As for the learning curve - most newbie’s (like me) stick with TW since it “just works” - and can handle a large amount of data - unlike sooo many other programs we’ve/I’ve tried.
I agree - we (consumers aka) non-dev’s don’t think like the dev’s - but the TW Dev’s are super helpful (and patient) with us - listening to the same questions - over and over - asked from different perpectives.
Thanks for the welcome @TwN00b. I agree that the devs are helpful and “TW just works” but i can see how a lot of consumers either haven’t heard of TW, due to its not being on an app list, or, if they have, are daunted by it. I don’t think it’s hard to use, especially at a basic level, but someone like my mom just won’t bother too unless they have too. That and saving are probably why more people use things like Obsidian.
I discovered it recently after giving Grok tiddlywiki another try to finally be able to grasp the true power of tiddlywiki. It is almost what I would love to have, but what deterred me for giving a try is not being able to find a portable version.
For Linux I think the easiest way is to generate an .appimage (It should be generated with the oldest distro supported so there is no issues with the libraries): https://docs.appimage.org/packaging-guide/index.html
About TiddlyWiki Popularity, as most people have already mentioned, is the non-trivial way to use plain text files.
For example, Logseq, which is currently the main Obsidian competitor (at least at the tutorial/current popularity metric) does not stop annoying me with all it’s opinionated stuff, besides polluting the plain text files with “-”.
Also I think it’s worth mentioning the Vim Wiki and emac’s Org-mode which also have great ideas to drink from.
And there is also Trilum Notes which felt a bit bloated and had low Markdown support.
Note the tree view where the + sign makes children of the tiddler
Edit: Additionally, the same tiddler can be at several places in the hierarchy (just like in trilium). Note that the tiddler caption is used instead of title, and the title is a shortid shown after the caption (in brackets: [[shortid]]) in view mode. It’s not optimal with regards to linking, but at least they are permanent and you don’t have to worry about relinking
The obsidian canvas is seductive for me because it fullfills something I have been waiting for in TW for a long time.
The worst about this wait is that there are a lot of nice attempts which got stuck before they got complete. TiddlyMap the most complete plugin has had no development since 2016, as @saqimtiaz’ floats and @jeremyruston’s cecily, @mohammad’s volantis is a great experiment but it still has some issues e.g. where the tiddlers appear.
The @linonetwo’s whiteboard-plugin gives us a canvas, but it is not really an interface to work with tiddlers yet.
Thanks for all the time invested in these projects but it would be great if it was invested in one great common project.
Obsidian shows how productive a solution where the different parts come together could be.
This continues to be incorrect as I said from the very beginning, you want automated titles, and to have a separate display title, when using automated titles. Not a lack of titles.
Sorry haven’t read all the responses here, however @Mark_S 's mention of Timimi drew me in.
TW isn’t beaten by Obsidian, it’s more like… blotted out simply by not caring to have much presence. Perhaps I’m wrong but I thought I’d read somewhere that Obsidian originated with TW’s concept at its core. What they’ve done is added a package that sells the concept whilst obfuscating the learning curve.
I’m attracted to the idea that TW remains open source and freely available but maybe the model on offer needs further analysis. There seems to be a problem.
Yes, or something like that. Any hands going up? There appears to be no leadership outside of developing core code. I’ve not seen any concrete marketing towards retention of existing users.
Also this is just one thread of many numerous waves of discussion re. the issues of uptake and retention for TW. Always there’s some great insights and solutions offered, yet very little change that hits the mark.
I’ve seen “the changes” — i.e. the HelloThere page, but… it’s disappointing that it mainly speaks to the initiated.
The best thing that could happen to TW is if a bunch of enthusiasts came together to analyse, design and deliver the much needed layer of packaging and marketing. I would subscribe to a service that aimed to keep me as an end-user directly informed on the best way to continue to manage my data when the app is updated, or when 3rd party service providers (ie. Timimi) are becoming obsolete.
It’s a huge concern for me that Timimi is no longer supported/updated, but I need to bring this up in a different thread. HOWEVER this is probably indicative of just one of the many reason’s that the people I’ve steered toward the TW welcome-mat have not ventured far over the threshold.
but using Zettlr compared to Obsidian is like using a pocket knife vs. using a Swiss Army knife
Now I believe empty edition without too much build-in plugin is like iron ore, you still need to write many wikitext to make it a Swiss Army knife. Now I’d promote Tiddlywiki empty edition as Note OS, instead of a Note app that people can directly use.
What is “swiss army knife” about Obsidian? I’ve never used it so I ask to understand. Can you basically build “anything” with Obsidian like you can with TW? If not, then it is them that are using the wrong analogy, isn’t it?
The 900 plugins available are like the attachments of a Swiss Army Knife. You can customise with CSS. But there’s a limit to what you can do without creating a javascript based plugin.
This whole analogy breaks down because you don’t make a SAK into anything, which is what you do with TW.
I thought linonetwo 's analogy to iron ore was pretty apt. You can take that pile of ore and make it into a small auto, but most people wouldn’t.
Something I think we beat obsidian at would be the ability to dynamically filter for tiddlers. As a byproduct of this, I would also say this also makes our own templates (template tiddlers) better too, and potentially easier to use. Obsidians templates actually seems pretty clunky at first glance.
I haven’t seen anything like our filter notation for Obsidian, and while the graph view is aestetically pleseant (but also possible to be copied in TiddlyWiki with plugins) TiddlyWiki’s filter notation is just, better.
one way that comes to mind is my own main usecase, which uses the Pmarios TOCP plugin to create a dynamically organizing table of contents.
Obsidian can’t really do this, you have to organize your notes yourself, but with TOCP, I can just, have tiddlywiki do it for me. A filter like "[tag[Topic Tiddlers]] :or[is[tiddler]!is[system]tags[]!has[tags]]" will just place all my topic tiddlers into a tree structure and if it has children, they get moved as a node of it, and even shows missing tiddlers for me to revisit at a later date.
I do agree with the iron ore analogy, but I would wager that it is iron ore in a workshop with more craftsmen tools / molds than obsidian, where obisidan is already an iron ingot.
I understand what you mean, What I am saying is it is not that you are “not writing the title”, but that you are “automatically naming the title” then hiding the automatic title.
The knowledge that the title field is the key to a record, a tiddler remains and is very important.
I understand “not writing” may mean no need to type a new title but this is already the case if you accept the New Tiddler #
I have discussed this kind or title automation extensively over the years and others have also presented various solutions.
I have tackled this along with others for some time and I believe the best approach is calling it the “TiddlyWiki Platform”, it is something on top of which much can be done and it does not insist on too much, it remains open for the user / designer to decide what they build.
The platform uses global Internet standards HTML, CSS and Javascript
The platform can create Websites, Applications, Documents to name a few
How you use this platform is up to the user. Vanila, Published Edition, Custom, with core and 3rd party plugins.
TiddlyWiki can be used totally independently of any provider and fully self documents its own operation, with a very high percentage of “the code” being in the same readable form used to extend it.
I’m new to TW, and I’d like to make a few observations about this topic.
Recently I have used TW to create a translation and distribution tool for Trpg’s Module. (I’m not a native English speaker, although I can read English, but this text is translated by translation software, if there is any inappropriate expression please remind me.)
Obsidian has a huge writing interface that takes up 80% of the entire screen. On the contrary, I’ve always felt that TW writes in a small window within a window. This is of course in line with tiddler’s philosophy that TW discourages long-windedness. But I don’t think it’s enough in terms of writing comfort.
Stability. Stability means two things here.
One is the stability of the experience. A lot of the features are developed by enthusiasts and don’t need to take into account the user’s UX. Mistyping a letter will be no error alert, it will just invalidate that long paragraph. Often times I forget the details of how to use some plugin. I’ll need to dig out the plugin’s manual to get it to work properly. (I understand this very well, as a personal developer, it takes a very large amount of time to handle the details and UX of the software, even more than the core features.) .
The other part refers to stability at the code level. There are tons of plugins that have stopped being maintained, certainly not difficult to use. But even the slightest fluctuation in the use of a plugin, e.g. the occasional error report, some extreme cases of bugs, can make a person weary. Because I don’t want to dive into the inner workings of the plugin to do secondary development, but there won’t be anyone to update it . I’ll just have to choose to stumble through it or abandon it altogether.
Save. I currently use TiddlyDesktop for TW file editing and saving, and I’ve had good experiences with it.
But I find it very dangerous. When I’m immersed in reading and want to edit, I need to be constantly aware of how I’m opening the TW file in front of me, or else I’m likely to need to do a complicated import/export. The resistance to newbies is also self-evident, which makes TW a software that doesn’t work out of the box.
By the way TD’s application name is nw, I’m not quite sure why, but it would confuse me a bit. There is a shortcut under the folder with the name TiddlyDesktop though, so it’s not a problem for quickly launching the software.
Programming Resistance. As it above, I have some programming basics, but TW programming is still difficult for me (the groktiddlywiki tutorials are really good). Multiple levels in transclusion, multiple similar macros, makes me despair when I write templete. “Why doesn’t he work? I’m on the right track.” Sometimes doing another form of writing for certain features might work. Sometimes it just didn’t work, even if I thought I understood the theory. I’ve learned HTML, css, and javescript for this.I even think I’m becoming a front-end programmer. But it’s still very tedious and difficult to get the functionality I want to work.
I would like to say a few extra words about TidGi. The author integrated a lot of plugins and also wrote a plugin mall-like functionality, spent a lot of effort, which is very admirable. I would say that you are too possessive of your work.
Just the screenshot above the post shows that the index on the front page has the bolded author’s name. CPL even pops up a window to remind him of his existence. It’s only right that authors attribute their work, and I couldn’t agree more. The single file and open source nature of TW makes me feel like it’s my file. When I use TidGi, I’m constantly reminded that the file doesn’t belong to me. It’s weird.
If I may suggest some of the issues you raise are not issues from my perspective. Could I suggest you search for some solutions to the limitations you have, and if you don’t get good answers post separate topics to get help.
I do think many of these issues you have experienced come from a personal viewpoint that some others (but not all) share.
The only thing I didn’t understand was your reference to “Trpg’s Module”. I have no idea what that is. Everything else was clear.
I think this is an inevitable consequence of TW’s notion of being so flexible. There are so many important things to show. But I would love a “writing mode” that can be launched with a keystroke or single button press that hid the sidebar and the top bar, rolled the type and fields editor into a single expandable bar, and replaced the side-by-side source/preview with a pair of easily toggleable tabs. I wouldn’t use this often, but when I get into a writing groove, I do prefer having few distractions.
I’m guessing a plugin to do this would be easy to write, but it’s nowhere near the top of my list.
Yes, this is a real problem, but I don’t know we solve it except for something similar to what we’re very slowly trying to do with community editions: creating a set pf community maintained plugins rather than individual author ones.
And that’s a very large job.
Again, I think a place for community maintenance would help here.
This is extremely difficult to change. One of TW’s best and longest-term selling points is that your wiki is independent; you can put it where you like, and count on it working decades hence. What’s the chance that Obsidian will be here in 2050? What’s the chance that it will be free and that you can move your data as you like? Unless a better browser-based file saving mechanism comes along, it’s hard to see a wonderful solution to this. That’s not to say that all the various savers are bad. I usually use the Node version myself, but I always think of the single-file wiki as the default.
I’m assuming it’s built in the tool once known as node-webkit, eventually shortened to “nw”.
Best of luck! This community is generally very willing to help, even if the questions are only tangentially related to TW.
I haven’t used it and can’t speak to TidGi at all, but I’d suggest directly messaging the author (you can do it here on these forums.) Sometimes just a quick message about something like that will cause an author to rethink an approach.
– That’s a reasonable goal.