What is your approach to separate "planning" (tasks, projects) and "knowledge" (notes, journal) tiddlers?

#1

Hi!

There are only a few days I discovered TiddlyWiki and it has already become one of the tools I cannot live without. Thanks for the great work!

I have a question, though, for other TiddlyWiki users: I’d like to know how you organize your TiddlyWiki, specially regarding tiddlers about stuff you want to do/learn (tasks, projects, etc.) and things you have already done but want to keep around (notes, journal entries, etc.).

Let me give you a small example: I want to learn Linux so I created a tiddler called “Linux” with a bunch of tasks like “learn to install it”, “learn how to use it”, “learn how to install a new application” and so on. As I learn stuff, I write down what I have learnt, but things start getting confused because both tiddlers have “planning” and “knowledge” information.

I though about using one of these approaches:

  1. keeping both Linux learning planning and Linux knowledge notes under the same tiddler (that is what I’m doing right now), but things are starting getting confusing. I still have other tiddlers for different subject like “Apache” or “PHP” but both “planning” and “knowledge” for the same thing live in the same tiddler.
  2. having two different tiddlers for “planning” and “knowledge” stuff, like “Linux Tasks” and “Linux Notes”. I can use different tags to separate them.
  3. having “planing” and “knowledge” stuff in different TiddlyWiki files, which is a problem because I cannot link each others tiddlers.

Do you have any suggestion?

Thanks!

EDIT: clarify; replaced terms “future” and “past” for “planning” and “knowledge”

#2

I assume in point 1. you mean "keep everything under the same Tiddlywiki not tiddler, if that is the case it might be a good idea to edit your post for clarity.

I use linux myself (Ubuntu) - I cannot imagine wanting Linux notes mixed in with non-technical stuff so I would probably be thinking either a dedicated Tiddlywiki for linux or perhaps one for computer related stuff in general, personally I would not be mixing Linux with say notes on Gardening or Cookery but some people may prefer that. If there is no relationship between topics then some might argue for separate TiddlyWikis but there can never be a right or wrong here because different people have different needs and preferences, its a matter of getting what’s right for you.

There are some plugins for things like “to do” lists - using such a plugin might help you organise and force you to keep planning and knowledge items separate.

#3

Thanks! I actually meant using the same tiddler, but just edited the text to try to make it clearer. Also, “knowledge” and “planning” terms are much better than “future” and “past” that I was using, so I replaced them in the text as well. Thanks!

Well, separating “Linux” from “Cookery” is another discussion. I don’t find myself using different TiddlyWikis to separate them, although I though using different TiddlyWikis for planning and knowledge stuff, in which case I’d probably have both Linux and Cookery tiddlers in each one of them.

#4

First of all, welcome to talk.tiddlywiki!

I think it’s a good idea to frequently re-read The Philosphy of Tiddlers:

The purpose of recording and organising information is so that it can be used again. The value of recorded information is directly proportional to the ease with which it can be re-used.

The philosophy of tiddlers is that we maximise the possibilities for re-use by slicing information up into the smallest semantically meaningful units with rich modelling of relationships between them. Then we use aggregation and composition to weave the fragments together to present narrative stories.

TiddlyWiki aspires to provide an algebra for tiddlers, a concise way of expressing and exploring the relationships between items of information.

The trick here is small. If you have a tiddler that has multiple ideas in it, break it into parts. Learn to use the excise tool if you already haven’t. Then make sure you have some useful and consistent Tagging for your tiddlers. When you do these things, you can arrange and rearrange as seems helpful.

So imagine that you’ve done this, and you have these tiddlers:

title: Learn to install Linux
tags: Task Linux Learning

See https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overview for pointers.

title: Learn how to use Linux
tags: Task Linux Learning

Start with Linux for Dummies...

title: Learn how to install a new application
tags: Task Linux Learning

...

title: Review cron jobs
tags: Task Maintenance Linux
frequency: quarterly

Make sure all cron jobs are still relevant

title: Resetting date and time
tags: Linux Note

Open the Activities overview and type Settings....

title: Elevating permissions
tags: Linux Note

See https://www.pluralsight.com/resources/blog/cloud/linux-commands-for-beginners-sudo ...

title: Figure out that .htaccess thingy
tags: Task Apache Learning

...

Then you can write main tiddlers which either transclude that content or link to it. For instance, you might have a Linux tiddler:

title: Linux
tags: Topic

! Tasks

<<list-links filter:"[tag[Task]tag<currentTiddler>]" >>

! Notes

<<list-links filter:"[tag[Note]tag<currentTiddler>]" >>

Which might look like this:

Tasks

Notes

Or you can inline some of that content with transclude.

You can see this in action by downloading the following and dragging it onto an empty wiki: ttw8270a.json (3.6 KB). Save and refresh, and you’ll have a minimal example like this.

#5

However, the espoused philosophy only works to a point – scaling and naming become issues. It’s not easy to come up with a robust naming system on day one, especially when learning an (essentially) unknown topic area like the OP. Over time, looking back at earlier name choices can be painful.

So, yeah, I’m not sold. I’d rather HTML-tag smaller segments and re-consume and re-present them using an evolution of @Mark_S’ (now ancient) split/regex stuff.

<linux-install>
1. Get Scott to do it.
2. Don't forget to pay Scott.
</linux-install>
#6

It’s clear that this can happen; but I haven’t really hit that wall yet. But I’m a ruthless re-namer too. When a naming scheme starts to run into issues, or clearly shows that it will at some point, then I find a way (usually automated) to rename everything. Often that can be automated, and I do that a lot in tools external to TW, on the tiddler files I use in Node.

My largest wiki has about 4000 tiddlers, but a large majority of those are data tiddlers that I search and display, but rarely combine with anything else – although that is coming. The remaining 500 have been easy enough to name consistently and to do the sort of combining I discuss above. Maybe if this group expanded another order of magnitude, I’d see the issue too.

Oh, and +1 on “Don’t forget to pay Scott!” :slight_smile:

I don’t know what that is, I’m afraid.

#7

You can do it all in one file. I used to do that. But I tend to have three types of TiddlyWiki files (I use standalone):

  1. Tasks / to do (a fairly small file)
  2. Info (information related to tasks, how to do this and that, where to find this or that, including contacts - in a sense it is the equivalent of archiving Gmails) (a fairly large file)
  3. Reading notes (extremely large file since I read a lot)

I find it helpful for faster searching, and mental clarity, to keep the files separate. I have a folder in my Chrome bookmark bar and select which one I need.

Not saying this is the way to go for you. I am just mentioning my set up as an option to consider.

#8

One thing I use a lot is list-searches for lists that get long. See the front page of my Documenting TW — a non-linear personal web notebook for an example of two side by side list-searches.

Also, that file is a collection of tips and tricks that you can use as you like…

1 Like
#9

Of course.

One thing I did a long time ago, was step away from content tiddlers needing to be named descriptively. Now I use a structured numbering system and any “title” goes in a subtitle field (this is all displayed in a heavily customised UI). So, for me, that issue never occurs, anyway (any more).

Perhaps this is a reflection more on how I use TW – for authoring. Each “chapter” gets a number. Each chapter can have many “sections” – again, numbers. Combined, the numbers become the tiddler title – which I call a chapsec. The chapsecs for chapter 1 with 3 sections might be 1-010, 1-020, 1-030 – padded to 3 and allowing for “gaps” in case 1-025 becomes a requirement. The chapsec 1-000 is used as a notes tiddler containing notes about the chapter as a whole (where all *-000 chapsecs are excluded from regular searches).

I’ll see if I can dig out Mark’s original regex thing – it’s really what turbo-charged this whole thing. But I have a feeling it’s long gone/subsumed into my evolved version.

1 Like
#10

I might need to steal that idea :heart:

#11

@CodaCoder

Check this post

Is this the regexp thing by @Mark_S which you are referring to?

#12

No, that’s his regexps plugin (I use(d) that too). The stuff I started out with was little more than a one-liner he posted to Goolag Groups like… 8 years ago? Longer?

2 Likes
#13

I use a customised version of Projectify for may main central wiki, but I do seperate into seperate wikis as needed. One thing I added was the ability to write reference tiddlers within each project.

Remain aware of the philosophy of tiddlers, remember the title is the “key” to the record (tiddler) containing information. Concider this general rule;

The content of a tiddler is related to its title, the whole title and nothing (much) more than the title.

However as your question is quite general in nature we could perhaps share many different ideas and methods and you would be overwhelmed, I have found tiddlywiki enables something special and recomend taking this approach;

Let you solution evolve. Start with what you know and organise your tiddlers by tags and perhaps using the TOC macros. Just dont loose information as you bring in new content. Ensure you record things like project name, domain (Personal/work/project) on tiddlers. Idealy as tags or fields rather than as free form text.

  • As you learn more about tiddlywiki keep track of ways to transform groups of tiddlers such as with batch button or commander.
    • This is much easier in tags and fields than free text
  • learn how to insert, list, link, transclude, and excise tiddlers.
  • Develop a way to apply a status to tiddlers
  • Do your best to make use of existing features, for example create and modified dates contain useful information including the ability to identify age, is today, is this week etc…
  • You will be enabled to transform your wiki as you have new ideas and develop new skills. Including in responce to the information you put in it.

You can evolve your wiki to fit you like a glove.

Tiddlywiki is a platform on which to take control of your own software and applications, while benifiting from the work of those before you. It is an inversment that repalys in both the short and long terms.