if no selected text, how to prompt user to enter new text

[micahmorgan1]

I'm writing a quote template to help me extract existing quotes from existing documents or add new quotes to a file while filing each quote away in its own file. I also want to save the quote itself as a property for easier access and sorting in dataview. I have managed to put together a template that will fill in the selected text as a property value in a new quote file, but I would ALSO like it to prompt the user to enter the text if no text exists.

There is also a lot of language in here that is propmpting for an author file based on existing files with metadata property "type: Author". I'm sure it could be cleaner though as I've pieced it together from various existing threads doing their own thing.

<%*
const newLine = "\n";
tR += "---" + newLine;
tR += "quote: '" + tp.file.selection() + "'" + newLine; 
// Setup key and value to search for
const key = "type";
const value = "Author";
// Loop through all markdown files in vault
const filteredFiles = app.vault.getMarkdownFiles().filter(file => {
  // Get value in frontmatter for specified key above
  const foundValue = app.metadataCache.getFileCache(file)?.frontmatter?.[key];
  // If file doesn't have matching frontmatter key or value is empty, skip
  if (!foundValue) {
    return false;
  }
  // If frontmatter is array of values, check if any of the values match
  if (Array.isArray(foundValue)) {
    return foundValue.includes(value);
  }
  // If frontmatter is not an array, check if value matches exactly
  return foundValue === value;
});
// Prompt user to select file
var newAuthorTemplateContent = ""; //template content for new Author //tp.file.find_tfile("template_name")
const authors = new Array();
filteredFiles.forEach((file) => {
	authors.push(file.basename);
})

if (authors.length == 0 ){ // authors.pushed nothing in forEach()
	new Notice("Couldn't authors: " + authorFolderName);
} else {
	authors.push("Create New Author") // Add last option in suggester
	var author = await tp.system.suggester(authors, authors);
	if (author == null) {
		// suggester exited with no input
		new Notice("Exited Script", 5000)
	} else if (author == "Create New Author") {
		// create author
		if (title = await tp.system.prompt("New Author")) {
		var newfile = await this.app.vault.create("Authors/" + title + ".md", newAuthorTemplateContent)
		tR += "author: '[[" + title + "]]'" + newLine;
		} else { new Notice("No Author Input", 5000)}
	} else {
		tR += "author: '[[" + author + "]]'" + newLine;
	}
}
tR += "---"
-%>

*This file is also being launched by another template that will begin the creation of the new quote file and embed the note back into the original note.

Any help or advice I can get would be appreciated
Credit to the following sources:
#656
https://zachyoung.dev/posts/templater-snippets

[micahmorgan1]

I kept working on it, and came up with this, which seems to work

// assign selected text to variable or prompt for new text
let quote = "";
if(tp.file.selection() == "") {
quote = await tp.system.prompt("Enter Quote");
} else {
quote = tp.file.selection();
}
tR += "quote: '" + quote + "'" + newLine;