What you need to know for a first quick start

• Download the installer for Windows here or here. Or go to InstallLinux or InstallMacosx. Install.
• Don't be scared by WikidPad's complexity: The basics are very simple. Don't worry about the complex features in the beginning. You will grow into it later.
• The main tree in WikidPad does not work like an outliner. If it confuses you, turn it off for now, you will understand it later.
• To get yourself started:
  • Create yourself a wiki by clicking on "New" in the menu "Wiki".
  • For now see WikidPad as a collection of .txt-files. If you want to write something down about some topic, press CTRL-O (O like "Open"), type the name of the topic and press enter. Now write down your notes. (Bonus: You can put headings into the text by starting a line with "++".)
  • If you want to see your notes on a topic, use the search box in WikidPad's main window (Bonus: or press CTRL-O to find only topic names).
  • You can insert links from one topic to another by putting the name of a topic in square brackets. Like [My software]. (Bonus: CTRL-Space auto-completes]

That's all you need to start out!

Short Getting started with WikidPad's tree and more advanced features

Stolen from: http://geekanddiva.com/archivedwiki/gtdonwikidpad.html

• • Create a new wiki (a whole new wiki, not just a new page) and decide where to save it, etc.
  • Choose the wiki type. Normally "Original Sqlite" is a good choice under Windows

• • Find the ScratchPad and on it type a wikiword in PascalCase
    • as long as there are two upper-case letters (and at least one lower case letter) in the word, it will work
  • Note that it is automatically underlined
  • Wait for the auto-save, and take a look at the outline: the new page has appeared as a node under the ScratchPad (works since WikidPadCompact 1.5.5u beta and WikidPad 1.20beta2)

• • Click on the newly created link, and you will find yourself on the new page
  • Return to the ScratchPad, highlight the link, and cut it
  • Look at the outline: the page has vanished! (don't panic)
  • Go to the home page, paste your link there, and see how the outline is redrawn again
  • Now click on Views in the outline (you might have to wait for a refresh, or press Ctrl+S to save).... the new page now appears there under parentless-nodes (Was undefined-nodes in v1.8rc13_1)
  • Take a quick look at the other special functions showing up under the View section of the tree
  • Take a look at the Wiki Settings page and get a quick preview as to how you'll be tagging and annotating your pages
  • Just as a teaser, write the following first two lines on any page except the wiki settings page, and the next two lines on a different page, and see what happens in the tree (and then leave these texts in the wiki to use later in the tutorial):

todo.email:Jo about keys
[Current:this week]

todo.home:mend chair leg
[complete:041229]

(The uppercase C in Current is a hack to make it appear at the top of the outline list.)