xee VS TiddlyWiki

I took a look at the git blame, and the commit title is perfect.

https://github.com/gco/xee/commit/750196023da5457d9535b30299...

PDF is not my favorite file format

It's also the one with the famous rant, "PSD is not my favourite file format": https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/7aec0d65f776fa59c58eb6cf163b...

// At this point, I'd like to take a moment to speak to you about the Adobe PSD format. // PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad format. Calling it such would be an // insult to other bad formats, such as PCX or JPEG. No, PSD is an abysmal format. Having // worked on this code for several weeks now, my hate for PSD has grown to a raging fire // that burns with the fierce passion of a million suns. // If there are two different ways of doing something, PSD will do both, in different // places. It will then make up three more ways no sane human would think of, and do those // too. PSD makes inconsistency an art form. Why, for instance, did it suddenly decide // that these particular chunks should be aligned to four bytes, and that this alignement // should not be included in the size? Other chunks in other places are either unaligned, // or aligned with the alignment included in the size. Here, though, it is not included. // Either one of these three behaviours would be fine. A sane format would pick one. PSD, // of course, uses all three, and more. // Trying to get data out of a PSD file is like trying to find something in the attic of // your eccentric old uncle who died in a freak freshwater shark attack on his 58th // birthday. That last detail may not be important for the purposes of the simile, but // at this point I am spending a lot of time imagining amusing fates for the people // responsible for this Rube Goldberg of a file format. // Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the PSD file format. To do this, // I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have them consider sending // me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing them a copy of some document or // other, probably signed in blood. I can only imagine that they make this process so // difficult because they are intensely ashamed of having created this abomination. I // was naturally not gullible enough to go through with this procedure, but if I had done // so, I would have printed out every single page of the spec, and set them all on fire. // Were it within my power, I would gather every single copy of those specs, and launch // them on a spaceship directly into the sun. // // PSD is not my favourite file format. ``` Source

Source

I don't understand what the blog adds, I would rather the link pointed directly to

https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#...

which has been shared quite a lot in the past

It's the same with html and css: people shit on it all the time, but this just shows they don't have the imagination to see how much worse it could be.

Just compare to e.g. Photoshop file format: https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#...

> What does ownership mean here?

It means owning the code and the data. With webapps, the code and data are hosted and owned, the users do not own the code, cannot run it independently. This is a clear dileneation between owner and user, and the owners can use that clear line to create artificial scarcity of various kinds. (The most popular being the subscription SaaS model). It's also easier to defend your IP since end users never see your binaries.

I like to make my software single html files whenever possible. People can just save them and run them locally. Havent met anyone who cares yet though.

I like that idea a lot, and I care. I think others care, but yes, it's a niche interest. Take a look at https://tiddlywiki.com/ for an example of a fairly successful project that uses the single html format running locally. However it suffers from limitations on File|Save which often requires a separate runtime of some kind to support.

Another project that approaches this ideal is https://redbean.dev/, @jart's tiny, performant, featureful single-file webserver. In this case the "single file" is a server executable + zip whose state must be updated on the command-line, but I think hits a sweet spot in terms of practicality, and a global minima when it comes to minimizing dependencies. (Redbean bundles SQLite and Lua so it's also possible to do through-the-web state updates as in a traditional webapp.)

My own project, Simpatico, aspires to be something along these lines. Eventually your browser tab is both a client and server process, connecting via websockets to other connected browsers, storing all state locally. I call this pattern "monomorphism", a play on the "isomorphic" javascript SPA. The server[2] is currently written in ~1 node file, but eventually I would like to port to redbean (and greenbean, the websocket version of redbean, but it isn't quite ready yet). The server grew several features to support a fast, practical BTD loop using markdown[1], and safe, performant execution on the public internet[2], but ultimately I'd like to pare it down to serving a single html file and allow the connected clients to provide all diversity of experience. I've used it to explore all kinds of browser apis, from crypto[3] to svg[4] to writing my own libraries (combine[4] and stree[5]). And it's all running locally, and easily hosted on a $5 VPS, and its all open source.

1 - https://simpatico.io/lit.md

2 - https://simpatico.io/reflector

3 - https://simpatico.io/crypto

4 - https://simpatico.io/combine

5 - https://simpatico.io/stree

I use TiddlyWiki. It's a portable editable wiki that doesn't require a web server or web hosting. You open it from your computer, edit it, and save it. You get all of the linking that you'd expect to see in a wiki, and it's super readable and easy to use.

It is a single-HTML-file TiddlyWiki instance that runs in a web browser (offline as well as online), meant to be downloaded and stored wherever suits you best. Everything that you see when working in BASIC Anywhere Machine (everything that makes "BAM" work as an IDE and all BASIC programs) exist in the one HTML file.

TiddlyWiki still works as intended: https://tiddlywiki.com/#GettingStarted but there are so many different clients to run on. Mobile or Desktop ? What OS? What Browser?

This effort https://val.packett.cool/blog/tiddlypwa/ is remarkable as the mobile side of saving is not as robust as on the desktop side of things and there is a scaling limit on performance as the number of tiddlers grows. Also the syncing between tw documents between different desktop/mobile clients can be a challenge with diffing.

Since then I've moved back to plain vanilla vim for a wiki (map gf :tabe ) but tw.html is still good for data other than plain text and TiddlyPWA https://tiddly.packett.cool/ is a great effort to revisit TiddlyWiki again.

You should check out TiddlyWiki as it’s designed around the concept that small linkable notes are the best way to organize.

https://tiddlywiki.com/

It’s html based so you can access it in the same way you would access a website but it can be locally stored. Saving is a bit tricky but there are multiple solutions detailed on their site. https://tiddlywiki.com/

Hi, you can use tw on nodejs with npm package tiddlywiki....