Perversely wonderful

[mdlbear]

TiddlyWiki is one of those perversely wonderful hacks that leave you gaping in awe while wishing you'd thought of it first. You know what a Wiki is, of course: a web site full of pages that anyone can edit using text forms in their browser. Formatting is done by simple, plain-text cues like *bold* and _italics_, and CamelCaseWikiWords get turned into links automagically. It's all done with HTML forms that go back to CGI scripts on the server.

TiddlyWiki, on the other hand, is a single web page full of little cross-linked text fragments, that you edit, wiki-style, in your browser. It's all done with a lot of Javascript. If you've visited the TiddlyWiki site, congratulations! You have already downloaded the program! All you have to do is save it.

The Mandelbear goes off to a quiet corner shaking his head, which promptly explodes.

edit: Also see DocBug's blog entry on it. We both got it from mr_kurt this morning at work.

Comments

[chatworthy.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Fun toy. There are a couple of versions which will save your entries to a database, but still have the keen interface.

[trogula.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that if it's a single page with all the wiki-ness done via javascript, as the wiki grows, it becomes more unwieldly to use (particularly with folks on dialup).

[mdlbear]

Unlike a real wiki, it isn't shared -- it's personal. Everything is done locally, in your browser, and saved to a local file. You wouldn't use it for the same things as a shared wiki; more like a notepad or a directory full of short text files. (There's an emacs mode -- called emacswiki, of course -- that gives you a similar effect.)

I've also seen it used for hypertext fiction. In any case, my guess is that the files would tend to stay small, and you'd just accumulate more of them on different topics. Otherwise, you may as well install a wiki; it's not as if there aren't hundreds of them out there to choose from.

As for me, I'll stick to directories full of little files, edited with emacs.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's brilliant! I especially like the incorporation of sparklines into it.

I tried using the full-bore MediaWiki software for a class (two versions of it, spring and summer) and found out that MediaWiki was too flexible for students, who started creating orphan pages and couldn't find their way around the implied db.

[mdlbear]

With a wiki, about the only way to keep on top of what's happening is to watch the "recent changes" page. Otherwise, "lost in Hyperspace" is a definite problem. Also, if people sign their pages with their WikiName, they can go from their "home page" to anything they've written by following the backlink.


That said, blogs and personal websites are probably a better match for a class.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've discovered that. ;-)