WHitWoT #3 (Jan 15-22, 2008)

Posted by Deuce on Tuesday, January 29, 2008

WHitWoT #3 (Jan 15-22, 2008)

Welcome to the third edition of "What Happened in the World of TiddlyWiki", or WHitWoT for short.

WHitWoT summarises what's happened lately on the TiddlyWiki mailing list and elsewhere in the TiddlyWiki world.

News, New Stuff and Updated Stuff

TiddlyWiki Vox Pop

Alex Hough started a thread on the discussion list asking what you like about TiddlyWiki, and what you use it for.

The responses are all worth a look. I especially liked Eric's "ways to explain what TiddlyWiki is".

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/63c4c9d759a531d8

New theme — moz-inspired

Adrian announced a new theme "moz-inspired", modified from K2WS, that was inspired by the old Mozilla Firefox look. It may or may not make it to tiddlythemes.com :)

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/76caaf803eb25df7

My Notes TiddlyWiki: new version - 2.1

Dave Gifford released a major upgrade to his "My Notes TiddlyWiki". This adaptation is great for collecting notes when doing research, and it handles bibliographic data too. Check out the announcement thread for discussion including EndNote and Zotero.

[source] http://www.giffmex.org/emptynotestw.html
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/3f9caf4bf63f490a

TiddlersBar now supports keypress switching between tabs

The latest version of TiddlersBar (version 1.2.5) now supports switching to next and previous tabs with Alt + Shift + (key). The plugin has options to set the actual keys used.
[source] http://visualtw.ouvaton.org/VisualTW.html#TiddlersBarPlugin
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/b637fb983e54727f

ImageSizePlugin does what it says on the box

The inimitable Eric Shulman has produced a new plugin that lets you specify image size like this:
[img(50%,100px)[image.jpg]]
I reckon there's all sorts of awesome things you could do with a percentage-sized image that adjusts to your browser size. And bonus points for a demo that appears to show a cat being sucked into a black hole.
[source] http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#ImageSizePlugin

TiddlerEncryptionPlugin can now forget passwords

Lyall Pearce's latest update to TiddlerEncryptionPlugin now offers the option to forget passwords (instead of caching them for the duration of the session). This might be useful if you want to leave your TW open all day, but only occasionally need to check your encrypted info.

[source] http://remotely-helpful.com/TiddlyWiki/TiddlerEncryptionPlugin.html#TiddlerEncryptionPlugin
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/12434a89811b5e23

Online Discussions

Synchronising between TiddlyWikis

David Masterson asked about syncing between TiddlyWikis for distributing project management tasks. FND and Eric mentioned RippleRap[1] and ImportTiddlersPlugin[2] respectively, but I'm not sure they completely cover the use case David originally suggested. Hopefully the community will be able to come up with a solution for this space.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/8daf5fc88ce2210e
[1] http://www.ripplerap.com
[2] http://www.tiddlytools.com/#ImportTiddlersPlugin

Using multiple TiddlyWikis at once

Dave Gifford described his interesting arrangement for using several TWs at once. He uses a parent TiddlyWiki that contains iframes in which he loads the child TWs. Eric pointed out his FramedLinksPlugin that also uses iframes to load links.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/0528ba5b5491cd01
[3] http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#FramedLinksPlugin

Using highlighting in TiddlyWiki

Digital Doctor requested a prescription for using alternate colours when highlighting. Eric Shulman's answer would have put this into WHitWoT's Quick Shots secion, except there was a big discussion afterward about how to incorporate CSS into your TiddlyWiki that covered stuff like transcluding[4] other CSS stylesheets into the StyleSheet tiddler, and Eric was even inspired to update his QuickEdit toolbar[5] to have a swatch palette.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/bf769083afbbbf9a
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion
[5] http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#QuickEdit_format

Checklists

Xavier Vergés asked about the best way to do checklists in TiddlyWiki. This is something that Simon and I have discussed in a GTD context before, so the suggestions here were particularly interesting.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/79cd4064f4005579

Custom formats for the TagglyTagging list?

Kashgarinn asked about doing a custom format for the TagglyTagging list, for example to include phone numbers in the tagglylist of your Contacts tiddler. Simon Baird proposed using HideWhen[6] to selectively replace the tagglylist with a ForEachTiddler[7] construction. This is an interesting idea, I'd like to see an working example.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/0ab6d8d9fb58671a
[6] http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com/#HideWhenPlugin
[7] http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#ForEachTiddlerPlugin

Quick Shots

Postdrivel

Quite a bit of TagglyTagging talk in this edition. If you haven't tried TagglyTagging before, check out Simon's tutorial and FAQ at http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com/

;Daniel

About WHitWoT

WHitWoT is distilled from the social wisdom of the TiddlyWiki Google Group by Daniel Baird. Daniel is a long time TiddlyWiki fan, runs tiddlyspot.com along with Simon of MonkeyGTD and MPTW fame, and wonders if his one line contribution to the core code is still there.

Find (and subscribe to) WHitWoT at Daniel's blog:
http://blog.deuceofalltrades.com/search/label/WHitWoT
..and posted ocasionally at the TiddlyWiki Google Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki

WHitWoT #2 (Jan 7-14, 2008)

Posted by Deuce on Sunday, January 20, 2008

WHitWoT #2 (Jan 7-14, 2008)

Welcome to the second edition of "What Happened in the World of TiddlyWiki", or WHitWoT for short.

WHitWoT summarises what's happened lately on the TiddlyWiki mailing list and elsewhere in the TiddlyWiki world.

News, New Stuff and Updated Stuff

Fullscreen bookmarklet

Eric Shulman added a new "fullscreen" bookmarklet to his collection, to show/hide the titles and both sidebars of a viewed TiddlyWiki. Also check out the others in the set!
[source] http://www.tiddlytools.com/#InstantBookmarklets

Tags Tree

Pascal Collin from VisualTW announced his new TagsTreePlugin, a plugin for generating tree-like hierarchical lists that open and close with the kind of sexy smooth animations that we expect from Pascal.
It's excellent for populating your MainMenu, and I especially enjoy seeing TiddlyWiki's baked-in TagglyTagging goodness used outside of Simon Baird's MonkeyPirateTW.
[source] http://visualtw.ouvaton.org/VisualTW.html#TagsTreePlugin
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/b2f8beb2c625ff83
[MonkeyPirateTW] http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com

New TiddlyWiki Announcements List

Inspired by a request from Koen, Ken Girard created a new Google Group for TiddlyWiki announcements. This should make it easier to keep up without having to trawl through the group posts every day. Hopefully WHitWoT will help too!
[source] http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki-announcements

QuickEditToolbar gets a 'sort these lines' button

Corybantic coder Eric Shulman added a new "sort" button to his QuickEditToolbar. It sorts the selected lines into ASCII order. It currently sorts capital letters after all the miniscule letters, but if you need a case-aware sort I suspect posting a request will get it.
Make sure you check out the dependencies if you are installing it.
[source] http://www.tiddlytools.com/#QuickEditToolbar

Online Discussions

In late 2007 misschilli asked about using memorizable.com from inside a TiddlyWiki. Memorizable is a flash-card type site. In the subsequent discussion Morris Grey and Eric Shulman worked out a nice solution.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/df878103a5c5c6cb

Noltdude wanted to build a search that looked inside FormTiddlerPlugin[1] fields. Eric pointed out that the FormTiddlerPlugin predates custom fields, so most current search tools can't do what Noltdude wanted. The question is still unresolved — can you pitch in?
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/71883aec72327bfd
[1] http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#FormTiddlerPlugin

FND asked for keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs in TiddlersBarPlugin[2]. Eric, Pascal and Saq joined in on what became an interesting JavaScript discussion on catching keypresses in a cross-browser way.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/b637fb983e54727f
[2] http://visualtw.ouvaton.org/VisualTW.html#TiddlersBarPlugin

Kashgarinn wanted to use CheckboxPlugin[3] to trigger a save in his ccTiddly[4] installation. Responses included an interesting example of CheckboxPlugin's "side effect" handlers — worth a look if you use CheckboxPlugin.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/8d6de6729de96fcf
[3] http://www.tiddlytools.com/#CheckboxPlugin
[4] http://cctiddly.sourceforge.net/

Nicolas Syssoieff wanted to keep the site subtitle from showing up on Firefox tabs. wolfgang pointed out Eric Shulman's CoreTweaks[5], which among other things allows you to specify the exact page title used by making a PageTitle tiddler.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/aaf1a7923dec6cfd
[5] http://www.tiddlytools.com/#CoreTweaks

Kashgarinn wanted to generate a full table with ForEachTiddlerPlugin, with header and footer. FND promptly supplied an solution.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/a5b51e9cbc752148
[6] http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#ForEachTiddlerPlugin

Dave Parker started a long thread by asking if he could get the title selected when a new tiddler opened up for editing. wolfgang, FND and Eric Shulman eventually sorted out various plugin clashes plus a bug or two to get to a solution.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/74f9ac75fb82d430

Alex Hough asked about changing the default text for a missing tiddler — he wanted something more relevant to his context, like "You have not addressed '[tiddler name]' in this exercise yet. Please double
click and decide how you prioritise this value". Eric Shulman and FND helped out, and Alex seemed to feel a little of the lure of hacking on TiddlyWiki.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/8e7657f4a4df85bb

Mark wanted to use ForEachTiddler[7] to show a sorted list of his book titles, but he wants the sort order to ignore words like "A", "The" etc at the start of a title. Eric Shulman helped with a bit of custom JavaScript to poke into FET.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/1ad2d7c8320a4408
[7] http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#ForEachTiddlerPlugin

Jabbe thought Windows Vista was stopping him from saving easily, but eventually discovered that it was a USB issue.
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/79b8cf3a32bed008

Quick Shots

Postdrivel

Anyone notice how Google Groups is failing to deliver a lot of emails lately? It's making it harder to do these summaries.

Also, I'd love to hear any feedback on WHitWoT — the layout sux, summaries boring, the whole thing is too long to read.. that kind of thing. Just reply to WHitWoT on the TiddlyWiki google group, or email me directly: my name is Daniel Baird, you can email me at that name (no spaces or dots), plus @gmail.com. Don't hold back!

;Daniel

About WHitWoT

WHitWoT #1 (Jan 1-6, 2008)

Posted by Deuce on Sunday, January 13, 2008

WHitWoT #1 (Jan 1-6, 2008)

Welcome to the first edition of "What Happened in the World of TiddlyWiki", or WHitWoT for short.

My plan is to summarise what's happened lately on the TiddlyWiki mailing list and elsewhere in the TiddlyWiki world.

So let's jump in:

News, New Stuff and Updated Stuff

tiddlyspot.com was down for a few days, from some time on the 3rd or 4th, recovering on the 7th. It appears that some update to the host's environment broke tiddlyspot's Ruby scripts. Thanks to TiddlyWiki's "all-in-one-file" superpower, viewing sites was working the whole time, but saving and other functions were down.

Thanks to Simon from tiddlyspot for finding the fix, and thanks to the tiddlyspot users for their expressions of support. Throughout the incident tiddlyspot didn't receive a single negative email or post.

Todd Chambery posted the code of an Excel macro that takes an Excel table and coverts it into TiddlyWiki markup. I haven't tried it myself but it sounds pretty good. Be sure to check the discussion thread for Todd's instructions on getting working.

[source] http://tiddlywiki.pastebin.com/f7848a6a7
[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/575a9789ffc0ce0b

Online Discussions

Kathy had enormous trouble getting TiddlyWiki to save on Windows XP with IE6, a setup that a lot of folk use. Helpful posts from Eric Shulman, wolfgang and Stuart Parker covered the usual suspects, and Xavier Vergés provided some interesting links on security in IE/Win, but in the end only copying the source into a new text document worked.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/aacf21729608b4a3

Sanny asked how to hide the display of each tiddler's modified date; FND and Eric Shulman replied with solutions.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/52ad30cfef6a618d

Digital Doctor asked about extracting highlighted phrases from various tiddlers into a single list. FND proposed a solution based on ForEachTiddlerPlugin[1].

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/f67bd1785c80e21e
[1] http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#ForEachTiddlerPlugin

nanbudh asked about using TiddlyWiki as a website. A slew of comments followed, pointing nanbudh towards resources for hiding TiddlyWiki features:

Saq's Presentation plugin[2]
BidiX's ChangeModePlugin[3], that I hadn't seen before

..customising TiddlyWiki's colours and layout:

Morris Grey's colour palette documentation[4]
FND's PaletteViewMacro[5]
tiddlythemes.com

Ken Girard also suggested using HideWhenPlugin[6] to only show editing stuff to certain users.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/92a6d2d32d2a0284
[2] http://lewcid.googlepages.com/presentation_empty_full.html
[3] http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#ChangeModePlugin
[4] http://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com/#TiddlyWikiColors
[5] http://devpad.tiddlyspot.com/#PaletteViewMacro
[6] http://mptw.tiddlyspot.com/#HideWhenPlugin

Digital Doctor asked about hiding certain comments from users who copy or import tiddlers from his TiddlyWiki. Digital asked for a wiki-syntax type solution, but none was forthcoming — FND and Eric proposed solutions based on hiding entire tiddlers.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/9d9f9e8b9ab769a2

Eric Pavey asked for a way to open multiple tiddlers in one click. In one of several replies, Eric Shulman proposed an interesting hack of the tiddler macro to run some code.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/ceb1473b2b2135c8

Matias Almada asked about automatically maximising images and video. Eric Shulman provided an answer for still images, while claiming that resizing video is all about the player software, not the TiddlyWiki.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/2fef317180b0767f

Viscouse asked for a tiddler link that closed all open tiddlers before opening the selected one. Eric Shulman provided some code for making such a link with embedded html.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/780d5b9b34e297e5

Fred Aerique wanted to have a way to give his friends access to selected tiddlers on his tiddlyspot site. He settled on exporting those tiddlers to another tiddlyspot site, but remains interested in a better solution.

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/3e8c9eebf70cef9e

James saw his hard drive space eaten away by bacups, and asked for a flexible backup system that only made backups when he clicked "save and backup". JCO pointed him to the under-appreciated LessBackupsPlugin[7], but that wasn't quite what James was after.tid

[thread] http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/browse_thread/thread/9b7ba24bf75ffa1e
[7] http://lessbackupsplugin.tiddlyspot.com/

Postdrivel

That's it for the first edition of WHitWoT. Thanks to the tiddlyspot outage, this one is later than I'd planned. Hopefully I can catch up a bit in the next few weeks.

;Daniel

About WHitWoT

Things that suck: TV News

Posted by Deuce on Friday, January 04, 2008

I've known for years that mass media news sucked. I think the first time I saw it in words was nearly ten years ago in Scott Adams' book "The Dilbert Future", where Scott describes friends who actively avoid exposure to newspapers and TV news shows.

Since then it's become clear that most people I know ignore TV and print news media, and get their news from blogs and websites like Slashdot. This week I caught up with an old friend in town visiting his parents, and he described how his parents were "news junkies", watching every minute of TV news they could, and panicking that some rare disaster that befell a complete stranger was going to happen to them.

I think this is the death of newspapers and the 30 minute TV news shows. And it's a silent death — none of my friends are complaining to TV networks, or writing letters to the editor about declining editorial standards; they are just turning away. Media outlets are left to struggle with more and more desperate strategies to keep their "eyeball count" up, but this is changing the mix of their audience, skewing towards the easily impressed. It's a short term strategy that might hold a few viewers but shuts out even more.

Anyway my motivation for this post is this article by John Hockenberry, once a Dateline reporter. It's the clearest statement I've seen describing what has gone wrong in news reporting. The conversation at the bottom of page 4 made my skin crawl.

Elsewhere, things that suck this much are often replaced with something that doesn't suck (think MP3 players before iPods, and online maps before Google Maps). Can anyone suggest what's gonna replace TV and print news media?

deuce of all trades

WHitWoT #3 (Jan 15-22, 2008)

News, New Stuff and Updated Stuff

TiddlyWiki Vox Pop

New theme — moz-inspired

My Notes TiddlyWiki: new version - 2.1

TiddlersBar now supports keypress switching between tabs

ImageSizePlugin does what it says on the box

TiddlerEncryptionPlugin can now forget passwords

Online Discussions

Synchronising between TiddlyWikis

Using multiple TiddlyWikis at once

Using highlighting in TiddlyWiki

Checklists

Custom formats for the TagglyTagging list?

Quick Shots

Postdrivel

About WHitWoT

WHitWoT #2 (Jan 7-14, 2008)

News, New Stuff and Updated Stuff

Fullscreen bookmarklet

Tags Tree

New TiddlyWiki Announcements List

QuickEditToolbar gets a 'sort these lines' button

Online Discussions

Quick Shots

Postdrivel

About WHitWoT

WHitWoT #1 (Jan 1-6, 2008)

News, New Stuff and Updated Stuff

Online Discussions

Postdrivel

About WHitWoT

Things that suck: TV News

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