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In the realm of note taking and personal knowledge management apps, I've been shopping around recently. Notion is very popular, and Roam Research [0] has been

In the realm of note taking and personal knowledge management apps, I've been shopping around recently. Notion is very popular, and Roam Research [0] has been the popular scrappy upstart that people have been looking at, but I've been unhappy with these since neither has an API (and neither are open source.) I would _strongly_ urge HN readers to take a look at Tiddlywiki [1]. It's popped up on Hacker News before, and I wrote it off, but I've been taking a closer look recently and its _incredibly_ powerful, as well as completely customizable and open source. It runs off of a micro-kernel architecture, so the core application itself is implemented in code that you can change, edit, and manage just like you would do with your own notes. It's really easy to get started (it's a self contained HTML file) but seems so have some robust saving and backup functionality. Please please give it a look if you're looking at tools in this space. I've already started using it and I'm _very_ happy with it. (Not affiliated with Tiddlywiki, just a really happy user.) [0]: https://roamresearch.com https://roamresearch.com [1]: https://tiddlywiki.com https://tiddlywiki.com

cc9one 7y ago
This comment introduced me to TiddlyWiki, and I am quite happy with it so far. Does anyone have a recommendation for a markdown plug-in? The markdown plug-in from their website is no longer available. Thanks!
- AlphaWeaver 7y ago
  I haven't looked very far, but if there isn't a decent plugin for it yet, it likely isn't incredibly hard to make. Here [0] is a link to a view I created that links to a markdown plugin (which should still work) as well as to information about TW's plugin architecture. If you're interested in learning even more about TW's internal architecture, check out their developer documentation here [1]. [0]: https://tiddlywiki.com/#%24%3A%2Fconfig%2FPageControlButtons%2FVisibility%2F%24%3A%2Fcore%2Fui%2FButtons%2Fpermaview:%5B%5BMarkdown%20Plugin%5D%5D%20Plugins%20PluginMechanism https://tiddlywiki.com/#%24%3A%2Fconfig%2FPageControlButtons... [1]: https://tiddlywiki.com/dev https://tiddlywiki.com/dev
  - cc9one 7y ago
    This is great! Thank you. Do you have any other plug-in recommendations that you have found useful?
    - AlphaWeaver 7y ago
      I'm still exploring myself, but you should check with me in a few weeks! My website (which has my email) is in my profile!
100721 7y ago
Have you found anything like a hybrid between OneNote for its drawing/handwriting-with-stylus support + Roam or TiddlyWiki for the graph-like organization?
- procgen 7y ago
  Seconded! I've been looking around, but nothing seems to press both of these buttons. It's a deal-breaker for me, as I often think by sketching. In my notes, doodles are first-class citizens.
- thunderbong 7y ago
  What about Trillium? (https://github.com/zadam/trilium https://github.com/zadam/trilium)
  - urlwolf 7y ago
    I used to love it, but I realized typing latency kills it (being electron). Also, export doesn't help as note links are internal references. So it's not future proof, it's a no for me. It has a great developer though. And the graph visualization is second to none.
    - The_Colonel 7y ago
      > Also, export doesn't help as note links are internal references. During export Trilium fixes the internal references to standard HTML links so they reference pages in the structure like "./sub-folder/my-topic.html" (but yeah, it was not always like that).
- bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
  If you're an apple device user, Bear Notes is pretty good. You can link to any note from within any other note, so it's wiki-like in that sense. And it does have sketching.
- kevas 7y ago
  Check out Agenda, MarginNote 3, or Zotero
bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
Is the TiddlyWiki experience at all like their website? I found it immensely confusing. Rather than navigate between pages (which is how a wiki is supposed to work?) every link I clicked on that page opened a new sub-window right below, which both messed up the existing page structure and also made the current page URL useless for bookmarking.
- C0d3r 7y ago
  It's exactly like that, the page runs itself on TiddlyWiki
- AlphaWeaver 7y ago
  Yes, their website is actually implemented as a TiddlyWiki itself. I think their UX takes a little bit of getting used to and can be improved. This project in particular wouldn't be incredibly difficult to modify, so it didn't worry me too much. Regarding permalinks, there's actually options you can configure both to show a button to copy a permalink to a tiddler as well as to display the correct permalink in the URL bar.
grep_name 7y ago
I've looked into it a few times now, each time I get a little closer to actually using it. Currently I've moved from the "What? I have to install a browser plugin to save changes?" phase to "I guess I'm going to have to sit down one weekend and find a hosting setup I like for this tool" I'm definitely interested in tiddlywiki, but there's so many options it's a little overwhelming on first glance. What does your implementation look like?
- AlphaWeaver 7y ago
  Actually, I started out by just using the simplest saving method possible, which is downloading a new version of the HTML file on every save. It seems clunky but isn't that difficult to do. I branched out to using the Tiddloid Lite [0] Android client, (Tiddloid and Tiddloid Lite are both free and open source, the Lite version just has a different feature set,) and I just uploaded my previous wiki into Google Drive and the app just worked... saving became completely automatic and it syncs to Drive without a hitch. I'm looking into standing up a TiddlyServer [1] soon for my upcoming project, and I'm planning on eventually doing some modifications to do data storage in a database instead of on disk. One thing's for sure: it's got a great gradual way to "get into" using it... it just isn't great at communicating those options in a way that isn't overwhelming. [0]: https://github.com/donmor/TiddloidLite https://github.com/donmor/TiddloidLite [1]: https://github.com/Arlen22/TiddlyServer https://github.com/Arlen22/TiddlyServer

cc9one 7y ago

This comment introduced me to TiddlyWiki, and I am quite happy with it so far. Does anyone have a recommendation for a markdown plug-in? The markdown plug-in from their website is no longer available. Thanks!

AlphaWeaver 7y ago
I haven't looked very far, but if there isn't a decent plugin for it yet, it likely isn't incredibly hard to make. Here [0] is a link to a view I created that links to a markdown plugin (which should still work) as well as to information about TW's plugin architecture. If you're interested in learning even more about TW's internal architecture, check out their developer documentation here [1]. [0]: https://tiddlywiki.com/#%24%3A%2Fconfig%2FPageControlButtons%2FVisibility%2F%24%3A%2Fcore%2Fui%2FButtons%2Fpermaview:%5B%5BMarkdown%20Plugin%5D%5D%20Plugins%20PluginMechanism https://tiddlywiki.com/#%24%3A%2Fconfig%2FPageControlButtons... [1]: https://tiddlywiki.com/dev https://tiddlywiki.com/dev
- cc9one 7y ago
  This is great! Thank you. Do you have any other plug-in recommendations that you have found useful?
  - AlphaWeaver 7y ago
    I'm still exploring myself, but you should check with me in a few weeks! My website (which has my email) is in my profile!

100721 7y ago

Have you found anything like a hybrid between OneNote for its drawing/handwriting-with-stylus support + Roam or TiddlyWiki for the graph-like organization?

procgen 7y ago
Seconded! I've been looking around, but nothing seems to press both of these buttons. It's a deal-breaker for me, as I often think by sketching. In my notes, doodles are first-class citizens.
thunderbong 7y ago
What about Trillium? (https://github.com/zadam/trilium https://github.com/zadam/trilium)
- urlwolf 7y ago
  I used to love it, but I realized typing latency kills it (being electron). Also, export doesn't help as note links are internal references. So it's not future proof, it's a no for me. It has a great developer though. And the graph visualization is second to none.
  - The_Colonel 7y ago
    > Also, export doesn't help as note links are internal references. During export Trilium fixes the internal references to standard HTML links so they reference pages in the structure like "./sub-folder/my-topic.html" (but yeah, it was not always like that).
bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
If you're an apple device user, Bear Notes is pretty good. You can link to any note from within any other note, so it's wiki-like in that sense. And it does have sketching.
kevas 7y ago
Check out Agenda, MarginNote 3, or Zotero

bobbylarrybobby 7y ago

Is the TiddlyWiki experience at all like their website? I found it immensely confusing. Rather than navigate between pages (which is how a wiki is supposed to work?) every link I clicked on that page opened a new sub-window right below, which both messed up the existing page structure and also made the current page URL useless for bookmarking.

C0d3r 7y ago
It's exactly like that, the page runs itself on TiddlyWiki
AlphaWeaver 7y ago
Yes, their website is actually implemented as a TiddlyWiki itself. I think their UX takes a little bit of getting used to and can be improved. This project in particular wouldn't be incredibly difficult to modify, so it didn't worry me too much. Regarding permalinks, there's actually options you can configure both to show a button to copy a permalink to a tiddler as well as to display the correct permalink in the URL bar.

grep_name 7y ago

I've looked into it a few times now, each time I get a little closer to actually using it. Currently I've moved from the "What? I have to install a browser plugin to save changes?" phase to "I guess I'm going to have to sit down one weekend and find a hosting setup I like for this tool" I'm definitely interested in tiddlywiki, but there's so many options it's a little overwhelming on first glance. What does your implementation look like?

AlphaWeaver 7y ago
Actually, I started out by just using the simplest saving method possible, which is downloading a new version of the HTML file on every save. It seems clunky but isn't that difficult to do. I branched out to using the Tiddloid Lite [0] Android client, (Tiddloid and Tiddloid Lite are both free and open source, the Lite version just has a different feature set,) and I just uploaded my previous wiki into Google Drive and the app just worked... saving became completely automatic and it syncs to Drive without a hitch. I'm looking into standing up a TiddlyServer [1] soon for my upcoming project, and I'm planning on eventually doing some modifications to do data storage in a database instead of on disk. One thing's for sure: it's got a great gradual way to "get into" using it... it just isn't great at communicating those options in a way that isn't overwhelming. [0]: https://github.com/donmor/TiddloidLite https://github.com/donmor/TiddloidLite [1]: https://github.com/Arlen22/TiddlyServer https://github.com/Arlen22/TiddlyServer