I recently discovered TiddlyWiki while searching around for an alternative for my current brain dumping solution, vimwiki. I really enjoy having a place where I can jot down notes, keep a personal journal, and just write for my future self to read. For the last 4 years vimwiki has been my pick for this. It’s simple, easy to use, and let me keep my thoughts in portable text files that I could parse and back up easily.

Unfortunately this ease came with quite a few restrictions. First off, there was no great way for me to edit the wiki on a mobile device; it was limited to my computer only. Secondly, since it was built into a terminal editor from the 70s, there was no way to embed any sort of rich media or interactivity. It was just text. For many people this isn’t a problem, as the only thing they’re looking for is to keep a simple text journal. For the longest time I was on the same boat, however it turns out that I didn’t quite know what I was missing out on.

In comes TiddlyWiki, described as “a unique non-linear notebook for capturing, organising and sharing complex information.” Rather than being in a 70s terminal, TiddlyWiki runs within your web browser. This allows articles to embed images, videos, text, and even interactive widgets (implemented in javascript). So far so good, but what about durability? One of my favorite aspects of vimwiki was that its “database format” was just text files, ensuring that there was zero lock in. TiddlyWiki advertises that it lets you choose how to store your data, “guaranteeing that in the decades to come you will still be able to use the notes you take today.” I was skeptical at first, as their normal method of saving consists of re-saving itself as a single html file that you download. Luckily tiddlywiki5 adds a node-based command line tool which launches a server for the wiki, allowing each tiddler (their word for article) to be saved as its own text file with a simple format:

created: 20160419022137188
creator: user
modified: 20160419022316450
modifier: user
order: 1.9
tags: sidebar
title: Projects
type: text/vnd.tiddlywiki

Article text is everything on this line and below.

As you can see, it’s pretty straightfoward. A simple key-value section at the top (similar to YAML), and the article text below. In this case the order key is a custom value I use in my wiki (you can attach these arbitrary key/values freely to tiddlers), another flexible feature that convinced me to make the switch.

After seeing all of these advantages over vimwiki I decided to make a full switch over. I wrote a quick script which migrated all of my existing vimwiki journal entries into tiddlywiki’s format and was up and running with my brand new wiki in around a half hour. As I was setting up a server for my iPhone to access the wiki I noticed my first annoyance with this new system: the only method of authentication on the node server was using HTTP basic. I found this to be slightly annoying due to web browsers’ built-in login prompts lacking a “remember me” function, forcing me to log in each time I wanted to write. This is a problem, as one of the major selling points for this new wiki was lowering the barrier to write, ideally encouraging me to write down ideas and thoughts more often.

To solve this, I decided to take matters into my own hands and write a small Ruby application called twproxy. It acts as a lightweight reverse-proxy which adds a cookie-based authentication method to protect the wiki behind it. If you’re messing around with Tiddlywiki and are thinking about using it on a publicly exposed server, this might be the solution to making sure it stays protected. I’ve been using it for the last month or so without issues and have been happy that I’ve finally written some code that I use myself on a daily basis.

All in all, I’d highly recommend Tiddlywiki for those who are either interested in a more functional wiki or for those who have never had a personal wiki before. I’ve found having a place to dump my thoughts and ideas to be immensely valuable from both a utilitarian and nostalgic standpoint. The added niceties TiddlyWiki provides has done a great job of making my writing more interesting and meaningful, something that I’m entirely grateful for and gladly recommend to others.