Hi Tony, Yes, I intended it to sound like speculation. That's why I worded it the way I did. I'm afraid I don't see how it's 'unfair' to anyone if I speculate in public about such a thing and, in general, I don't appreciate attempts to police my speech. FWIW, everything I write here or anywhere else is 'only an opinion'. Some of my opinions are strongly held, some are weakly held but all of them are sincerely held and I express them only with the intention of helping other people. They are also amenable to change via conversation.
If you think I'm wrong, I'm happy to discuss it with you. I don't expect Jeremy will do anything he doesn't want to. I certainly don't expect him to change the site because I think it should change. But I also don't expect he'll be bothered if we discuss it. I think there is too much clutter and confusion on the homepage at present and the text that greets first-time users doesn't do a good enough job of explaining what Tiddlywiki is and why it might be useful. The most amazing thing about the site, which **we** all know, is that it's a Tiddlywiki itself but it doesn't tell new users that anywhere, does it? It could say something like "congratulations, you just downloaded everything you need to use Tiddlywiki, a non-linear notebook that runs privately in your browser.". It should (in my opinion) emphasise that there is no backend involved. Then it should provide dirt-simple instructions for downloading empty, making one edit and saving the result locally. If that's compelling to people, and if they have an inkling of the other things it can do, they will (in my opinion) be more likely to invest the effort necessary to figure out which of the saving mechanisms they prefer. For what it's worth, if it were completely up to me I would have the current site become the 'docs' website and replace it with a much simpler site aimed at marketing Tiddlywiki more effectively. It could still be built with Tiddlywiki and could still contain some instructional material, but I would use a more linear structure. Regards, Richard On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 3:55:37 PM UTC+11, TonyM wrote: > > Richard, > > Please be aware your statement "I bet there are literally hundreds who > give up and walk away feeling stupid" is speculation, and I do not think it > fair to say it to new users.It could be a "self fulfilling prophecy". Sure > show compassion and offer support, continue to promote improvement but > saying "Huston We Have a Problem" at the front door, when it is only an > opinion. Hmmmm > > Otherwise I love your contributions Richard. > > Regards > Tony > > On Saturday, 2 December 2017 12:34:57 UTC+11, RichardWilliamSmith wrote: >> >> Hi Heather, >> >> Your pain is our collective failure to resolve an issue we've had for a >> long time. We are clearly not doing a good enough job of explaining >> Tiddlywiki to new users. >> >> It's nobody's fault, really. The very nature of tiddlywiki is to be >> non-linear and the website for Tiddlywiki *is* a Tiddlywiki, so it has >> *everything* crammed into it - the most advanced, esoteric topics right >> alongside the most basic information. For those of us who already (kind of) >> know what's going on, it's too easy to lose sight of just how confusing it >> is for newbies. >> >> But, we really have to fix it if we want more people to use Tiddlywiki >> (and anyone who uses it should want that, because it's the best way to >> ensure it sticks around). >> >> This problem is made ~1000 times worse with the current situation of >> having 17 (!) different available saving mechanisms listed on the main page >> and expecting people to somehow know what's going on. >> >> I'm really sorry you had such confusion but if you're willing to stick >> with it a little, we can help you figure it out and hopefully we will learn >> something from your experience that we can use to improve the documentation. >> >> I'm assuming that you have an actual mac and not just iOS devices? If so, >> start like this. >> >> 1. Go to https://www.tiddlywiki.com >> 2. Scroll down to click the green button that says 'download empty' >> 3. Open the file that you downloaded - this is "a tiddlywiki" and it's >> running wholly on your own computer >> 4. Click the + icon in the sidebar to make a new tiddler >> 5. Notice that the 'tick in a circle' icon turns red - this means you >> have unsaved changes >> 6. Click the 'tick in a circle' icon to download another copy of your wiki >> 7. You can continue to add content to the copy you have open and >> "download" a new copy whenever you want to >> 8. You can host your wiki anywhere the same way you would host any html >> file, but you need to keep track of all the downloads to make sure you have >> the latest one >> >> This is called the 'download saver' mechanism and the other 16 (!) >> methods all exist because it is quite clunky. >> >> Tiddlywiki gives you complete control of your own information but of >> course the flip-side of that is it gives you complete responsibility. >> That's why it's so important to make sure you figure out the whole saving >> malarkey before you invest time in making anything substantial and hence >> why we have to make such a song-and-dance about it. >> >> For every person who posts here, I bet there are literally hundreds who >> give up and walk away feeling stupid (you're not) so thank you very much >> for taking the time. I hope you'll give it another try and let us know if >> there's anything else that we can help you with. >> >> Regards, >> Richard >> >> >> >> On Friday, December 1, 2017 at 7:37:19 PM UTC+11, Heather Mcclelland >> wrote: >>> >>> Every time I start getting confident about my technical abilities, I >>> find something that puts me squarely in my place. >>> >>> I am an all over apple user. And that means I have info all over all my >>> apple devices, mostly in various apps and of course all over the cloud. >>> >>> I started googling personal knowledge management to see what I could do >>> about putting everything in one spot, in the hopes of sharing at some >>> point. I came across tiddlywinks. In theory, it sounds awesome. But, I have >>> no clue where to start. And worse, I'm having a hard time understanding how >>> to access whatever it is that I'm creating. >>> >>> I'm a graphic design student and am feeling a little dumb at my lack of >>> knowledge in the developing area. >>> >>> Where is a good place to go with just some very basic info? >>> >>> -- 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. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/1aea40ef-0933-4b91-a6cc-6c674c2f50a1%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
