On Jul 11, 6:34 am, "Mark S." <[email protected]> wrote: > The problem with TikiWiki.org isn't so much the dissonance between > media styles, as the lack of structure. Without structure, there's no > "place" for things to fit, and everyone has a different idea where > things go. As a result, some topics are repeated several times. Some > topics are there, but so incomplete they might as well be deleted > until someone can complete them. Some topics are just stubs, for > someone else's imagined but unfinished structure. > > In programming they used to talk a lot about "spaghetti code". With an > unstructured Wiki, you end up with "spaghetti documentation". > > So I would suggest not just a master list of topics, but a master > table of contents as a backbone to guide contributors, reduce > repetition, and clarify omissions.
In my opinion TiddlyWiki defines its own structure. I feel that TiddlyWiki is the best medium to document itself, with at least one proviso, its practical size limitations. Also it doesn't lend itself to multi-user use for collaboration exercises such as group documenting of it. Why should it? Its very structure, and charm is not multi-user intentioned. Putting that aside, and acknowledging that horses designed by groups always turn out looking like camels, I offer a few observations. In my opinion any good documentation offers first, an example of a function, then it goes on to define its details, then offers an example of its use that someone can copy and build upon with their own goals in mind. More importantly it doesn't send you somewhere else to try it. It embraces you, keeping itself near you as you try its suggestions; letting you go without prejudice if perhaps you wish to move on. If the medium used for this documentation doesn't allow this then it is lacking an essential ingredient - compatibility. Thoughts are fleeting, distractions an anathema to continuity of thought, one shouldn't have to change horses in mid-stream for the understanding of something. Try it now and understand, wait for some other time or medium and lose it. It was with this thought in mind I decided to start building http://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com with no other thought than to use it for myself. I thought TiddlyWiki was, in some ways, self-defining. Start with its page structure and work your way down into it, learning, experimenting, trying as you go, seemed rational. It lies, yet not quite fulfilling this goal, but not forgotten. But TiddlyWiki as defined as a non-linear, almost anarchic, a lacking in structure being, was its own worse enemy. Making you chase tiddlers up and down the page was distracting beyond belief. The primitive search starting to open tiddlers on the third key stroke was to me, well to put it mildly, radical.... I decided that to really instruct someone meant they should never lose their place. That they should be able to explore a thread, observe, back out and continue their exploration without wondering where they were and where they came from. Online or offline they should be able to see and experiment with the code provided. Why so many plugin developers and user developers lock their sites when online is beyond me. What they are trying to protect that needs no protecting is bewildering. Making you download their site to see things and/or experiment - is that helpful - of course, but on their terms. Why? I decided to use the built-in tabs and sliders to effect continuity and give confidence that one shouldn't get lost in their learning quest. If someone should find themselves in a tiddler that is part of a tabset, then they need only click the back button in the yellow gradient to restore the place and group it belongs to. If they want to separate a tiddler from a tabset they need only click its title in the yellow gradient to see it on its own. There they are presented with a bookmark icon to bookmark it and/or send its location to a friend whether they are on or offline. MediaWiki http://tiddlywiki.org/wiki/Main_Page is not as friendly as TiddlyWiki http://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com At least your search gives you more than you intend, not nothing like so often. However against all my intentions, I, through time, converted http://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com into a repository, possibly undoing its structure a bit, into a collection of interesting things that lends itself more to browsing on a Sunday afternoon than searching for a specific solution. Nevertheless, egocentric as it might seem, I can't help but think, its original intentions taken, that it might serve, in some way, a model to be considered in trying to impart, in a helpful way, the exceedingly complex thing that is TiddlyWiki. I would love to redo it knowing what I know now and I have started, but collective knowledge doesn't necessarily create camels where horses are desired, most likely it won't, but one can but only hope :-) For those who have labored through Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' might just wonder if her contention that any idea springs from but one mind only. That may or may not be true, then again it might be why all collective attempts to do the same fails. Notwithstanding Sir Isaac Newton's contention that he was but, "by standing on the shoulders of Giants......". Then again they were but only shoulders.... weren't they ;-) Two bricks always makes a camel drink more assuming they are slapped together in a critical place in the camel's anatomy. Unfortunately civilization dictates that this is unacceptable where humans are concerned, notwithstanding the fact that it is the only thing that works.;-) Morris Gray;-) On Jul 11, 6:34 am, "Mark S." <[email protected]> wrote: > The problem with TikiWiki.org isn't so much the dissonance between > media styles, as the lack of structure. Without structure, there's no > "place" for things to fit, and everyone has a different idea where > things go. As a result, some topics are repeated several times. Some > topics are there, but so incomplete they might as well be deleted > until someone can complete them. Some topics are just stubs, for > someone else's imagined but unfinished structure. > > In programming they used to talk a lot about "spaghetti code". With an > unstructured Wiki, you end up with "spaghetti documentation". > > So I would suggest not just a master list of topics, but a master > table of contents as a backbone to guide contributors, reduce > repetition, and clarify omissions. > > -- Mark > > On Jul 10, 11:45 am, Dave Gifford <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I think if FND, who was most involved previously in asking us to help > > with documentation, could come up with a master list of topics that > > need documentation, and if users could post here their additions to > > that list, we could create a master list. The second step would be --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. 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