1. What were you looking for when you first found Tiddlywiki? My system of organising all my to-do's had got out of hand, and I discovered GTD as a possible way of tacking this. Part of the solution required a more efficient and unified way to store notes and general information for later reference. I had previously used Springpad a bit and my first thought was to use this more extensively. This was early this year, so when I went to the Springpad site, I discovered it was closing down. Fortunately I wasn't too heavily invested in it, but it increased my resolve to find a system that couldn't be taken away from me. No dependence on a website controlled by someone else; no proprietary file formats that I can't extract data from by other means if necessary (I had previously been bitten by Repligo too - no way to get those files back into a useful form). I should say that I am also generally wary of Cloud storage. Fine as a backup or for synchronisation, but I would never consider it as my only repositary for information or a place to put very sensitive information.
My search lead me to investigate wikis, but most of them had limitations: no graphic support; unintuitive interface; not usable on a smartphone. With reservations, I identified TW as something that could potentially meet my needs. 2. Was there anything about the program, the eco-system, whatever, that frustrated you nearly to the point of giving up on it? The first thing that put me off was the choice between the mature, but rather ugly and outdated TWC, or the clearly immature TW5 beta. Finding that TW5 could already do much of what I needed to get started, and the prospect of more to come persuaded me to give it a try. Secondly, I have been a bit frustrated by the slightly clunky process for capturing and clipping data from the web: mostly cutting and pasting URLs and typing them into a piece of WikiText - much harder than on the likes of Springpad/Evernote ,etc. The recent TiddlyClip plugin should have helped, but it's still a bit unintuitive, so I haven't used it much. Also, to free myself of reference to information on the internet that could be removed, I would ideally like to be able to capture the data to my hard drive and create a reference to that, in a seamless way (might be a big ask for now). Thirdly, the thing that continues to frustrate is that the system of filters and macros and widgets is very difficult to learn (and I have learned a few programming languages in my time, though I'm no developer). Not just because of the deficiencies in the documentation, but also because it doesn't seem to do anything in ways that are familiar from any other environment I have encountered (it took me ages to figure out that the list widget was essentially a 'for' loop). 3. What made you stick with the program? Initially because notwithstanding the limitations of TW and of my ability to use many of its features, I was able to immediately use it for the basic function of capturing and synchronising information as I encountered it. Secondly, I have gradually found more things that I can use TW for (I currently have 4 TWs that I am working on to various degrees: my main idea/notes collection TW, a recipe TW, a GTD TW, and a website for a music group I play with, incorporating our extensive catalogue of music with advanced searching capability (hopefully!)). Finally, because of the rapid pace of development, I have become a bit hooked to following the groups and even the hangout recordings, eagerly watching for new things or helpful explanations that I can use. Sorry for rambling! Neil. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
