Welcome to Grok TiddlyWiki, the definitive TiddlyWiki learning resource! Grok TiddlyWiki is a textbook that helps you build a deep, lasting understanding of and proficiency with TiddlyWiki through a combination of detailed explanations, practical exercises, and spaced-repetition reviews of prompts called takeaways.

TiddlyWiki is a human-shaped tool for organizing information and taking notes. It stores and relates information in a non-linear but structured way, just like your brain, and it doesn't forget things. Maintaining a well-organized TiddlyWiki requires a modest amount of effort, and TiddlyWiki has a bit of a learning curve, but it's extremely powerful and customizable, and once you grok it, it will change the way you take notes, think about your work and your ideas, and relate to information in general.

TiddlyWiki shines at almost any task that involves organizing information and enabling creativity. People use TiddlyWiki for keeping notes at their jobs, collecting their ideas, keeping track of what they read, drafting books, building static websites, storing recipes, managing genealogical databases, planning tabletop role-playing campaigns, and much more.

To grok something is to understand it on a deep level, so thoroughly that it changes you and becomes part of your identity. This word is particularly appropriate when discussing TiddlyWiki, since its method of organizing information may well change the way you understand and relate to information in general.

Where do I start?

• If you aren't sure if TiddlyWiki is for you yet, check out Why TiddlyWiki?
• If you know you want to learn TiddlyWiki but don't know if you want to learn from this book, read about the Philosophy of Grok TiddlyWiki to see if it seems like a good fit for you.
• If you're already partway through the book, or you want to see what topics are covered, visit the Outline or click the Contents tab in the sidebar.
• If you're ready to get started, start at How to Use This Book, or, if you're feeling impatient, at The Shape of TiddlyWiki.

How much does it cost?

Grok TiddlyWiki is free to read. You are also free to copy and share the book under certain conditions, pursuant to the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license; please see the copyright notice for details on the terms and conditions.

That said, I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours writing and updating this book over the years, and it's an ongoing project, since TiddlyWiki is an evolving application. Creating a quality learning resource is not an easy undertaking. So if you read the book and find it helpful, and you have the means to do so, please consider donating to support my work and ensure I can continue doing this. You can give whatever you think the book is worth to you, from $5 to $100.

Donate here, or use the donate link in the sidebar.

You can find other suggestions for helping out both Grok TiddlyWiki and the TiddlyWiki project in the Support Us appendix.

Who made this? How do I get in touch?

Grok TiddlyWiki is written and maintained by Soren Bjornstad (about; blog; public notes; contact). The TiddlyWiki project considers GTW “highly recommended” for learners, and I am an active participant in the TiddlyWiki community.

You can send me feedback on any section by clicking the send feedback link at the bottom of that section. Also feel free to email me with general questions, problems, or suggestions (see contact link above). Thanks to everyone who has offered feedback and other forms of assistance at every stage of Grok TiddlyWiki's development.

If you're looking for one-on-one help learning TiddlyWiki or getting a wiki set up, I am occasionally available for online tutoring for an hourly fee; contact me if that sounds like something you might be interested in.

What version is this?

Every time I publish a new version of Grok TiddlyWiki, I increase the book's version number. To see what's changed in recent versions, visit Changes. You can always find the latest version at https://groktiddlywiki.com.

The TiddlyWiki version indicates which version of TiddlyWiki this version of Grok TiddlyWiki expects you to have; I try to keep it up to date with the newest version, but if I'm behind, it should be fine to use a newer version of TiddlyWiki than listed here. In contrast, using an older version than listed might mean some things the book tells you to do mysteriously don't work, so that's not a good idea! If you have an older version in a wiki you're already using, you can visit the TiddlyWiki Upgrader to update that wiki to the latest version.

This is the second major version of Grok TiddlyWiki, aligned with TiddlyWiki 5.3.5+. Recent versions of TiddlyWiki have added major new features such as Procedures, Functions, and Custom Widgets, to replace older features which were more difficult to learn and had more gotchas, such as Macros. This means that significant portions of GTW have been rewritten or reorganized because the recommended approach to reusing wikitext has changed. If you've used older versions of TiddlyWiki, you may wish to work through chapter 4 and chapter 6, as well as the Functions section in chapter 5, to get up to speed on these newer tools.

To update an old copy of Grok TiddlyWiki to this version without losing your takeaway progress and other customizations, drag the following links into your wiki: Grok TiddlyWiki version 2.0.0; TakeAway version 1.3.0; TiddlyRemember version 1.3.6. Sections, takeaways, exercises, and any other tiddlers that you have changed will be untouched during an upgrade.

Please note: If your old wiki is from a Grok TiddlyWiki version less than 2.0, you should first upgrade its TiddlyWiki version at https://tiddlywiki.com/upgrade. The current version of GTW requires a newer version of TiddlyWiki to work than was bundled with those older GTW versions, so your wiki will look broken if you aren't on the latest TiddlyWiki.

You can find the book's source on GitHub. But basically everything is in the file you're looking at already, because it's TiddlyWiki!