Struggling with Tinderbox and a suggestion

I understand how you feel. I am fairly new to Tinderbox and have decided on a one step at a time and slower learning process when it comes to Tinderbox. It sounds that, like me, you haven’t got much time to sit down and work through the documentation. Experimentation can be enlightening but also deeply frustrating - especially with a live project.

What would be ideal would be a series of ‘how to’ training videos on something like lynda.com and I am hoping to make some videos in the future as I discover new ways of using Tinderbox. The problem is, of course, time. I am so busy doing other things, I can never find the time I need to create videos or do many other things that are on my general ‘to do’ list. In a perfect world, I would stop everything I was doing (or trying to do) and concentrate on just learning Tinderbox. That isn’t going to happen!

I see Tinderbox as a valuable tool and it becomes ever more useful to me but it is taking me a long time (and much longer than I thought) to get to grips with it. I’ll probably never master it fully.

My advice would be, stick with it and if you’re stuck, work with others to find a solution. I’m finding it is the best bit of software I have for collecting my thoughts and data.

Richard

Don’t give up too easily! As you point out it took you 6-9 months to get proficient with CT.

It would help others here to help you if you gave more of an idea of what you are expecting except ‘better’. I’ve a hunch part of the issue is trying to map your deep expertise with CT onto a another deep problem. From the little I could find online, CT appears be wiki-based (or similar to a wiki). Tinderbox, IME, rather different to wiki in terms of how you write it (I spend a lot of time in Wikipedia & wikis as part of my current PhD). Given the multi-facetted nature of Tinderbox, it isn’t practical to document every outcome. ‘Popularity’ doesn’t help much as after >10yrs helping new users I see little commonality in the outcome of people’s work; it is the methods involved where common activities occur. Learning the latter is the fast way to bootstrapping Tinderbox knowledge.

Edit:

I found and downloaded the CHM Help file from CT’s website to a PC and I can’t say I’m much the wiser as to where to start with it. This reinforces the notion that he likely underlying problem is as much familiarity with CT and using it as an (unwitting) reference model as it is the organisation of Tinderbox help data. Using [some other app] as a reference model is a regular stumbling block for starters as they try and make Tinderbox work like the app with which they are more familiar rather than work with Tinderbox own design intents.

Anyway, don’t give up. We’re here to help. :grinning:

Thank you. You are probably partly correct in that I may be trying to duplicate my CT experience onto TB. However, I am no spring chicken, and over the years have tackled some fairly complicated programs, and become proficient enough to meet my needs. I think TB may be the most complex, but to sound like a broken record, I feel that is not solely due to my old brain slowing down. Thanks for the encouragement. I’ll try to stick with it.

Take a look at this link: I see the CT and TB in a very similar fashion as outlined here:

I’m curious, how do you see it as rather different?

Personally, I absolutely see Tinderbox as a wiki (or at least, one of the ways I see it is as a wiki). It doesn’t have the versioning, but in terms of linking between notes it works the same.

The one thing I see that’s a bit different is how in wiki you might create placeholder links while writing… but even that’s possible in Tinderbox using the “Add footnote as sibling” command – just select some text that you want to link to a new note, run “Add footnote as sibling” and keep editing the current note.

Aha. Reading the article I can see how the comparison is made. I can also see how it can be, quite unintentionally, misleading depending on your frame of reference. Indeed, the author notes re both apps: “No they do not look alike or even behave alike.” The similarity is that you can use metadata (attributes - both built-in and user-added. The difference is how you make links and interact with metadata.

CT uses wiki mark-up in an edit space where both text and metadata are set. TB uses a rich text [sic] text space for a note’s text and links/metadata are handled by other parts of the UI. So, actually quite a different means to a convergent end. Thus CT knowledge doesn’t necessarily help get you traction in TB except you will be used to defining and using attribute values. I also think the network (map) view in CT is different to TB map views which show a single container s a network (though see also the Roadmap and the new Hyperbolic view view).

TB does have a wiki-like method for adding in-text links to other notes (Quick Links). The method will likely seem familiar to you, but note it is a recent addition to TB so using it won’t necessarily help bootstrap you to understanding other features. TB has two forms of internal link: basic (note-to-note) and text (text-to-note, or text-to-text). Text can also have external (Web) links.

If you haven’t already (I think you have?), do work through the two tutorial PDFs accessed via the health menu. Don’t worry about whether the end result is relevant to your work, but rather concentrate on the individual tasks as these are the building blocks of TB use. Also, do lots of small test files to try new (to you) techniques before you apply them in a larger file to help avoid having too many possible things to figure out when outcomes aren’t as expected. Once you understand the technique you can ditch the files.

(FWIW, I too have been learning new apps for some while - since the late 80s for me. Frankly lots of them were hard - until I got initial traction on how their individual design worked)

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@pat, we may be arguing angels on pinheads here. I guess it depends on experience & POV. Wikis date from 1994. Tinderbox draws from Storyspace (still around) which was first shown at HT’87 (but dates back to c.1982). I see some extra hypertextual features in Tinderbox vs a wiki but I don’t think it’s a point to stand on.

Actually, I drew the distinction above because CT is much more similar in method & markup to a ‘normal’ wiki. So both apps may general sets of linked notes but how they do that is subtly different and Tinderbox is not necessary to someone well versed in CT, MediaWiki, and the like. The aim at present is to help @lsebba get some traction in Tinderbox and get comfortable with its slightly different approach.

Thanks to everyone for their advice and thoughts. I’ll keep at it.

fair enough, it might be a topic for another thread. I know you’ve done a lot of research on wiki(pedia) so I’m curious to know what you see as the subtle distinctions between TB and wiki

Learning by example.

Just a suggestion: Tinderbox > menu > help > Actions and Dashboards

Why this helps me: Because it contains a full TBX file with all elements contained in the file itself.
Even if it is not immediately apparent to the viewer what it all is, one can click around in the file and it certainly feeds the imagination with what one “might” do with it…

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I hate to bump this thread, but this is killing me. when I go to the Help > Actions and Dashboards, I get a PDF that opens. It’s a good one, and helpful.

Where is the TBX file referenced in the quote? It sounds like something I’d like to look at!

In the Introduction part of the PDF pp2-5, in Section “The Problem” on page 4 it clearly states:

In this tutorial, we’ll explore and analyze some expenses incurred during a fictional business trip. The sample data and analytical tools can be found in a Tinderbox document you can download from:

http://www.eastgate.com/download/ActionsAndDashboards.dmg

Did you try that link and it didn’t work?

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nope – I missed that and was reading the rest! Thank you! I got it now!

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BTW, on reflecting my use of the Actions & Dashboards overview, which is really helpful BTW, there were a few things missing. 1) many of the examples don’t have all the relevant attributes in display. Also, I think there could be some refinement in the introduction that both, in text and visually, shows how each of the different elements of the example build on and inter-related with each other.

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Makes sense to me. Will pass that on (not my doc!). I might help the author if you could give them a hand-hold on a revision by citing a page where there is insufficient attribute detail.

I’d add an overview section in section 2 “A look at the Data.”

I think all the right lyrics to the song are here in this file, it is just some of them are out of order and the song is missing the “hook” for it to viral. I think the hook is what is missing.

What I’d like to see is a summary illustration on how all the the methods in the doc will bring the users’ notes to life, an illustration that shows how these methods are illustrative of how to implement the method so that people can use this method for other purposes in other tinderboxes. For example, on page 7 we jump right into Tab 1. I think there could be a summary illustration first that shows the output and end results and shows how all the elements feed into the end result.

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Thanks. Reading the last, the failure is actually on pp6–7 “The Problem” as (perhaps) this should spell out in greater detail the whole and how successive chapters address different aspects of the problem. I might also be useful to have an explicit list assumptions, e.g. that you’ve read the “Getting Started” doc and grokked topics X and Y, etc. It doesn’t stop anyone reading the doc ‘cold’ but if they trip over new things, the list will point them to things to read/re-visit.

It’s all more work for the author(s) but I do see the point here.

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Hi there, to add to the discussion. I find Tinderbox is a lot like going to Home Depot (a US hardware store). It has tons of tools that I can use. I don’t need them all and any one of them can perform any number of functions.

Take a hammer for example. I can use it to pound in a nail. I can use it to pull out a nail. If I had four of them, I could also use them as legs for a short coffee table. There are many ways to use a hammer.

What I found delicious about Tinderbox. Most software will tell you how to use a hammer. Make you use it in the way it wants you to use it since that software has been designed for common use cases. Tinderbox does not. It says, here is a hammer, you can choose to use it however you like.

Where I think Tinderbox can do better with, and as a member of the community I’m working on the solution not just complaining about it, is helping people see some of the use cases of the various hammers in Tinderbox. I think we can do better job in showing examples, and explaining how you can build a shed or a mansion with Tinderbox, it all comes down to your objective, your experiences, your familiarity with the tools (Tinderbox as well s other tools), our craftsmanship (and desire to improve), all of which come with and are refined over time and through patience and grit.

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Amen. I think the struggle is to educate people out of the oppressive nature of most apps that tell you what you can’t do. The joy of Lego™/Erector™/Meccano™ is we don’t have to live in fear of the Kraggle; any outcome is “awesome”.

@satikusala reminds me of all I’ve learned watching builders at work. Happily, most experts will share their expertise if you just ask. My limited DIY skills have improved massively as a result.

Sometime, we’re just embarrassed—for all sorts of reasons—to ask for help and if help comes too eager to realise when people ask for clarification it might be because in out haste we didn’t really explain what we are doing. (I’m Guilty! I’m sure others are too)

. If I seem oblique, see here. More orgs should adopt the chorus!

have no idea what these ideas mean… are they critical or colloquial? humous opinion, reinforceing collective norms, or word of God carved in tablets (yep, that’s a reference to Moses and his God, Mark, I guess you are one of the two in this metaphor!).

which segues into my point: one of the main appeals of Lego and similar products is the self-evident in the way it clips together, it either does or it doesn’t hold together. be it an intended method of joining blocks, deemed fit for purpose by Lego™ in their kits or otherwise (for which there are many techniques used by their customers that take time to make there way into offical lego kit sold at retail stores).*

TB is not so easy to clip together and in my humble but limited experience not so easy to no where to start with when one wants to do more than a basic child-parent/sibling relationship for a new note to an existing note. I managed to teach myself CAD/CAM, DTP (in the 80s & 90s), Quartz Composure, Figma, Origami, and countless windows/macOS applications. to progress in Quartz Composer I need to become self-taught in Javascript (that was much harder to learn and definitely required the use of forums and tutorial blogs) so I figure I should be able to get knee deep into TB without too much stress. But stress and confusion abounded and I gave up b/c the value proposition hadn’t delivered enough gain over the other note taking apps I use.

I’ve little doubt that TB is one of the best note and structured-thinking-/mind-map apps in existence today, but as time poor as anyone, I’m not desperate to commute to TB-land for a month at my own expense before realising any value above using various artisan text applications and eMacs.

*I was a huge Lego fan in my youth so I appreciate the use of this metaphor. The way Lego™ sold out to Disney et al was less appealing to me… did they really have to become a Megatron corporation just to avoid implosion, I seriously doubt it, and it’s well known that their indie creator mission was what saved their bacon, not the corporate cross-promotional razzmatazz.

The first quote had an accidental typo “the Joy…” should read “The joy…” which perhaps changes the meaning—but as you note Lego is open-ended, which is the general point I was making. The Kraggle is a reference to The Lego Movie which I’d footnoted re its theme tune.

I’ve never heard of Quartz Composure so I can’t equate learning approaches. But, what mystifies me, given your point about learning is that you’re happy to use forums to learn about other software but here you just complain that Tinderbox is hard … rather than ask for help.

I’d suggest stepping back from the unproductive loop of “who’s smarter?”. What are you trying to do, and what is your frame of reference? What did you try to do at outset that got you stumped?

This forum is, I like to think, pretty helpful even in the face of the most resistive learners (we’ve had a few) but we need something to go on, to give a frame of reference for help. Fellow forum members—all Tinderbox users— can’t guess why you don’t understand the available resources in a way you find meaningful.

FWIW, the most common causes of confusion are:

  • Why isn’t Tinderbox more like [app] I’m used to? Comparing differently designed apps rarely leads to insight at outset. Replicating a process closely tied to the design of another app is rarely a good start.
  • How exactly to a do [x] in Tinderbox? When x is not defined or imagined as the result of an undefined process. Tinderbox isn’t a bundle of push-button processes.
  • I don’t understand the terminology. This is normally unpicked by finding what the blocking mis-perceptions are.

If spinning your wheels the best approach is to ask here for help and explaining what you are trying to do, in general terms. General, because as noted above Tinderbox is open-ended. You make the process out of parts (notes and sometimes code) as opposed to looking for per-packaged processes.