Page Layout a Powerful Feature in TiddlyWiki

#1

Page Layout was introduced in TiddlyWiki 5.1.23. This is a very powerful feature in TiddlyWiki needs more attention by all type of users.

It allows to create a very different alternate face for TiddlyWiki. You can create a Webpage for your personal use or even for your business, you can have Kanban layout alongside with standard layout, you can have a landing page and then switch to normal page, and much more.

References

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How to create product website using tw? (Like apple.com)
#2

A Very Simple Example

Here, I cloned the standard TiddlyWiki page template and add a little CSS+Wikitext to create a hamburger menu as a floating button at the bottom right of TiddlyWIki. I called it Hamburger Menue Layout

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See the initial revision here: kookma-Hamburger-Menu.json (8.0 KB)

After importing to an empty tiddlywiki, donot forget to change the layout. For example by pressing ctrl+shift+L on Windows.

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Multi-Column Layout / Storyview
TiddlyWiki is very powerful but gives too much freedom to new users. I lost myself: A story and an idea
#3

If you have a wiki that holds a large variety of information, alternate layouts can let you further customize the viewing/editing experience.

On my todo list:

  • ā€œfocused writingā€ layout with a minimal editor taking up most of the workspace, with a tabbed sidebar: story river, pinned, search

  • something similar to the above mode, but specifically for translating Kpop lyrics

  • since Iā€™ve been having trouble getting my current layout to work the way I want at all screen sizes, I may look into an alt layout just for mobile that wonā€™t have me beholden to the UI structure I want for larger screens

  • since I use Google Keep so much on my phone, I may eventually try to make a layout that more closely resembles that program for mobile-editing :thinking:

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#4

That looks great @Mohammad

I donā€™t think that is technically a hamburger menu. But there is a name for it that came up in some discussions about mobile themes.

  • Very important for us to do this to make tiddlywiki applicable in more cases.

I want this as well, big time, but I think the solution can work inside a tiddler, and a layout is similar to existing mobile themes.

  • The key feature I want is the todo shopping list where it predictivly brings up previous items, but with tiddlywikis customisability behind it.
#5

Hello Mohammad,

Could you share your Hamburger Menue Layout ?

BR,

Eskha

#6

huh, neat idea. does it expand on hover or on click? because if itā€™s click, using a left click to trigger a new tiddler and a right click to open it would be really space efficient.

All n all, thatā€™s pretty neat :grin:

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#7

Hi Eshka,
I will publish it on TiddlyHost. There are some minor adjustments. I will inform you here.

#8

Hi @Justin_H

It works by tap/click.

#9

Thank you for highlighting this feature. It is not something I realized was there. However, after skimming through the linked articles you have I still donā€™t feel I understand what this feature does. Considering that the main tiddlywiki.com site only has one, and the tutorial basically copy/pastes the current layout I donā€™t understand what a layout does.

Specifically, how does this differ from a theme? TW has several themes available out of the box and making your own theme was surprisingly easy. I made my own with tritarget.org to make the chevron button in the upper right corner I had to make a custom shadow tiddler to include the switching of the hide side bar and switch themes between the Vanilla Snow and my custom ā€œBlogā€ theme to switch between wide view and column view.

This feels like a layout to me and thought the layout switcher was the better choice. But that doesnā€™t seem to fit the implementation of themes and the ease of discovery when working with themā€”discovering settings | appearance | themes seems far more useful then memorizing CTRL+SHIFT+L.

I have to ask what is the difference between a layout versus theme? And why is a layout better or worse than a theme?

#10

Iā€™m willing to conjecture, seems like themes are for the way we display a TiddlyWiki based on the story river. Layouts are for complete redesign of a TiddlyWiki backed website regardless of the story river?

The distinction still feels confusing to me. Perhaps the difference is more in the technical implementation details then it is about the rendered result?

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#11

The limitation I ran into before the introduction of the layout feature (which is essentially switchable page templates) was that smaller tweaks, additions or hiding things from the default page template were easy enough but larger changes were clunky to implement. The advantage of a layout is that you create your own page template that can be as bespoke as you want, without the cruft of the default page template.

The relationship between themes and template is indeed fuzzy, and I have at times packaged the layout configuration as part of a theme essentially treating the page template (layout) and even the palette as part of the theme.

3 Likes
#12

Pepperoni pizza menu?

#13

Some call it a daisy radial menu.

Have fun,

Fred

#14

Nice demo @Mohammad . But I tend to write layouts for a ā€œfull-screen appā€. A small widget like this can be done using the above story tag, do you think so?

#15

Yes, I think this works. Going with page layout is the semantic way here.

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#16

Hello Mohammad,

Could you share your Hamburger Menue Layout ?

I canā€™t find it on tiddlyhost.

Many thanks.

#17

@Eskha, @dongrentianyu

This is the initial version.
After importing to an empty tiddlywiki, donot forget to change the layout. For example by pressing ctrl+shift+L on Windows.

kookma-Hamburger-Menu.json (8.0 KB)

#18

Thanks too muchļ¼Iā€™ll look into it later. It would be nice if the button could be dragged around the page at will.

#19

Thank you @Mohammad!

For others who wants to test the solution: it is easy to use other buttons (up to four), by using the $:/tags/HamburgerLayout/RightButton

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