How to list completed todos sorted by completion time?

General
1

Hi everyone!

I’d like to create a page that shows my completed todos, sorted by the time they were completed. From what I can see, todos themselves don’t have timestamps (no creation time or modification time), while full pages do have them.

Is there any workaround or recommended approach to achieve this? How would you organize such functionality in SilverBullet?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions!

1 Like
2

Silverbullet doesn’t assign a timestamp to the completed tasks by default.
But we can tell it to do this, with this workaround. use this space-lua script:

event.listen {  
  name = "task:stateChange",  
  run = function(e)  

    if e.data.newState == "x" and not e.data.text:find("%[completed:") then  
      
      local text = e.data.text  
      local completedAt = os.date("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")  
      local newText = text:gsub("^%[%s*%]", "[x]") .. " [completed: " .. completedAt .. "]"  
      editor.dispatch({ changes = { from = e.data.from, to = e.data.to, insert = newText } })  
    end  
  end  
}

What this does:

  • Only trigger if the you just checked the box (‘x’) AND if there isn’t already a timestamp (prevents loops)
    1. Replace the empty checkbox with
    1. Append the timestamp to the end of the line

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image1054×310 21.7 KB

and with this in place you can sort a query based on the completed attribute.

This simple script can be even extended to also remove the completed attribute, if you uncheck the task.

that would look something like this:

event.listen {
  name = "task:stateChange",
  run = function(e)
    local data = e.data
    local text = data.text
    
    -- Safety check: ensure text exists to avoid 'nil value' errors
    if not text then return end

    -- CASE 1: Task marked as complete ('x')
    if data.newState == "x" then
      -- Check if timestamp already exists to prevent infinite loops/double-clicks
      if not string.find(text, "%[completed:") then
        -- Some sandboxes restrict os.date; we use a simple format
        local completedAt = os.date("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")
        -- Append the timestamp at the end
        local newText = string.gsub(text, "%[%s*%]", "[x]") .. " [completed: " .. completedAt .. "]"
        
        editor.dispatch({
          changes = {
            from = data.from,
            to = data.to,
            insert = newText
          }
        })
      end

    -- CASE 2: Task marked as incomplete (' ')
    elseif data.newState == " " then
      -- Check if there is actually a timestamp to remove
      if string.find(text, "%[completed:") then        
        -- Remove the [completed: ...] tag and any leading space
        local cleanText = string.gsub(text, "%[[xX]%]", "[ ]")
        local newText = string.gsub(cleanText, "%s*%[completed: [^%]]+]", "")
        
        editor.dispatch({
          changes = {
            from = data.from,
            to = data.to,
            insert = newText
          }
        })
      end
    end
  end
}
5 Likes
Tasks not showing completed date
3

Thanks, your solution works! However, if I complete the task not in the place where it was originally created, but from the index page (I’m collecting all active tasks via query), the task:stateChange event doesn’t get triggered and the completed attribute isn’t added. Is there a way to fix this?

4

This is a known issue:

5

the task:stateChange event doesn’t get triggered and the completed attribute isn’t added. Is there a way to fix this?

This will solve this issue - it’s a little surgical approach…BUT IT WORKS!