Alfred Bear Workflow 

This workflow should help to use templates in combination with the bear app.

Installation

``shell
npm install --global alfred-bear
`

Usage

While creating note templates with static content can be useful, having the possibility to use dynamic placeholder from any source I want is really great.
That's why I built this workflow.

To get an idea how this work, take a look at template examples: the Daily Log or Jira Ticket.

$3

This workflow requires an index.yml file which contains a list and configuration of your templates.

The default workflow configuration directory is ~/.bear-templates and can be changed by setting the bearTemplateIndex variable in the workflow settings.
The template directory can be synced e.g. with a .dotfiles repository, Dropbox, etc.

This directory should contain a template index file (default: index.yml) and your templates.

An example directory structure:

`
├──~/.bear-templates
│ ├── index.yml
│ ├── weekly-review
│ │ ├── template.md
│ │ └──script.js
│ ├── jira-ticket
│ │ ├── ticket.md
│ │ ├── ticket.js
│ │ ├── package.json
│ │ ├── node_modules
│ │ ├── diary.md
`

To create the index.yml in the expected default directory:

`shell
mkdir ~/.bear-templates/
touch ~/.bear-templates/index.yml
`

$3

An example of index.yml content:

`yml
templates:
- title: "Daily Log"
file: "alfred-bear-daily-log/Daily Log.md"
script: "alfred-bear-daily-log/script.js"
newWindow: false
var:
DATE_FORMAT: "YYYY-MM-DD"

- title: "Jira Ticket"
file: "alfred-bear-jira-ticket/Jira Ticket.md"
...
`

#### title

The title is shown in the template list:
!Alfred Template Title

#### file

Path to the template markdown file.
This file can contain 2 different styles of placeholder.

1. Normal Alfred Dynamic Placeholder
2. Placeholders with double curly braces {{myPlaceholder}} which follow the Handlebars syntax. These Placeholders could come from the script, var or question option.

First the _handlebars_ placeholders are replaced in the template and in the second step the dynamic placeholders from _alfred_.

#### script [optional]

Path to a _node.js_ module file. This module has to export a [optional async] function which returns an object, whose properties are placeholder keys.

To use other npm modules in this script, the script has to be a _node module_ by itself.
This means that templates can easily be shared as npm packages or repositories.

`js
// script.js
const rp = require("request-promise");

/**
* [Async] function which gets the static variables
* from the var option and the answer from
* the optional question.
*/
async function greet(variables) {
const data = await rp(variables.myRestApiEndpoint);
return {
myText: data.body,
};
}

module.exports = greet;
`

#### newWindow [optional]

Should the new note opened in a separate window?

#### var [optional]

List of static placeholders for the template (e.g. APIToken, BaseUrl for REST Call etc.)

#### question [optional]

Sets a question to the workflow which asks for an additional placeholder value. To use the answer of this question in the template or script the placeholder key is {{answer}}.
!Alfred Template Question

Example templates

If someone built a nice basis for a template, feel free to add it to this list and make a PR.

- Jira Ticket
- Daily Log
- Create OKRs

Development

To run and debug the project locally clone it then:

`shell
npm install
npm install -g
npm run dev
`

Workflow will be installed in alfred and symlinked to local files.
Project will be rebuilt on every file change by the tsc` watcher.