Labyrinth is an integrated development environment for developing and recording storylines and plots.
Masterplan is an adventure planning / campaign design tool for Dungeons & Dragons (4th edition).
TiddlyWiki is a reusable non-linear personal web notebook.
Isn't requiring a server to be set-up on each machine you want to use the wiki on quite involved?
Could you not use an HTML-based wiki such as TiddlyWiki to do something very similar? The instructions would look like:
All credit to you though, nice tutorial - good work!
You could consider a tiddlywiki and email it to yourself every so often. Nothing to install (other than an html file), runs in browser, name it what you want and put it in your favorites.
I know a friend who used to write things at work that way.
I also know me, who does it that way now.
I keep a tiddlywiki on a thumb drive or actually use tiddlyspot.com to store and sync.
It's a personal wiki that you can organize and quickly look stuff up it, whether you are saving just links or documenting a code-pattern that you want to be able to reference in the future.
I use the plain vanilla kind with nothing fancy, but you can go crazy-nutzo:
http://deferentialgeometry.org/ http://tahoe-lafs.org/~zooko/wiki.html
One great thing is thing is the ability to keep a journal in the tiddlywiki. This is very useful for documenting scope changes, discussions, so you can go back and see that you weren't crazy: the project owner really was schitzo-jerking requirements back and forth.
It's helped my sanity immensely. YMMV.
I strongly recommend TiddlyWiki. Open source note taking application. It's a very interesting take on organising your thoughts. You can either just use it as a single HTML file or run it as an application, but I'd recommend running it as a nodejs app if you plan to self host it.
There is no way I could keep my world and story notes organized without TiddlyWiki. The program is a bit bare bones, but the fact that it is non-linear makes it worth it. You can have the same thing in multiple categories, pull up "Tiddlers" by tags, search for content, use all kinds of cool formatting, etc.
So when I think up an NPC, they can be tagged as such, but also tagged as a friend/enemy, their faction, and their geographical area. So if the players go to a new area, I click that tag and get a list of the towns, factions, NPC's, dungeons, etc. in that area. If I need a random person for the party to meet, I can hit the NPC tag and they are all right there.
When we complete a session, I can write a summary and link all the entities they interacted with, so that next time that entity comes up, I have all the notes right there. Pair it with a cheapo netbook for the other functions listed here already, and you're set. Even if you don't want tech at the table, it's great for keeping track of those one-line hook ideas and all the various story threads and eventually connecting them together when you're prepping.
I highly suggest TiddlyWiki for those that just want a simple wiki that will run directly from their desktop. You can even just pop it on a shared network drive for you and your coworkers.
>However, there are a few more obscure areas where the software available on Linux is either insufficient or non-existent. Over the last few weeks, I've been trying to find a personal notebook/wiki program. I've tried so many different programs, but none have the power, elegance and beauty of some of the software available on Mac OS.
I prefer TiddlyWiki + DropBox. It's pretty simple and takes up little to no space. The formatting can take a bit to get adjusted to but there are cheat sheets (PDF) for that. I'm still having trouble getting digikam to run but that's because I'm too lazy to compile it from source.
I have used Tiddlywiki for this for a while. All you need is a web browser. The entire wiki is stored in a self-updating file that can be viewed and edited in any modern web browser.
Yeah me either, I find I just don't need to dump everything I read into Evernote. Lots of people apparently archive everything they can get their hands on in there.... I had issues with just finding enough interesting stuff to put in there in the first place. :) It's picked up with time though.
Come to think of it I use all sorts of strange little tools to manage my info, probably as a result of trying various ways for a few years. I have a personal little TiddlyWiki file that I put work-related stuff in that I started using before I found Evernote. It works quite well, it's basically a very small self-contained Wiki in one html file. You can even add in plugins to it - better tags, better search etc. Fun tool, all that in one html file.
For game & system structure, I use a wiki system called TiddlyWiki (on dropbox for easy access). (It's ugly though, if you care about that kind of thing. But it's easy to change with a little bit of custom CSS.) For mind maps, quick ideas and late night brainstorms, nothing beats graph paper. I don't mind drawing on my computer, but waiting for photoshop to load, making a new document, drawing it out, finding a place to store/organize it, remembering where i put it, etc. is just a little much for me. And besides, half the time those ideas probably shouldn't be in the main design document anyway. And beside besides, get away from the screen every so often! Paper and pencil win.
I have a white board that has the things I HAVE to do right away. Then I have a tiddlywiki on my desktop that I journal in everyday. The first part of my journal is my goals for the day, the second part is how I felt, what I did, etc. If I don't get something done on my goal list I write about why and carry the goal over to the next day.
Something I noticed is that my task lists tend to become useless if I have more than 3 items on it at a time. I have separate lists out of sight for plans/ideas/wishes, but I try to keep my main todo list down to three items at a time.
TiddlyWiki might be worth looking into. I've never tried it myself, but it was mentioned once in a discussion. You can also just check on alternativeto.net for alternatives to Notion.
Hi,
I posted this a while ago and never thanked you for your comments. Thank you! I understand of course that posting about this on Reddit, I'm clearly just 'somebody on the internet' - I don't have any specific qualifications that imply I will be successful in my goal but I have given it all some thought and I'm pushing ahead!
To be clear, my intention is not to write the books myself or to write a single set of authoritative books, but to create a platform on which the education community can co-create works relevant to each specific audience. This way, for example, university professors will be able to contribute small improvements to the texts in their areas of expertise, which can then be incorporated into ever-improving editions targeted at specific curricula.
As far as technologies go, I plan to use a piece of software called TiddlyWiki which can be used as a micro-content curation and authoring tool. It's pretty cool and, even if you're not interested in my project, you should check it out for your own use - http://www.tiddlywiki.com
I've started to build a site (http://www.didaxy.net) explaining my ideas in more detail and providing some examples of what Textbooks built this way will look like (although there is a great deal more functionality that can be built into them).
Any advice or feedback would be great. Thank yo again for taking the time to read and respond, I really appreciate it.
Thank you!
> First you need to figure out how much energy you need on a daily basis,
This is a prototype so I can learn the basics. I'll probably end up with a small hobby motor, or stepper motor from an old printer, to charge a 12vdc battery. Maybe the small ones for kids electric cars or skateboards. The test case is to light a couple LED lights for night time. I'm familiar with wiring LEDs, just not the wind generator part.
> calculate the gearbox to get that voltage above 14V for charging
Do I need a certain voltage output from my motor to charge a 12v battery? What would that be? Where can I find a quick and easy start manual on charging batteries via wind power?
> I strongly suggest you start with theory/homework first.
Yep that's what I'm doing. I'm saving all my notes in a TiddlyWiki. It's really handy and supports tags, which I like. A TiddlyWiki is a self-contained wiki viewable/editable in a major browser.
I started from the very basics: my world is on a planet much like Earth, but a bit bigger. It has areas of similar climate, but also more extreme areas.
I want magic to be involved, so I added that next, and gave it rules much like the rules of physics.
Next, I started coming up with the races that would inhabit the world. I wanted to do this before I cement the geography, because I plan to write stories about this world and want the freedom to place my civilizations near each other in interesting ways. I plan to cement the geography partway through the development of the different races, and then finish the races' histories based on their neighbors and geographies.
Overall, I'm taking a broad-to-narrow view of development. I started broad, then moved to more narrow details. I'll keep doing this until I'm satisfied with the "resolution" of my data and details.
As for how exactly I'm working, I'm using TiddlyWiki, which was suggested by another /r/worldbuilding user. When I'm working, I'm editing one file from that or a few of them, and making sure whatever changes I make to that file are consistent with all other details I have elsewhere.
I'm using Obsidian Portal for the Savage Worlds campaign I'm running. I use it mostly to keep my campaign notes and keep a session log. I've recently started using the wiki to detail PCs, NPCs, places, houserules, etc. You can even have your players create accounts with which they can edit the wiki, keep character logs, etc. Each page has a 'GM Section' that keeps information hidden from the players.
I used to use TiddlyWiki for my campaign notes. It's a very dynamic wiki file. It was much easier to keep a large wiki organized because it supported scripting, but it is just a file that I had to 'carry' around with me.
I would like to see Obsidian Portal add some scripting support, although I understand why they don't. All in all, wikis are fantastic resources for campaign organization and I would recommend using one. Obsidian Portal is free (if you have only one or two campaigns) and is built for game wikis. If nothing else, I would suggest giving it a shot.
I've heard of it :) Tiddlywiki is actually 'offline' as well, it just opens in an html file and can be uploaded. Mine didn't want to upload, so I made on that's just online. When are we not connected to the Internet anyway?
With the website I use you can also download your page as an offline html file too. In theory you should be able to edit that and upload it back, but that's something I'm having trouble with.
I actually use tiddliwiki for my own personal blog of sorts. You can then have it hosted and share that way. I'm too lazy to do any server setup and it generates backups with every saved change.
I would suggest getting something like Tiddlywiki and just create a new tiddler per bit of info, then start linking them all together. This will let you get your ideas out of your head, and once you feel that you have gathered enough info, then you can start to determine how you would like to arrange it to be read by others.
I have been using tiddlywiki for quite a while and love it. I mostly collect ideas for everything(stories, around the house, inventions, etc...), but it makes it incredibly easy to cross reference different tiddlers(pages). So, for instance, you could create a tiddler for a main character, and subsequent tiddlers for that character's descendants and tag them all together.
I use tiddlywiki to store all my ideas. It's a wiki using the GTD methodology, though I rarely adhere to that. Mostly I just use it to quickly create and organize my ideas. It's file based and only uses javascript so I just have a folder in my dropbox account so it's available to me anywhere I have dropbox (all my computers and my phone).
Any time I have a new idea for a project, I simply create a new page (tiddler) and throw in the markup for sections for what, who, why and ideas, the first 3 are more or less elevator pitches of the idea and the ideas section is a point form list of ideas for the project.
It uses wiki markup so formatting your thoughts is super quick and easy so you can maintain stream of consciousness if your ideas are just flowing out! And because of the wiki structure, organizing your stuff is super simple, for instance I have a page for my ideas split into 2 sections- open projects and ideas and then in each section are simple links to the ideas' pages, like so:
[[someIdeaPageName]]
Does it need to be a program?
I use Tiddlywiki because it's super-portable, and it works splendidly for me.
It's just a wiki completely contained within a single html file.
I use tiddlywiki files for everything. I have one for each game, and one for loads of other things in my life too. Love my tiddlywikis!
I write up everything on the computer and organize it and format it, but for actual play I print it out. The game-table is nothing but paper, pencils and dice.
I tried a dice rolling program for my ipod touch but didn't really like it. No real reason, it just didn't feel right. It seemed to be tech for tech's sake, rather than making things more convenient. I can see where there might be a place for it in certain games, but I've never needed it.
I've also tried using background music, but it was such a change from the normal that it distracted my players more than it helped.
There are a lot of cool resources out there, but there are a few things I did:
I bought a book (I had the 4th edition, which was a complete overhaul, but it was an excellent resource).
I set up a TiddlyWiki, and using the CompTIA A+ objectives sheet I basically recreated the entire list and all the bullet points, and made each line a link to an entry that gave details of the subject (very useful both as a reference and a means of memorization).
I watched Professor Messer's videos.
For some reason I'm really hooked on TiddlyWiki. For small one-person self-contained wiki needs it can't be beaten. Quite an elegant and neat piece of software. Easy to use, recommend it to those in need of such things.
There is a multi-user server implementation called TiddlyWeb, but I've not played with it and I think that MediaWiki is probably the better solution there.
It looks like TiddlyWiki might fit the bill in this case. tiddlyspot seems to offer free hosting even.
Apparently it should be straightforward to use MarkDown syntax with Tiddly since there's a plugin for that.
Better ideas are appreciated of course. :)