Hi Mat. I'm not a developer, but I am a daily user of TW. I really think it's amazing stuff and I think it's awesome that Jeremy has given it away for free to the world whilst devoting so much of his time to developing it.
I'm sure you don't mean to sound harsh in pointing out it's flaws, but I think it's important to remember that the old version of TW still exists and the new one has only been out of beta for a short while and relies entirely on the good will of volunteers for its continued existence. The things you point out are perhaps things that all open-source projects suffer from to some extent. At least TW is useful enough, to enough people, that we have a chance of solving some of them together over time. Here are some of my suggestions about how we might address these issues, when we find the time. > > - Add-ons (plugins, tweaks, themes...) - difficult to find or (more > likely) even know they exist > > There aren't many plugins at the moment, when there are more it will make sense to have places where they are listed and discussed. I think there is already a site hosted by one of the group members that plans to do something like this and also allow users to build an initial wiki by choosing plugins from a list. > > - No quality assurance of add-ons > > If any of the add-ons you download don't work, I will personally give you back your money ;) > > - Lacking documentation > > We all need to help with this. I keep threatening to help, but documenting TW is really difficult. I find that I can only see what's wrong with the documentation when I can't find out how to do something. When I go looking to improve explanations of things I know how to do, I can't find anything wrong with what's there. The biggest issue for me with trying to find information in tiddlywiki.com is that the search lacks context. I think it might be a good idea to take the docs out of the main website altogether so that people don't expect to be able to use it as such. Instead the website can function as a shop-window for what can be done with the software and the 'complicated wiring' can be hidden elsewhere. Also - Eric Shulman is seeking support to write a manual - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/inside-tiddlywiki-the-missing-manual . I'm going to donate as a Christmas present to myself and hope other people will too. > > - The aggregated knowledge from discussions relies on 3d part system > not optimized for us > > I agree that Google-groups is not very friendly or beautiful. What are some of the alternatives we could use. Let's brainstorm... > > - Little insight into what attracts new users > > Do you mean for them or us? IMO anybody who goes looking for a personal wiki or micro-contnent management system will find TW. The fact that it can do so many things makes it difficult to explain just how awesome it is. > > - Little insight of user needs, tw applications, behaviors etc > > TW can be used in so many different ways that it's difficult to pin down. Who hasn't got insight? You? Jeremy? The users? > > - Challenging to get tiddlyverse overview (resources, applications, > options, services, people...) > > > - Demanding learning curve for customization > > How does this learning curve compare to other software? How hard is it to customise the UI and back-end functionality of your second-favourite program? Can Word be turned into a web-server? Can Evernote become an interactive novel? > - Too few developers (I'm just assuming this is always an issue) > > TiddlyWiki is very complicated. Presumably the overlap between people with sufficient skills, sufficient time and sufficient motivation to contribute to the core is quite small. By building the community over time, we will increase the potential pool of new developers. As I say, I'm sure you didn't mean to sound discouraging and only want to contribute to making TW better for everybody. Perhaps it would be a good idea to pick one area that you think we should focus on and suggest some practical steps we can take? Regards, Richard -- 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 tiddlywiki+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to tiddlywiki@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
