I’d like your help, please. After trying out TW for a bit, and now seeing it as something incredibly simple that can become monstrously complex…
First, I’d like to ask… is it possible to create a TW server where each tiddle and each plugin is in a separate file? Is this possible with the Node.js version? How do I update TW in this case? Is it easy to use a certificate/SSL in this case?
Hi Fabio,
Welcome. Everything you describe is already possible.
Which OS do you intend to use?
Hi Fabio,
I definitely suggest to run tw as a local server. I am running tw for several years now on my raspberry so I can access it from all my devices in my home network (as well as a node-red based home automation - email to tiddly, telegram to tiddly, etc.). Each tiddler is stored in a file, so backup is abreeze.
Tiddly as a server becomes a lot more powerful than the standalone version already is
Cheers Eric
As others have already said, node gives you a server and file-per-tid paradigm (you can create .tid files via any mechanism you want, but have to restart the server for it to pick them up)
I do that via an nginx reverse proxy, which alongside a port forward from my home router, gives me access to my primary home network TW from anywhere. The nginx setup not only handles SSL, but authentication also (if I have a valid cookie it doesn’t prompt. If I don’t have a cookie and come from the internal network, it doesn’t prompt and sets the cookie. If no cookie and from remote (ie, via the port forwarded tunnel because I’m on the road), then it prompts - and on correct auth, sets the cookie. The practical upshot is that I have http basic auth, but 99.9% of the time I don’t need to use it!)
I’ve got two other node TW I have running, one purely internal, and one that will one day be properly public
@tiddlyD amazing. and what do you use? GitHub - tiddlyhost/tiddlyhost-com: Rails application for creating and hosting TiddlyWiki sites, plus resources for deploying it to https://tiddlyhost.com/ ? node? mws? does the update go smoothly? thanks for the reply
@nemo thanks too! please, do you recommend any tutorial on how to use reverse proxy with nginx and TW? I’m a programmer, but I’m a desktop programmer. Old school. I only know the basics about hosting.
I couldn’t recommend any tutorials sorry - I’m perhaps the inverse of you in that I only know the basics of programming, but I’m an old school hosting sysadmin - picked up a lot (if not most) stuff through a combination of professional osmosis, and adhoc searches for at-the-time specific needs.
I do try and keep decent notes about where I found quirky config solutions though, and my auth setup has this comment:
nginx cookie magic from here: Very simple authentication using one-time cookie on nginx - Stack Overflow
which cribbed from: No nginx basic auth with either network or cookie set · Blog · Liip
I can’t use these words “monstrously complex” just because TiddlyWiki is capable of expanding in many directions. It is the user who may choose to make things “monstrously complex” but tiddlywiki does not cause it.
I have never thought of TW as monstrously complex, but it is monstrously powerful. I can remember when I was getting to grips with TW feeling impatience, I wanted to get it all going right away but in truth it takes time to find out how to use a tool as powerful as TW especially if you are technically proficient… (you see more possibilities but don’t immediately know how to get there) …because as you point out we are not steered along narrow pathways as in other systems but landed in an endless realm of possibilities - - it feels better when things settle down and we start just taking incremental steps towards our goal. There is the ever present topic of saving - single file TW vs node JS and the consequences of the decision to design TW around a single file model (one I value very much) but that aside I see very little of TW that is an obvious flaw - rather every decision made has consequences and TW represents the consequences of well considered decisions.