template render note with cloned js inside

[diyoyo]

Hi,
I used to be creating a lot of templates derived from rendernotes, and I actually needed them (I think) to have their implementations do have the subnotes duplicated.
But now, I want to use external libraries, let's say charts.js for the sake of the example, and I don't need it to be copied as a child of the HTML note that will be rendered, I just need a clone of it.
But templates works by duplicating things.

So is there a workaround?
Is it possible to tag a javascript note with something like "#appJS" like we have "#appCSS" ?

PS: Just realized that the best workaround so far would be a "~onNoteCreated=cloneJSExternalLibraryToHTMLNote.js" kind of approach, no?

[dosubot[bot]]

There are a few approaches you can consider here:

There's no #appJS equivalent to #appCss unfortunately [1]. For global JS execution, Trilium uses event-driven mechanisms like #run=frontendStartup labels instead [[2]](https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium/blob/abb01f09b3ad7792bd3d42a973730c99a062a808/docs/User Guide/User Guide/Scripting/Frontend Basics.md).

Workarounds for avoiding JS duplication in templates:

1. CDN / external <script> tags — If the library is publicly available (like Chart.js), you can reference it directly via a <script src="https://cdn..."> tag in your HTML render note, completely avoiding the child-note duplication issue [3].

2. Your ~onNoteCreated idea — Yes, this is viable. You could attach a ~runOnNoteCreation relation to the template that points to a script which clones the library note into the newly created note (rather than having it duplicated by the template). This keeps the template itself lightweight.

3. ~renderNote indirection — Instead of putting the JS library as a child of the template, keep it in a shared location and have your render note's HTML reference it. Since render notes automatically import their child JS notes [4], you could structure it so the render note itself (pointed to via ~renderNote) is a shared/cloned note that has the library as its child — the template only needs to carry the ~renderNote relation, not the library code.

4. #run=frontendStartup — If the library needs to be available globally (not per-note), you could load it once at startup and make it accessible to all render notes [[2]](https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium/blob/abb01f09b3ad7792bd3d42a973730c99a062a808/docs/User Guide/User Guide/Scripting/Frontend Basics.md).

The ~onNoteCreated approach you mentioned is probably the cleanest for your use case — it lets you clone rather than duplicate, keeping a single source of truth for the library.

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