tbl multiroll - a shortcut to roll two tables together

[jon-heard]

Here's a shortcut "tbl multiroll" that you can add to your vault to roll multiple tables, side-by-side. This is useful for producing texts like "flashy cat", "The hungry witch tavern", etc, where each word is pulled from a different table.

After the shortcut is a small shortcut demonstrating how you could wrap it for a specific set of tables.

NOTE: make sure you have the latest version of the library for this (there was a bug found and squashed).

---

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^tbl multiroll (n|y) (.*)$

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// Turn the second parameter into an array of paths
const tables = $2.split(" ");

// Initialize an array for table roll results
let result = [];

// Roll once for each table
for (const table of tables)
{
	// Roll on the table
	// EDIT: added "useConfig: true" to use the table's configuration as setup in the "tbl roll" popup
	const tableResult = expand("tbl roll " + table + " useconfig: true");

	// If an error is encountered then quit, returning the error
	if (!tableResult[0])
	{
		return tableResult;
	}

	// Add the table roll result to the array
	result.push(tableResult);
}

// Turn the array into a string of spaced items
result = result.join(" ");

// If the first parameter is "y" use expFormat()
return ($1 === "n") ? result : expFormat(result);

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tbl multiroll {use expansion format: y OR n} {table files: space-separated path texts} - Rolls one instance of each table in {table files}. If {use expansion format} is "y", prints the expansion using the standard expansion format.

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^plantanimal$

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return expand("tbl multiroll n tables/non-animals.md tables/animals.md");

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plantanimal - A sample wrapper shortcut around "tbl multiroll". Rolls two tables to get a non-animal name followed by an animal name.

[ericbright2002]

This multiroll is a wonderful addition! However, I think there's a bug in that it doesn't read the tables as marked in the table UI. Specifically, my tables are markdown, and with your previous guidance, it correctly reads the range first and output second in an entry such as

| 3 - 6 | Enemy attacks |

However, when I use multiroll, instead of returning just the result for each table such as "Enemy attacks", it is returning the full line such as "| 3 - 6 | Enemy attacks |" for all tables. I backtracked and tried the tbl roll tablename command, and it does the same thing. In other words, tbl roll and choosing the table via the UI works perfect but tbl roll tablename doesn't read the table configuration correctly.

Separately, is there a way that the table configuration can be put in as frontmatter (YAML) rather than having to manually configure each individual table? Thank you for your continued work! This is awesome!

[jon-heard]

The frontmatter variables that make up the configuration are akin to the labels for the values in the ui: "title", "description", "tags", "startLine" and "itemFormat".

All it takes for a table-file's configuration to be based on the frontmatter is to have a frontmatter section in the file. Any values not set in the fontmatter start at their defaults: empty strings for all except "startLine" which defaults to 0.

[ericbright2002]

I've got 250 tables in my vault, and it loaded with only about a quarter second delay. Barely noticed it. However, I don't have the frontmatter in all the tables as I set them all up individually through the UI. I can go back and add the frontmatter to test it out. Before I do that, for the RegEx item format, should that be in double quotes, single quotes, or no quotes when I put it in the frontmatter? Thanks!

[jon-heard]

No quotes needed in the frontmatter, including itemFormat. However, I suggest checking one or two in the popup panel to make sure the frontmatter is coming through properly for you.
Actually, it doesn't matter if the tables have frontmatter or not. They all get loaded either way, because the system needs to check for frontmatter. If you have 250 tables and your seeing a quarter second delay, and that feels snappy enough for you, then I suppose that's ok then.

[jon-heard]

Again it sounds like it'll be fine, but If it does turn out that the frontmatter is making the popup too slow for people, then one solution would be to only check certain files for frontmatter. Perhaps ony ".md" files, or maybe files with ".fm" in them, like "a.fm.md" and "a.fm.txt". Or perhaps, they could be loaded with a different shortcut, similar to how "tbl addfoldertable" works.

But we'll leave things as-is for now.

[jon-heard]

The latest tablefiles fixes a bug where "tbl roll" (non-ui) doesn't check for titles defined in table-file's frontmatter configurations.

It also modifies the way that frontmatter configurations are loaded, to increase speed efficiency and code-simplicity.