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Populating Variables Interactively

You can always write your own scripts with dialogs to return frontmatter keys and values using the from script key, but you can also assign them within a Bunch using any of the dialog options above.

To populate a frontmatter key for use as a variable, just start the line with the variable name, followed by =, and then the syntax for the type of query you want (text, multiple choice, etc.). Variable assignment does not work with Checkbox Arrays.

Note that the dialogs will only display if the frontmatter key is not already assigned. This allows you to have a Bunch offer interactivity when launched directly, but when called from another Bunch, an AppleScript, or the URL handler, you can assign the variable directly and skip the dialog.

Text Input

To display a text field and request user input, use this in your Bunch:

myvar = ?"Question to ask"

When the field pops up, type your response and hit OK. Then the myvar variable will be populated for any snippets that include it with ${myvar}.

As an example, you could use this to enter a search term when opening a Bunch:

spotifyurl = ?"Spotify Search"
Spotify
- spotify:​search:%{spotifyurl}

That will take your input and url encode it into a Spotify URL that is directly opened by Spotify.

You can use the same syntax from Query Arrays or Query Dictionaries (or external files) to offer multiple choice dialogs.

podcast = ?[Overtired, Systematic] "Which Podcast are you recording?"

Now you’ll get a dialog asking you to pick a podcast, and then you can use the podcast variable in a snippet. I use something like this when building a new show notes file in nvUltra, creating a note called, for example “Overtired 250.md”.

podcast = ?[Overtired, Systematic] "Which podcast?"
episode = ?"Episode Number"
<<
___
// Open nvUltra, close all windows, open Podcasting notebook using URL handler
// If the script has populated an episode note title, include it in the URL
%nvUltra Beta
- XX
- x-nvultra:​//open?path=/Users/ttscoff/Dropbox/Notes/Podcasting/&note=%{podcast:Podcast}%20${episode}.md

My choice from the podcast query gets populated just like it is in the array (either “Overtired” or “Systematic”). If I wanted to provide different text for the options than the final values it returns, I would use a Dictionary.

As mentioned above, if I wanted to call this Bunch from the URL handler with a specific podcast pre-defined, I could just define the podcast and episode variables when calling it, and the select and input dialogs would not display:

open x-bunch://open/?bunch=Podcast&podcast=Overtired&episode=203

You can use variable assignment to abstract some of the above examples. Instead of having a dialog immediately call a snippet, you can assign a fragment name to a variable and then use that when calling the snippet. The following sets which_snippet to the result of the dialog, then calls a snippet, passing the result as the fragment to search for:

which_snippet = ?[Snippet One, Snippet Two] "Which Snippet?"

<MyBunch.snippets#${which_snippet:Default Snippet}

Include a default value to run in case the dialog is cancelled.

See Also:

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