Sometimes I run into problems when converting things into plugins, that I did not intend to be plugins at first.
Apart from stupid namings I made the main problem is that shadowtiddlers do not appear in lists if they are not explicitly invited.
Is there a cure to track down these problems?
btw: Why are shadowtiddlers treated different than normal systemtiddlers here?
That is a design decision.
Plugin tiddlers are treated as “shadow tiddlers”. Internally they are in a physically different “shadow- store”. Independent of their name. The shadow store is built at wiki startup and then is immutable.
User created tiddlers prefixed with $:/ are system tiddlers, which are stored in the “wiki store”.
Tiddlers prefixed $:/ are excluded from standard lists. (A design decision)
Since most plugin tiddlers are prefixed with $:/ (by convention) they become system tiddlers if they are modified by users.
If they are modified, they will be cloned into the “wiki-store”. The “wiki-store” takes precedence over the “shadow store”. – The user always wins 
If an overwritten (shadow)tiddler is deleted, the real shadow tiddler can take over again. – That’s one of the major mechanisms that make TW so “fault resistent”.
Since the shadow-store and the wiki-store are physically separated, we need a mechanism to “invite” shadows into lists. That’s
-
[all[shadows]]… which only shows the shadows. -
[all[shadows+tiddlers]]shows both stores and overwritten shadows will win
That’s the reason, why shadows need to be treated differently.
hope that makes sense
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From that point of view it makes complete sense … it only starts to be a problem when a tiddler is turned into a plugin/shadow-tiddler and does not appear in a list anymore where it is needed - there it would be more usefull to treat shadows and system to appear in lists alike.
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There is a discussion going on, Using tiddlywiki documentation when contained in a plugin which has the same problem.
So there may be light on the horizon
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