timimi browser addOn plus the Timimi tw-pluigin, or you can also try my FileBackups plugin, which only needs a FireFox AddOn, but only allows you to save back to the browser downloads directory or a subdirectory. This is a limitation introduced by modern browsers

See: File Backups – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US) which also contains a link to a video, that shows how to use the plugin and the backups function

In my first response I did not see, that you save to a network drive and in a locked down “enterprise” environment you are probably also not able to install browser addOns?

So Timimi and FileBackups addOns are probably not possible. … So are you able to install browser addOn’s?

I am a bit curious about the size of your wiki. The TW core needs a bit more than 2MB. So for 200 tiddlers an other 2MB seems to be a bit high. Except if you store images or other binary data in your wiki.

This should be avoided, because the wiki size “explodes” that way and if saved over a slow connection it will need a long time to be saved.

TW has a possibility to “link” to external binary files like imgages and PDFs using a special tiddler field called _cannonical_uri, which may be an option. But to work with “mapped network” drives you have to take care about your path settings.

Just a thought.

  1. Yes please! I just need some indicator that it’s still saving since it takes a long time for me.
  2. Also I can install browser addons. But when I installed the Timimi addon in Firefox yesterday it didn’t seem to do anything at all. It saved no files in the backup directory I specified in the Timimi browser addon options.
  3. I want to keep this a generic installation so I only need the browser to make this all work. I don’t want to install servers of any kind on my work PC. That could trigger all kinds of security problems for me which I don’t have the ability to fix. I do not control security (malware scanners) on my PC so I cannot whitelist any apps.
  4. Getting IT to whitelist tiddlyhost won’t happen. IT won’t take the risk. Network incursions and security events become part of their employee review. Whether those detract from their employee review score I don’t know.
  5. Part of our services is to provide website services to our customers and we already have contracts with them that have security requirements, etc. (That’s not my department though.) That’s why network security is high.

Ok I checked. I have 552 tiddlers, no images in this TW. There are many tiddlers which are notes for tutorials so each tiddler can be large and might be a full 8.5x11 inch printed page if printed out. Some tutorials span 22+ tiddlers, and that particular tutorial is only 33% done. (It’s a 46 hour tutorial for a technical topic.)

OK. So which TW plugins do you use?

You need to install something on the local host. See the timimi documentation. Its trivial and works forever fore file:// based wikis.

There are plenty of choices so dont give up.

  • In there a SharePoint environment there?
  • Is the data in the wiki confidential?
  • There is a PWA implementation I have not yet used
  • TiddlyStore is another approach
  • Are you precluded from hosting a node install on a server?

I think we could create a “system info” tiddler which summarises this kind of thing people can share.

I think the only plugins I have are the Todo list and the Markdown plugin.

Recall that I use this TW file from 3 local hosts, 2 of which I access via remote desktop.

I’m working with one laptop and 2 remote desktop connections, so 3 local hosts. Installing software on each local host is not ideal and actually makes more potential problems for me. The least of which is I may not permissions to install anything on the 2 remote desktop PCs.

As long as you don’t edit it at the time time, installing timimi one one or more computers is fine. However yes, sometimes we are limited.

For this your options may be reduced to Tiddlystow a(nother) native file saver

Hello, I’m just asking for an update here. Will this be put in the normal version of Tiddlywiki? If so, which version is it planned for?

I’d love to get something that shows the TW is saving as in my case, it takes about 40 seconds or so.

Should I make a Github issue for this? Ooops, Github issue is here. [IDEA] Change "save" button to indicate that change is in progress · Issue #7921 · Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5 · GitHub