[tw] [TW5] TW for Scholars: current situation

[Alberto Molina]

Hi,

For those interested, I want to explain why TW for Scholars [1] is not
updated since August.

Scholars is the product of several attempts, like [2], to create an
academic notetaking tool, learning step by step how to do it. I wanted
something with forms and buttons to fill fields and create custom titles
automatically. And it wouldn't have been possible without Matabele's
widgets. But Scholars was just a proof of concept, and it faced two big
problems: first, it was not a plugin; second, the plugins it relied on
stoped working with tw 5.1 in September.

When the ActionSetFieldWidget was implemented, at the end of November, I
started working to substitute Matabele's widgets with core widgets and to
bundle Scholars as a plugin. The idea was to split the features in
different plugins: one for the basic mechanisms, and others for specific
purposes. The plugin, called BottomTabs [3], was announced here in December.

BottomTabs v.0.1 was buggy, messy, hard to customize, and the extra plugin
for academic readings was incomplete. In order to enhance the code, I had
to take drastic decisions leading to incompatible changes. Then, I renamed
the plugin to MagicTabs [4].

MagicTabs is a set of plugins in active development. The basic plugin is
usable enough, but needs some testing and debugging, and more incompatible
changes are still possible. The plugin for academic notetaking needs to be
entirely rewritten, as that will not be easy. When its done, TW for
Scholars will consist of the MagicTabs basic plugin + an extra plugin for
scholars + a dedicated theme/layout.

In few words, TW for Scholars is far from dead, but it needs more work.

Best wishes,

Alberto


[1] http://tw5.scholars.tiddlyspot.com/
[2] http://tesis.tiddlyspot.com/
[3] http://bottomtabs.tiddlyspot.com/
[4] http://magictabs.tiddlyspot.com/

[Tobias Beer]

Alberto,

Don't worry about that. It's entirely great that you are actually working
on providing the features of TiddlyWiki for Scholars as general-purpose
plugins. Anyone who would try to do after you understands how much time and
thought processing and fiddly-work is involved in all that.
I think, as Felix is doing as well, it is only reasonable to declare
MagicTabs as being in beta stage, for a while... developing it to the point
where you are confident that it forms the right union with your scholarly
wiki but is very usable by itself... perhaps having made a trial of it
yourself in some other context that you publish. At least, I keep on
reusing my own stuff here and there in different contexts and it makes me
realize how I might improve on it or what problems others could encounter
in trying that on their own.

On the other hand, and I'm not sure here, perhaps documenting and
explaining what MagicTabs precisely does, so that one can basically
construct the thing oneself, might actually help you in coming to terms
yourself. Right now, to some extend with TiddlyMap as well, it's plugin
land and we're kinda relying on the fact that — under-the hood — the thing
is designed to do what we expect... which actually isn't always the case.

I think it's quite important to expose and discuss the different
components, aspects, mechanics, and to explain how they work together...
with that in some demo / dev / release wiki it's much easier for everyone
to give feedback and help contribute ...which hopefully doesn't always
sound like "But can't it do that, too?" ^^

Also, I guess the decision as to which components go where, plugin or
scholars, isn't exactly an easy one.

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Alberto

I just wanted to chime in with some encouragement. tw5.scholars was a great
piece of work, and MagicTabs is exactly what it should become. Things like
the type manager show how you're creating a meta-tool for helping people to
create their own custom tools, much more easily than with TiddlyWiki on its
own. It's ambitious, but I think extends TW in useful ways. It's the kind
of thing we need to help TW reach a larger audience.

So, good luck, and I'll be following with interest,

Best wishes

Jeremy

Post by Tobias Beer
Alberto,
Don't worry about that. It's entirely great that you are actually working
on providing the features of TiddlyWiki for Scholars as general-purpose
plugins. Anyone who would try to do after you understands how much time and
thought processing and fiddly-work is involved in all that.
I think, as Felix is doing as well, it is only reasonable to declare
MagicTabs as being in beta stage, for a while... developing it to the point
where you are confident that it forms the right union with your scholarly
wiki but is very usable by itself... perhaps having made a trial of it
yourself in some other context that you publish. At least, I keep on
reusing my own stuff here and there in different contexts and it makes me
realize how I might improve on it or what problems others could encounter
in trying that on their own.
On the other hand, and I'm not sure here, perhaps documenting and
explaining what MagicTabs precisely does, so that one can basically
construct the thing oneself, might actually help you in coming to terms
yourself. Right now, to some extend with TiddlyMap as well, it's plugin
land and we're kinda relying on the fact that — under-the hood — the thing
is designed to do what we expect... which actually isn't always the case.
I think it's quite important to expose and discuss the different
components, aspects, mechanics, and to explain how they work together...
with that in some demo / dev / release wiki it's much easier for everyone
to give feedback and help contribute ...which hopefully doesn't always
sound like "But can't it do that, too?" ^^
Also, I guess the decision as to which components go where, plugin or
scholars, isn't exactly an easy one.
Best wishes, Tobias.
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Jeremy Ruston
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