Counter that increments with a button click?

Lua
1

This is probably a very simple question, but I am really struggling to get my head around it at the moment.

How do I set up a simple integer variable (local to a page) that increments by 1 each time I press a button (on the same page)? It should be something I can put into my daily journal template, so that each day I have a counter starting at 0 that I can use to track quotas for different things.

I would also like to keep track of multiple counters in a single table (where a different button increments each counter) if possible, but I want to at least get one counter working first.

2

Save the counter to a file.

If you wanna read it, read it from the file.

If you want to increment it, read it from file, increment it, write it back to file.

Edit: this will get somewhat annoying when you run into conflicts. Just saying :wink:

3

How would I do this in Space Lua?

I’m wanting to have a separate counter for each day (I have a different page for each day in a Daily folder), having a second file just for the counter for each day doesn’t seem like the best way to go about this.

4

basic example

-- number - the count
-- id - unique number per counter to support multiple counters on a page
function counter(number, id)
  local stringNumber = tostring(number)
  return widgets.button(stringNumber, function()
    local text = editor.getText()
    local start, end_ = string.find(text, "${counter(" .. number .. ", " .. id .. ")}", 1, true)
    number = number + 1
    if (start and end_) then
      editor.replaceRange(start, end_, "{counter(" .. number .. ", " .. id .. ")}" )
    end
  end)
end

use with

${counter(0, 0)}

on any page

1 Like
5

Would be interesting if we could get the position of the widget on the page in the widgets global enviornment? Should be fairly easy to provide that right?

6

Thank you.

How would I set this up so that the counter text isn’t part of the button itself?

Something like a table of counters, e.g.:

Counter A Counter B
0 / 10 5 / 10

And then a separate button for each counter (like “Counter A +1” or “Increment Counter B”) that would increase the numbers in the table accordingly?

I’m aware I can just edit the text myself, but also… buttons!

7

I thought it might be possible to (ab)use the config for this:

function counter(number, name)
  local id = 'counters.' .. name
  local count = config.get(id, number)
  return widgets.button(count .. '', function()
    config.set(id, count + 1)
    editor.invokeCommand('System: Reload')
  end)
end

But for some reason it doesn’t update inside the callback. Maybe a bug?
If I increment it outside the callback, it works everytime the button is rendered (counter(..., ...) is called).

It does work with localStorage, but then it won’t work across clients.