Jeff, I made no such assumption, just sharing, and my procedural programming experience has caused me some, pause for thought.
The point is we appreciate your feedback and experience, and I think in time you will see I and others here are working hard to help improve things for the whole range of users. Personally I am about to put draft "editions" online for review,one for people wanting a text editing database, another for people wanting to learn TiddlyWiki, but there are resources already online, I recommend spending some time at tiddlywiki.com and where that leads you. Not all cases will be as complex as the list widget/operator because list is one of the key methods in TiddlyWiki, and its use of filters a powerful but new concept for many. Regards Tony On Monday, January 14, 2019 at 9:10:11 AM UTC+11, Jeff Wilson wrote: > > Sure. I'd ask you not to assume anything about my background as you're > likely to be wrong. > > My point is that I can FEEL the power that's in TW5, but it is obfuscated. > I suspect most users get over it and after a while can't remember the pain > it takes to use beyond the very very basics. I want to use this tool (or > something like it) for a non-technical hobby. I'd expect a wiki tool to be > pretty much non-technical and aimed at the casual user. After writing code > and mentoring others all week I don't usually want to learn another tool > that I can't leverage in my career, and TW5 is teetering on the brink of > being just that too much technical to use. > > That said, a tutorial or two on doing simple things like "How do I create > lists of tiddlers that have something in common, like a table of contents?" > would go a long ways towards making this easier for everyone. > > On Sunday, January 13, 2019 at 4:58:32 PM UTC-5, TonyM wrote: >> >> Jeff, >> >> There has being a lot of "water under the bridge" in this thread. I think >> its important to recognise there are a couple of new concepts in TiddlyWiki >> that also makes it a powerful solution. until grasped it can be a little >> frustrating, and from my experience it can be a little more difficult for >> those with a lot of procedural programming language experience. >> >> The payoff is great so please bare with it. >> >> As a community we each have the power to improve TiddlyWiki so please >> continue to contribute. >> >> Regards >> Tony >> >> On Monday, January 14, 2019 at 8:12:36 AM UTC+11, Jeff Wilson wrote: >>> >>> Unnecessary (accidental) complexity is NEVER justified. Essential >>> complexity is something we have to live with. >>> >>> Simplicity is obtained when all accidental complexity is removed. I have >>> no problem with complex tools; I use source code IDEs like Intellij, Visual >>> Code, and Eclipse almost everyday. >>> >>> Undoubtedly much of my problems with TiddlyWiki is that I don't have a >>> good mental model of how it works. But the documentation is awful, so that >>> does not help. For example, I was trying to figure out how to create a list >>> of all tiddlers with a tag equal to the name of the current page. Where do >>> I find that information? I type "list" in the search field, and I get 323 >>> matches. The first one that looks reasonable is "list Operator", so I click >>> on that and get something like this: >>> purpose select titles via a list field >>> input <https://tiddlywiki.com/#Filter%20Syntax> ignored >>> ! input a selection of titles >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#Title%20Selection> >>> parameter <https://tiddlywiki.com/#Filter%20Parameter> R = a reference >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#TextReference> to a field >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#TiddlerFields> or property >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#DataTiddlers> of a particular tiddler >>> output the titles stored as a title list >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#Title%20List> at R >>> ! output those input titles that are not mentioned at R >>> >>> R can reference either a field or a property. See TextReference >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#TextReference> for the syntax. >>> >>> - If neither is specified, the list field is used by default. So >>> [list[T]] outputs the titles listed in the list of tiddler T. >>> - If R consists of only a field or a property, the tiddler part of >>> the reference defaults to the current tiddler >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#Current%20Tiddler>. So [list[!!tags]] outputs >>> the titles listed in the tags field of the current tiddler. >>> >>> Examples <https://tiddlywiki.com/#list%20Operator%20(Examples)> >>> >>> Ooookay... I don't know if that helps or not. Let's click the "Examples" >>> link: >>> >>> These examples make use of the Days of the Week >>> <https://tiddlywiki.com/#Days%20of%20the%20Week> tiddler. >>> >>> [list[HelloThere]]Try it >>> >>> [list[Days of the Week!!short]]Try it >>> >>> At this point, I still don't know what to type in my tiddler. It looks >>> like it should be something like "[list[<foo>]]" where foo somehow >>> indicates "all tiddlers with a tag equal to the title of the current page", >>> but there's not clue how to figure out what "foo" should really be. >>> >>> Sometime later I find the tiddler, "ListWidget". Clicking that is >>> promising, this one actually looks like it might be the right thing. One of >>> the examples is: >>> >>> <$list filter="[tag[ListWidget]sort[title]"/> >>> >>> This actually works, but it requires me to type the name of the current >>> tiddler as the tag name. Surely there's a way to get the title of the >>> current tiddler to automatically populate?? Somewhere I read that the title >>> of the current Tiddler was in a field that could be referenced like >>> "!!title". Try that, and no dice. >>> >>> So, I reason, there must be a link to the filter syntax on this page, >>> and sure enough, here it is! "tiddler filter"! I click that and get a huge >>> list of filters, but never fear, there are short descriptions and links to >>> describe each. I randomly click around on several trying to figure out >>> which one works for my usecase, but can't seem to find one suitable. Or >>> maybe I'm not giving it the right parameters. Who knows!? >>> >>> I eventually (hours later) find an example in another user's TiddlyWiki. >>> (For the record, I'm using filter="[all[current]tagging[]sort[title]]". It >>> works. I don't know if it is the best filter to use for my example, but >>> hey, at this point I will accept anything that moves me forward.) I don't >>> know if I would have ever figured out that particular combination of >>> filters, but hey, whatever. >>> >>> Now my task was easy, and it was probably a super, super common usecase: >>> I want to create a page hierarchy and be able to view that hierarchy. >>> Shouldn't there be an article or tutorial somewhere on common ways to >>> structure Tiddlers? >>> >>> Sorry for the long rant, but I'm rather upset that I've wasted two days >>> on this tool. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Saturday, January 12, 2019 at 10:23:06 PM UTC-5, TonyM wrote: >>>> >>>> I empathise, and have thought the same way, but I am starting to see >>>> how tiddlywiki raises our expectations to exceed what it currently >>>> achives. >>>> Most often a work around exists, or the community starts to digest changes >>>> to come. The key is the community, conversations and change. Its not that >>>> tw is not mature, its that it continues to evolve even although in many >>>> respects it already surpasses the competition in capabilities (if not >>>> simplicity). >>>> >>>> In my view Far too often today, simplicity is the result of the startup >>>> culture, which wants to profit from minimalist solutions, to fund the >>>> development of more comprehencive solutions by charging and taxing their >>>> very same clients. *Unnesasary compexity *is desirable but not at the >>>> cost of capability, unnessasariily simple things fragment what we need to >>>> use into too many parts. >>>> >>>> -- 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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