As I argued in TWikiWhatWillYouBeWhenYouGrowUpDiscussion, twiki is really a combination of several applications, most prominently:

• a white board (wiki) application
• a form application
• a file storage (attachment) application

The topic text stores the data of the white board application, while TWikiMetaData primarily stores the data for the other applications. It would be most inappropriate, if the data storage for the white board application were were intermixed with the data storage of the other separate applications. Users of the white board applications do not want to be confused in their editing with data from other unrelated applications.

The shortcoming today of twiki as this (small) portfolio of applications is that while you can decide whether to use or not use other applications, you have no control of where on the screen they are rendered or how they are edited (e.g., attachments are always edited in a separate page, while form data is edited at the bottom of the edit page).

Note that nothing stops you as a user not to use, say the form application, or create the data that typically is contained in a form inline in your white board application. However, what you loose would be the well-structuredness guaranteed by the separate applications (but that would be the more wiki-like nature).

In short, if you want only the unstructured white board application, just use that one. If you want to compose your web pages from a white board and some structured applications, twiki offers that capability also. Obviously the other applications are not "wiki-like", but that is besides the point. They are not meant to be; the white board is the wiki.

Or phrased differently, there is nothing "wiki-ish" about trampling over other applications' data...

-- ThomasWeigert - 11 Feb 2004