Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with tiddlywiki

Need help with personal knowledge management!

fsmontenegro — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:04:15 -0800

How are people organizing their information (professional and personal) in this day and age? What kind of system is flexible enough to cope with multiple data types (PDFs, DOCs, short text notes, hyperlinks, ...), efficient during collection (when browsing the Web, when reading documents, ...) and won't get in my way when I try to use it? (I looked into existing posts - good start, but I'd like suggestions that also incorporate whole files and not just bookmarks and snippets)

I'm trying to find a coherent system using multiple tools - mindmaps, note taking tools, file search tools and others - so that I can be more productive in storing and finding the right information. A personal Memex if you will, similar to Vannevar Bush's original idea but with proper search.

I'm an IT/Network Security Architect/Engineer. I deal with information on a daily basis - from configuration snippets and links to product documentation to written reports and form documents. Sometimes the entire document is relevant and sometimes a simple summary or just a snippet may do.

I've used mind maps (with MindManager) since 2001 and I love the concept and the tool. I've used it to take notes when studying, to create document structure and then exporting to Word, to capture notes in meetings, etc...

I've recently been introduced to Microsoft OneNote. It also seems very, very powerful in organizing information - notebooks, sections, pages, etc... all searchable and nicely integrated into Windows. I've come to rely on OneNote for screen captures, print outputs and the integration of short notes to my PDA.

I find desktop search tools (initially Yahoo's Desktop - an OEM of X1 - and now Google Desktop, with its' capability to search MindMaps...) to be also very, very good at helping find information, especially when it is in a structured document (Word, PDF, ...)

Finally I know there's other tools out there:
- Wikis (web-based and local storage) TiddlyWiki as a good example
- Evernote
- Scrapbook firefox extension (excellent for local storage of pages!)
- Delicious
- Google Notebook
- Stars and tags in Google Reader and other RSS
- others… heck, I've heard of people using iTunes to manage their PDFs!

I read Lifehacker, I do GTD (I use it in a slightly modified fashion) and I live the inbox zero concept. My issue is not so much task management as information management.

So, what kind of systems are people using for managing their information? What's the best way of keeping track of some configuration details for firewalls I work with? How can I easily store (and retrieve) interesting RSS posts? Suggestions for storing (or not) a PDF whitepaper on something?

Thanks!

How best to export a Journler diary?

zenja72 — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:18:07 -0800

How best to export a Journler diary? I have used Journler since I got my Mac a year ago, and have built up a fairly large journal. I really like the program, but it seems it's been abandoned; the developer switched from donationware to paid software with the latest release, but I haven't paid for my license yet. I don't plan to purchase one if it's abandoned, what with Snow Leopard on the horizons, and a possible computer move in the next year.

So, looking forwards, what's the best way to export my Journler? My ideal solution would be using a free (preferably open source) solution that is available for Mac and Linux (been experimenting with Ubuntu lately). TiddlyWiki would be great, as it's portable. Thanks very much in advance.

Nit-picky TiddlyWiki alternative

i_am_a_Jedi — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:56:27 -0800

Yet another wiki question. I would like to migrate away from using TiddlyWiki as a personal wiki to one capable of handling a lot more data, but I need one specific function. Here is an example of what I need. What I like about this is that the answer is obscured until I click on the question. I also appreciate the ability to nest a question inside another answer in case the next question would contain information that would allow you to answer the first question (ie. no hint for answering the first question with the second question).

I take a lot of notes in the form of questions while I'm reading. When I review I go back through these notes and answer the questions in my head. If you look at the example above that's exactly how I do it on TiddlyWiki. But, of course, TiddlyWiki has a problem with large file sizes. I have multiple large (ie. slow performance) TiddlyWiki files that, unfortunately, can't interface with one another being in separate files.

My primary note-taking computer is my Asus EEE running Ubuntu. I am open to running it on LAMP or whatever. It does not need to multi-user (but that would be alright). I'm pretty familiar with the existence of most of the wiki software out there, but I haven't had any experience using most of it. I'm looking at Dokuwiki maybe, but i haven't found if I can replicate this behavior in it.
Bonus points for:
- ability to print entries
- ability to export to pdf
- tagging or some other metainformation sorting/hierarchy
- ability to password protect

Superbonus points for being able to import TiddlyWiki data/syntax.

If you have any other suggestions or alternate methods that would still allow me to review my notes in this manner I'd really appreciate hearing those also.

Suppress checkboxes in CSS?

middleclasstool — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:05:42 -0800

Is it possible to make checkboxes invisible using CSS? I've been using a TiddlyWiki for keeping my life in order (GTD), recently fell off the wagon, and am now getting back on using a newer-generation TW.

I've thrown together a stylesheet for printing on 3x5 index cards that seems to work fine, but all the "next action" items have checkboxes next to them that you check when you've completed that action, and these take up tons of real estate on the cards when they print. I've got the text resized smaller for cards, so what I'd like to do is come up with a CSS statement that will either do the equivalent of "display:none" on the boxes themselves, or failing that, resize them down a bit.

I know very little CSS, but Googling fails me so far, so I'm guessing the answer is "no." Do any of you web gurus have the ability to pleasantly surprise me?

I'm building a project that I think is a little like TiddlyWiki. Where should I start?

a robot made out of meat — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:09:17 -0800

I'm building a project that I think is a little like TiddlyWiki. Where should I start? So I'm building a project who's goal is to take a smallish (<10mb) database of questions which are currently xml tags, take some options, and make an html/js test for the user. They'd mark their answers and proceed through the test. The application stores their answer sequence. When they're done, it compares to the correct answers, and offers to show them explanations (which are already marked up and included in the small database).

While I was coming up with exact specifications, it occurred to me that a similar set of behaviors (from stored data create/display pages, store similar information in self all from within a single html) exists in TiddlyWiki, which is open source javascript. Writing the backend functions that I want is mostly trivial; the finished product pretty tough since I've never had to deal with CSS or made front-ends for the web. Since this is a pet project, it doesn't have to be perfect code when I give up. I'm working though the code in TiddlyWiki and looking at the Dev page but feel that the working of TiddlyWiki is way overkill on what I need to do.

The question: are there other well-documented simply-constructed open-source projects that I should be looking at for guidance on this project? I feel that with a few well-annotated examples I could figure it out easily.

Thanks all.

Info organizers that support popups / tooltips?

blahtsk — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:08:12 -0800

Any information organization tools out there (OneNote, TiddlyWiki, etc.) that support mouse-over, PHPXref-style popups / tooltip windows? I like to store code snips and other technical bits of info, so I'm really digging the PHPXref style of popping up detailed info on mouseOver.

However I can't find a OneNote or TiddlyWiki plugin that will do this. The best I have found so far is using TiddlyWiki and adding a tooltip library, but that seems a little tedious.

Here is an example of PHPXref in action.

Thanks in advance!

faster d3 tiddlywiki

primer_dimer — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 02:53:24 -0800

Looking for a faster version of d3 TiddlyWiki I've finally found my own person note-taking/GTD nirvana in d3 (or d-cubed), an adaptation of TiddlyWiki:

http://www.dcubed.ca/

But there's trouble in paradise - the design of TiddlyWiki (everything in one big file) makes d3 increasingly slow as I add more material. This is stopping me from using it as a one-stop brain-dump, which is what I'd really like to do. So what I'm looking for is a way to make it faster. I'm assuming that the way to do this is with one of the server-side TiddlyWiki versions (I run a personal sever, so this wouldn't be a problem). Can I just set up one of the server-side versions, then add the plugins from d3 to recreate the same functionality? I'm so enamoured of it that I'm prepared to do a bit of legwork to get a solution set up. Other suggestions are also welcome.

Create folder link in TiddlyWiki in OSX?

cahlers — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 12:34:35 -0800

How can I create a link to a folder in TiddlyWiki and Mac OSX? I have read the tutorial, and have tried to use the path structure mentioned therein, but the resulting link doesn't work. I'm using the latest version of Firefox on Mac OS 10.4.

Is there a way for me to have the computer tell me the path for a particular folder, and then use that path to create a link in TiddlyWiki? Does anyone have direct experience with this?

Also, it looks like the TiddlyWiki wants to open the resulting link inside Firefox, but I prefer for it to open in the Finder. Is there a way to tell Tiddlywiki or Firfox to open the folder in the finder as opposed to in Firefox?

Saving files with Javascript?

gwint — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:31:07 -0800

Are there any tutorials out there that explains how to save/update files from a browser using only javascript as tiddlywiki does? (I tried to figure it out from the tiddlywiki source code without luck...)