"NoteSelf - The Missing Manual - Part II" Seriously... excellent, Lost Admin. Thank you!
On Thursday, July 20, 2017 at 8:06:46 AM UTC-5, Lost Admin wrote: > > > > On Thursday, July 20, 2017 at 3:19:06 AM UTC-4, @TiddlyTweeter wrote: >> >> Tutti, Small comments ... >> >> *NoteSelf is currently largely MAGIC*. >> >> Meaning *its actually quite difficult to conceptually grasp* what it is >> & how it works. In time it will get clearer. That is NOT a criticism. Its >> an observation on a technology that just works a different way. >> >> I am still myself unclear on several points ... >> >> (1) CORS settings in Cloudant and what the addressing they ask you for >> there does? Do you need a "stub" at the address? >> > > I had to look this one up too, when I first ran into it. CORS stands for > Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. One needs to understand a bit about how the > web works. A website serves up an HTML document. That HTML document has > links to other things that are used to render the final page. These things > include pictures and stylesheets and javascript. If they all come from the > same http server (host and domain) they they are from the "same origin". If > they get them from some other http server, then they are cross-origin. > > For example, if you create a website that makes use of jquery you can > choose to host a copy of the jquery library on your own website > (same-origin) or to have your html page get it from the public google > repository (cross-origin). > > CORS came into existence to stop thing like linking images from other > people's websites without permission among other things like CouchDB. > > The reason you need to set-up CORS is that CouchDB was designed from the > start to be a database server that is accessible directly over the > Internet. As such they made a few unusual design decisions (from a database > perspective). Whereas a traditional database (like say MySQL) uses an SQL > interface with a somewhat simple network protocol, CouchDB chose to use > HTTP as the interface and network protocol. > > So, we use CORS (a relatively recent extension of HTTP) as a security > setting in CouchDB. It tells the CouchDB server what other websites are > allowed to send code to a browser that can be used to make calls to the > CouchDB server. > > >> (2) Still unclear in the difference between the DOWNLOAD version and the >> ONLINE version. >> > > This also takes a bit to grasp. In the simplest way I can think of, > NoteSelf takes TiddlyWiki (a single-file document) and turns it into the > client side of a client-server application. Danielo's genius was in > figuring out how to make it do that so elegantly. > > One of Danielo's plugin(s) is like a modification to the TiddlyWiki json > export function. Except instead of exporting to a file for download, it > exports to a CouchDB server through a REST call. And it does it > automatically every time you save a tiddler. > > >> >> (3) Am very hazy about COOKIE setting when using the ONLINE version. >> > > This is a requirement from CouchDB. The CouchDB server uses http cookie > based authentication. When you log-in to the CouchDB, it sets a cookie. > That cookie is used as a token to say "hey this guy logged in". > > Since CouchDB supports people writing their own login forms, Danielo did > that. That is what the login popup does when you click the OFFLINE button > and it turns into a cloud. It sends your credentials to the CouchDB server, > and if login succeeds, you get cookie. > > >> >> (4) I get the impression that some tiddlers -- like PLUGINS for instance >> -- can be "hard-coded" into the DOWNLOAD version, rather than be in the >> browser database. *In other words, there is a "sort-of" TW that exists >> outside the PouchDB for the download version?* >> > > The DOWNLOAD version is the traditional TW way. > > There is exactly a TW that exists outside of PouchDB. But if you do it > entirely the NoteSelf way, that TW is always the empty.html version. > Everything else comes from CouchDB. > > PouchDB is like CouchDB, except it is written entirely in javascript, only > usable by the browser that runs it, and uses the Browser's local storage > (specifically the recently introduced IndexDB local storage). > > >> (5) I'm unclear IF and HOW one can convert a DOWNLOAD version into a >> synchronising one with a cloud database version. >> > > Danielo's PouchDB plugin holds all the magic. It has the PouchDB and the > interface for CouchDB. If you put it into any existing TW5, you have turned > it into a NoteSelf (I think that's all it takes). You then, of course, need > to set-up the cloud database server stuff. > > This next bit I'm not completely clear on (I haven't dug into Danielo's > code enough yet). I believe that once you have the PouchDB plugins added > and you've added the settings to communicate with the CouchDB, it works > pretty much like a new TiddlyWiki saver. When you save a change to a > tiddler, it sends that tiddler to the local storage of the browser though > PouchDB and updates the CouchDB (send a json formatted version of the > tiddler). > > Because there needs to be a bit of bootstrap to get all the > PouchDB/CouchDB stuff working, there are a few tiddlers that are an > exception to the "send to PouchDB/CouchDB". These always come from the html > file. > > And since you always have that html file (the empty.html from > noteself.github.io) and it is Tiddlywiki with a special sort of saver, > you can do everything you would do with TiddlyWiki like adding plugins to > it or adding tiddlers to it. You then get your own download version. > > Finally, because Danielo built on-top of TiddlyWiki, you can still save > your NoteSelf wiki just like you can save TiddlyWiki (as a single file). > > > One final word: > > PouchDB (https://pouchdb.com/) is a javascript library that makes use of > browser storage to provide a database interface and also synchronize that > database to a back-end server. The back-end server software it supports is > Apache's CouchDB (http://couchdb.apache.org/) > > It can get confusing when needing to talk about both. In general terms > Pouch is in your browser, Couch is on a server. > > >> >> Best wishes >> Josiah >> > -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki. 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