11 ms·

Tiddlywiki – A non-linear personal web notebook

331 points by entelechy 8y ago

jtl999 8y ago
I remember first hearing of TiddlyWiki back in 2005(?) Glad to see it's still here.
- Milner08 8y ago
  I was wondering if it was the same project I remembered! I used to use it in high school, with its stored on a USB stick that i'd carry around on my keys. Was pretty useful at the time, wouldn't want to carry around a USB stick now, but using dropbox is interesting.
TomDavey 8y ago
A hyperlinked knowledge-management system for personal use, on all my computers, is essential. To achieve it, I use Emacs and Org-Mode and Dropbox. An additional benefit of using Emacs: the personal wiki can be integrated with my task-management system, which Org-Mode handles as well. Plus I can draft and edit at warp speed, having customized the native Emacs keybindings to suit me better. Were I going to publish my wiki to the Web for others to use, I'd export the wiki to HTML with Org. But for now it's all personal.
- dotancohen 8y ago
  How are you using Org-mode on Android? I'm using Orgzly, but it only supports a subset of real Org-mode.
  - hsitz 8y ago
    I don't synch between instances of Org, but you can install a full-blown Emacs (and many other apps) on Android within the Termux terminal emulator: http://endlessparentheses.com/running-emacs-on-android.html http://endlessparentheses.com/running-emacs-on-android.html It runs Org fine, I've even used Spacemacs on Emacs runnning in Termux.
  - TomDavey 8y ago
    I haven't integrated Org with either my email or my phone (I'm on iOS actually), at least not yet. It's on the road map!
    - confounded 8y ago
      beorg is great if you use a single directory for files. Unfortunately it’s proprietary and missing a few features. But it’s pretty slick. It’s now the app I turn to (not my calendar) when I’m wondering what I’m supposed to be doing today.
- Vekz 8y ago
  I also have the Emacs + Org-mode + Dropbox setup. In addition, I have an AWS lambda endpoint which listens to a SES email hook. I send emails to the SES address which the hook then appends and schedules to org files on dropbox based on email content.
  - kaushalmodi 8y ago
    Can you do a small write-up on that lambda function? I know nothing about those, but I know that Netlify kind of? supports them? If possible I'd like to set up an end point on my Netlify deployed site and do what you are doing. Thanks! :)
- nextos 8y ago
  I also use org-mode as a personal wiki, combined with git version control and ripgrep search. Furthermore, my task/time management is also within the wiki, as a kanban page and as an events page. Org has tons of useful features. Especially for time management and export. But it's also quite simple. I started implementing a personal wiki using MediaWiki long time ago, trying to replicate the concept of Zettelkasten. But MediaWiki is a bit too heavy and complex, even if you use a SQLite backend. Furthermore, it doesn't compose with my editor and version control system of choice. I think having a wiki is essential, as the deliverable of many tasks is just a knowledge bit you really want to record. It's interesting to see personal wikis are starting to show up in GitHub and GitLab. I wish both platforms improved their org-mode support to capitalize on this trend. We can all collectively benefit from open-sourced wikis in the same way we benefit from open code.
  - jlgaddis 8y ago
    For a decade or so, Dokuwiki has been my "go to" application for a personal wiki. Simple syntax, quick and easy to get up and running, and doesn't even need SQLite -- your pages are just plain text files in a directory and, yes, you can edit them in the browser or $EDITOR.
- iBelieve 8y ago
  I'm curious, are you (or anyone else using Org Mode) using a single org file for your entire personal wiki, or one file per major topic? In the past, I've used Markdown files with one file per language/topic for my personal developer wiki, but am looking at moving it to Org Mode now. One file for everything (developer knowledge + other subjects) seems nice, but it seems like trying to manage and navigate around a single large file would get messy.
  - danShumway 8y ago
    I use separate files for separate topics. Org mode is pretty good at linking between files. I've even done coding projects where a TODO list links to lines of code inside of a source file (by grep, not by line number, otherwise they'd go outdated every time I committed). Getting into Org-mode, I would occasionally run into people who would say, "there's one right way to do this. You should be using Org-agenda view for all of your TODOs, you should be setting up tags with this specific system..." Over time, I have learned to ignore those people. The main benefit of Org-mode is that it is really, really, stinking flexible. You should use whatever system you're most comfortable with (probably whatever you were using before with Markdown) and then slowly adapt features like auto-archiving TODOs, time-tracking, tags, Org-capture, as you need them. You should look into them, because sometimes you see something cool like Org-capture and you're like, "woah, I could just hit one keypress, type in a sentence, and it'll get auto-filed for me based on the content." But let that "coolness" factor be the thing that guides you. Org-mode is really big and really adaptable, so if you try to grab everything in one go, you'll end up turning your notes into a chore again. I started using Org-mode specifically because I hated having to adapt a very personal notetaking style to more rigid commercial apps. And my notetaking style evolves based on what I'm going through in life anyway. Org-mode allows it to be more rigid or more flexible based on life circumstances.
  - TomDavey 8y ago
    A single Org file holds my wiki. Yes, it's big, but Org's features make it easily manageable. Org has fine hyperlinking, and equally fine searching -- including searches on headline tags and properties -- using regexps if desired. Underneath is the logical outline structure -- just like a website -- and the hierarchical inheritance of tags and properties. Plus -- here's where Org is superior to a Web-based wiki IMO -- it's so easily refactored. When I started I had only a few top-level entries. Over time, I have accumulated hundreds of headlines and their accompanying body text. Multi-level structure emerged naturally, and continues to evolve. Here are my top-level categories today: 1. Arts and Entertainment 2. Diet and Health 3. Household 4. Restaurant and Bars 5. Petronius.me (my household LAN) 6. Subscriptions 7. People and Me 8. Travel 9. Commonplace Book (quotes, links, and reading I've saved) Org makes it easy to move things around and re-organize as needed: just cut a subtree and paste it to a new location in the hierarchy. Org's linking make cross-references a cinch. Who was that person I met on this trip? Oh, here's a link to their personal entry in "People and Me". And that entry will link back to the trip in "Travel." A headline's unique ID property guarantees that a link will never break, no matter how frequently or drastically you move things around.
- danShumway 8y ago
  How do you handle images/screenshots/handwritten notes? I am also using Org-Mode and Dropbox for the majority of my notes. I really like it. In particular, Orgzly for Android works great with this system, so check it out if you want mobile notes as well. The problem is that I also like to take paper notes, and take videos/pictures of stuff, and scan documents, and download webpages. Org-mode kinda stinks for embedding external content that isn't text? As far as I can tell. I can link to external content, and if I export to HTML it'll show up. But... I never export to HTML, because, as you probably already know, it's way easier to read notes in an editable format. I can turn on picture rending in Org-mode, but it's not responsive, and I can't crop the pictures or annotate them with a stylus, or do any of a dozen different things that I want to do. What I've thought about is that I really just want the ability to render HTML/CSS inside of an Org-mode buffer, and ideally to be able to set up custom CSS classes that would be applied to every snippet. Just set up a quick region, write some helper functions to compile/render the HTML, etc... I've been thinking for a while about taking some time off of work to just try and solve the problem. Is it already solved? I know that at one point people were looking into getting webkit embedded into buffers. Did that go anywhere? I guess you can build GTK widgets for Org-mode as well? But then you lose the ability to define custom styles on the fly.
  - nextos 8y ago
    You can make some tweaks to org to get images to display nicely: https://lepisma.github.io/2017/10/28/ricing-org-mode/ https://lepisma.github.io/2017/10/28/ricing-org-mode/
    - danShumway 8y ago
      A) That is beautiful, thank you for sharing B) Does it actually address the image problem? The config appears to be using the built in inline-images, which don't support responsive widths. Even getting rid of responsive widths, simply embedding the image into the buffer isn't really good enough for handwritten notes -- you need at least the ability to crop/zoom.
      - nextos 8y ago
- sriku 8y ago
  Same .. but Keybase has replaced Dropbox for me for these purposes. The encrypted git repositories are awesome!
- safgasCVS 8y ago
  I'm jealous of the emacs masters as I like the idea of having this 'one tool for life' but I'm honest enough to admit I'm just too lazy to learn it!
  - marci 8y ago
    If you know how to use Notepad/TextEdit, you know how to use (GUI)Emacs. Even easier than nano.
    - zmix 8y ago
      I think he talks about configuration and scripting (elisp).
agentdax5 8y ago
I looked into Tiddlywiki before but it seemed too involved to maintain easily and overkill for my use case. I have recently found https://www.notebooksapp.com/ https://www.notebooksapp.com/ and am in the process of converting all my desperate notes and documents into it using the internal linking to create my own kind of wiki. Everything is plain text, has markdown support, apps on most platforms, ability to automate things for everyday use, and easier to use overall. Also I just can’t stand the idea of “tiddlers”.
- moioci 8y ago
  Although I kinda love the idea of desperate notes and documents, I think you probably meant "disparate."
shawn 8y ago
I'd like to be able to press a shortcut key and have my computer save a screenshot of whatever I'm looking at, along with letting me type a brief note for context. Ideally it would also record the URL of whatever the browser was visiting (if it's a screenshot of a browser page), or the file path of whatever was open. So basically Pinboard, but for pages of PDFs and other random scraps.
- severine 8y ago
  Do you know about Firefox Screenshots? https://screenshots.firefox.com/ https://screenshots.firefox.com/ Just for the browser (but that could include PDFs and other things), I think they aim for a workflow very similar to the one you envision.
- walterbell 8y ago
  iOS has support for screenshots and annotations, but the resulting images are not searchable. Devonthink on macOS/iOS will save text snippets and text annotations, into a searchable database.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- submeta 8y ago
  Evernote does something like this. And it let's you search for text in the images as well. I have over 12k notes in Evernote. Many screenshots. It has excellent OCR capabilities, full-text search (via Lucene?) and syncs across devices.
  - murrayb 8y ago
    Yep search, search across attachments and web page capture means that Evernote rules in this space for me. Evernote has traditionally been marketed as a note-taking app but for me it is a personal database/encyclopaedia. The ease of finding anything without having to worry about structure or links (though I have a bit of both) is fantastic.
  - luckman212 8y ago
rwbt 8y ago
TiddlyWiki is great, but I really need is something like Notational Velocity but everything is stored in a single html file (with .js embedded of course), so that it's very portable.
lxe 8y ago
The most unique thing for me is the fact that it's an .html file that you can just download and run. The data/saving mechanism is completely separate. This "unhosted-ness" seems to be a growing trend.
- catach 8y ago
  Could be trend, but TiddlyWiki isn't a data point for it, given that the project is over a decade old.
- kvakil 8y ago
  You might find this interesting: https://unhosted.org/ https://unhosted.org/
hobo_mark 8y ago
I look at TW every couple of years or so, and there has never been either: - a sane way to keep a wiki on something like Dropbox (at the time, the only way to have persistence was to disable browser security and allow JavaScript to write to disk directly) or - a service to sync a wiki between machines Has that changed nowadays?
- siegecraft 8y ago
  I run a tiddlywiki server (on my server) and sync the files between all my devices. That way I always have a copy of my data, but I always do my editing through the server. Previous to this setup I tried to sync to all my devices and edit them locally, but it wasn't worth the trouble. I find that I don't mind doing all my edits through an online service.
- kickscondor 8y ago
  I've enjoyed using it on Dropbox - with this: https://twcloud.github.io/tw5-dropbox/ https://twcloud.github.io/tw5-dropbox/ The great thing about TiddlyWiki is that you can easily move it somewhere else and edit from there because it is just a single file.
- walkingolof 8y ago
  I use Emacs org-mode for this, works like a charm
- enugu 8y ago
  There is a server version, which you can run locally. This keeps all the individual tiddlers in separate files in a folder. You can sync this folder, run git on it etc. Currently, the server doesnt seem to notice changes made outside the server interface(like editing and saving tiddlers in a text editor) until restart, though there is probably some way to manage this.
  - bhandziuk 8y ago
    I had to make the upgrade to the server version at home because FireFox no longer supports the TiddlyFox (or whatever the extension was called which allowed you to save to disk). The server version is actually much nicer. It loads faster because I don't have to download one massive file and works much better from my phone because of that.
eponeponepon 8y ago
I tried using TiddlyWiki some years back but never really reached the stage where I felt I could definitely trust my use of it to result in it saving my notes properly. The real utility of it, I'm sure, comes with a large corpus - but I never got there. At the time though, my only option was keeping it as a local file on a single machine - these days my home infrastructure is much more developed, and I think I might have more luck running it on a proper http server. Maybe I'll give it another shot.
cbau 8y ago
I've been writing a personal encyclopedia for the last five or six years or so. I have some 1500+ articles multiple of which are 50+ pages. I think it's been really valuable. I think I get a few things out of it: 1. Perfect recall. Every little detail I read in a book/blog/article stays with me. Makes it easy to synthesize results from multiple pieces across time, which is useful when you only have a casual interest in something. (I really like downloading the cool education images/GIFs and and inserting them in articles- otherwise I don't know where I'd keep them.) 2. Reveals what I don't know about a subject. For example, whenever I start off writing a new article on some topic, the first thing I write is a definition, e.g. "A cat is an animal that ...". The process of doing that often reveals gaps in my understanding. 3. It makes me better at asking questions when I'm trying to understand something. The analogy I like to make here is that learning a second language is harder than a third language, because after learning the second you know what you need to know to understand a language. But there's no reason that should be limited to languages and couldn't apply to all things, and things themselves. Some questions I like to ask are "What is the function/uses of this thing?" "What are the parts of this thing and how are they arranged?" "How do we make this thing?" "What's the history of this thing?" "What subtypes of this thing are there?" The downside is that it dramatically slows down my reading speed, since I now feel I need to take detailed notes, and then I often have to reconcile them with notes on other things which can be time-consuming. Considering the number of books a person could realistically read in their lifetime is limited, it's unclear if it's worth the tradeoff. I'm curious how other people think about remembering things, and if they have a system, what tools they use. It seems unsatisfying to me to read a book and realize I'll probably forget it in four years, yet most people seem content to do so. If anyone is interested in the specific software I use, here's the Github project: https://github.com/Ceasar/Encyclopedia https://github.com/Ceasar/Encyclopedia. It uses restructuedText (as opposed to Markdown) for the text. I edit them using Vim. All the files are stored in Dropbox so it gets synced between my devices. A simple Flask web server renders the pages in a prettier format. Still very primitive compared to what it could potentially be, but combined with regular Unix command line tools it's worked fine for my needs. (I like the idea of a hacker-wiki by the way, more than something like this which comes out of the box. Seems like an personal wiki designed for a power user could be way more interesting.)
- 8y ago
Glawen 8y ago
I discovered TW a few months ago and I decided to use it for our new project at work. We use it to document our SW, one tiddler for each module. So far, it is working great, we can quite easily merge our code and doc because everything is in one file. I find it much easier to use than Word. My colleagues were startled by it, but they mastered it now. The only annoying thing are: - we need to press 2 carriage return to go to the next line - the markup languages are never standard. we use redmine with textile which is kinda compatible with TW, but not 100%
TeMPOraL 8y ago
A bit of a tangent, but I'm looking at the (official? shown on site) Tiddlywiki poster[0], and I just have to ask: what is that fish doing, and does this really communicate something positive about the product? -- [0] - https://tiddlywiki.com/poster/images/TiddlyWiki_TiddlerPoster_en_L.png https://tiddlywiki.com/poster/images/TiddlyWiki_TiddlerPoste...
- OJFord 8y ago
  Never used Tiddlywiki, just guessing from your link: the fish is a tiddler [0], it's consuming a mess [several entangled lines] and excreting something unified and cohesive [single line]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiddler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiddler ('Tiddler' is perhaps BrEng slang? I'm British, and I'd say it's slang - especially when applied not to a fish, but to something or someone small - but I don't know how widespread it is.)
  - tofof 8y ago
    From that wiki page: > A small fish, especially the three-spined stickleback My wife, a neuroscientist researching three-spined stickleback, has never come across the term 'tiddler'. Midwestern US. So, yes, I would say it is solitarily British slang.
- techsupporter 8y ago
  I think it is meant to evoke the Babel fish.
  - severine 8y ago
    Mmm, not sure, do you have more info? Although the pic from the BBC doc here [0] really has a resemblance. It sure is a really weird/fascinating design... [0] http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Babel_Fish http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Babel_Fish
pixelmonkey 8y ago
I personally think Tiddlywiki is a fascinating project and I even used it professionally for a few years. But, these days, I think you likely do better with either a Dropbox directory full of Markdown files or installing the free tool Simplenote everywhere (mobile/desktop) and using its support for notes/Markdown. It's true that if you go with these simple schemes, you lose wiki-style linking. But, I've found that YAGNI applies here.
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  Tiddlywiki is BSD licensed.
- tommoor 8y ago
  For team use take a look at the open source wiki we've been working on, simple, BSD licensed, well designed and works with Markdown: http://getoutline.com http://getoutline.com
  - a012 8y ago
    It looks good but I saw they require Slack developer which is a no for me > Outline requires the following dependencies: > Postgres >=9.5 > Redis > Slack developer application
    - tommoor 8y ago
      Either Google or Slack will work, I've updated the README to reflect that
      - stephenr 8y ago
        That doesn’t really solve the problem. The recent Facebook debacle should be example why.
- zouhair 8y ago
  How does Simplenote make money?
hyperpape 8y ago
I wrote my own system for capturing and organizing information (https://lobste.rs/s/ord0rg/does_anyone_else_keep_their_own_knowledge#c_cxecdn https://lobste.rs/s/ord0rg/does_anyone_else_keep_their_own_k...), so I understand the desire to fiddle with your own system. That said, the list of literally 20 different ways of storing your Tiddlywiki data is user-hostile. Don't tell me that you have a Node server and a PHP server, just give me the easiest way to self-host, how to use Dropbox/Google Drive, or perhaps one more option. You can include a link to "other options", but don't put them front and center. Even open-source tools that appeal to us nerds need some attention to marketing.
darpa_escapee 8y ago
Besides Tiddlywiki, does anyone have recommendations for personal wiki software?
- interfixus 8y ago
  Zim, if you actually need the wiki-like stuff. Cherrytree, if you are mainly after the structured note-taking functionality. I use both. Cherrytree for all my daily notational needs. http://zim-wiki.org/ http://zim-wiki.org/ https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/ https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Tidlywiki, vimwiki, Ikiwiki, and zimwiki are likely the leading choices. I'm exploring vimwiki myself.
hboon 8y ago
An anecdote: In a previous job as a presales engineer, I kept notes of prospects and customers in a TiddlyWiki. When I left, I handed the file over to my replacement. He told me after a few years that the "wiki" was of great help to him.
rb808 8y ago
Nothing beats a plain text file for me.
- galfarragem 8y ago
  A text file formatted as markdown and a text editor is an easily searchable flat wiki. After having tried _a lot_ of stuff I can say that nothing beats it on my usecas e.
carapace 8y ago
Here's a single-page "simple self-contained web notebook inspired by the "classic" version of TiddlyWiki." Live demo: https://calroc.github.io/HulloWurld/Hullo.html https://calroc.github.io/HulloWurld/Hullo.html Once you're seeing the page you have it all. Click the "Save..." button to keep a local copy with any edit you've made. If you right-click and "save page" you'll get the original content only.) Repo is here: https://github.com/calroc/HulloWurld https://github.com/calroc/HulloWurld It's just a simple experiment, nothing fancy.
qwerty456127 8y ago
Does it integrate with Gitub Pages? I'd like my personal WiKi to be shared as a part of my Jekyll-powered Gitub Pages blog (and I'd love to see more people go this way sharing their knowledge).
platz 8y ago
http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html TiddlyWiki powered GTD system there is a newer version, but I think it's worse than the old one.
mih 8y ago
Ever since the decline of Evernote, I've been looking for something as convenient, but been pretty much disappointed in the alternatives. For a while Qownnotes was my choice, but it's not without its drawbacks. Currenlty Joplin ( https://joplin.cozic.net/ https://joplin.cozic.net/ ) is the one I'm taking for a test drive, and I'm pretty much pleased with what I've seen so far. Among the features that impressed me most in terms of personal priority are: - Importing from Evernote (.enex files) - Cross-platform support (Win/Lin/Mac) + Mobile apps (ios / Android) - Synchronization (Dropbox, Onedrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, Filesystem) - Support for encryption - Webclipper extension (for Firefox and Chrome) - It's FOSS, with a number of active contributors on GitHub (https://github.com/laurent22/joplin https://github.com/laurent22/joplin). A good bus factor and no more dependence on the whims of private organizations. - A command line interface - Use of Markdown. Drag and drop support for files and media in the GUI. There are still features of evernote I miss such as inline PDFs and audio recording
- luckman212 8y ago
  I've got my eye on Joplin as well to replace EN. The deal-breaker issue for me right now is that the mobile app (iOS) only supports Dropbox as the backend sync provider. I refuse to use Dropbox, and prefer to sync via filesystem. I use Resilio Sync (formerly btsync) for this. Until some other method is allowed, I can't make the jump.
  - garfieldnate 8y ago
    Why do you refuse to use Dropbox?
rmu09 8y ago
For those who want to sync TiddlyWiki between multiple computers, there also is https://noteself.github.io/ https://noteself.github.io/. This TiddlyWiki-variant stores documents in the browser (pouchdb) and can sync to a couchdb-server.
igorp74 8y ago
After TiddlyWiki classic with tons of plugins, I used SpringPad while it lived, then Evernote but markdown was able only via browser addon (Markdown here or something). OneNote never suited for my needs and finally settled down with Quip.com. It is like TW with all fancy plugins + live editing...
ttroyr 8y ago
https://www.notion.so https://www.notion.so offers an excellent balance of power & simplicity. Definitely worth a try for those who prefer to visualize the connection between different projects. Shines in long-term planning & wiki knowledge collection.

331 points by entelechy 8y ago

jtl999 8y ago

I remember first hearing of TiddlyWiki back in 2005(?) Glad to see it's still here.

Milner08 8y ago
I was wondering if it was the same project I remembered! I used to use it in high school, with its stored on a USB stick that i'd carry around on my keys. Was pretty useful at the time, wouldn't want to carry around a USB stick now, but using dropbox is interesting.

TomDavey 8y ago

A hyperlinked knowledge-management system for personal use, on all my computers, is essential. To achieve it, I use Emacs and Org-Mode and Dropbox. An additional benefit of using Emacs: the personal wiki can be integrated with my task-management system, which Org-Mode handles as well. Plus I can draft and edit at warp speed, having customized the native Emacs keybindings to suit me better. Were I going to publish my wiki to the Web for others to use, I'd export the wiki to HTML with Org. But for now it's all personal.

dotancohen 8y ago
How are you using Org-mode on Android? I'm using Orgzly, but it only supports a subset of real Org-mode.
- hsitz 8y ago
  I don't synch between instances of Org, but you can install a full-blown Emacs (and many other apps) on Android within the Termux terminal emulator: http://endlessparentheses.com/running-emacs-on-android.html http://endlessparentheses.com/running-emacs-on-android.html It runs Org fine, I've even used Spacemacs on Emacs runnning in Termux.
- TomDavey 8y ago
  I haven't integrated Org with either my email or my phone (I'm on iOS actually), at least not yet. It's on the road map!
  - confounded 8y ago
    beorg is great if you use a single directory for files. Unfortunately it’s proprietary and missing a few features. But it’s pretty slick. It’s now the app I turn to (not my calendar) when I’m wondering what I’m supposed to be doing today.
Vekz 8y ago
I also have the Emacs + Org-mode + Dropbox setup. In addition, I have an AWS lambda endpoint which listens to a SES email hook. I send emails to the SES address which the hook then appends and schedules to org files on dropbox based on email content.
- kaushalmodi 8y ago
  Can you do a small write-up on that lambda function? I know nothing about those, but I know that Netlify kind of? supports them? If possible I'd like to set up an end point on my Netlify deployed site and do what you are doing. Thanks! :)
nextos 8y ago
I also use org-mode as a personal wiki, combined with git version control and ripgrep search. Furthermore, my task/time management is also within the wiki, as a kanban page and as an events page. Org has tons of useful features. Especially for time management and export. But it's also quite simple. I started implementing a personal wiki using MediaWiki long time ago, trying to replicate the concept of Zettelkasten. But MediaWiki is a bit too heavy and complex, even if you use a SQLite backend. Furthermore, it doesn't compose with my editor and version control system of choice. I think having a wiki is essential, as the deliverable of many tasks is just a knowledge bit you really want to record. It's interesting to see personal wikis are starting to show up in GitHub and GitLab. I wish both platforms improved their org-mode support to capitalize on this trend. We can all collectively benefit from open-sourced wikis in the same way we benefit from open code.
- jlgaddis 8y ago
  For a decade or so, Dokuwiki has been my "go to" application for a personal wiki. Simple syntax, quick and easy to get up and running, and doesn't even need SQLite -- your pages are just plain text files in a directory and, yes, you can edit them in the browser or $EDITOR.
iBelieve 8y ago
I'm curious, are you (or anyone else using Org Mode) using a single org file for your entire personal wiki, or one file per major topic? In the past, I've used Markdown files with one file per language/topic for my personal developer wiki, but am looking at moving it to Org Mode now. One file for everything (developer knowledge + other subjects) seems nice, but it seems like trying to manage and navigate around a single large file would get messy.
- danShumway 8y ago
  I use separate files for separate topics. Org mode is pretty good at linking between files. I've even done coding projects where a TODO list links to lines of code inside of a source file (by grep, not by line number, otherwise they'd go outdated every time I committed). Getting into Org-mode, I would occasionally run into people who would say, "there's one right way to do this. You should be using Org-agenda view for all of your TODOs, you should be setting up tags with this specific system..." Over time, I have learned to ignore those people. The main benefit of Org-mode is that it is really, really, stinking flexible. You should use whatever system you're most comfortable with (probably whatever you were using before with Markdown) and then slowly adapt features like auto-archiving TODOs, time-tracking, tags, Org-capture, as you need them. You should look into them, because sometimes you see something cool like Org-capture and you're like, "woah, I could just hit one keypress, type in a sentence, and it'll get auto-filed for me based on the content." But let that "coolness" factor be the thing that guides you. Org-mode is really big and really adaptable, so if you try to grab everything in one go, you'll end up turning your notes into a chore again. I started using Org-mode specifically because I hated having to adapt a very personal notetaking style to more rigid commercial apps. And my notetaking style evolves based on what I'm going through in life anyway. Org-mode allows it to be more rigid or more flexible based on life circumstances.
- TomDavey 8y ago
  A single Org file holds my wiki. Yes, it's big, but Org's features make it easily manageable. Org has fine hyperlinking, and equally fine searching -- including searches on headline tags and properties -- using regexps if desired. Underneath is the logical outline structure -- just like a website -- and the hierarchical inheritance of tags and properties. Plus -- here's where Org is superior to a Web-based wiki IMO -- it's so easily refactored. When I started I had only a few top-level entries. Over time, I have accumulated hundreds of headlines and their accompanying body text. Multi-level structure emerged naturally, and continues to evolve. Here are my top-level categories today: 1. Arts and Entertainment 2. Diet and Health 3. Household 4. Restaurant and Bars 5. Petronius.me (my household LAN) 6. Subscriptions 7. People and Me 8. Travel 9. Commonplace Book (quotes, links, and reading I've saved) Org makes it easy to move things around and re-organize as needed: just cut a subtree and paste it to a new location in the hierarchy. Org's linking make cross-references a cinch. Who was that person I met on this trip? Oh, here's a link to their personal entry in "People and Me". And that entry will link back to the trip in "Travel." A headline's unique ID property guarantees that a link will never break, no matter how frequently or drastically you move things around.
danShumway 8y ago
How do you handle images/screenshots/handwritten notes? I am also using Org-Mode and Dropbox for the majority of my notes. I really like it. In particular, Orgzly for Android works great with this system, so check it out if you want mobile notes as well. The problem is that I also like to take paper notes, and take videos/pictures of stuff, and scan documents, and download webpages. Org-mode kinda stinks for embedding external content that isn't text? As far as I can tell. I can link to external content, and if I export to HTML it'll show up. But... I never export to HTML, because, as you probably already know, it's way easier to read notes in an editable format. I can turn on picture rending in Org-mode, but it's not responsive, and I can't crop the pictures or annotate them with a stylus, or do any of a dozen different things that I want to do. What I've thought about is that I really just want the ability to render HTML/CSS inside of an Org-mode buffer, and ideally to be able to set up custom CSS classes that would be applied to every snippet. Just set up a quick region, write some helper functions to compile/render the HTML, etc... I've been thinking for a while about taking some time off of work to just try and solve the problem. Is it already solved? I know that at one point people were looking into getting webkit embedded into buffers. Did that go anywhere? I guess you can build GTK widgets for Org-mode as well? But then you lose the ability to define custom styles on the fly.
- nextos 8y ago
  You can make some tweaks to org to get images to display nicely: https://lepisma.github.io/2017/10/28/ricing-org-mode/ https://lepisma.github.io/2017/10/28/ricing-org-mode/
  - danShumway 8y ago
    A) That is beautiful, thank you for sharing B) Does it actually address the image problem? The config appears to be using the built in inline-images, which don't support responsive widths. Even getting rid of responsive widths, simply embedding the image into the buffer isn't really good enough for handwritten notes -- you need at least the ability to crop/zoom.
    - nextos 8y ago
sriku 8y ago
Same .. but Keybase has replaced Dropbox for me for these purposes. The encrypted git repositories are awesome!
safgasCVS 8y ago
I'm jealous of the emacs masters as I like the idea of having this 'one tool for life' but I'm honest enough to admit I'm just too lazy to learn it!
- marci 8y ago
  If you know how to use Notepad/TextEdit, you know how to use (GUI)Emacs. Even easier than nano.
  - zmix 8y ago
    I think he talks about configuration and scripting (elisp).

agentdax5 8y ago

I looked into Tiddlywiki before but it seemed too involved to maintain easily and overkill for my use case. I have recently found https://www.notebooksapp.com/ https://www.notebooksapp.com/ and am in the process of converting all my desperate notes and documents into it using the internal linking to create my own kind of wiki. Everything is plain text, has markdown support, apps on most platforms, ability to automate things for everyday use, and easier to use overall. Also I just can’t stand the idea of “tiddlers”.

moioci 8y ago
Although I kinda love the idea of desperate notes and documents, I think you probably meant "disparate."

shawn 8y ago

I'd like to be able to press a shortcut key and have my computer save a screenshot of whatever I'm looking at, along with letting me type a brief note for context. Ideally it would also record the URL of whatever the browser was visiting (if it's a screenshot of a browser page), or the file path of whatever was open. So basically Pinboard, but for pages of PDFs and other random scraps.

severine 8y ago
Do you know about Firefox Screenshots? https://screenshots.firefox.com/ https://screenshots.firefox.com/ Just for the browser (but that could include PDFs and other things), I think they aim for a workflow very similar to the one you envision.
walterbell 8y ago
iOS has support for screenshots and annotations, but the resulting images are not searchable. Devonthink on macOS/iOS will save text snippets and text annotations, into a searchable database.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
submeta 8y ago
Evernote does something like this. And it let's you search for text in the images as well. I have over 12k notes in Evernote. Many screenshots. It has excellent OCR capabilities, full-text search (via Lucene?) and syncs across devices.
- murrayb 8y ago
  Yep search, search across attachments and web page capture means that Evernote rules in this space for me. Evernote has traditionally been marketed as a note-taking app but for me it is a personal database/encyclopaedia. The ease of finding anything without having to worry about structure or links (though I have a bit of both) is fantastic.
- luckman212 8y ago

rwbt 8y ago

TiddlyWiki is great, but I really need is something like Notational Velocity but everything is stored in a single html file (with .js embedded of course), so that it's very portable.

lxe 8y ago

The most unique thing for me is the fact that it's an .html file that you can just download and run. The data/saving mechanism is completely separate. This "unhosted-ness" seems to be a growing trend.

catach 8y ago
Could be trend, but TiddlyWiki isn't a data point for it, given that the project is over a decade old.
kvakil 8y ago
You might find this interesting: https://unhosted.org/ https://unhosted.org/

hobo_mark 8y ago

I look at TW every couple of years or so, and there has never been either: - a sane way to keep a wiki on something like Dropbox (at the time, the only way to have persistence was to disable browser security and allow JavaScript to write to disk directly) or - a service to sync a wiki between machines Has that changed nowadays?

siegecraft 8y ago
I run a tiddlywiki server (on my server) and sync the files between all my devices. That way I always have a copy of my data, but I always do my editing through the server. Previous to this setup I tried to sync to all my devices and edit them locally, but it wasn't worth the trouble. I find that I don't mind doing all my edits through an online service.
kickscondor 8y ago
I've enjoyed using it on Dropbox - with this: https://twcloud.github.io/tw5-dropbox/ https://twcloud.github.io/tw5-dropbox/ The great thing about TiddlyWiki is that you can easily move it somewhere else and edit from there because it is just a single file.
walkingolof 8y ago
I use Emacs org-mode for this, works like a charm
enugu 8y ago
There is a server version, which you can run locally. This keeps all the individual tiddlers in separate files in a folder. You can sync this folder, run git on it etc. Currently, the server doesnt seem to notice changes made outside the server interface(like editing and saving tiddlers in a text editor) until restart, though there is probably some way to manage this.
- bhandziuk 8y ago
  I had to make the upgrade to the server version at home because FireFox no longer supports the TiddlyFox (or whatever the extension was called which allowed you to save to disk). The server version is actually much nicer. It loads faster because I don't have to download one massive file and works much better from my phone because of that.

eponeponepon 8y ago

I tried using TiddlyWiki some years back but never really reached the stage where I felt I could definitely trust my use of it to result in it saving my notes properly. The real utility of it, I'm sure, comes with a large corpus - but I never got there. At the time though, my only option was keeping it as a local file on a single machine - these days my home infrastructure is much more developed, and I think I might have more luck running it on a proper http server. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

cbau 8y ago

I've been writing a personal encyclopedia for the last five or six years or so. I have some 1500+ articles multiple of which are 50+ pages. I think it's been really valuable. I think I get a few things out of it: 1. Perfect recall. Every little detail I read in a book/blog/article stays with me. Makes it easy to synthesize results from multiple pieces across time, which is useful when you only have a casual interest in something. (I really like downloading the cool education images/GIFs and and inserting them in articles- otherwise I don't know where I'd keep them.) 2. Reveals what I don't know about a subject. For example, whenever I start off writing a new article on some topic, the first thing I write is a definition, e.g. "A cat is an animal that ...". The process of doing that often reveals gaps in my understanding. 3. It makes me better at asking questions when I'm trying to understand something. The analogy I like to make here is that learning a second language is harder than a third language, because after learning the second you know what you need to know to understand a language. But there's no reason that should be limited to languages and couldn't apply to all things, and things themselves. Some questions I like to ask are "What is the function/uses of this thing?" "What are the parts of this thing and how are they arranged?" "How do we make this thing?" "What's the history of this thing?" "What subtypes of this thing are there?" The downside is that it dramatically slows down my reading speed, since I now feel I need to take detailed notes, and then I often have to reconcile them with notes on other things which can be time-consuming. Considering the number of books a person could realistically read in their lifetime is limited, it's unclear if it's worth the tradeoff. I'm curious how other people think about remembering things, and if they have a system, what tools they use. It seems unsatisfying to me to read a book and realize I'll probably forget it in four years, yet most people seem content to do so. If anyone is interested in the specific software I use, here's the Github project: https://github.com/Ceasar/Encyclopedia https://github.com/Ceasar/Encyclopedia. It uses restructuedText (as opposed to Markdown) for the text. I edit them using Vim. All the files are stored in Dropbox so it gets synced between my devices. A simple Flask web server renders the pages in a prettier format. Still very primitive compared to what it could potentially be, but combined with regular Unix command line tools it's worked fine for my needs. (I like the idea of a hacker-wiki by the way, more than something like this which comes out of the box. Seems like an personal wiki designed for a power user could be way more interesting.)

8y ago

Glawen 8y ago

I discovered TW a few months ago and I decided to use it for our new project at work. We use it to document our SW, one tiddler for each module. So far, it is working great, we can quite easily merge our code and doc because everything is in one file. I find it much easier to use than Word. My colleagues were startled by it, but they mastered it now. The only annoying thing are: - we need to press 2 carriage return to go to the next line - the markup languages are never standard. we use redmine with textile which is kinda compatible with TW, but not 100%

TeMPOraL 8y ago

A bit of a tangent, but I'm looking at the (official? shown on site) Tiddlywiki poster[0], and I just have to ask: what is that fish doing, and does this really communicate something positive about the product? -- [0] - https://tiddlywiki.com/poster/images/TiddlyWiki_TiddlerPoster_en_L.png https://tiddlywiki.com/poster/images/TiddlyWiki_TiddlerPoste...

OJFord 8y ago
Never used Tiddlywiki, just guessing from your link: the fish is a tiddler [0], it's consuming a mess [several entangled lines] and excreting something unified and cohesive [single line]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiddler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiddler ('Tiddler' is perhaps BrEng slang? I'm British, and I'd say it's slang - especially when applied not to a fish, but to something or someone small - but I don't know how widespread it is.)
- tofof 8y ago
  From that wiki page: > A small fish, especially the three-spined stickleback My wife, a neuroscientist researching three-spined stickleback, has never come across the term 'tiddler'. Midwestern US. So, yes, I would say it is solitarily British slang.
techsupporter 8y ago
I think it is meant to evoke the Babel fish.
- severine 8y ago
  Mmm, not sure, do you have more info? Although the pic from the BBC doc here [0] really has a resemblance. It sure is a really weird/fascinating design... [0] http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Babel_Fish http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Babel_Fish

pixelmonkey 8y ago

I personally think Tiddlywiki is a fascinating project and I even used it professionally for a few years. But, these days, I think you likely do better with either a Dropbox directory full of Markdown files or installing the free tool Simplenote everywhere (mobile/desktop) and using its support for notes/Markdown. It's true that if you go with these simple schemes, you lose wiki-style linking. But, I've found that YAGNI applies here.

anothergoogler 8y ago
Tiddlywiki is BSD licensed.
tommoor 8y ago
For team use take a look at the open source wiki we've been working on, simple, BSD licensed, well designed and works with Markdown: http://getoutline.com http://getoutline.com
- a012 8y ago
  It looks good but I saw they require Slack developer which is a no for me > Outline requires the following dependencies: > Postgres >=9.5 > Redis > Slack developer application
  - tommoor 8y ago
    Either Google or Slack will work, I've updated the README to reflect that
    - stephenr 8y ago
      That doesn’t really solve the problem. The recent Facebook debacle should be example why.
zouhair 8y ago
How does Simplenote make money?

hyperpape 8y ago

I wrote my own system for capturing and organizing information (https://lobste.rs/s/ord0rg/does_anyone_else_keep_their_own_knowledge#c_cxecdn https://lobste.rs/s/ord0rg/does_anyone_else_keep_their_own_k...), so I understand the desire to fiddle with your own system. That said, the list of literally 20 different ways of storing your Tiddlywiki data is user-hostile. Don't tell me that you have a Node server and a PHP server, just give me the easiest way to self-host, how to use Dropbox/Google Drive, or perhaps one more option. You can include a link to "other options", but don't put them front and center. Even open-source tools that appeal to us nerds need some attention to marketing.

darpa_escapee 8y ago

Besides Tiddlywiki, does anyone have recommendations for personal wiki software?

interfixus 8y ago
Zim, if you actually need the wiki-like stuff. Cherrytree, if you are mainly after the structured note-taking functionality. I use both. Cherrytree for all my daily notational needs. http://zim-wiki.org/ http://zim-wiki.org/ https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/ https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/
dredmorbius 8y ago
Tidlywiki, vimwiki, Ikiwiki, and zimwiki are likely the leading choices. I'm exploring vimwiki myself.

hboon 8y ago

An anecdote: In a previous job as a presales engineer, I kept notes of prospects and customers in a TiddlyWiki. When I left, I handed the file over to my replacement. He told me after a few years that the "wiki" was of great help to him.

rb808 8y ago

Nothing beats a plain text file for me.

galfarragem 8y ago
A text file formatted as markdown and a text editor is an easily searchable flat wiki. After having tried _a lot_ of stuff I can say that nothing beats it on my usecas e.

carapace 8y ago

Here's a single-page "simple self-contained web notebook inspired by the "classic" version of TiddlyWiki." Live demo: https://calroc.github.io/HulloWurld/Hullo.html https://calroc.github.io/HulloWurld/Hullo.html Once you're seeing the page you have it all. Click the "Save..." button to keep a local copy with any edit you've made. If you right-click and "save page" you'll get the original content only.) Repo is here: https://github.com/calroc/HulloWurld https://github.com/calroc/HulloWurld It's just a simple experiment, nothing fancy.

qwerty456127 8y ago

Does it integrate with Gitub Pages? I'd like my personal WiKi to be shared as a part of my Jekyll-powered Gitub Pages blog (and I'd love to see more people go this way sharing their knowledge).

platz 8y ago

http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html http://mgsd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html TiddlyWiki powered GTD system there is a newer version, but I think it's worse than the old one.

mih 8y ago

Ever since the decline of Evernote, I've been looking for something as convenient, but been pretty much disappointed in the alternatives. For a while Qownnotes was my choice, but it's not without its drawbacks. Currenlty Joplin ( https://joplin.cozic.net/ https://joplin.cozic.net/ ) is the one I'm taking for a test drive, and I'm pretty much pleased with what I've seen so far. Among the features that impressed me most in terms of personal priority are: - Importing from Evernote (.enex files) - Cross-platform support (Win/Lin/Mac) + Mobile apps (ios / Android) - Synchronization (Dropbox, Onedrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, Filesystem) - Support for encryption - Webclipper extension (for Firefox and Chrome) - It's FOSS, with a number of active contributors on GitHub (https://github.com/laurent22/joplin https://github.com/laurent22/joplin). A good bus factor and no more dependence on the whims of private organizations. - A command line interface - Use of Markdown. Drag and drop support for files and media in the GUI. There are still features of evernote I miss such as inline PDFs and audio recording

luckman212 8y ago
I've got my eye on Joplin as well to replace EN. The deal-breaker issue for me right now is that the mobile app (iOS) only supports Dropbox as the backend sync provider. I refuse to use Dropbox, and prefer to sync via filesystem. I use Resilio Sync (formerly btsync) for this. Until some other method is allowed, I can't make the jump.
- garfieldnate 8y ago
  Why do you refuse to use Dropbox?

rmu09 8y ago

For those who want to sync TiddlyWiki between multiple computers, there also is https://noteself.github.io/ https://noteself.github.io/. This TiddlyWiki-variant stores documents in the browser (pouchdb) and can sync to a couchdb-server.

igorp74 8y ago

After TiddlyWiki classic with tons of plugins, I used SpringPad while it lived, then Evernote but markdown was able only via browser addon (Markdown here or something). OneNote never suited for my needs and finally settled down with Quip.com. It is like TW with all fancy plugins + live editing...

ttroyr 8y ago

https://www.notion.so https://www.notion.so offers an excellent balance of power & simplicity. Definitely worth a try for those who prefer to visualize the connection between different projects. Shines in long-term planning & wiki knowledge collection.