Tiddlywiki provides a built-in language for extending Tiddlywiki itself, and Notedeck takes advantage of this to provide a few additional pieces of functionality. The Notedeck Wiki is really just a Tiddlywiki with some additional macros added. It adds three new functions to Tiddlywiki.
Notedeck Logs
By tagging an tiddler with the Log tag, you can transform a normal tiddler into a log tiddler. This adds a text box at the top that you can type into, and when you press Ctrl-Enter, it will create a new tiddler, tag it with the current tiddler, and the content will appear at the top of the log tiddler. This approach blurs the line between an "edit" mode and a "view" mode by embedding input directly into the view. It's a simple mechanism that supports several use cases.
Use Case: Daily Logs
Notedeck adds a "today log" button, which automatically creates a new tiddler with a title formatted as YYYY-MM-DD and tags it with both Journal and Log tags. This formatting allows sorting by title to produce a chronological (or reverse chronological) ordering. It also makes way more sense than the date system used in most countries.
This forms the foundation of what I call my "worklog". If I take notes during the day that I don't have another place for, they go here.
Notedeck logs are structured as aggregations of tiddlers tagged with the name of the log. This means that even if I type a note into the "today log", I can rename it, link to it from other tiddlers, and include it in other logs by simply tagging it with the name of the log. This means notes can simultaneously be part of multiple logs.
Logs, as the name suggests, are automatically timestamped and sorted in reverse chronological order.
Usage
To create a tiddler that will automatically generate and aggregate log entries, simply tag it with Log.
Use Case: Project Notes
Anything can be a log, not just the daily logs. Got a project? Create a new tiddler, name it, tag it with Log and you're all set. It turns into a notebook for the project that you can reference on a moment's notice, and because each entry is a tiddler, aspects of the project can be addressed well from other parts of the wiki.
Use Case: Recurring Meetings
At work in particular, I sometimes find that folks get value from scheduling recurring meetings to discuss a topic. I try to minimize these sorts of meetings, but there are usually at least a couple. Because they only happen once a week or month, picking up the thread from the last meeting is much easier when notes from last time are logged. Most folks keep notes in a dedicated, shared document, but I keep my personal notes in Notedeck because they are easy to find and reference from elsewhere in my notes (Tiddlywiki imbues Notedeck with instant full text search since everything is stored in RAM).
Log Tabs
Notedeck provides another level of aggregation on top of logs, in the form of Log Tabs. I came up with log tabs when I realized I wanted to be able to quickly "thumb through" the last several days of logs easily. The use of tabs on the side to navigate between logs was a natural way to approach this.
Usage
To create a tiddler that aggregates logs into tabs, insert a call to the logtabs macro into the wiki, passing in the name of a tag that all the logs you want to aggregate share. For example, if you want to create a tiddler called Worklogs that aggregates all the Journal tiddlers, simply place this text into a new tiddler titled Worklogs:
<<logtabs "Journal">>Of course, the title of the actual tiddler doesn't have to be Worklogs, it could be called Recent, or anything else you like.
Backlinks
Tiddlywiki natively supports backlinks. Notedeck takes this a step further and modifies the default view template to include a section at the bottom of every tiddler that lists all the backlinks. This makes navigating the reference graph fast and easy.