I've just installed TiddlyWiki 5 and I'm loving it! I was looking for something to take down lots of fragments of thoughts, ideas, drafts etc. for a book I'm thinking of writing, and had been experimenting with all kinds of relatively unsatisfactory things - Scrivener, Ulysses, Outlinely, Bear, Gingko, Workflowy, OmniOutliner etc. etc. What I wanted was something that would allow me to produce something along the lines of index cards (yes, I know there are loads of those around, too), but very flexible, so you can close cards, open new ones, fold them (yes, the new TiddlyWiki allows you to keep notes onscreen but fold them down to the title), link them, and manage them.

I had totally forgotten TiddlyWiki until I stumbled across it following an irritating session with Gingko (don't get me wrong, I think Gingko is AMAZING! and will undoubtedly be investing in the desktop version once that appears - in its current beta form, however, it's far from finished). The new version 5 (dating from June 2016, I believe) is astonishing. Within a couple of hours I had a structure I liked (full hierarchical, folding table of hierarchical based on tags, various shortcut cards to key sections in that table of contents etc. etc. Sad and obsessive? Guilty as charged!) I had forgotten just how immensely customisable TiddlyWiki is; the new version has many much-improved macros, plugins and system-level elements that work amazingly well.

As you probably all know, TiddlyWiki is effectively a single web page, with all the goodness built into it. While this makes it incredibly efficient and portable, it also makes it a bit of a pain to use, in the sense that saving directly to the file from a browser is a little complicated. Unless you use Firefox + TiddlyFox, that is: TiddlyFox is an extension that allows you to enable precisely that functionality, so that rather than downloading the file from the browser every time you change it (which is what happens in Safari, Chrome, etc. etc.), it actually saves the changed file directly to disk.

On iOS, things are much pleasanter. Here you will find the gorgeous Quine, a brand new app (but with a good pedigree) that acts as a container for TiddlyWiki and links you up to Dropbox or iCloud, as you prefer (note that the behaviour in each case is slightly different; iCloud syncs automatically, Dropbox has to be instructed). Once you've got these things set up, using TiddlyWiki becomes simplicity itself.

TiddlyWiki could/should be described as an outliner, really - it has all the necessary functionality, including folding, tags, search function and so on. I thoroughly recommend! The latest version can be found at www.tiddlywiki.com

Cheers,
Bill

Thanks for the tips Bill. I think I'm misunderstanding a few things. The new tiddlers added to a document are not saved in the document but you have to periodically export a new instance of the document in order to save the work? Is that the case -- seems odd.

Quine is a bit of a mess. I gave it a try and deleted it. The Dropbox app is actually a better choice on iOS I think.

Ah, before appreciating the amazing Quine, you've got to appreciate TiddlyWiki.

TiddlyWiki is just a single HTML file. As you save "tiddlers" (notes), they are saved directly into the HTML file itself, so you only ever have one single file. That is the true beauty of TiddlyWiki - no separate notes, no complex of files, just a single, ever-growing HTML file. All the programming that makes it so powerful is built into that single file. And all the notes you take are also saved into that single file.

The problem is, most browsers won't save edited HTML files directly to disk, for a variety of security-related reasons (well, they will, but only when saving web pages; this is a file loaded from disk, remember, not a web page from a server). The way around that is to use Tiddlyfox, which allows FireFox to save files (like the single TiddlyWiki file) to disk without any problems (a little notice appears to let you know your file has been saved).

Quine on iOS performs the same magic, i.e. allows you to save an edited HTML file to disk, which you can't do from Safari. Now, I'm having difficulty making it work with iCloud (it creates an iCloud folder on my iOS devices, but the latter doesn't seem to sync with my various Macs, or even with iCloud online. Probably an early version glitch). But it works very well with Dropbox, which means you also benefit from Dropbox's versioning and backups (always a good thing when you're taking notes in a single file). Quine's sole function is to act as a container for TiddlyWiki. Once it's created an \Apps\Quine folder in Dropbox, you can put any number of TiddlyWiki files in there and sync them with your iOS devices. I only use a single file at the moment, but that may change.

The only downside of syncing TiddlyWiki using Dropbox (via Quine) is that you have to explicitly sync the file one way and the other. So it's important to remember which machine you were last using to edit your TiddlyWiki file! Quine helps you, by telling you that a particular file either needs to be uploaded (to Dropbox) or downloaded (from Dropbox), so it's clearly keeping track of updates, but it sometimes takes it a few seconds to "register" which version of TiddlyWiki (local or remote) is the most up-to-date one.

But experiment with TiddlyWiki first, before playing with Quine. Only once you've discovered the true glory of TiddlyWiki will you find you want it with you everywhere...

The Quine share extension also allows you to save images and other files to your TiddlyWiki, in which case I assume it probably creates a subfolder (this is a good way of using external resources with TiddlyWiki).

There are versions of TiddlyWiki that work from servers; the tiddlywiki.com website has plenty of interesting links to hacks people have come up with. But I love the ultra-simple single file concept.

All the best,
Bill

I've been using TiddlyWiki for years -- so I know all about its "wonders" -- but had abandoned it because of the saving issue. V5 does nothing to fix it the problem I suppose. I get the point about Firefox, but I don't use Firefox.

The problem with Quine is you have to uninstall it and reinstall it to change clouds. Soon as I have to use a hammer like that, I never bother to reinstall.

I'd like to have a good desktop wiki. So after playing with TiddlyWiki 5, I took my bi-annual nostalgia trip over to Plausible Labs to check whether VoodooPad v6 is anywhere near reality -- four years after they bought the app and then let it die. (Why would anyone do that?) PL doesn't even bother anymore to post their fantasies about "v6 is just a month away" -- at least nothing in the past 12 months. Good news is that VoodooPad 5 ticks away on High Sierra, so it still has good bones.

Hm, odd about your Quine issues: I've happily swapped between Dropbox and iCloud without any problems.

But it's still an early version!

Bill, your post inspired me to give TW a try.
I use it to collect thoughts on 2 subjects - the idea is to think them through by writing and linking thoughts.
One thing I failed to find a solution to: When I rename a tiddler (=note), TW does not automatically change the links to this tiddler (as the tiddler name is used for linking). Am I missing something - or is it TW that lacks an important feature?

Strange, re: broken links

Manfred Kühn wrote about this limitation in TW (http://takingnotenow.blogspot.de/2017/01/a-tiddlywiki-limitation.html
One of the comments says that the limitation has been fixed in TW 5.1.14. But I cannot find the option he mentions in 5.1.14.

Speaking of wikis, does anyone here use an online wiki as a private wiki for a personal notes database?

I'm just wondering if there is one that makes it relatively easy to capture notes (i.e. the minimum number of steps to create a new note) and search and find notes or browse them.

I have no need for a public wiki or for sharing notes. It's about the convenience of having it online, so I can use it with a Chromebook, and access it from any device and OS.

Once in a while I do a search for this, but I have never found anything that focuses on making note-taking easy. They mainly focus on making things public.

It would be a replacement for ConnectedText. I don't expect feature parity, but it should not be harder to add a new note or to find an old note or to navigate the database than in CT.

TiddlyWiki unfortunately doesn't meet my criteria.

This is not going to be for everyone -- but, I use DocuWiki on my own NAS server and can access it locally and online via a private address. There are also options to get DocuWiki hosting from others -- here's a couple

https://www.dokuwiki.org/hosting

DocuWiki is simple and has all the core features I think a wiki needs to have.

Not sure if these will make TiddlyWiki usable for you, Dr Andus, but a couple of ways for putting it online I hadn't seen mentioned are Tiddlyspot: http://tiddlyspot.com/ and Notself: https://noteself.github.io/

Dr Andus wrote:

Speaking of wikis, does anyone here use an online wiki as a private wiki
for a personal notes database?

TiddlyWiki unfortunately doesn't meet my criteria.

I've loved TiddlyWiki for years and a lot of the apps that were built on the old TiddlyWiki (some of the GTD apps that came out of TiddlyWiki back in 2006 were pretty great for the time).

I've been checking out TW5 off and on for years now. My biggest problem with it, though, is that it doesn't seem to be all that well-document. Well, documentation *exists*, but it's scattered across various sites and forums. This seems especially annoying to deal with since TW5 seems to be kind of a "build-your-own notetaker," similar to how Emacs is "build-your-own-text-editor/outliner."

There is a great and active community around it, but I just find myself getting a headache when I try to read through the forum.

I've not had the updated title issue - whenever I change a tiddler's name, my version of TW5 asks me if I wish to update all crosslinks across the wiki, and then does so. Maybe it's a version thing?

As for personal note-taking wikis; I'd recommend a few fairly competent options. First, samepage.io (although the free account is restricted to 16 pages, you can take a LOT of notes in those 16 pages!). Second, Quip, which is turning into a fairly elegant multipurpose solution. Thirdly, Paper by Dropbox, now built into your Dropbox web page, which is by no means perfect but does run very fast and efficiently. I don't like Box's offering much; it's not as elegant or flexible. Fourthly, Notion, which is really quite nice and developing into quite a promising universal wiki thingy (notion.io). There are a few more, but those are the ones I can think of that are most likely to meet your criteria.

Cheers,
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

I've not had the updated title issue - whenever I change a tiddler's
name, my version of TW5 asks me if I wish to update all crosslinks
across the wiki, and then does so. Maybe it's a version thing?

Funny. The German version 5.1.14 lacks the update feature, the English version has it. Nevertheless, updating didn't change the links.I'll have to look into this tomorrow.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Fourthly, Notion, which
is really quite nice and developing into quite a promising universal
wiki thingy (notion.io).

I believe it is https://www.notion.so/

MadaboutDana wrote:

I Second, Quip, which is turning into a fairly elegant multipurpose solution.

I would mention Quiver (http://happenapps.com which incidentally may be what you meant as well

Na, Quiver isn't an online solution, although it's a great macOS app. Quip is very much an online solution, but with desktop/mobile apps as well (quip.com)

MadaboutDana wrote:

Na, Quiver isn't an online solution, although it's a great macOS app.
Quip is very much an online solution, but with desktop/mobile apps as
well (quip.com)

What do you mean exactly? Quiver is not an online-only solution, true, but you can sync through Dropbox or Webdav.

I forgot to mention, macOS and iOS, but if true platform independence (web interface and Windows or Linux) is required then you are out of luck. Other than that, it is a mature option.

Well, that's the point - I absolutely agree with you about Quiver, it's one of my favourites, if the iOS app was as good as the desktop one, it'd be my go-to info management app.

But that's not what this thread is about.

Sorry, Prion, I realise I mixed up this thread with the process management thread! I do apologise.

Quiver as alternative to wiki - maybe, but it's very much not there yet; not until it's got a proper iOS app.

Also, TiddlyWiki I can use, cost-free, on my Windows machines as well, using the same Firefox extension as on macOS.

Another option would be Todoist, I suppose, which can be used as a note-taking app by the very simple expedient of preceding tasks with an asterisk *, which causes the task checkbox to disappear. It's got a very good tagging system, is highly flexible, and works across almost every platform in existence, and if not, then via the web.

However, my reasons for enjoying TiddlyWiki have to do with way you can take mini-notes (tiddlers); for some reason, I find this a very satisfying way of collecting up scraps of information.

Quiver, of course, can do more or less the same thing. Hence my frustration with the lack of writable/searchable iOS app.

Please, no apology needed. In fact, I was wondering what this thread was about as I am currently traveling without much access to the internet, hence each page load is excruciatingly slowly and I had not read all the posts again before replying.

I really tried to love Tiddlywiki v5 but could not get past the point that it is an island by itself.
I was really looking for a repository for general notes that sometimes need to be found e.g. by a system-wide search without deciding first where to search. Do you have much experience with Tiddlywiki desktop? Still not ideal but perhaps workable?

Hm, I fear a system-wide search wouldn't be helpful with TiddlyWiki, because despite the fact that each tiddler *appears* to be a separate note, they're actually all written into the single (enormous, ca. 2 MB in a modest setup) HTML file that is TiddlyWiki.

For something like you're describing, you'd be better off with Alfons's Notebooks, which handles all notes as separate files, or maybe one of the many excellent cross-platform Markdown editors. Notebooks is very capable, and a new version is due out in the "not too distant" future (hopefully ramping up its capabilities in line with the very good iOS version).

I'm currently experimenting with Chronos's latest, Notelife. Nice app, but I can't work out how it handles its files. It uses iCloud for syncing, but keeps everything hidden and notes don't show up in a general (Spotlight) search.

Cheers,
Bill

Interestingly, Ulysses also produces separate files which are included in Spotlight searches.

Modern applications on macOS can store documents in various places. AppStore apps are sandboxed and usually store documents in ~/Library/Containers/... Other applications will store documents in .plists or SQL databases in other locations such as in ~/Library/Application Support/... or in very-obscurely named folders elsewhere in your personal Library. iCloud documents are stored in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/... In the last, what you see in Finder is not, actually, the path where the iCloud documents are actually stored -- Finder spoofs the "real" path in its display.

IOW -- it's frequently very difficult to find "documents" for an app -- and once you do, what are you going to do with a collection of .plists or SQL data files? With regard to Spotlight, it depends on whether the application bothers to create Spotlight index metadata files. Many applications ignore Spotlight -- perhaps Notefile does?

Dr Andus wrote:

Speaking of wikis, does anyone here use an online wiki as a private wiki
for a personal notes database?

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Paul Korm wrote:

DocuWiki is simple and has all the core features I think a wiki needs to
have.

Yeah, DocuWiki seems the closest to CT as a wiki (reasonably similar syntax, the look of the thing). But it seems it would be very labour-intensive to transfer thousands of CT topics and get the syntax aligned through some regex wizardry (a skill I don't have).

I'd also be a bit worried about just relying on some 3rd party hosting. I'd definitely need some kind of a daily automatic backup. Again, sounds like quite a bit of time and effort needed to set it up. (I'd need to research all this, and learn how to do it.)

MadaboutDana wrote:

Fourthly, Notion, which
is really quite nice and developing into quite a promising universal
wiki thingy (notion.io).

From the other suggestions, Notion looked the most interesting to me (the cleanest interface). But I'd need to look further into how easy it is to import thousands of CT topics, and what the options are for daily backups.

I guess my biggest problem is that so much work would be involved in transferring and altering the data and learning about the new solution and the backup that I would have to be absolutely sure that I've found the perfect online replacement for CT and that the time and effort spent on doing this would be worthwhile and that the alternative would work for at least five years or so (which is how long I've been using CT), before I'd need to move the data again.

Even researching this thing is time-consuming... I guess I'm experiencing being locked-up into Windows and CT. Maybe the solution I'm looking for hasn't been invented yet. Ideally I'd just like to be able to export my CT topics as a single file and upload it to somewhere, and then do a few search-and-replace to fix any syntax differences. After that it would be all about some kind of a browser extension that would allow me to add copied text as a new entry into this online solution, so that I can annotate it later.

I guess Evernote, Onenote, and Keep offer those kinds of tools, but none of those services are close enough to what I'm looking for.