I’m thinking [all[current]] is notation that existed before [<currentTiddler>] became an available option.
For backwards compatibility, [all[current]] remains. For some, that may still be the preferred choice for readability, or simply because it is less prone to typos. Or, name any other reasoning here.
currentTiddler is only defined when the wikitext is displayed within the StoryRiver. Thus, because you are rendering your project tab within the Sidebar, references to currentTiddler won’t work there.
thisTiddler IS defined for content that appears in the sidebar, BUT… when passed to the <<tabs>> macro as part of the tabsList parameter, the value of thisTiddler is unavailable when rendering the tab buttons.
Fortunately, there is another variable that is defined within the <<tabs>> macro itself when rendering a set of tabs: currentTab
As noted by @Charlie_Veniot, [all[current]] is older filter syntax that was around before <currentTiddler> was available within filters. Note that while <currentTiddler> is slightly more efficient that [all[current]], the older syntax still exists to support backward-compatibility for filters that were written a long time ago.
In addition, there may be some cases where it is useful for the parameter of the [all[...]] filter is to be determined by a variable that has been set outside of the filter syntax. Thus, you can write [all<somevar>], where somevar could be set to “current” or “tiddlers” or “shadows” or “shadows+tiddlers”, etc. to control the scope of tiddlers the filter operates on.
Nah. I don’t think in those terms because then I’m criticizing a choice that was made and I’m criticizing the person who made that choice. If I can’t place myself in their shoes and the circumstances of that time, I prefer to not be in the business of making any kind of judgement because if I think that way, I feel miserable. So I don’t think that way, and find myself way happier.
I strive to not have negative thoughts, and to asap quash any negative thoughts, because they poison the pursuit of joyful being.
There are often things that today may seem nonsensical, but they made perfect sense in a time and place, and the things continue to exist for the benefit of compatibility.
I rationalize: [all[current]] as “of all the tiddlers, I only want the current one”, and I think that’s A-1.