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README

        

# TofuWiki

TofuWiki turns Vim into a powerful, lean, and fast wiki. It's got all the
protein of a more conventional wiki, but less saturated fat and no
cholesterol.

[screenshots]

A quick overview of TofuWiki's characteristics and features:

* flat text files
* maximum data portability
* high interoperability with Unix tools
* Vim text editing power
* super-efficient modes of wiki traversal
* Git for versioning, distributed workflows, and blaming
* CamelCase wiki words
* namespaced wiki words
* autocompletion of wiki words
* automated global renaming of wiki words
* syntax colored wiki words
* can open web hyperlinks in external browser or inside Vim
* outliner-like capability with expansion commands
* operates on all POSIX systems (e.g. OS X, Linux, FreeBSD)

TofuWiki builds on Vim's strengths as a text editor and interface to the
Unix operating system, TofuWiki's primary goal is to make it possible to
create, navigate, and refactor wiki content at the speed of thought.

TofuWiki is good for tracking projects, contacts, ideas, and collecting
and organizing research. TofuWiki combines the affordances of notebooks,
index cards, and Post-it notes, and adds to them the power of
hyperlinks, search, revision history, automated refactoring, and more.

TofuWiki makes a good writing aid, especially if you do your writing in
Vim. You can have TofuWiki open in multiple Vim windows, tabs, and
buffers, alongside any number of regular Vim windows. Throw in a bunch
of Vim abbreviations (`:help abbreviations`), a large monitor, and a
teapot, and you'll have a powerful toolkit for writing your paper, essay,
book, or screenplay.

TofuWiki is free and open source.

[scriv]:http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

## Prerequisites

* a recent version of Vim (TofuWiki is developed against Vim 7.2 and 7.3)
* a recent version of Ruby: at least Ruby 1.9.3, but we recommend 2.0.0 or above
* a recent version of [Git][git] (1.7.0.4 or above to be safe)

[git]:http://git-scm.com/

The current version of TofuWiki assumes a Unix environment.

To use TofuWiki you should be fairly good at using Vim.

To install Ruby we recommend using the a ruby version manager,
like [RVM Version Manager][rvm] or [rbenv][rbenv].

[rvm]:https://rvm.io
[rbenv]: https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv

Most of TofuWiki's commands should work even if you don't have Git
installed. But the revision history commands will not.

## Installation

gem install tofuwiki

Test your installation by typing `tofuwiki -h`. You should see TofuWiki's help.

If you run into any PATH errors, try the following: Install the RVM
Version Manager, then install a recent version of ruby through RVM, and run `gem
install tofuwiki`. This should solve any installation issues.

If you ever want to uninstall TofuWiki from your system, execute this command:

gem uninstall tofuwiki

... and all traces of TofuWiki will removed.

New and improved versions of TofuWiki will be released over time. To install the
latest version, just type `gem install tofuwiki` again.

## Starting TofuWiki

Before you start TofuWiki, create a directory that will hold your wiki
files and `cd` into it. Then you can start TofuWiki with

tofuwiki

You can make as many TofuWiki wikis on your system as you want just by
creating directories for them. It's not a good idea however to nest
TofuWiki wiki directories within each other, for reasons that will become
clear below.

To use MacVim as your TofuWiki Vim engine, you can run TofuWiki like this

TOFUWIKI_VIM=mvim tofuwiki

or you can `export TOFUWIKI_VIM=mvim` in your `~/.bash_profile` and then
just run `tofuwiki`.

You can start TofuWiki from within a running Vim session. To set this up,
first install or update TofuWiki, and then run

tofuwiki --install-plugin

Please note that you will need to run this command after each time you update
TofuWiki to a newer version.

Assuming the plugin is installed, you can start TofuWiki from within a
running Vim session by typing the command

:Tofuwiki

Make sure when you do this that Vim's working directory is the root of
your wiki directory. You can change the working directory for the
current Vim window with `:lcd`. See `:help lcd` for more info.

## Basic usage

For basic use, TofuWiki works exactly like a typical wiki.

You write text, and when you want to create a new wiki page, you come up with a
WikiWord for it and format it in CamelCase. Whenever you type a valid WikiLink,
it will automatically be syntax-highlighted, and pressing ENTER on it will take
you to the new page.

Creating WikiWords and pressing ENTER on them is how you create wiki pages and
link them together. You'll be surprised at how powerful this simple mechanism
is for organizing your notes.

In TofuWiki, a wiki page is a simple text file that has a WikiWord title
on the first line. Beyond that, you can append any text you want. (You
may alter the title line at the top, but it helps you see what wiki page
you're on.) TofuWiki will create stub WikiPages for you automatically as
you traverse WikiLinks that don't yet reference any content.

That's all you need to know to get started.

### Configuring further

You can configure tofuwiki's vim-handling by setting certain variables
inside of your `~/.vimrc`. This is a list of the supported settings:

- `let g:tofuwiki_autosave = 1`
activates autosaving (the default), deactivate by setting `0`.

#### Mappings

Default mappings can be overridden by providing a custom mapping in your vimrc,
e.g. like this:

```vim
let g:tofuwiki_mapping_follow_link_under_cursor_here = ''
```

This is a list of the standard mappings with their default values:

- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_follow_link_under_cursor_here` *defaults* to ``
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_follow_link_under_cursor_vertical` *defaults* to ``
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_follow_link_under_cursor_horizontal` *defaults* to ``
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_fuzzy_follow` *defaults* to `f`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_next_link` *defaults* to ``
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_next_link` *defaults* to ``
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_show_history` *defaults* to `lp`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_show_files_history` *defaults* to `ls`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_show_blame` *defaults* to `b`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_expand_seamless_vertical` *defaults* to `x`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_expand_seamful_vertical` *defaults* to `X`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_expand_seamless_horizontal` *defaults* to `xx`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_expand_seamful_horizontal` *defaults* to `XX`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_goto_homepage` *defaults* to `h`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_goto_main_homepage` *defaults* to `H`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_show_help` *defaults* to `?`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_format` *defaults* to `\`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_add_delimiter_line` *defaults* to `-`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_add_date` *defaults* to `d`
- `g:tofuwiki_mapping_add_date_and_delimiter_line` *defaults* to `D`

## Namespaced WikiWords

Every WikiWord in TofuWiki is implicitly or explicitly namespaced.
TofuWiki's namespaced WikiWords help organize your wiki space
conceptually. They also help reduce clutter in your wiki directory.

An explicitly namespaced WikiWord looks like this:

recipes.SoyRaspberrySmoothie

The implicitly namespaced form looks just like a conventional WikiWord:

SoyRaspberrySmoothie

A namespace must start with a lower-case letter and consist only of letters,
numbers, and underscore characters.

Within a WikiWord namespace you can use unqualified WikiWords to link
pages within that namespace together. For example, if you are editing a
page called `recipes.SoyMacaroni` and you want to link to a page called
`recipes.SoyRaspberrySmoothie`, you can type a link called
`SoyRaspberrySmoothie`. TofuWiki will treat this link as an implicitly
namespaced link to another page in the `recipes` namespace.

TofuWiki wiki pages are stored as text files named by WikiWord within
subdirectories named after their namespace. So
`recipes.SoyRaspberrySmoothie` would be written to
`recipes/SoyRaspberrySmoothie`.

You can't chain namespace words together. The maximum nesting level is 1. More
nesting would imply hierarchical relationships, and permitting hierarchical
nesting goes against the grain of what a wiki is, which is an [undirected
graph][graph]. TofuWiki namespaces are not supposed to represent hierarchies,
but domains (e.g., personal, work, project1, project2, etc.). You can easily
represent hierarchical relationships _within_ a wiki page. See "Expanding a
wiki page" below to see how you can use TofuWiki like an outliner program.

[graph]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory

When you start TofuWiki for the first time, the active namespace is the default
namespace `main`. `main.HomePage` is the first page you will see.

## Wiki navigation

You can navigate a TofuWiki wiki very quickly with the following
commands:

* `CTRL-j` and `CTRL-k` move the cursor directly to the next or previous WikiLink on the page
* `ENTER` follows the WikiLink under the cursor
* `,f` follows the first WikiLink after the cursor
* `CTRL-l` opens a WikiLink in a vertical split window; press `CTRL-l` again
while the cursor is on the top line to close the new window
* `CTRL-h` does the same, but in a regular split window
* `q` closes a split window
* `,h` takes you to the `HomePage` of the current namespace
* `,H` takes you to `main.HomePage`

These key mappings may not be very mnemonic, but they are easy to
memorize through muscle memory and were chosen to keep the hands
stationary and the fingers near home position on a QWERTY keyboard while
navigating the wiki.

You can also use Vim's jump motions `CTRL-o` and `CTRL-i` to move back
and forth in your jump history. See `:help jump-motions` for more on
this. You can press `CTRL-^` to toggle between the current page and the
last page you looked at.

* `,m` opens the page list
* `,n` opens the namespace list
* `,M` opens the inbound links page list

You can view all the pages in your wiki, most recently modified first,
by pressing `,m`. This opens both a page list and autocompletion window.
You can use the standard Vim autocompletion commands here to find the
page you want and call it up. See Vim's `:help ins-completion-menu` for
further instructions.

When you're on a wiki page and you want to see all the other wiki pages
that link in to it, press `,M`. If there is only one page that links in,
you'll be taken there automatically.

`,n` lets you select from your namespaces. Choosing one will take you to
the `HomePage` of that namespace.

## Opening web hyperlinks

* `,o` opens the first web hyperlink under or after the cursor in the default external web browser
* `ENTER` opens the web hyperlink under the cursor in the default external web browser
* `,O` opens the web hyperlink under the cursor in a vertical split window
* `CTRL-w f` opens the web hyperlink under the cursor in a normal split window
* `gf` opens the web hyperlink under the cursor in the same Vim window

`,o` opens the next web hyperlink on or after the cursor in your default
external web browser. Web hyperlinks are the URLs that begin with
http:// or https://. You can also use `ENTER` when the cursor is over a
web hyperlink.

Under the covers, TofuWiki uses the command `gnome-open` or `open` to
launch your external web browser. This should cover Linux Gnome desktop
and OS X users. You can change the command TofuWiki uses to open a
hyperlink by adding this to your `~/.vimrc`:

let g:TofuWiki#browser_command = "your browser command here"

If your Vim has `netrw` installed, you can open a hyperlink directly in
Vim by putting the cursor on a web hyperlink and typing `gf`, `CTRL-W f`
or `,O` (capital O). All these commands open the webpage inside your Vim
session using `elinks` or whatever browser you set as your
`g:netrw_http_cmd`. See `:help netrw` for more information.

TIP: I personally prefer using `netrw` (configured to use elinks) to
launching URLs in an external web browser. This lets me keep all my URL
bookmarks in regular text files and open, clip, and annotate them all in
TofuWiki and Vim. Using `netrw` helps your text editor rather than your
web browser dominate your workflow. And you tend to stay focused on
your task rather than going down the rabbit hole of internet
distractions.

## WikiLink autocompletion

When you're writing a wiki page and you want to link to another page,
TofuWiki can help you autocomplete your WikiLink. Press `CTRL-x CTRL-u`
in Vim insert mode to invoke it.

## Wiki refactoring

You can delete the current page with `:SWDelete`.

`:SWRenameTo [new name]` renames the current page. Make sure the new name
is valid CamelCase. You can put a namespace in front of the new name
as `namespace.` or `namespace/`. If you omit the namespace, the current
namespace is assumed.

When you rename a page, TofuWiki will update all the links on other pages
in your wiki that need to be updated in light of the change. (You'll see
the other links that were updated in the output.)

To create a wiki page directly, without first typing a WikiWord and
traversing it, type `:SWCreate` followed by the full path to the new
page. The form of the argument here should be `namespace/WikiWord`. You
may use command line file path autocomplete to fill out the namespace
subdirectory if it already exists.

TIP: I recommend not using :SWCreate to create wiki pages. Prefer the
method of writing a WikiLink and then traversing it. This will make your
wiki more interlinked, better organized, and easier to traverse in an
organic way.

Beyond the standard cut and paste, TofuWiki gives you four fast ways of
shuttling text from one wiki page to another.

First, highlight the text you want to move with Vim's visual mode. (See
`:help visual-mode` for more info)

Then, type

* `:SWInsert [target]` to move the text to the top of target page
* `:SWAppend [target]` to move the text to the bottom of the target page
* `:SWLinkInsert [target]` performs `:SWInsert` and replaces the text with a WikiWord link
* `:SWLinkAppend [target]` performs `:SWAppend` and replaces the text with a WikiWord link

`[target]` is the name of the file that contains the wiki page you're
targeting, e.g. `recipes/SoyRaspberrySmoothie`. Press `TAB` for
autocompletion help.

These four commands will open the target page (if it isn't open already)
in a split window and insert or append the selected text into it. If
the target page doesn't exist, it will be created.

You can use these shortcuts:

* `:SWDelete` → `:SWD`
* `:SWRename` → `:SWR`
* `:SWCreate` → `:SWC`
* `:SWInsert` → `:SWI`
* `:SWAppend` → `:SWA`

With `:SWLinkInsert` and `:SWLinkAppend` you can use Vim's command line
completion (`:help cmdline-completion`) to avoid typing out the whole command name.

Also, you can use Vim's command line history (`:help cmdline-history`)
and command line window (`:help cmdline-window`) to save keystrokes when
you want to repeatedly execute an insert or append command targeting the
same wiki page.

## Search

* `:SWSearch [term]`
* `:SWNamespaceSearch [term]`

These commands search your TofuWiki wiki. `:SWNamespaceSearch` confines
your search to the current namespace.

Vim will load any matches in the quickfix list window. If there are
matches, you can use `:cn` and `:cp` to go from match to match, `:cl` to
list the matches, and `:cc [item number]` to see a particular match ln
the list. See `:help quickfix` or more QuickFix commands.

Examples:

:SWSearch gnu
:SWNamespaceSearch gnu

You can use `:SWS` as a shortcut for `:SWSearch`. You can also
tab-complete `:SWN` to `:SWNamespaceSearch`.

Searches are case-insensitve.

Under the hood, `:SWSearch` is just a thin wrapper around the `:vimgrep`
command. Use `:vimgrep` directly if you want to do anything more
specific.

TIP: You can flag important notes in your wiki content by typing flags
like TODO or IMPORTANT! on the same line, and then use `:SWSearch` and
`:cl` to see all instances of them across your entire wiki.

It also exists a version of the `:SWSearch`-command which directly
opens a navigatable list of the matches:

- `:SWSearchList [term]`
- `:SWSL [term]` is an alias

For more information about the list you can try `:h copen` and `:h clist`.

In the navigation-list you can select an element with normal navigation
(`h`, `j`, `k`, `l`, or arrows) and press `` to open the page.
To open the page but staying on the selection (instead of jumping to
the now opened page) you can instead press ``.

## Revision history and distributed workflows

TofuWiki delegates revision-tracking, syncing, and collaboration
workflows to Git. TofuWiki automatically creates a Git repository in
your wiki directory and automatically commits all the edits you make to
it. You can sync a TofuWiki wiki between two computers using the
standard Git push and pull commands. Collaborators can also edit a
common wiki this way, in peer to peer fashion.

TofuWiki provides a few convenient key mappings to view the revision
history of a wiki page:

* `,lp` shows a `git-log -p` view of the revision history of the current page
* `,ls` shows a `git log --stat` view of the current page's revision history
* `,b` shows a `git-blame` view of the current page, which shows when each line was added and by whom.

You can always bypass Vim and TofuWiki altogether and use Git directly to
inspect your revision history. The Git repo for your TofuWiki wiki will
be located in the same directory as your wiki files.

To sync your TofuWiki wiki between two personal computers, you can follow
the instructions [here][git-sync] and set up an bare Git repository on
some server for all your computers to push to and pull from.

[git-sync]:http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~blynn/gitmagic/ch03.html

If you want something simpler, you could also try keeping your wiki
folder in a [Dropbox][dropbox] folder.

[dropbox]:http://stevelosh.com/projects/t/#it-does-the-simplest-thing-that-could-possibly-work

If you want to edit a common TofuWiki with many other people, it's
probably best to set up a common upstream Git repository (e.g. on
GitHub, if the wiki content is for public consumption). This process
may be intimidating for non-programmers, so a future version of TofuWiki
may provide a more user-friendly interface for distributed collaboration
workflows.

## Expanding a wiki page

TofuWiki lets you "expand" a wiki page. What this does is expand all the
wiki links in the page that appear alone on a line. Each of these links
is replaced by the content of the wiki page the link points to. This
expansion works recursively on all the expanded content. Don't worry.
It can't fall into an infinite recursive loop because it will only
expand each WikiWord it encounters once, leaving all subsequent
references to the same WikiWord unexpanded.

The expanded version of the page will appear in a new Vim scratch buffer.
From there you can write it out to a new text file, pipe it to `lpr` to
print it, or whatever you like.

There are two forms of expansion: seamful and seamless. Seamful
expansion expands wiki links into wiki pages and clearly marks where
this has happened by including markers along with the WikiWord that was
expanded. Seamless expansion does not mark a point of expansion with
anything, and it erases the WikiWord that got expanded.

* `,x` expands a wiki page seamfully and opens on a vertical split
* `,X` expands a wiki page seamlessly and opens on a vertical split
* `,xx` expands a wiki page seamfully and opens on normal split
* `,XX` expands a wiki page seamlessly and opens on a normal split
* `q` closes the expanded view window

Both modes of expansion are useful when you want to assemble a long
piece of writing by using one page as a master outline that links to
other wiki pages that include the real content. And since expansion is
recursive, you can effectively nest outlines within outlines, like
dreams within dreams.

## Exporting to HTML

* `tofuwiki --html`
* `tofuwiki --html --markdown`

Want to share your wiki with non-Vim-users? You can export your wiki
into a directory of HTML pages. Type `tofuwiki --html` from the root
directory of your wiki.

Aside from WikiWords, TofuWiki uses no markup system whatsoever. You can
write your content in whatever markup system you want, or no markup
system at all.

Please note that you need `haml` and `rdiscount` install on your system to
export to HTML.
By default, the HTML export feature just wraps your content in
<pre> tags after turning your WikiWords into hyperlinks.

If instead you want to write your pages using Markdown, you can process
Markdown by adding the `--markdown` flag.

## Extra macros

TofuWiki adds a few convenient Vim macros.

* `\` in normal mode reformats the current paragraph. It is equivalent to
`gqap`. (`:help formatting`)
* `,-` inserts a long dashed line
* `,d` inserts the current date and time
* `,D` inserts a long dashed line, followed by the current date and time

## Getting help

Typing `,?` will open the help webpage in a browser.

## CamelCase WikiLinks rule!

Some people don't like the CamelCase (a.k.a. WikiCase) wiki link
pattern. But TofuWiki stands with CamelCase.

* Besides being the original, CamelCase is the most elegantly minimalist approach to linking wiki pages together -- "with no additional markup whatsoever," [as Ward Cunningham put it][ward].
* It encourages you more than other wiki link patterns to create wiki pages with succinctly descriptive names that are easy to remember.
* Because the link pattern is so minimal and succinct, writing wiki links interrupts your flow of thought less than other wiki link patterns.
* CamelCase wiki links are less noisy than other link patterns in raw plain text form. This also contributes to flow.
* The CamelCase link pattern is very conducive to storing wiki pages in plain text files: the page names can map directly to Unix file names without any awkward character escaping or munging.

[ward]:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiCase

No wiki link pattern is perfect! All involve trade-offs. The CamelCase
pattern gives you a lot in return for its particular compromises.

## Hyperlinks

There may come the time when you want to link to content, that
isn't part of your wiki. The common link-syntax will allow
you to refer to websites. But if you want to link
to something in your own filesystem you can
also use the `file://` schema. This schema
actually only allows absolute file paths. To circumvent
this problem we have added support for our own schema:
`soyfile://` which allows to link to files relative
to the wiki root or, if you use vim's
*autochdir* option, relative to the current namespace.

If you want to generate html output in order to upload it
to a webpage you need to generate relative links if you are using
`soyfile://` (the default is to generate absolute `file://` links).
You can achieve this by calling:

- `tofuwiki --html --relative`
- `tofuwiki --html --markdown --relative`

## Bug reports and feature requests

TofuWiki is very new, so there are kinks and bugs to iron out and lot of
desirable features to add. If you have a bug to report or a good feature to
suggest, please file it on the [issue tracker][1]. That will help a lot.

[1]:https://github.com/aliceinwire/tofuwiki/issues

You can also join the [Google Group][group] and comment there.

[group]:http://groups.google.com/group/tofuwiki-users?msg=new&lnk=gcis

## Maintainer

Tofuwiki is developed and maintained by Alice Ferrazzi (email: [email protected])
Tofuwiki is based on Soywiki created by Daniel Choi (email: dhchoi at gmail.com).

## Roadmap

There are some more git-related features (e.g. push from inside vim)
we would like to implement before releasing 1.0.
However with the 1.0 release we will no longer support
ruby versions below `2.0.0`.