Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[HansWobbe]

Stephen & Jim:

Thanks for stimulating me to feel "young again" however fleetingly.  -- 
Hans ( 1968, IBM360/75 Computing Center staff @ U.Waterloo )  ... off to 
find the Geritol ... :-)


| Close. Not that it matters at all but... My first job as a programmer 
started in 1965. In November of 1979, I was a contributing editor of 
Creative  Computing magazine.  

>  
> You win. :)
>
> Although even so I realized I am not good doing math with really big 
> numbers, because this is my 29th year programming professionally, not my 
> 27th. Yikes!
>
> And I remember *Creative Computing*.
>
> Now in respect to the other list members, we greybeards should quit 
> discussing our "back in the day" bonafides. :)
>
> "Hey, you kids! Get offa my dot matrix printer!" (waves cane)
>  

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jim Lehmer]

On 1/12/2015 12:36 PM, 'Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki wrote:
Close. Not that it matters at all but... My first job as a programmer 
started in 1965. In November of 1979, I was a contributing editor of 
Creative Computing magazine.


You win. :)

Although even so I realized I am not good doing math with really big 
numbers, because this is my 29th year programming professionally, not my 
27th. Yikes!


And I remember /Creative Computing/.

Now in respect to the other list members, we greybeards should quit 
discussing our "back in the day" bonafides. :)


"Hey, you kids! Get offa my dot matrix printer!" (waves cane)

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

> Tiddlywiki is also, by a fair margin, the most sophisticated program I've 
> run into in years (and I'll wager my number of years in the computer field 
> rival anyone else's) 
>
>
> I've been 35 years "in the industry," 27 with 
> "programmer/engineer/architect" attached to my title. Am I close? :)
>

Close. Not that it matters at all but... My first job as a programmer 
started in 1965. In November of 1979, I was a contributing editor of 
Creative Computing magazine.  

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jim Lehmer]

On 1/12/2015 7:24 AM, 'Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki wrote:
preview pane, the editor is little more than a textarea box. If we 
could get it to look as good as the editor we use when posting 
messages to this group, I would be ecstatic. And it would make life a 
lot easier on the new users without detracting from Tiddlywiki's power.


I have had the very same thought, multiple times when typing a TW group 
message into Google Groups - "I want */this /*editor in TW!" Especially 
since I tend to move between Markdown (er, CommonMark :) and TW quite a 
bit, and am always using the wrong syntax (I posted a pull request to 
another project on GitHub the other day and used TW's link syntax!)


The editor would still need a way to "drop to native syntax" for 
specifying widgets, defining macros, etc., but for the type of people 
(including me at times) who just want to use TW for quick notetaking and 
not have to remember the syntax for bolding, I think it would be a huge 
win. In fact, given that Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, Ctrl-U are almost all uniform 
in meaning across most WYSIWYG editors, just having those three hot keys 
enabled would be a great start.


Tiddlywiki is also, by a fair margin, the most sophisticated program 
I've run into in years (and I'll wager my number of years in the 
computer field rival anyone else's)


I've been 35 years "in the industry," 27 with 
"programmer/engineer/architect" attached to my title. Am I close? :)


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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Tobias Beer]

Other than loads of more ui,
this may be very practical...

http://tbgtd.tiddlyspot.com

Edit a tiddler and find a button in the toolbar that says *info on 
formatting*.

I think something like that triggered as a slider from the Editor, not 
unlike the preview pane,
will tremendously help putting concise information at a user's hand.

Best wishes, Tobias. 

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

I don't think there's a lot of risk of this group going overboard in making 
the program user friendly but I do think there are user interface areas 
that could tolerate improvement with diluting TW's strong points. It seems 
to me that one of the noteworthy ones, based on the number of efforts I've 
seen at improving it, is the editor. There have been at least a half dozen 
modifications including Eric's enhancements of TWC, Stefan bookmarklets and 
Danielo's keyboardsnippets. And others that are more aggressive. There are 
times when it seems that everyone with the skill has tried to improve that 
aspect of the program. Other than the preview pane, the editor is little 
more than a textarea box. If we could get it to look as good as the editor 
we use when posting messages to this group, I would be ecstatic. And it 
would make life a lot easier on the new users without detracting from 
Tiddlywiki's power.

Tiddlywiki is also, by a fair margin, the most sophisticated program I've 
run into in years (and I'll wager my number of years in the computer field 
rival anyone else's) with essentially no semblance of a help system. For 
just a few hundred bytes, we could offer folks an intermediate level of the 
program that includes key help files with negligible impact of the program. 
Something between the bare-bones empty and the full web-site would be 
helpful.

Other strengths:
>
> 1. It's actively developed and supported and the primary developer is 
> accessible. :)
> 2. It has a great community that is both enthusiastic and open to 
> newcomers.
>

I strongly agree with these two points. Without those two, I wouldn't be 
here. 

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jim Lehmer]

On 1/11/2015 2:44 AM, Neil Griffin wrote:
I would strongly argue that one thing that is definitely not TW's 
strength is user friendliness.. I don't think it ever will be its 
selling point, and trying maximise user friendliness is likely to be a 
misplaced effort, and could end up diluting TW's strong points.  For 
someone who needs user friendly note taking, something like Evernote, 
OneNote, a Word document or pen and paper are always going to win 
out.  I would suggest that the features that cause anyone to choose TW 
are A) the ability to have ownership of the data and the means to 
access that data, and B) the ability to use a powerful, customisable 
and extensible platform to organise information in new and interesting 
/ useful ways.  Personally, I came to TW for A, and stick with it for 
both A and B.


I would agree with both. And I also came for A. Especially when ran 
under node, so that all the tiddlers end up being separate files that 
are very similar in format to other systems like Pelican; that is, 
somewhat YAML-like key-value pairs followed by wikitext or Markdown or 
whatever. I know that I can "get my content out" of TW if I decide to 
change with some pretty simple tools (Ah, if only Pandoc supported TW 
syntax! The other wiki formats it supports are all different from TW and 
each other - but it would be easy enough to script some transforms, or 
for that matter perhaps write a Pandoc reader for TW.)


If we accept these as the key strengths of TW (are there other 
suggestions?), then we have to acknowledge that the key audience is 
those people who care about those things, and not the people who can 
find other tools to do the same job in a more user friendly way.  That 
doesn't mean that TW shouldn't be made more user friendly, just that 
it should primarily be made more friendly to those users, and not to 
everyone.


Other strengths:

1. It's actively developed and supported and the primary developer is 
accessible. :)

2. It has a great community that is both enthusiastic and open to newcomers.

[I know when making suggestions that the suggester should be willing to 
help, and I am, so the following isn't a complaint, just an honest 
discussion, including me thinking about where I can contribute to it as 
I type.]


That said, I do support Jeremy's efforts to improve the docs. As a 
relative newcomer (I had played with TWc some years ago, but came back 
to TW5 in seriousness in November), I have to admit I have had some 
ramp-up problems getting it all in my head from a 
customization/development side. Lots to read (including the code, and 
there's */lots /*of code). And even the main TW docs still have some 
glaring holes. For example, both the /Variables in WikiText 
///and the 
/Transclusion in WikiText 
///tiddlers on the 
main site mention a tiddler called /Confusion between Transclusion and 
Substitution/ that doesn't exist. And I think it would be handy if it 
did, because I am still not clear on that subject myself. I */think /*I 
know, but I would like to hear Jeremy's canonical stance. :)


Another issue is lacking a clear, documented understanding of order of 
execution - from a high level when rendering a given tiddler, what 
happens when in terms of widgets, macros, transclusions (and templates), 
substitutions? I remain unclear in this area, and it has cost me time 
even doing something "relatively simple" like my bookmarks TW 
, 
which only has one tiddler that "does anything," but that took me well 
over a week to figure out and I experienced a few red screens of death 
along the way that rendered the TW file unusable due to autosave (and 
yes, I've learned to keep backups :).


In fact, I would like to see more documentation on what I believe the 
core of TW is, which is a DSL 
 for storing and 
displaying data within a browser. I think having a "cookbook" of various 
"recipes" would be good. There is some of that on the main site, but it 
is intermixed with with beginner through advanced topics, with some more 
of it over on the dev site (depending on what you're trying to cook :).


In fact, to me part of a cookbook (cookbook.tiddlywiki.com?) would be 
different TW files available for downloading demonstrating each recipe. 
I know people have discussed this before and some are trying to 
accomplish just that, and there are lots of examples linked to from this 
group and the site, but I am thinking of a TW "app store," almost. A set 
of small, */single-focus/*, curated TWs available for use and more 
importantly, as a starting point to observe how something was done.


Right now on the main site there are five examples under Community. I 
would think there could be dozens, really. And not so general-purpose as 
the examples (not that the

[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Neil,

I very much appreciate both your points and your stance... as they reflect 
mine pretty well.

There are plenty of note taking tools out there, just as there are many 
> tools for web authoring, data collection, and the various other things that

 

We should identify what it is that makes a user choose TW over any of the 
> other tools, and focus on those aspects in development efforts, since those 
> are the things valued by people who choose TW over anything else.
>

To me, the answer to that question is pretty simple: the USP of TiddlyWiki 
is that it can be *either* or *all* of that... in one!
That you can *weave* things the way you want them to be, in a reusable, 
modular manner, mind you.
 

> I would strongly argue that one thing that is definitely not TW's strength 
> is user friendliness.
>

That begs to be argued. If you are talking about mum, then ok. If you are 
talking about the problems mum has, like "Why does Word do that?"  and "Can't 
I just do that in Word (or Excel)?", then nope. Because those "user 
friendly" apps might just be the entire opposite of what they project, 
unduly hiding complexity behind a more or less simplistic ui while leaving 
the complexities inaccessible.

With the right abstractions and the way the information contained in it is 
accessible, TiddlyWiki is a highly user friendly environment provided you 
are the kind of user that begs for the kind of flexibility and 
extensibility that you will not find in your average desktop application.
 

> I don't think it ever will be its selling point, and trying maximise user 
> friendliness is likely to be a misplaced effort, and could end up diluting 
> TW's strong points.
>

With all due respect, VIM is probably also quite powerful, but to a point 
where you have to be a total techie. So, user friendliness is a BIG 
topic... and an area in which to compete and compare with other wikis. What 
I mean is: the overall project should never lose touch with the goals and 
use-cases of end users like mum!

For someone who needs user friendly note taking, something like Evernote, 
> OneNote, a Word document or pen and paper are always going to win out.
>

That is not necessarily true. When implementing similar features and ui, 
TiddlyWiki can and does work just the same. There just has to be one 
bothering to provide that type of application on top of the TiddlyWiki 
core... and those are the kinds of integrated visions often expressed in 
this forum.
 

> A) the ability to have ownership of the data and the means to access that 
> data
>

definitely 

B) the ability to use a powerful, customisable and extensible platform to 
> organise information in new and interesting / useful ways.
>

definitely as well
 

> Personally, I came to TW for A, and stick with it for both A and B.
>

me too ...and I like the fact of how there possibly are a number of people 
out there who first thought "arghhh, how complicated"... but after learning 
a few bits they possibly realized the very strengths of TiddlyWiki and 
joined the crew of explorers.

we have to acknowledge that the key audience is those people who care about 
> those things, and not the people who can find other tools to do the same 
> job in a more user friendly way.
>

Yes and no. Here's why: the more those power-user type of people (on the 
brink of being developers or actually being developpers) share their work, 
the more this stuff is accessible to, well, mum... or lil' sis. Yes, that 
takes time and effort... but I think it also makes for a core feature of 
this "product", the way things are shared in the community.
 

> That doesn't mean that TW shouldn't be made more user friendly, just that 
> it should primarily be made more friendly to those users, and not to 
> everyone.
>

I believe Jeremy's focus is precisely that as well and I think it is the 
right choice.

Leave the quests for eternal end-user friendly apps to those who manage to 
achieve such tools ...on the basis of a powerful framework. The focus of 
the TiddlyWiki core should definitely be to provide the latter.

On the other hand, being able to explore all those applications and 
extensions users created based on TiddlyWiki is a key multiplier to the 
development of both the core and the community... leaving it to the master 
in chief where to set the focus as for the future of the core.

Best wishes, Tobias.

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Neil

I listened to the discussion on Tiddlywiki's target audience that you
> raised in response to my comments in this thread.  I just wanted add some
> thoughts to that discussion.
>

Great points, Neil, thank you. I think I agree with everything you've said.

Best wishes

Jeremy.


>
> I think the most important thing in working out how to focus the effort,
> not just for the documentation, but also for the tool itself, is to have a
> clear understanding of what TW's
> strengths are.. its USP if you like.  There are plenty of note taking
> tools out there, just as there are many tools for web authoring, data
> collection, and the various other things that
> TW can do.  We should identify what it is that makes a user choose TW over
> any of the other tools, and focus on those aspects in development efforts,
> since those are the things valued by people who choose TW over anything
> else.
>
> I would strongly argue that one thing that is definitely *not* TW's
> strength is user friendliness.. I don't think it ever will be its selling
> point, and trying maximise user friendliness is likely to be a misplaced
> effort, and could end up diluting TW's strong points.  For someone who
> needs user friendly note taking, something like Evernote, OneNote, a Word
> document or pen and paper are always going to win out.  I would suggest
> that the features that cause anyone to choose TW are A) the ability to have
> ownership of the data and the means to access that data, and B) the ability
> to use a powerful, customisable and extensible platform to organise
> information in new and interesting / useful ways.  Personally, I came to TW
> for A, and stick with it for both A and B.
>
> If we accept these as the key strengths of TW (are there other
> suggestions?), then we have to acknowledge that the key audience is those
> people who care about those things, and not the people who can find other
> tools to do the same job in a more user friendly way.  That doesn't mean
> that TW shouldn't be made more user friendly, just that it should primarily
> be made more friendly to *those* users, and not to everyone.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Neil.
>
>
> On Friday, 2 January 2015 14:58:23 UTC, Neil Griffin wrote:
>>
>> Yes, I think the question of who is the target user is an important one.
>> Most of the discussions I have seen on the forum and in the hangouts seem
>> to be aiming for promoting TW to an audience with relatively low technical
>> capability.  I think this is a mistake both in terms of maximising the
>> audience and maximising the impact of Tiddlywiki.  I would suggest that the
>> aim of marketing TW should be to maximise something like the following
>> product:
>>
>>
>> *size of audience trying TW (A) * probability of user sticking with TW
>> (B) * benefit received or impact achieved by user (C)*
>> Targetting a low-tech audience makes A very large, but B and C are likely
>> to be very low.  I think a better result would be achieved by targetting a
>> smaller, but still substantial technically capable audience, for whom B and
>> C are much larger.  In an ideal world, you would target everyone, but with
>> finite resources, it is better to go for the low hanging fruit.  If I were
>> to try to promote it to people I know, I would start with my colleagues and
>> not my Mum.
>>
>> Neil.
>>
>>
>> On Friday, 2 January 2015 13:52:15 UTC, Stephen Kimmel wrote:
>>>
>>> Neil,
>>>
>>> I agree virtually 100% though I suspect we might have some quibbles
>>> about where the boundary is for who the target user is. I think if it had
>>> some semblance of a help system other than the full wiki and an editor more
>>> like what Eric did for TWC, TiddlyWiki could reach a significantly greater
>>> audience.
>>>
>>>
>>>


-- 
Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jeremy.rus...@gmail.com

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

Jeremy,

I listened to the discussion in the last hangout on Tiddlywiki's target 
audience that you raised in response to my comments in this thread.  I just 
wanted add some thoughts to that discussion.

I think the most important thing in working out how to focus the effort, 
not just for the documentation, but also for the tool itself, is to have a 
clear understanding of what TW's
strengths are.. its USP if you like.  There are plenty of note taking tools 
out there, just as there are many tools for web authoring, data collection, 
and the various other things that
TW can do.  We should identify what it is that makes a user choose TW over 
any of the other tools, and focus on those aspects in development efforts, 
since those are the things valued by people who choose TW over anything 
else. 

I would strongly argue that one thing that is definitely not TW's strength 
is user friendliness.. I don't think it ever will be its selling point, and 
trying maximise user friendliness is likely to be a misplaced effort, and 
could end up diluting TW's strong points.  For someone who needs user 
friendly note taking, something like Evernote, OneNote, a Word document or 
pen and paper are always going to win out.  I would suggest that the 
features that cause anyone to choose TW are A) the ability to have 
ownership of the data and the means to access that data, and B) the ability 
to use a powerful, customisable and extensible platform to organise 
information in new and interesting / useful ways.  Personally, I came to TW 
for A, and stick with it for both A and B.

If we accept these as the key strengths of TW (are there other 
suggestions?), then we have to acknowledge that the key audience is those 
people who care about those things, and not the people who can find other 
tools to do the same job in a more user friendly way.  That doesn't mean 
that TW shouldn't be made more user friendly, just that it should primarily 
be made more friendly to those users, and not to everyone.

Cheers,

Neil.



On Friday, 2 January 2015 14:58:23 UTC, Neil Griffin wrote:
>
> Yes, I think the question of who is the target user is an important one.  
> Most of the discussions I have seen on the forum and in the hangouts seem 
> to be aiming for promoting TW to an audience with relatively low technical 
> capability.  I think this is a mistake both in terms of maximising the 
> audience and maximising the impact of Tiddlywiki.  I would suggest that the 
> aim of marketing TW should be to maximise something like the following 
> product:
>
>
> *size of audience trying TW (A) * probability of user sticking with TW (B) 
> * benefit received or impact achieved by user (C)*
> Targetting a low-tech audience makes A very large, but B and C are likely 
> to be very low.  I think a better result would be achieved by targetting a 
> smaller, but still substantial technically capable audience, for whom B and 
> C are much larger.  In an ideal world, you would target everyone, but with 
> finite resources, it is better to go for the low hanging fruit.  If I were 
> to try to promote it to people I know, I would start with my colleagues and 
> not my Mum.
>
> Neil.
>
>
> On Friday, 2 January 2015 13:52:15 UTC, Stephen Kimmel wrote:
>>
>> Neil,
>>
>> I agree virtually 100% though I suspect we might have some quibbles about 
>> where the boundary is for who the target user is. I think if it had some 
>> semblance of a help system other than the full wiki and an editor more like 
>> what Eric did for TWC, TiddlyWiki could reach a significantly greater 
>> audience. 
>>
>>
>>

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

Jeremy,

I listened to the discussion on Tiddlywiki's target audience that you 
raised in response to my comments in this thread.  I just wanted add some 
thoughts to that discussion.

I think the most important thing in working out how to focus the effort, 
not just for the documentation, but also for the tool itself, is to have a 
clear understanding of what TW's 
strengths are.. its USP if you like.  There are plenty of note taking tools 
out there, just as there are many tools for web authoring, data collection, 
and the various other things that 
TW can do.  We should identify what it is that makes a user choose TW over 
any of the other tools, and focus on those aspects in development efforts, 
since those are the things valued by people who choose TW over anything 
else.  

I would strongly argue that one thing that is definitely *not* TW's 
strength is user friendliness.. I don't think it ever will be its selling 
point, and trying maximise user friendliness is likely to be a misplaced 
effort, and could end up diluting TW's strong points.  For someone who 
needs user friendly note taking, something like Evernote, OneNote, a Word 
document or pen and paper are always going to win out.  I would suggest 
that the features that cause anyone to choose TW are A) the ability to have 
ownership of the data and the means to access that data, and B) the ability 
to use a powerful, customisable and extensible platform to organise 
information in new and interesting / useful ways.  Personally, I came to TW 
for A, and stick with it for both A and B.

If we accept these as the key strengths of TW (are there other 
suggestions?), then we have to acknowledge that the key audience is those 
people who care about those things, and not the people who can find other 
tools to do the same job in a more user friendly way.  That doesn't mean 
that TW shouldn't be made more user friendly, just that it should primarily 
be made more friendly to *those* users, and not to everyone.

Cheers,

Neil.


On Friday, 2 January 2015 14:58:23 UTC, Neil Griffin wrote:
>
> Yes, I think the question of who is the target user is an important one.  
> Most of the discussions I have seen on the forum and in the hangouts seem 
> to be aiming for promoting TW to an audience with relatively low technical 
> capability.  I think this is a mistake both in terms of maximising the 
> audience and maximising the impact of Tiddlywiki.  I would suggest that the 
> aim of marketing TW should be to maximise something like the following 
> product:
>
>
> *size of audience trying TW (A) * probability of user sticking with TW (B) 
> * benefit received or impact achieved by user (C)*
> Targetting a low-tech audience makes A very large, but B and C are likely 
> to be very low.  I think a better result would be achieved by targetting a 
> smaller, but still substantial technically capable audience, for whom B and 
> C are much larger.  In an ideal world, you would target everyone, but with 
> finite resources, it is better to go for the low hanging fruit.  If I were 
> to try to promote it to people I know, I would start with my colleagues and 
> not my Mum.
>
> Neil.
>
>
> On Friday, 2 January 2015 13:52:15 UTC, Stephen Kimmel wrote:
>>
>> Neil,
>>
>> I agree virtually 100% though I suspect we might have some quibbles about 
>> where the boundary is for who the target user is. I think if it had some 
>> semblance of a help system other than the full wiki and an editor more like 
>> what Eric did for TWC, TiddlyWiki could reach a significantly greater 
>> audience. 
>>
>>
>>

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Birthe C]

Hi Neil,

I am absolutely not technical. I do think you have a point though. I also 
think that planning to use Tiddlywiki for the next 25 years, at least some 
of us will want to learn new tricks.
Technical users finding, trying and keep using TW. Some of them will enter 
this group and they just might have goodies to share.


Birthe



On Friday, January 2, 2015 3:58:23 PM UTC+1, Neil Griffin wrote:
>
> Yes, I think the question of who is the target user is an important one.  
> Most of the discussions I have seen on the forum and in the hangouts seem 
> to be aiming for promoting TW to an audience with relatively low technical 
> capability.  I think this is a mistake both in terms of maximising the 
> audience and maximising the impact of Tiddlywiki.  I would suggest that the 
> aim of marketing TW should be to maximise something like the following 
> product:
>
>
> *size of audience trying TW (A) * probability of user sticking with TW (B) 
> * benefit received or impact achieved by user (C)*
> Targetting a low-tech audience makes A very large, but B and C are likely 
> to be very low.  I think a better result would be achieved by targetting a 
> smaller, but still substantial technically capable audience, for whom B and 
> C are much larger.  In an ideal world, you would target everyone, but with 
> finite resources, it is better to go for the low hanging fruit.  If I were 
> to try to promote it to people I know, I would start with my colleagues and 
> not my Mum.
>
> Neil.
>

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

Yes, I think the question of who is the target user is an important one.  
Most of the discussions I have seen on the forum and in the hangouts seem 
to be aiming for promoting TW to an audience with relatively low technical 
capability.  I think this is a mistake both in terms of maximising the 
audience and maximising the impact of Tiddlywiki.  I would suggest that the 
aim of marketing TW should be to maximise something like the following 
product:


*size of audience trying TW (A) * probability of user sticking with TW (B) 
* benefit received or impact achieved by user (C)*
Targetting a low-tech audience makes A very large, but B and C are likely 
to be very low.  I think a better result would be achieved by targetting a 
smaller, but still substantial technically capable audience, for whom B and 
C are much larger.  In an ideal world, you would target everyone, but with 
finite resources, it is better to go for the low hanging fruit.  If I were 
to try to promote it to people I know, I would start with my colleagues and 
not my Mum.

Neil.


On Friday, 2 January 2015 13:52:15 UTC, Stephen Kimmel wrote:
>
> Neil,
>
> I agree virtually 100% though I suspect we might have some quibbles about 
> where the boundary is for who the target user is. I think if it had some 
> semblance of a help system other than the full wiki and an editor more like 
> what Eric did for TWC, TiddlyWiki could reach a significantly greater 
> audience. 
>
>
>

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Stephen

I went back and turned on Firebug in Firefox (34.0.5 and Windows 7) and the
> built in debugger in Chrome (37.0.2062.120) ... at least I think I did...
> and tried reloading my test wiki with the javascript flaw. In both cases, I
> got the "red popup of death" reporting the undeclared variable and neither
> would allow me to do much more than unload the defective wiki and load up a
> new empty. Both debuggers basically gave me the same message as the
> r.p.o.d. So I either haven't set the debuggers up correctly, which is
> highly probable, or I'm not using the same tools as you are using, which is
> even more probable, or I'm simply not as good at this as you are... which
> is an absolute certainty.
>

Strange. So, with the browser debug tools you saw both the r.p.o.d. and you
also saw a message in the developer tools console.  One possibility is that
the debugger isn't configured to pause on exceptions. It's a toolbar
button; the setting is described here:

https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/javascript-debugging

Best wishes

Jeremy.




>
> If I may ask you and the other developers, what are you using for your
> development environment?
>
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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

Neil,

I agree virtually 100% though I suspect we might have some quibbles about 
where the boundary is for who the target user is. I think if it had some 
semblance of a help system other than the full wiki and an editor more like 
what Eric did for TWC, TiddlyWiki could reach a significantly greater 
audience. 

Jeremy,

I went back and turned on Firebug in Firefox (34.0.5 and Windows 7) and the 
built in debugger in Chrome (37.0.2062.120) ... at least I think I did... 
and tried reloading my test wiki with the javascript flaw. In both cases, I 
got the "red popup of death" reporting the undeclared variable and neither 
would allow me to do much more than unload the defective wiki and load up a 
new empty. Both debuggers basically gave me the same message as the 
r.p.o.d. So I either haven't set the debuggers up correctly, which is 
highly probable, or I'm not using the same tools as you are using, which is 
even more probable, or I'm simply not as good at this as you are... which 
is an absolute certainty. 

If I may ask you and the other developers, what are you using for your 
development environment? 

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

The casual TW user venturing into js macros does not have 'developer 
tools', so yes the popups are a pain, and I agree that TW is not a good 
development environment.  But for really simple macros, once you have 
learned the main pitfalls, it's simple enough to add real value with some 
loops or numerical calculations etc, without the need for development tools.

I would also agree that people on the forum are not typical, and much more 
likely to have programming skills than the general computer-using 
population.  However, I would argue that this also applies to a large 
majority of potential TW users.  Yes, anyone can 'consume' a TW in the 
sense of using it like a website, and they can maybe create some tiddlers 
with cross-links.  But going beyond that to learn about widgets, 
transclusion, macros, etc is *hard*.  My view is that people who don't 
either have programming skills, or at least the aptitude for programming 
are never going to get very far with this.  Hence my view that a good 
proportion of people that *have *got that far, would benefit from having 
additional tools at their disposal to do things that are quite simple, but 
not possible with core TW.

Stephen: I thought your new user trials were interesting, but the main 
lesson that I took from it was not that the new user experience was not 
good enough (though that is indeed true), but rather, that TW is not for 
everyone.  It is a powerful tool for people with the skills and inclination 
to use it, but most people are probably not even going to see the point of 
it, let alone be able to use it in a meaningful way.

I can see the argument that adding yet another element to the tools within 
tiddlywiki.com could add to the confusion, but this confusion is pretty 
severe anyway, and would be better addressed by restructuring the 
introductory information rather than by hiding something that I would view 
as essential for certain types of task.  At the moment, the information is 
structured in the form 'these are the features; this is how they work'.  
The big thing that is missing in my view, is a description of what the 
features are *for*.  The hardest thing in learning to drive TW is to know 
what tool to use for a given task.  If there were a summary describing what 
role each of the features played in creating a dynamic wiki, then there 
would be a natural gap that would be filled by js macros (and other js 
features, no doubt - I haven't got that far), namely for performing more 
programatic or numerical operations.  Given such a summary, then at least 
people would know *when* the move to js would be necessary, even if that 
information is kept in the dev area.  I wasted a fair bit of time trying to 
imagine crazy ways of doing things with the core that it wasn't designed 
for (eg numeric operations by ordering and filtering a set of tiddlers that 
represent different numbers...!), while not really even understanding the 
functional difference between macros and widgets.

Cheers,

Neil.

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Stephen

And much as I hate to say it, Tiddlywiki is a dreadful Javascript
> development environment. I have long since lost count on how many Red
> Pop-ups of Death I've seen. Some of them simply mean the javascript won't
> work... typically ones with a mismatch of {}s... while others seem to lock
> Tiddlywiki up... typically typos on variable names. I reflexively import
> the bad code into empty wikis, import the code from the failed wiki and
> edit before saving. So I would like to see recommendations for Javascript
> development environments... jsfiddle, Aptana, Firebug, whatever... with
> some notes on how to work around the Tiddlywiki special requirements and
> peculiarities.
>

I spend a lot of time on TW development, and write a lot of code that
crashes, but I never see the red pop-up of death. The way to avoid it is to
keep your browser developer tools open while you're doing any JavaScript
development. Then you'll end up in the debugger rather than crashing, and
you can read your code, and inspect the values of variables.

To be clear, the red popup of death is intended to alert an end-user to an
error. It doesn't offer enough information for anyone trying to debug code;
that's what the browser developer tools are good at.

Best wishes

Jeremy


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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

We need to remember that participants in this group are not representative 
of the general population of users. One reasonable estimate is that only 
10% of users have ever participated in a forum or group. None of my failed 
Tiddlywiki users even considered consulting the group. My guess is that the 
number of C/C++ users is a tiny fraction of that. To say that the barriers 
to JS development are low for those familiar with C-like languages is 
closer to true for super-hackers than for the typical user or even the 
typical power user.

Part of the difficulty is that Tiddlywiki has special restrictions on the 
use of Javascript that mean a lot of the Cut & Paste javascripts out there 
simply won't work with Tiddlywiki. A nice tutorial for working around those 
differences is almost essential.

And much as I hate to say it, Tiddlywiki is a dreadful Javascript 
development environment. I have long since lost count on how many Red 
Pop-ups of Death I've seen. Some of them simply mean the javascript won't 
work... typically ones with a mismatch of {}s... while others seem to lock 
Tiddlywiki up... typically typos on variable names. I reflexively import 
the bad code into empty wikis, import the code from the failed wiki and 
edit before saving. So I would like to see recommendations for Javascript 
development environments... jsfiddle, Aptana, Firebug, whatever... with 
some notes on how to work around the Tiddlywiki special requirements and 
peculiarities.

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Neil

As an aside, I must say that, despite shying away from using javascript
> with TW for a while, I have found that the barrier to entry was very low,
> certainly for anyone with any knowledge of a 'C-like' language.  I can't
> help thinking that many people must be struggling to do things using the
> core that they could accomplish much more easily by taking the plunge into
> javascript (especially anything involving numbers).  I wonder whether
> people would benefit if javascript was promoted more as a part of the basic
> TW tool set rather than segregating it in the 'dev' area, which makes it
> seem more daunting than it really is?  There must be many people like me
> who do a bit of programming, but don't consider themselves to be
> developers.  A quick primer tutorial is all it would take (I haven't
> looked... maybe one already exists).
>

Interesting thought. With TWC we repeatedly saw people who would not
classify themselves as developers but nevertheless managed to lash up a
simple macro (often by copying and pasting chunks of existing code).

We pulled the developer material into a separate wiki in response to
feedback that it was making the main tw5.com material harder to use for
beginners - with the content combined, a search like "transclusion" brings
back a lot of results that aren't relevant for most users.

I guess there's a couple of ways we could explore this idea:

* Having a better introduction to dev topics within the tw5.com wiki,
making Neil's case that the barriers to JS dev within TW are low
* More introductory tutorial material in tw5.com/dev, with the goal of
taking beginners through their first steps

Best wishes

Jeremy




>
> Cheers,
>
> Neil.
>
>


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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

Ah okay.  I think I am some way off understanding the inner workings of TW.

But yes, I can certainly see that there could be many situations where 
generating a list of actions to be triggered by one button, whether using a 
list widget, or by repeatedly calling a macro with different parameters as 
I am trying to do, could be useful.

As an aside, I must say that, despite shying away from using javascript 
with TW for a while, I have found that the barrier to entry was very low, 
certainly for anyone with any knowledge of a 'C-like' language.  I can't 
help thinking that many people must be struggling to do things using the 
core that they could accomplish much more easily by taking the plunge into 
javascript (especially anything involving numbers).  I wonder whether 
people would benefit if javascript was promoted more as a part of the basic 
TW tool set rather than segregating it in the 'dev' area, which makes it 
seem more daunting than it really is?  There must be many people like me 
who do a bit of programming, but don't consider themselves to be 
developers.  A quick primer tutorial is all it would take (I haven't 
looked... maybe one already exists).

Cheers,

Neil.

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Neil

Jeremy: am I interpreting correctly that your bullet list indicates the
> order in which the features are processed, but last first in your list?
> Thus, the transclusion is only processed after the non-widget <<>> style
> macro invocation?
>

No, not at all. The layers I was describing are conceptual groupings of
features that can be progressively taught to users.


> My problem is that I am trying to use a macro to generate an
> <$action-setfield> widget, where the $value parameter is calculated by my
> macro. If I put my macro inside a <$button> widget, the action doesn't get
> activated by the button, which makes sense if widgets are processed before
> macros.  The odd thing is that if I also ask the macro to generate the
> <$button> widget, the action *does* get activated in the way I intended
> when I click the button.  Since I am trying to generate many $action
> widgets inside the same $button, it would be much neater if the first
> method worked, to avoid having to write out lots of repeated widget text or
> pass dozens of parameters to the single macro.  Is there a way round this?
>

The issue here is that action widgets need to be immediate children of the
widget that triggers them. If you generate the action widgets within a
macro then the macro will be wrapped around the action widget, meaning that
the trigger widget won't see it.

We have discussed lifting this restriction. it would be particularly useful
to be able to generate action widgets with the list widget.

Best wishes

Jeremy


>
> Thanks,
>
> Neil.
>



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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

I encountered the same problem and solution in writing my first javascript 
macros.  I have now come across another difficulty which may also be 
related to the layering of features that Jeremy described.

Jeremy: am I interpreting correctly that your bullet list indicates the 
order in which the features are processed, but last first in your list?  
Thus, the transclusion is only processed after the non-widget <<>> style 
macro invocation?

My problem is that I am trying to use a macro to generate an 
<$action-setfield> widget, where the $value parameter is calculated by my 
macro. If I put my macro inside a <$button> widget, the action doesn't get 
activated by the button, which makes sense if widgets are processed before 
macros.  The odd thing is that if I also ask the macro to generate the 
<$button> widget, the action *does* get activated in the way I intended 
when I click the button.  Since I am trying to generate many $action 
widgets inside the same $button, it would be much neater if the first 
method worked, to avoid having to write out lots of repeated widget text or 
pass dozens of parameters to the single macro.  Is there a way round this?

Thanks,

Neil.

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

Ultimately I don't have a problem with the fact that 



doesn't work. I've tried several things that didn't work. This one was just 
harder than most to diagnose what had gone wrong. Anyway, as Tobias 
suggested, I've uploaded a simplified wiki with three different forms. Two 
don't work and one does. Although I originally expected all of them to 
work, I'm happy to know which one does work. I hoped to save someone else 
the aggravation of discovering that for themselves.

The demo wiki is: http://demosk.tiddlyspot.com/

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Stephen, Tobias

I think the source of the confusion here is that this syntax doesn't work:

> <>

I agree that it's reasonable to expect that syntax to work.

The rationale for the current arrangement is that there is a conscious
layering of wikitext features that progressively provides flexibility at
the expense of complexity:

* At the highest level, we have the basic formatting syntax like ''bold''
and //italic//. This syntax is generally simple MediaWiki- or MarkDown-like
markup.
* Then comes linking and transclusion, with double square brackets and
double braces respectively. Transclusion also introduces the idea of text
references
* Then comes macro invocations with double angle brackets. The syntax here
is still very simple (it's actually the same as TWC), and avoids
complexities like transcluded parameters
* Finally, the base widget level provides the finest degree of control and
flexibility, at the expense of a much more complicated syntax (albeit, it
is based on the familiar syntax for HTML elements)

That's not intended to be an argument for never supporting transcluded
parameters in the basic macro syntax, of course.

Best wishes

Jeremy.




On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Tobias Beer  wrote:

> hi Stephen,
>
>
>> Though it seems a bit clunky, I’m working exclusively $macrocall when
>> sending fields to javascript routines.
>>
> Can you perhaps create an example wiki along with a minimalist example
> macro that shows what works, what doesn't work and explains how you would
> think it should? ...that can perhaps be used to create a new ticket on
> GitHub with a clear-cut issue.
>
> Best wishes, Tobias.
>
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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Tobias Beer]

hi Stephen,
 

> Though it seems a bit clunky, I’m working exclusively $macrocall when 
> sending fields to javascript routines.
>
Can you perhaps create an example wiki along with a minimalist example 
macro that shows what works, what doesn't work and explains how you would 
think it should? ...that can perhaps be used to create a new ticket on 
GitHub with a clear-cut issue.

Best wishes, Tobias.

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

 

Neil,


I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and, though I suspect the 
majority of folks here already know about this, I'll share what I've found. 
Perhaps it will help someone avoid my aggravation. Perhaps someone will 
correct me if I’m misinterpreting what is happening.

I'm working with javascripts that involve several input parameters. 
Tiddlywiki has two ways to invoke a macro or javascript with parameters; 
the $macrocall widget and the form: <>. Unlike the sample in the documentation, I was trying to pass the 
numerical contents of a field in the tiddler to the javascript macro. I had 
a line that looked something like this:

 

> <> 
>
 

To test that the javascript routine "sweat" was actually getting my 
parameters, I set the output line to:

 

> return “sweight = “+sweight+” : fweight = “+fweight;
>
 

In my case the calling tiddler showed what returned as:

 

> sweight = 180 : fweight = 175 
>
 

Those numbers are correct. However attempting to perform any type of 
mathematic operation would fail and 

 

> a = sweight * 1.0;
>
> return “sweight = “ + a;
>
 

would return 

 

> sweight = NaN.
>
 

That was what was irritating me until I finally figured out what was going 
on. What Tiddlywiki was sending to the javascript routine wasn’t the 
transcluded field but the transclusion command. The javascript routine 
wasn’t seeing 180. It was seeing {{!!startweight}}. What was coming back 
from the javascript routine, before Tiddlywiki translated it for the 
screen, was:

> sweight = {{!!startweight}} : fweight = {{!!finishweight}}
>
 

Then Tiddlywiki transcluded the fields and showed them on the screen. Since 
the Javascript routine had the strings which it couldn’t convert to 
numbers, the result of any math operation was NaN, Not a Number. 

 

This command


<$macrocall $name=”sweat” sweight={{!!startweight}} 
> fweight={{!!finishweight}}>
>

on the other does work as anticipated. Though it seems a bit clunky, I’m 
working exclusively $macrocall when sending fields to javascript routines.

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Neil Griffin]

Have you tried 

var a=1.0;
return a

?

Neil (also a javascript novice!).

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

That pretty much eliminates any chance that I might someday switch to 
Node.js.

I am well aware of the save-reload requirements. What drives me up a well 
are things like:

a=1.0;
return a

giving NaN as the result. Or 

a= 1.0;
return Number(a)

giving NaN as the result no matter how many times I save and reload.

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Re: [tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Jim

I have noticed as I work through building my own macros that sometimes
> reloading the TW (or restarting TW under node) will cause code changes to
> be picked up that weren't before. So I've kinda gotten into doing it
> automatically as sort of a "Wave a dead chicken over it" superstitious
> practice.
>

It's not superstition! It's necessary to restart TiddlyWiki in order for it
to pick up any code changes. That means "refresh" in the browser and if
you're running under Node.js you'll need to restart the server, too.

Best wishes

Jeremy.



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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Jim Lehmer]

On Monday, December 29, 2014 3:18:48 PM UTC-6, Stephen Kimmel wrote:
>
> In the general category of "I don't know what I did to make the problem go 
> away but..." 
>
> I've got it working now. I suspect there is something flaky about how some 
> of the browsers handle javascript. 
>
> Thanks again, Eric for your help.
>

I have noticed as I work through building my own macros that sometimes 
reloading the TW (or restarting TW under node) will cause code changes to 
be picked up that weren't before. So I've kinda gotten into doing it 
automatically as sort of a "Wave a dead chicken over it" superstitious 
practice. 

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

In the general category of "I don't know what I did to make the problem go 
away but..." 

I've got it working now. I suspect there is something flaky about how some 
of the browsers handle javascript. 

Thanks again, Eric for your help.

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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

['Stephen Kimmel' via TiddlyWiki]

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately I've either missed something or 
this has taken a decided turn for the weird.

The relevant lines from the macro now read:

if (out == 7) { out = 0 };
>
> if (offset == 7 - n ) {output= Workout[1]};
>
>
and as I saved and reloaded the wiki the result became:

Inputs: offset = a= 1 mdate=1/12/2015
>

That makes it appear that the variable offset no longer exists or was never 
transferred to the macro at all. I loaded the file onto Chrome so I could 
save it to tiddlyspot and got the same erroneous result. I did have one 
brief moment when everything seemed to be working correctly but now it 
appears to have gone away. 

If it matters I am using Firefox 34.05 and Chrome Version 37.0.2062.120 on 
a windows 7 machine. 

As you might expect, I'm as confused as ever.


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[tw] Re: javascript macro / macrocall problem

[Eric Shulman]

On Monday, December 29, 2014 9:31:55 AM UTC-8, Stephen Kimmel wrote:
>
> Inputs: offset = 6 a= 1 mdate=1/12/2015
> The values for a and mdate are correct but offset is not the right number. 
> As you can see from the code, offset is used but not modified. Even so, the 
> number that comes out of the routine is not the number I put in. I'm not 
> good enough to know if the problem is in the Javascript, how I've done the 
> macro or if it is in the $macrocall. 
> Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?
>

The problem is that you are using "=" in your conditional tests.  A single 
"=" sign means "assignment"... to *compare* values, you need to use TWO 
equal signs (e.g., "==").  When you use an assignment operator in the 
conditional, the value of the conditional is equal to the value assigned... 
and any non-zero value is considered to be "true"... Thus, in this line:
if (out = 7) { out = 0 };
The conditional value is always "7" (regardless of the actual value of 
'out'), so the conditional is always invoked, and out is ALWAYS set to 0.

Similarly, in this line:
if ( offset = 7 - n ) {output= Workout[1]};
"offset=7" evaluates to "7"... and then 'n' is subtracted.  If 'n' has a 
value of "7", then the conditional will have a value of "0" (i.e., 
"false"), and will not be invoked. However, if 'n' has ANY other value, 
then the conditional will be a non-zero value and the code will be invoked.

To fix your code, change the single "=" in the conditionals to "==", like 
this:
if (out == 7) { out = 0 };
if ( offset == 7 - n ) {output= Workout[1]};

Let me know how it goes...

enjoy,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios

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