Using TiddlyWiki to write a book, in this case non-fiction

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A little bit of usage and “behind the scenes” info about TiddlyTools PasteUp:

  • Rather than tracking the mouse X,Y pixel coordinates, the PasteUp layout grid is actually built from an array of $button widgets. It is these $button widgets that create the “snap-to-grid” effect. Each button is wrapped in a $draggable and $droppable widget to handle mouse interactions for moving and sizing “field rectangles” as well as the usual click handler to invoke the modal field editor interface.

  • The fields are drawn as rectangles on top of the button array and then a secondary button array (the “field grid”) is drawn on top of each field. This allows you to grab the field from any button inside it and drag to move the entire field.

  • Each field also has “drag handles” that appear in the top-left, top-right, bottom-left, and bottom-right of each field. You can use these handles to resize a field, rather than moving it. You can also use alt-click to change the field’s “layer” (bring-to-front, send-to-back), and ctrl-click to copy the field’s value to the clipboard.

  • To add a new field to the PasteUp layout, just place the mouse over an empty grid button and drag to highlight a desired target rectangle for the new field. Then click anywhere in the highlighted area to open a modal field editor and enter the new field’s name, value, and optional styles. You can also adjust the fields top,left,bottom and right coordinates. Click in the empty space in the middle of the layout inputs to set the field’s layer

  • In addition to direct mouse interaction with the PasteUp button grids, you can also perform all the same field creation and editing activities by using the “field table” that can be shown above the grid. Click on the PasteUp caption (e.g., “This is a Sample PasteUp”) to show the field table.

  • The gear icon (upper-right above the grid layout and field table) shows a “settings” popup that lets you select an image or X11 color value to use for the background of the grid, as well as inputs to specify the size of the grid array (width x height).

  • The settings popup also lets you select how many button grid “pages” are available in a tiddler’s PasteUp layout. To move a field to a different “page”, you can use drag-and-drop or use the modal grid editor or the field table to enter a page number. When printing the PasteUp layout, each page button grid is automatically printed on a separate physical page of the output.

There’s more features I could describe, but the above should be enough to get you started.

enjoy,
-e

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