TiddlyWiki - A Personal Organizer
I used to spend a lot of time trying to organize my thoughts using my computer. It started out with a single text file full of thoughts and lists and URLs that I wanted to save. I attempted to convert to using a Word document at some point so I would have a bit more control over the layout, but eventually went back to the simple text file format. I ended up with several text files that were getting progressively longer and slightly more unfriendly to work with, so I was keeping an eye out for a better solution.
Wiki. A new word that you may or may not have heard of. The most famous example is the giant user-created encyclopedia that is Wikipedia. It seemed to me like an excellent way to store and organize data, but any Wiki software that I had found out there seemed not-too-simple to implement. Most required some type of database to store your information in as well as a web-server to get the data out to you. That wouldn't have been horribly difficult to set up, but much more involved than my simple .txt file was.
And then I found Tiddlywiki, which labels itself as "a reusable non-linear personal web notebook". It did just about everything which I needed a "personal notebook" to do, and to top it off, the whole thing exists in one small .html file which you are able to use in your web browser. Thanks to some excellent javascript programming by the author, it is able to handle all of the functions of manipulating the data as well as storing all the data inside that one file. As far as programs go, I consider this to be one of the more elegant ones that I've seen in a long time.
To connect information, TiddlyWiki uses the concept of Tiddlers, which is a highlighted word or group of words that link to another entry in the wiki. This provides the non-linear aspect of this wiki. You can apply tags to each entry to organize your entries into categories. It is able to store backups of your wiki each time you save changes, and it also provides several methods for extended formatting to changing the size, color and appearance of your text. Another excellent option is that you can put this onto a flash drive to make your wiki portable.
So if you're looking for some type of personal information management system or if you just want to check out a really neat little javascript program, take a look at the Tiddlywiki. Go through all the options on the webpage. Try all the indexing methods on the right side. If you like it, you can download and save an empty version to use on your own. I think you'll be impressed.
Dec 02, 2007 | /Computers/ | permanent link