How I Use Tiddlywiki

I use Tiddlywiki as a personal journal and a place for information that only I need to see and for a family wiki that I share with my wife. For information about how I set up the family wiki see Tiddlyserver on Raspberry Pi.

If I used Tiddlyserver for my personal journal that would mean that I could not read or write in the journal outside my home, therefore I am using the "native" HTML and Javascript version of Tiddlywiki for the personal journal.

I prefer to use Tiddlywiki over a journaling app like DayOne because it is accessible to any personal computer and does not have a subscription cost. I am making no effort to make my Tiddlywiki files available to anyone other than myself.

Most of what I write in Tiddlywiki is done on my iPad Mini 5. Tiddlywiki can be used in a browser and therefore I could use it in either Safari or Chrome on my iPads but instead I am using Quine , which is an iOS app for creating and editing Tiddlywiki files.

The main benefit for using Quine is that it stores the Tiddlywiki files to iCloud and Dropbox so that you can synchronize the files across devices. I've tried both options and settled on iCloud as the cleanest and most reliable. I can directly access the Tiddlywiki files I store on iCloud from my iPad Pro 10.5, iPad Mini, or Macbook Air.

As I have written before, I am a multi-platform kind of guy and I want my data and/or apps available on all the platforms I use, so I had to find a way to access my Tiddlywiki files from Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

I could use Dropbox but I've found Quine's support for Dropbox to require more attention than iCloud and Dropbox has restricted the free tier access to three devices in the hopes of pushing one into a subscription. I can also access my iCloud files using a web browser on any personal computer but that would require me to take care of how I use the files. Instead I am using Github as the central repository for my Tiddlywiki files.

Note: Git is a powerful version control system of which I know the basic functionality. As I learn more about Git, I may discover easier and better ways to use it in this workflow.

The key to using Github with iOS is an app called Working Copy . I created a private repository on Github for my Tiddlywiki files and cloned that repository to Working Copy on both of my iPads. I also cloned the repository to the Crostini container on my Google Pixelbook.

To check-in a copy of a Tiddlywiki file to Github I use the Share sheet in Quine and select Save In Working Copy. I select the repository, overwrite the Tiddlywiki file I edited, enter a comment about what has changed, commit and push changes to the repository on Github.

Right now I have separate copies of my Tiddlywiki git repository in Working Copy on both of my iPads, which means that I have to manually pull refreshes to keep them in sync. I don't know if there is a way to store a repository to iCloud that could then be shared between devices.

For the moment, I have to be careful that I don't get the file out of sync by editing and pushing a copy from one iPad and then picking up another iPad, editing and pushing again without first doing a pull. For now I will try to prevent this from being a problem by only pushing changes from Quine to Working Copy on my iPad Mini.

>Note: A technique to prevent this is to always do a pull before a commit and push. Think, Pull, Commit, Push.

Here is how I am round-tripping between an iPad and the Pixelbook.

1. Enter changes on an iPad 2. Share and Save In Working Copy on an iPad 3. Commit and Push to the Github repository 4. Switch to the Pixelbook, access the directory where the repository is stored and do run git pull to get a current copy of the file 5. Use the Files app to find and open the file in Chrome and edit content 6. Tap the save button in Tiddlywiki. The Files app opens and I select the file name to overwrite the file 7. Go back to terminal, access the directory where the file is stored and do a git add, git commit and git push. 8. Switch to the iPad 9. Start Working Copy, access the Tiddlywiki repository and do a pull to refresh changes. 10. Tap the Tiddlywiki file, Share and select Copy To Quine. Keep the file name the same to overwrite the file

At this point the edits I made to the file on the Pixelbook are now accessible in Quine on my iPad, and because the file is written to iCloud, the same file is accessible in Quine on both iPads.

I have started automating some of the above using iOS Shortcuts. I have created a Shortcut on both of my iPads that opens WorkingCopy, pulls the Tiddlywiki repository, and then opens Quine. The Shortcut helps me to remember to pull a fresh copy from the remote repo on Github to the local repo on my iPad to make sure that I don't later commit a newer copy over an older copy in the local repo.