How can I use Templater to get a prompt for text, append it as a link in today's daily note, then create a page with that as the title?

[Oneechan69]

I want to make a command that does the following:

• Shows a one-line text dialogue with a title saying "Task name"
• It appends it to today's daily note: ![[Tasks/Task Name]], creating a link to a page with that title inside the Tasks folder.
• It creates a page with that title inside the Tasks folder and opens it in a new tab.

I spent a bunch of time looking stuff up to do this but couldn't figure this out. I think this could be done with a Templater script.

[Zachatoo]

Give the following a try. If your daily note doesn't exist when you run the template, it will throw an error. If your daily notes template takes a long time to execute or requires user input, then this is the option you should go with.

<%*
// Find if todays daily note exists
const { folder, format } = app.internalPlugins.getEnabledPluginById("daily-notes").options;
const todaysDailyNote = tp.file.find_tfile(`${folder}/${tp.date.now(format)}`);
if (!todaysDailyNote) {
  throw new Error("Daily note for today is required to run this template.")
}
// Prompt for task
const task = await tp.system.prompt("Task name");
// Append task to daily note (\n means line break)
const content = await app.vault.read(todaysDailyNote);
const newContent = `${content}\n![[${task}]]`;
await app.vault.modify(todaysDailyNote, newContent);
// Create task file in tasks folder
const tasksFolder = app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath("Tasks");
const newTaskFile = await tp.file.create_new("", task, false, tasksFolder);
// Open task file in new tab
app.workspace.getLeaf(true).openFile(newTaskFile);
-%>

If your daily note isn't setup with a template, or the template runs very quickly and doesn't require any user input, then you could create the daily note if it doesn't exist, likeso.

<%*
// Sleep function to wait for set amount of time
const sleep = ms => new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, ms));
// Prompt for task
const task = await tp.system.prompt("Task name");
// Find if todays daily note exists
const { folder, format } = app.internalPlugins.getEnabledPluginById("daily-notes").options;
let todaysDailyNote = tp.file.find_tfile(`${folder}/${tp.date.now(format)}`);
if (!todaysDailyNote) {
  // If daily note doesn't exist, create it
  app.commands.executeCommandById("daily-notes");
  // Creating the daily note will take up the active tab, go back after 100 ms (probably has finished creating by now)
  await sleep(100);
  app.workspace.activeLeaf.history.back();
  todaysDailyNote = tp.file.find_tfile(`${folder}/${tp.date.now(format)}`);
}
// Append task to daily note (\n means line break)
const content = await app.vault.read(todaysDailyNote);
const newContent = `${content}\n![[${task}]]`;
await app.vault.modify(todaysDailyNote, newContent);
// Create task file in tasks folder
const tasksFolder = app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath("Tasks");
const newTaskFile = await tp.file.create_new("", task, false, tasksFolder);
// Open task file in new tab
app.workspace.getLeaf(true).openFile(newTaskFile);
-%>

[Oneechan69]

@Zachatoo Thanks for the answer. I ended up writing my own JS once I figured out how to search the API documentation with ChatGPT Plugins, see my answer below. I hadn't checked this post until I finished it, I thought it would take much longer to get any answers.

[Oneechan69]

I had asked Phind and Perplexity.ai how to solve this and they didn't give good answers, so I gave one web search plugin for ChatGPT Plus: Webpilot a shot. I did a bunch of back and forth with it for JS snippets, giving it the link https://docs.obsidian.md to look through. I did a bunch of editing and made this Templater template, which I added a hotkey for:

// Check if the page passed in exists, if not then create it.
function checkPage(pageName) {
    page = app.vault.getAbstractFileByPath(`${pageName}.md`)
    return page ? page : app.vault.create(`${pageName}.md`, '')
}
let task = `Tasks/${await tp.system.prompt("Enter task:")}`
// You can enter in whatever the date format is for your daily notes.
let todaysDate = tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD MMMM Do YYYY dddd")
let dailyNote = await checkPage(todaysDate)
let taskLink = `![[${task}]]`
let noteContent = await app.vault.read(dailyNote)
// This if block checks if theres an H2 heading title "Tasks". If not then it adds it to the bottom. You can remove the whole if { } block if you want.
if (!noteContent.includes(heading = "## Tasks")) { 
    await app.vault.append(dailyNote, heading)
} 
if (!noteContent.includes(taskLink)) { 
    await app.vault.append(dailyNote, `${noteContent.endsWith('\n')?'':'\n'}${taskLink}`) 
} let taskFile = await checkPage(task)
app.workspace.activeLeaf.openFile(taskFile)
// This just checks if the link was successfully added to the daily note and then shows a notification for it.
if ((await app.vault.read(dailyNote)).includes(taskLink)) { new Notice(`The task has been added to ${todaysDate}.`) }