Template Plugin

GSoC Projects Template Plugin
84

Great thanks!

85

Hey everyone,

I was working on the target notebook special variable for this feature. And want to ask if after setting a target notebook and creating a new note with that template. Would you like the plugin to open that newly created note?

NOTE - This is in case a target notebook is defined. If it's not, plugin automatically opens the newly created note.

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

1 Like
86

Do you also plan it for the tasks?

87

Do you mean to-dos? If yes, then yes.

1 Like
88

Release v2.1.0 :rocket:

Features

  • allow setting a target notebook for a template (add6534)
  • introduce date and time variable types (55cc646), closes #43

For reporting bugs/feature-requests or to know more about the plugin visit the GitHub Repo.

4 Likes
89

yes :joy:

90

Thank you so much for implementing date/time variables!

I played around with it and noticed that apparently date/time input cannot be formatted via {{#custom_datetime}}{{/custom_datetime}}.
Is it true or am I missing something? If true, is there a way to format the user date/time input any other way?

91

Yup it's true. Currently, there is no way to format the input. But yes, I now realize that it's an important part of the feature. I'll definitely work on this in near future.

3 Likes
92

Hi @nishantwrp

Thank you for this wonderful plugin!
I would like to raise a question related to my use of the templates but which might be of interest to others. I keep a journal in Joplin with one note per day in which I keep my exchanges and notes from the work day. I use a simple template to create a note.

---
template_title:  {{ date }}
template_tags: journal
template_notebook: 1c1fa619ed7840129e7c27afc8d0837f

---

In this note, I integrate sections that are as many moments of the day that correspond to what I do (phone meeting with so-and-so, video with so-and-so, reading an article, etc.). For this I also use templates but I insert them in the note of the day with a simple template.

---
template_title:  meeting ( {{ date }} )

---

## {{ time }} -

One thing I would find useful would be to be able to add a tag to the note with the insertion of a "section" template. It doesn't seem to me that this is currently possible? Would you think it's a good idea? This would require the template_tags: variable to be used with the insertion inside a note...

1 Like
93

Hey @bepolymathe, that's a nice idea. I remember this came up once before, the reason I didn't implement it then is because I thought there will be also some users who don't expect tags to get applied when inserting a template.

But maybe, what we can do is introduce an option for users to enable insertion in the setting. Creating a poll to know the opinion of the community on this.

Should tags be applied while inserting a template?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Create an option in the settings to enable/disable this

0 voters

1 Like
94

Thank you for your answer. Leaving the choice to the user is always better.

95

Another idea that came to me. It would be very interesting to introduce a variable that would allow you to place the cursor where you want it after inserting a template or creating a note with a template. But I don't know if Joplin allows it?

96

Release v2.1.1 :rocket:

Bug Fixes

For reporting bugs/feature-requests or to know more about the plugin visit the GitHub Repo.

1 Like
97

Hi @nishantwrp

I'm going back to my previous post because it impacts everyday usage. Not being able to place the cursor where you want it after creating or inserting the note means that :

  • if my cursor is in the title and I create a new task, the cursor stays in the title. I can type my task title right away.
  • if my cursor is in the body of the task and I create a new task, the cursor remains in the body of the note. In this case, I have to go into the title to type it. This is not very practical.

What do you think about it?

98

Actually I don’t know if this can be controlled with plugins. @CalebJohn @laurent can you give your inputs on this?

Thanks for the repost. Actually didn’t get time to work on this plugin last week.

1 Like
99

This can be done from a plugin, you would just need to execute a focus command after inserting the template. Either focusElementNoteBody or focusElementNoteTitle.

e.g.

await joplin.commands.execute('focusElementNoteBody');

For reference you can see these commands under the menu bar (Go -> Focus) or by using the command palette (Tools -> Command Palette or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P) and typing focus.

@bepolymathe I'm not convinced that adding this functionality to the plugin will save you much time. I suspect you'll benefit far more from binding the focus commands to a convenient keybinding and then get used to hitting those when you want to switch focus.

4 Likes
100

Thank you for your answer. On the specific example I gave I could agree with you. But in general, I find that the possibility to place the cursor where you want it when creating a note would be very useful. For example, I create a note every day in a standardized format (today's date and meeting time) and I don't need to edit this title. On the other hand, I need to be in the 4th row/5th column to enter the names of the participants in this meeting. In this type of case, it is convenient.

101

Fair enough, there's always different use cases. It actually should be possible to specify an exacle location for the cursor to be placed in the body of a note. Something like

Meeting notes for {{date}}

- {{cursor}}

Taken by bepolymathe

But I wouldn't expect to see that anytime soon

2 Likes
102

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. A lot of softwares offer this kind of solution for templates. It's the case of obsidian I think for example.

Do you think it would be too cumbersome to set up or not desirable?

103

I just don't think there is much desire for it. I'm pretty sure I've seen requests in the past, but never really anything that goes anywhere.