Hello there. I want to know if it’s possible to configure edit permissions on a public wiki, so that only the creator or a select people can edit it, but others who are given the link can view it? I want to be able to share my wiki with friends while keeping exclusive editing ability to myself.
If you make a wiki public and do not enable saving, it is read only, although they can make changes in memory they can never save it. See Public on TiddlyHost, or place a copy anywhere people can access on the internet. Its just a file.
However more often than not you may not even want them to make changes in memory, eg you want to hide edit etc… to do this look for readonly plugins and settings in the forums.
PS Welcome @OrangePeel
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Thank you! This was something I was pretty uncomfortable with at the start since I couldn’t figure out how to make my wiki readonly, so this is a big help.
You will discover we are willing to help 
in the forums. Although we may ask to explain your problem further or give an example etc…
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There’s an official readonly theme available at your fingertips. Go to settings, Plugins, Get More Plugins, Themes, and scroll for “Readonly”.
The point of the various readonly techniques is to put up guardrails. Most of them don’t lock your TW completely (because then, how would you be able to edit?). It just prevents people from excitedly thinking they can make arbitrary changes to your instance.
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this way of using webdav with nginix is my current favorite for single file wikis
there is also using tw-reciever which uses php, which I used a lot in the past. I’m pretty sure there are more recent, updated forks. This is also for single wiki files.
The Node server version has options to set a username and password.
The beauty of tiddlywiki of course is the plethora of options. These are my current favorites but a search like Tones suggested my reveal a new favorite for you!
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The craziest thing about TW to me forever is Having edit features active and present, but no way to save them
Wtf!!!
I understood the painful history of SAVE
But if you show TW site/document to someone and they start clicking (by accident or curiosity or otherwise) it just creates terrible confusion.
The use of TW to organise and fluidly edit, experiment, code, explore, rinse and repeat is terrific.
But people have come to me, describing some serious project, or growing interest, cross relating research etc, wanting to use it with students — they want to put online…
Or even they be more thrilled to learn it could live on USB key l/drive or any local PC or lan CD-ROM (member those?)
We want this !! They’d say
Asking me for help or recommend some tool or system.
Very Smart People who think in multidimensional way, people who take joy in creative design philosophy
So on listening to them, "well, I’d say “Tiddlywiki does all what you want to do”
But they’d drown in it.
Nobody could understand WHY all the edit and create functions remain permanently ON and visible.
“Why is there no simple switch, or fuse box or option to present the material, the contents without breaking it ??”
“Why can’t we just toggle that – and make it clear graphically what state it is in?”
Over the years I have tried and failed ti get TW into their workflow. And my own
Heartbreaking at times
But I’m back again, because I think TW is poised now to really shine.
@Jason_Cunliffe I understand where your perspective comes from but I think it is common for people to get confused because TiddlyWiki’s capabilities extend in many directions. These things that confuse you exist in many other cases website and apps etc… but they are so limited that you may not notice them.
For example being able to interact with a site and keep track of things like you user name, the page, changing the pallet colours, themes, and other aspects of the User Interface are common - often any interaction beyond browsing and reading content has to allow you to edit and save something, even if it is not saved back to the server. For example a simple calculator needs to save the numbers you enter, it just that in tiddlywiki you also get to edit a tiddler, use wikitext and TiddlyWiki Script and more.
The truth is to produce many common website solutions using tiddlywiki you have to “dumb it down”, remove pieces and possibilities, until it appears as handicaped as other solutions.
- Alternatively, with other solutions you need a server backend and numerous files, settings etc… just to do some of the basics tiddlywiki does in a single file in a browser.
- Even installing the local browser plugin can make the user think there is a server behind a tiddlywiki when there is not.
You can add a saver for the owner like tw-receiver or look into node and bob to server tiddlywiki and get multiple editors and more sophisticated solutions.
I would prefer a solution that “does almost everything”, and I may just hide some things, rather than one “that does very little until you do a lot of work”.
- This is certainly true for personal applications and tools you do not share with anyone, but your future self.
Thanks for your perspective @Jason_Cunliffe
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Hi
Really appreciate your reply. Thanks
Will reread and rethink.
I agree with, love the core philosophy, playful open hearted genius at work in TW. Abundantly +fun
My point is: TW needs better “publishing” UI and awareness. It needs help from people who master it, so that it can be used more powerfully and much easily as a publishing platform.
TW is a very molecular environment.
The molecules and structures can be of many different types and scales.
/// I am planning and and preparing resources yo open a Maker Lab / School :: Atelier
Tools technique curriculum. Model making. Iterative design…
2d 3d 4d 5d…
Central to this project : the tools themselves need to be very configurable, but also initial content configured == so one can grow a curriculum. I am looking at funding Calls under the European Commission to see where this might fit their search and funding. TW would be in any of my proposals. To advance its wider USE and to fund that development by EU Horizon Grant System.
A lively lovely tool alongside TW will be FreeCAD
Which is also a labor of live skill talent and determination.
It’s heart is in a strong constraints approach, with an open API and thus library of “workbenches” paradigm.
TW seems very parallel to FreeCAD, but it does yet not seem to have enough out-of the box publishing focus.
Print to Web
Print to PDF
Print to LaTeX
Print to Slide Show
But also print to TikTok, YouTube, Blender
Print to Magazine, Poster, PostCard…
It seems like the functionality to achieve all of this exists in TW. But writers, artists, designers need to stay focused on their authoring work teaching and study.
And these users need working templates and examples ///
If you want to structure a set of tutorials — instructions in any domain, linearity & sequencing are very helpful.
Especially when you have sets and sequences of “slides” and inline illustrations.
Nonlinearity is great to branch out from that.
Prestructuring in something like emacs orgmode would be fabulous
///
Give this a try:
https://tiddlytools.com/#TiddlyTools%2FStylesheet%2FReadOnly
To install, just visit the above link and drag-and-drop the tiddler’s title onto your TiddlyWiki.
This tiddler adds a “conditional” stylesheet that shows/hides certain “edit mode” sidebar and tiddler toolbar buttons:
new-tiddler new-here new-journal-here clone edit delete save-wiki
The tiddler also adds a “lock/unlock” button to the “TopRightBar” and each tiddler’s ViewToolbar. The button sets the value of $:/config/TiddlyTools/ReadOnly to “yes” or “no”. If this config tiddler doesn’t exist (the initial default situation), then the TiddlyWiki interface appears as normal (i.e., it shows the edit mode buttons).
To toggle between “edit mode” and “read-only mode”, just click the lock/unlock button (in either the TopRightBar or any tiddler’s ViewToolbar). To save your TiddlyWiki while it is in read-only mode, you will need to use “ctrl-S” to initiate the save action, since the “save changes” button usually shown in the sidebar Page Toolbar will be hidden.
enjoy,
-e
TiddlywikiGPT basically
Bless you!
Maybe 10yrs ago (?) I was revelling in your plugins
There is so much you can “put in the box”, the standard approach is to collect a range of tools and place them in an “Edition”, a preconfigured TiddlyWiki with the settings, plugins and a little help content for a particular purpose. Thus the edition is box with a number of things it that box.
Tiddlyhost makes it easy to publish such a wiki and create new ones from an “edition” in tiddlyhost, or simply download that edition and “make it your own”. I suppose the issue is TiddlyWiki has always expanded what it can do but carful to remain “agnostic” about what it will be used for. This means there is a gap between empty.html and what most people with do with it.
- To assist me I tend to build component solutions, and place them in Bookmarklets and install components on demand in a new wiki as needed.
- Every time I constructed an Edition my needs quickly changed and I did not return to that edition.
- However I expect if you have a particular special interest area the idea of editions will make more sense.
Your work sounds very interesting so do keep us informed and we can return the favor and help.
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thank you
Your replies are so well written. Courteous, encouraging, with such helplul viable {improved} phrasing of the problem solution spaces. What a gift
TW is the EMACS of programmable modular functional openToolbox.
REBOL programming language and its children >> Red-Lang have some of the same mRNA!
Blender 3D likewise for the longest time out on a brilliant confusing limb…
Now past few years is reknowned shining city on a hill.
Re: TW5, I need to get myself up to speed, and not be overwhelmed by my frustrations or ambitions. Certainly not overwhelm anyone here.
I am going to try more focused questions.
One aspect which can’t seem to find yet is:
Overview = MAP of sorts of TW5 Key design principles and its ARCHITECTURE.
I am visual person so maps and diagrams, sketches &symbols – are how I think about things.
Perhaps the best symbiotic exchange of knowledge, POV and skills would be for me to try & craft a series of POSTERS == visual annotated map and whiteboard schematic, PostcardScience™ approach
_with your help here on TALK
I can bring my own graphics sensibilities to bear. Iterate and revise, with feedback as fits the purpose///
thank you again
onwards
Hi @EricShulman ,
the idea is good but I think in another way.
What do you think about a second “save” button?
Using this button will do the following
- The wiki will be saved as it is (standard)
and also -
remove all functions (not disable) as
new-tiddler new-here new-journal-here clone edit delete save-wikiand save this version as name-of-wiki.protected.html
Is it possible to adapt your function?
Stefan
My TiddlyTools ReadOnly stylesheet only works because each “edit mode” button has a unique CSS classname for which display:none; styling can be easily applied to hide those buttons. In contrast, actually removing the “edit mode” buttons from the interface would require modifying each tiddler in which those buttons are referenced or defined, which is MUCH more difficult to accomplish.
If your intention is to create a version of your TiddlyWiki for which “edit mode” can not be enabled, then the simplest method would be to just remove the $:/tags/TopRightBar and $:/tags/ViewToolbar tags from TiddlyTools/Stylesheet/ReadOnly. Then, to save the “protected” version of the TiddlyWiki, you could access the “lock” button by directly viewing the TiddlyTools/Stylesheet/ReadOnly tiddler, followed by using ctrl-S to save the file.
I do this quite a bit at my day job. If you are interested in using Node (and possibly GitHub) for this, then my technique might be useful to you. This is mostly used for documentation projects at work, and they are not public, but I have the scaffolding project I use to create new such projects available at https://crosseye.github.io/TW5-Tiddox/ (with the source at https://github.com/CrossEye/TW5-Tiddox.)
I think all the pieces you might need for this are in ReaderMode.json (5.0 KB), which uses parts of @Mohammad’s Utility plugin – question for @Mohammad: any objection to my piecemealing your work like this? – and several custom tiddlers. You can save that and drag it to any Node.js-based TiddlyWiki.
This is built on GitHub and deployed to GitHub Pages (for my usual versions, on GitHub Enterprise, behind corporate walls). Anybody using it that way simply sees the single-file view, which has editing features turned off. But if I clone my GitHub repo locally, and start a node server in it, I’m running in edit mode.
I can use CTRL-Shift-/ to toggle in or out of edit mode. While this sounds like back-door access, I don’t worry about it because if users find it, the most they can do is save their own edited wikis. They cannot alter my source wiki. But it is a convenience for me, both to test my Node-based wiki as if I were an end-user of the single-file one, and occasionally to alter and save a version of the single-file one. You can try this on https://crosseye.github.io/TW5-Tiddox/; watch the tiddler edit button, the control panel button, the save button, the more actions button, as well as the Tools and More sidebar tabs toggle in and out of view – and watch the drag-and-drop feature toggle on or off
If you know Node and GitHub, you can poke around the source and see how I build versions in package.json.
Note that GitHub is part of my personal workflow, but is not required to use this. The big trick is serving the edit interface over Node, and the public, non-editable one as a single-file wiki. There is no separate source for this, but there is a build step to generate the single-file wiki, which is just the TW Node command:
tiddlywiki path/to/my/wiki/folder --output docs/latest --build index
At startup, the tiddler $:/tiddox/actions/setReadOnlyOnReload checks to see if we’re running in Node, and if not, turns the editing features.
If this sounds useful to you and you need more details, please let me know.
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One way to deal with this is to make two packages of tiddlers and turn them into bookmarklets. One to activate read only UI and one to deactivate it. Its then one click to change the wikis mode, but more importantly the details and logic for these buttons is not stored in the wiki.