TiddlyWiki

=TiddlyWiki= []
 * Software systems / TiddlyWiki**

TiddlyWiki is a bit of an oddity because each TiddlyWiki is actually a single file made up of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, yet it gives the illusion of being a multi-page wiki. Because all of the interaction scripting is done in JavaScript, the only prerequisite is a modern browser. You could work on a TiddlyWiki on your laptop, save it on a USB stick, send it as an email attachment – or put it on a Web site and share it with colleagues as a collaboration tool.

The creator of TiddlyWiki is Jeremy Ruston, director of Osmosoft. British Telecom acquired Osmosoft in 2007 to help BT harness innovation in open source software development, and rights to TiddlyWiki were then transferred to a not-for-profit foundation, UnaMesa. BT has supported a TiddlyWiki developer community who have produced over 400 plug-ins for it.

TiddlyWiki is described as a ‘non-linear personal web notebook’. You can create new virtual topic pages, called ‘tiddlers’, enter information into them, and make links using a syntax aligned to Wiki Creole. When you save the file, it overwrites itself on your hard disk.

Numerous people have made TiddlyWiki ‘Adaptations’, and BT helps to fund or facilitate some of this work. My impression is that the basic TiddlyWiki system supports only client-side file writing (that is, you can update a TiddlyWiki only on your hard disk, and if you upload it to a server it is then read-only). However, some Adaptions’ support server-side file writing, making them more like a standard wiki.
 * Support for image links, embedded Flash and so on is supported via plug-ins
 * Multilingual versions are available; Unicode is supported and also right-to-left scripts
 * Page history requires a plug-in
 * Printer-friendly output is managed through print-oriented CSS.

Comment
Please add comments below, if you have opinions about or experience of this software system, or can point to interesting examples of its use.

First impressions and early experiments
//AdrianWalmsley// writes: Two factors came together serendipitously I was so taken with the idea of a single file website which could provide Ajax-like tabbed navigation that I ported our nascent competition website into TiddlyWiki, partly because I thought it would be fun to try, and partly as a backup source of information about our competition pending the appointment of a new volunteer webmaster. You can see the results at [|www.oxon.bcs.org/webcomp/webcomptw.html]. Along the way I had to learn how to incorporate a javascript countdown (no longer visible since the deadline has passed), and form handling. The javascript countdown, form handling PHP script and images are all external files, but to me it's very impressive that all the informational content of the site is contained within the single html file.
 * The guy who had volunteered to build the website for our 2009 [|BCS Oxfordshire Schools Web Competition] dropped out of the project in autumn 2008. He left us with a half-finished site and it wasn't clear how quickly we could find a replacement. It's egg-on-face time if, as organisers, you are hoping that the competition will attract innovative and interesting entries, and you don't have a very good website yourselves.
 * I happened to go along to [|Oxford Geek Night 9] where one of the keynotes was Jeremy Rushton on Tiddlywiki.

The Tiddlywiki site was frozen at the end of October 2008, when we found a new volunteer webmaster to take over the main [|competition website], although I still think [|my version] looks the neater.. Before creating this post I modified the form handling so that if any readers of this page try submitting forms, the spurious entries won't annoy my fellow branch committee members.

What I like
The self-contained website is a great idea, easy to set up. If you just need to put up some information quickly in what would have a been a few pages of a normal website, TiddlyWiki is well worth considering.

What needs thinking about
> The new Opera Mini 4.2 browser makes a much better job of rendering this TiddlyWIki page, although the lack of screen real-estate makes it challenging to read.
 * Sharing out the task of updating content is probably not feasible.
 * If you need to access a database it may be possible but I suspect there are better ways.
 * For users with slow links, a single huge html file may not be ideal. It's predicted that internet access from mobile phones will overtake access from traditional PCs before long (and is reported to have already done so in Japan). Effective data rates to most mobiles are much slower than broadband.
 * My webcomp TiddlyWiki defeated the browser on my S60 Nokia mobile phone, which failed to render the page in any meaningful way.