Phil: Okay, that’s fabulous, that’s actually the last question.
Jeremy: Phew!
Phil: We’ve actually had a lot of action on the IRC channel while you’ve been talking, and we’ve been lucky enough to be joined by the Baird brothers, Simon and Daniel, who are over in Townsville, Australia, and Daniel has asked, ‘what is your vision for the evolution of the human interface to TiddlyWiki?’ And Phil Hawksworth has chimed in and asked, ‘as it develops, to include more functionality, will it become less useable and accessible to new users as a result?’
Jeremy: Gosh, well, those questions will have separate answers. So Daniel’s question was?
Phil: ‘What is your vision for the evolution of the human interface to TiddlyWiki?’
Jeremy: Wow. So, um, it’s really.. it’s a great question that you ask that. One of the things that I .. by having a team at Osmosoft, by having a large group of people, it allows us to take more risks. So with eight people, you can start to spend two weeks of somebody’s time on something that has a higher risk/higher potential sort of thing. So working on the user interface elements of TiddlyWiki, as in researching and exploring fundamental advances in the UI is one of the things I hope to do. And that work is driven by two really obvious things; basically, devices. So if you put TiddlyWiki on other devices, like an iPhone, that immediately invites you to explore other possibilities of the UI. So we’ve been looking at the iPhone, so that’s us thinking of touchphone interfaces for TiddlyWiki, and we’ve also been looking at one of the most popular multi-touch controller platforms. Well, okay, we’ve been looking at the Nintendo Wii, which it turns out, has some very interesting characteristics. It runs an Opera browser, and from within javascript within the browser, you can read the position and orientation of all four controllers. We’re interested in the idea of creating an experimental gestural interface to TiddlyWiki using those controllers. That’s not because we think we can go out and sell it, obviously, it’s because the opportunity cost of an experiment like that is really low, and because it teaches us masses about the different ways of using TiddlyWiki, different ways of approaching the user interface.
Phil: Lots of people have been mentioning the iPhone in the chat channel. There is an interest in a lightweight version of TiddlyWiki that needs to be created to run on that. When do you think that might be available?
Jeremy: That’s one of the things I’m bad at doing – answering questions that begin with ‘when’.
Phil: <laughs>
Jeremy: Soon. I’ve been working with Martin on that. It’s a goal for TiddlyWiki anyway, to strip some of the bloat, if I’m allowed to call it that, and find ways to make some of the core functionality optional, essentially. And that’ll allow us to make it faster on the iPhone and other devices that benefit from that.
But didn’t I forget Simon and Daniel’s question? Or Phil Hawksworth’s question?
Phil: Phil asked, ‘is there a risk that as it develops, to include more functionality, could it become less useable and accessible to new users?’
Jeremy: I really hope not. One of the things that I’ve jealously guarded is that the TiddlyWiki UI is actually almost unchanged from the first material version. So I haven’t added lots of new buttons to the sidebar on the right. I’ve tried to keep the UI editions.. what’s the word, so, like there’s the backstage areas, which is a new UI thing but it’s deliberately.. you don’t need to see it if you’re an end user, so it’s intended not to complicate the first user experience. And similarly, we’ve resisted a bunch of features that would have started creeping into extension of the UI, and we need to try and continue doing that. The other thing that I’m interested in is the idea of vertical editions of TiddlyWiki, targeted at particular uses, e.g. the GTD edition of TiddlyWiki. Using that model of different editions suggests the idea of editions that are especially adapted for people who may not have used a Wiki before, or who have various levels of expertise. So I think what I’m trying to say is that the open-source community is very good at providing a plurality of solutions for a space like that, so we ought to be able to make TiddlyWiki eminently consumable by my mum, and still keep the techy geeky appeal that makes it appeal to people that aren’t my mum.
Phil: Okay. Another popular member of the community, Shilcke, is online and he’s asked, ‘is TiddlyWiki qualified to become a universal tool in the educational sector?’ In particular, he’s seen the blog posts from John Lister about the One Laptop Per Child laptop.
Jeremy: Yeah, wouldn’t it be glorious. I mean, one of the great things about questions like this is that the answer has nothing to do with me, in that TiddlyWiki is out there, there’s a lot of people interested in TiddlyWiki, there’s a lot of people interested in education, and I think there’s a lot of people interested in pursuing that dream. For me, I think it’s a wonderful educational tool, again because of its decentralization. Many of the most dehumanizing aspects of many of the institutions we’re involved with stem from that centralization. Education at its best is a student-centric process and TiddlyWiki, to me, by doing it with tools that are themselves personal it makes it more likely that the student themselves can tailor it to their own educational needs rather than having to consume a kind of .. the old broadcast model of education. I remember the idea in the 70’s of the open university was broadcasting the same material out to a wide population of people. Using TiddlyWiki, I think you can imagine it performing a more interactive educational approach.
Phil: Okay, another question from Daniel Baird; ‘what is the weirdest or most interesting use of TiddlyWiki that you’ve ever seen?’
Jeremy: Ha. Gosh. I wish I could remember enough of them. So there’s somebody who’s got a complete concordance of all Mark Bolan’s lyrics on it, which I just think is glorious, so when I was a 14 year old Led Zeppelin fan, that’s probably what I would have done with TiddlyWiki, is put all Led Zeppelin’s lyrics in them and done a whole, y’know, cross reference, collateral thingie. Um, funniest or weirdest.. gosh.
Phil: Weirdest or most interesting.
Jeremy: Oh, there’s been plenty of interesting ones. I mean, there are people, and I’m trying to think of decent examples, um, yes. There are people using TiddlyWiki for all kinds of strange and interesting stuff. We might have to cut this answer, sorry.
Phil: Okay, and the final question from Daniel; ‘which is better: pirates or ninjas? One answer is right. The other will get you keelhauled and shot with a cannon.’
Jeremy: <laughs> Pirates!
Phil: That’s the right answer!
Jeremy: <laughs> Ah, thank goodness! Thank you, Daniel. <grins>
Phil: Okay, I think that’s all we’ve got time for, so thank you very much, gentlemen. It’s been fascinating listening to you. And thank you very much for watching! And if you’re ever in London and you’re a fan of TiddlyWiki, we’d love to meet you, please get in touch. All the best, and bye for now!