Can we access the notebook's state from inside the notebook?

[markNZed]

I'm wondering if notebook metaprogramming is possible from within the same notebook e.g. generating multiple outputs by generating multiple cells. Are there any examples of this being done? Thanks.

It seems I can access the PlutoRunner variable from inside a notebook cell. Perhaps anothe way is to use the Javscript frontend to modify the notebook (I guess this is preferrable). It would be great to see how Javasript embedded in a cell could be used to generate a new cell.

From Javascript console it seems there is editor_state available. I can do something like:
editor_state.cell_inputs_local["6ea4b044-11bb-49ba-8f5c-54f4572925ce"].code = 'md"hello world"'
which updates editor_state but does not update the UI.

[disberd]

It is technically possible but it is not straightforward at all.
There was some discussion on it on zulip starting from this message, but the main concept is that you should mostly work and send commands from the julia side, and not the javascript one.
The editor_state variable is mostly for reading and changes you put in there are not reflected on the actual notebook state that is hidden on the Preact classes of the notebook.

I also had another discussion about adding the capability of executing js in notebook programmatically here #1359, but the previously tagged discussion on zulip also had some arguments of why doing so is problematic.