Riz, I think that is a *brilliant* post.
I completely agree that immediate full installs, "click & get on with it", would likely increase TW usage enormously. IMO Windows and Android are key. FWIW, BTC's latest for Android looks in the right direction in understanding that its not just about getting it to work--its about it working on easy download with appropriate modern looks and a wiki up and running immediately. ---- I'm still trying to get to the take-away message your post partly points to. It is not so easy as we don't have much of a "promotion orientation" here. Though some of us are quite keen to see more of it. ---- An issue is one should not disparage all the wonderful ways of TW. I thought your post very sensitive to that. At the same time having a landing area for "Getting Started" on TiddlyWiki.com with so many options I really can't see a plus. My suspicion is it has a negative effect on uptake. Enough. I'm interested to see who else sees this issue similar to you. Very best wishes Josiah On Wednesday, 9 January 2019 14:28:05 UTC+1, Riz wrote: > > to be fair, if you want to consider competition on the FOSS platform, > consider vnote (https://tamlok.github.io/vnote/en_us/) or trillium ( > https://github.com/zadam/trilium). Both of them are less than 3 years old > but has managed to surpass Tiddlywiki in GitHub stars. > > Tiddlywiki has several advantages over these two. Two major things that > come to mind are. > 1) Templating > 2) Ability to have multiple copies of the same software running at the > same time, essentially making it scalable without limits. > > However, Tiddlywiki still gets beaten back when it comes to it. The > reasons I think that causes this are, IMO. > > 1. Ease of entry > 2. Appearance > 3. Documentation > > 1. Tiddlywiki is a solution that requires intermediate activation energy > from the user. People who decide to set up a personal knowledge base come > in two groups*. Either "I want no headache, just install it and push an > icon to get it up and running" group. Or the "I am doing it right this > time, even if it takes some time" group. The first group opts for things > like Evernote, or Joplin, or the apps I mentioned above and so on. The > second groups goes for elaborate structures like org-mode or mediawiki and > so on. > > There has been long pending issues to reduce the activation energy to get > started. A good example of the effort in this direction is Jed's Bob. > However, it will take a long time before a newbie will find Bob, long > before which he would have given up the idea to continue using TW. Having > to install run time separately is so 2000s. It will not run well with the > post millennial generation. > > My point is this. Tiddlywiki should concentrate more on the Windows OS > users, which forms 80% of the desktop and laptop users, rather than the > "ready-to-hack-around" Unix cult. This is coming from an active Linux user. > > Consider this: create an installer for windows that will check for > existence of node run time in the system, and if not, will download and > install it for the user with user permission. > > 2. Appearance. Tiddlywiki does look like it was conceived in the 90s and > was designed in the 2000s. Consider it constructive criticism, but who > uses a depressing grey tone as the major colour? Was the primary goal to > appear appealing to emo kids? > > Notice how every one of the new age note taking app which surges past > Tiddlywiki in stars and downloads does look "nice"?. Heck, if any of them > appeared in the search results around the time I started looking for a new > note taking application, I wouldn't have given Tiddlywiki a second thought. > > 3. It is nice to see that documentation efforts are occurring at higher > pace than before. There is still lot to go. For eg: the getting started > tiddler. It could do with an recommended way of installation for different > platforms. May be it will look opinionated, but it will help a new person > to get it up and running in the smallest possible time. > > I am not claiming that these three will magically turn around TWs > fortunes. However, these three are the looming issues, IMO. > > I feel like atleast some hold the attitude that "if they don't find TW > good enough, their lose." After all, there are no monetary gains in having > a larger following for a FOSS project. Consider that more people also means > more contributions, more ideas and a better product for all. > > In the end, this is another wall of text. It will disappear from our feeds > in 24 hours and from our minds faster than that. Makes you think about the > pointlessness of everything. > > TLDR: May be community need to have a sit down on why TW5 lags behind much > less featured competition. > > > * Remember that the binary classification is made for understanding sake > and people exist in a spectrum. > > -- 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/ef910682-0040-43ad-92f7-eca8d7dae910%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
