Various question about tiddly wiki

#1

So i have some various question regarding tiddlywiki

  1. Is it easy to use tiddlywiki / nodejs tiddlywiki to transfer to other note taking app like obsidian or other self hosted solution. This is in case i find tiddlywiki hard to use

Whats my option of a client when using nodejs tiddlywiki? Is it just browser?

If i am gonna use the nodejs version what are my options to add and edit things if say i am out of my local network?

Is it hard to make nodejs tiddlywiki from my local server available outside my network

How do you guys use your tiddlywiki? Do you have like one for each use? Like one for journal and one for lets say expense tracking .? Is there a way to ljnk 2 tiddlywiki together?

How does the browser get the nodejs tiddlywiki? Does it get all the tiddlers, attachments, videos , other medias or just the ones that are visible? Can anyone give me some more in depth on the mechanics on this

If i want to backup my nodejs tiddlywiki what folder should i backup?

How many people can work on the nodejs tiddlywiki simultaneously

#2

TiddlyWiki comes in a couple of different builds. The simplest way to use it is TiddlyDesktop at which point the wiki is a single file that you can keep in Dropbox or what have you. Node JS is used to run TiddlyWiki as a web app on your own server, where you would access it through a normal web browser. There is also TiddlyHost which makes your wiki available anywhere.

Different people use TiddlyWiki in different ways. Some create a wiki per subject or project, others create one overall. I personally use one large wiki as a sort of second brain. I tried splitting up by subject but found that I wanted to link across wikis enough that it wasn’t worth it.

Node JS stores all of the wiki content as files on the server that gets served up when you access the wiki through a browser. The folder to backup depends on where you installed everything.

Multi user editing isn’t necessarily the strong suit of TiddlyWiki, though I’ll let others chime in for recommendations. Frankly, if my main use case was multi user editing, web access, and no database maintenance, I would lean towards dokuwiki [DokuWiki] over TiddlyWiki.

#3

This will change soon: Announcing the MultiWikiServer Plugin - Discussion - Talk TW (tiddlywiki.org)

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#4

Hi,
There are some interesting questions

--------- Long post warning ---------

Exporting from the wiki works in the same way for “single file” or “nodejs” wiki.

TW allows you to export in different formats. eg: The following filter string will create a list of tiddlers tagged: HelloThere [tag[HelloThere]] Since the HelloThere tiddler also has content it needs to be added too.

So: [tag[HelloThere]] HelloThere will create the following list. Using the “export” button image, we can export the listed tiddlers as

image
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  • The CSV file can be imported by every software, that understands CSVs
  • We mainly use the JSON files to transfer sets of tiddlers between TiddlyWikis. Any web-dev should understand JSON
  • The static HTML file can be hosted with very basic hosting services. But since there is no JavaScript, the page is not interactive.
  1. The client usually is the browser.
  2. But any software that does understand JSON could request info from the server

add 1.
If the “default” URL is requested the server delivers a “tiddlywiki.html” file, which contains all the tiddlers. So from the client side of view, there is no difference between a single-file or a nodejs wiki.

add 2.
If a path like this: http://example.com/wiki/recipes/default/tiddlers.json is requested, the server delivers a JSON representation.

2.1 Shown in a browser it would look like this:

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2.2 Or nicely formatted by the browser

image
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This question not TiddlyWiki specific. It depends on your needs, your IT knowledge and your budget.

TLDR;
A single-file wiki hosted with read and write access on GitHub or GitLab using the “out of the box” git*-savers will be much easier handle than a “home-lab” configuration.

---- long version

The most secure way to access a self-hosted server is the local network, since your TELCO box “protects” “localhost” from the outside world.

If you need access from the outside a VPN is a proper solution. VPNs are mainly know to hide your browsing behaviour from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or to watch video streams from other regions :wink: Depending on the VPN provider there should be other services to give you access to the your home network. You’ll have to have a closer look.

Tailscale is a product and a mainly open source project hosted on GitHub

Tailscale makes creating software-defined networks easy: securely connecting users, services, and devices.

They have a free and paid plans, where the free one should be good for a “private network with worldwide access” – The closed source “Management Server” is the convenience your have to pay for.

For “self-hosters” on a public server there is an open source version Headscale (I did find this project, doing some research while writing this post. So I do not know it :wink: )

As you can see, there can be a bit of complexity, which is not TW specific.

I do have several wikis.

The main one, a “knowledge base”, is a single-file wiki hosted on my main computer using an IIS (MS Internet Information Server) webdav server. There are several others using IIS nodejs configuration, mainly for testing. One of them is a “brain dump” for ideas, which need refactoring. If refactored the will be moved to the “knowledge base”. All of them are backuped using a local NAS

In a transparent way as a “single-file” wiki. If the main URL is requested, the server “compiles” a HTML file and sends it. There is a lazy-loading mechanism, but I personally do not need it, except external images, where I do use the _canonical_uri field

If you have big file attachments, you should serve them separately from the files/ folder. Server side TW has the following main structure, where tiddlers will be saved in the tiddlers directory and files directory is for big files. They need to be placed there manually.

myWiki/
  +-- tiddlywiki.info
  +-- tiddlers/
        +-- New_Tiddler.tid
  +-- files
        +-- test.png

For more details see the docs about static file server

As seen in the dir structure above myWiki + all subdirectories.

There is a 3rd party multi-user wiki called Bob - Interwiki communication and Multiuser wikis, a reminder about TWederation and Bob

hope that helps

have fun!
Mario

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#5

TiddlyPWA is worth a closer look. It is a single-file version which uses the browser-storage if there is no internet connection an syncs if connection is possible.

More details here at Talk: TiddlyPWA: Secure offline storage and cross-device synchronization solution

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#6

I don’t use the nodejs version of TiddlyWiki, and, although pretty terrific, I do not use TiddlyDesktop (doesn’t fit well with how I use my computer.)

I work with most of my TiddlyWiki instances (the ones I work with the least) via Google Drive. The one’s I work with most and consider “draft” versions (and share with others) I keep on TiddlyHost.

TiddlyWiki instances that I “publish” as “releases”, I host those on Neocities.

I’ve setup the “BASIC Anywhere Machine Programming Reference and User Guide” TiddlyWiki to show content from the “BASIC Anywhere Machine” TiddlyWiki where it is helpful as part of the documentation to see BASIC code from the other TiddlyWiki.

This is all done with a bunch of trickery that involves loading the other TiddlyWiki in its entirety, displaying it in an iframe, and getting it to show very specific content, hiding that TiddlyWiki instance’s interface.

For example, if you lookup the CIRCLE statement documentation and scroll way down, you’ll find an iframe showing programs from the other TiddlyWiki that you can look at and also RUN.

https://basicanywheremachine.neocities.org/bam-progreference?target=Bookmarks%3A%3ACIRCLE#Home

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