Use a local quote or fortunes file and user script for daily notes

[kmaris]

Here's a small user script for a Daily Notes template.

The idea is to pull a quote from a quotes-filled vault file. I use a BSD-style quote file found here. The quote functionality in Templater did not work for me, as the upstream quote api seems flakey. This will also work with no connectivity like if you're on an airplane.

Download a file, or look at how each quote is delimited by lines containing only the '%' character. This script assumes as such, so if you roll your own you must follow that convention for this script to work. Or tweak my script :)

I assume that:

• You have setup the Templater and Daily Notes plugins, and you are using a template for your daily notes.
• You have a quote file ready-to-go, and inside your vault.

Once you have those, you'll want to create a user script in your vault, as an example I keep mine in assets/templater-plugin/scripts/fortune.js. That path is what will be in your templater user scripts plugin settings.

The content of fortune.js should look roughly like:

const nodefs = require('node:fs');

function fortune(fortunes_path) {
    const fp = app.vault.adapter.getFullRealPath(fortunes_path);
    const data = nodefs.readFileSync(fp, 'utf8');
    const lines = data.split('\n');

    // Pick a random quote in the file
    var randi = Math.floor(Math.random()*lines.length);
    var start = lines.findLastIndex((el, i) => el == '%' && i <= randi);
    if (start == -1) {
        start = 0;
    }
    if (start == randi) {
        randi++;
    }
    var end = lines.findIndex((el, i) => el == '%' && i >= randi);
    if (end == -1) {
        end--;
    }
    return lines.slice(start+1, end).join('\n');
}
module.exports = fortune;

Important

Please note, I am not a javascript developer. So the code is probably not very good but it only runs once a day, quick enough, and I'm fine with that. Feel free to send me any optimizations or add your own!

After you have the script, go ahead and use it in your daily note template(I put my quote in a code block, as the formatting is sometimes kinda rough). You need to give the user script function the path to your quotes file, like so:

```
<% tp.user.fortune('assets/fortunes.txt') %>
```

And voila, hopefully you'll have a quote in your daily note.