Filtering in Let Widget, help?

#1

Late night last night and now I’m wracking my brain – What’s the obvious thing I’m missing here? I can see from <h4> that the variable is correctly defined, and if I hardcode it, it shows up perfectly fine.

<$let todayDate="<$macrocall $name='now' format='YYYY'/>-<$macrocall $name='now' format='0MM'/>-<$macrocall $name='now' format='0DD'/>">

<h4>TODAY'S TODO ITEMS (<<todayDate>>)</h4> 


<$list filter="[all[tiddlers]tag[TODO]parent<todayDate>]"> 

<div style="margin-bottom: 10px;">
<<currentTiddler>>
<$button>
Done
<$action-listops $tiddler=<<currentTiddler>> $field="tags" $subfilter="done"/>
</$button>
<$view field="text"/><$link to=<<currentTiddler>>>🔗</$link>
<div style="margin-left: 15px; border-left: 2px solid #ccc; padding-left: 10px;">

</div>
</div>
</$list>
</$let>

Thanks in advance 😮‍💨

#2

Remember that quote marks around an attribute signify a literal string! Your variable isn’t being evaluated before it’s substituted, so your filter is looking for tiddlers with parent: <$macrocall $name='now' format='YYYY'/>-<$macrocall $name='now' format='0MM'/>-<$macrocall $name='now' format='0DD'/>

As a general rule, you shouldn’t be using widgets in $let definitions for precisely this reason — and if you did, you’d need to use $wikify to evaluate them prior to using them in a filter. Instead, try <$let todayDate=<<now YYYY-0MM-0DD>> >.

1 Like
#3

Someday I’ll stop tiddling with less than 8 hours of good sleep 🫠

#4

todayDate doesn’t contain the evaluated date string result. Rather, it contains the literal $macrocall widgets. It is only when you subsequently render <<todayDate>> as wikitext within the <h4>...</h4> that the $macrocall widgets are executed to produce the desired date output. Following that, in your $list filter, you reference parent<todayDate>, which will NEVER work, since the <<todayDate>> variable within the filter syntax is NOT rendered as wikitext, so will always contain the $macrocall widgets, not the desired date output.

You should do as @etardiff suggests, and use

<$let todayDate=<<now YYYY-0MM-0DD>> >

which will evaluate the macro and assign its output to todayDate. Note that this only works because the <<now>> macro is defined in the TWCore as a “javascript macro”, so it returns its actual output. If you were to try to assign a value by invoking a “wikitext macro” (e.g., <<myMacro param param>>), it would just store the wikitext definition of that macro. In that case, you would need to use $wikify to force the evaluation of the macro code to capture its output, like this:

<$wikify name=todayDate text="<<myMacro param param>>">
...
</$wikify>

enjoy,
-e

#5

But that’s half the fun!

I’ve been doing too much of my tiddling late at night, and therefore the next day I’m short of sleep, and then I’m tiddling again the next night. Not a good pattern, but it’s hard to break!

#6

This is going to sound cranky, but not tiddling late at night doesn’t necessarily help doing it right. Not for me at least. I’m writing this as I proudly keep counting months towards one year of failing at basic wikitext syntax. And I frankly can’t say I’m not investing enough time trying. Maybe I just do it the wrong way.