runOnAttributeChange is not triggered in "Quick edit"

[bglogic]

Description

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a note and call it "Kanban Child"
2. In "Kanban Child"
   • In Owned Attributes add this label: #label:mycategory="promoted,alias=category,single,text"
   • In Basic Properties enable Template
3. Create a note and call it "Change Color"
4. In "Change Color"
   • In Basic Properties set Note type to JS backend
   • Paste the following code to the note. This code will change a note's color to green if its category is set to "Health" and will remove the color if the category is set to anything else:

api.runOnFrontend(function() {
    const noteId = api.getActiveContextNote().noteId;
    api.runOnBackend(function(frontendNoteId) {
        const note = api.getNote(frontendNoteId);

        const category = note.getLabelValue("mycategory");
        if (category === "Health") {
            note.setLabel("color", "green");
        } else {
            note.removeLabel("color");
        }
    }, [noteId]);
}, []);

5. In "Kanban Child"
   • In Owned Attributes add a new relation
     • Name: runOnAttributeChange
     • Target note: Change Color
     • Click Save & close
6. Create a note and call it "My Kanban"
7. In "My Kanban"
   • In Basic Properties
     • Note type: Collection
   • In Collection Properties
     • View type: Board
   • In Owned Attributes add a new relation
     • Name: child:template
     • Target note: Kanban Child
   • Add a column and call it "Todo"
   • Add a new item in "Todo" and call it "Visit dentist"
   • Click on "Visit dentist" to open Quick edit
   • Set the category field value to "Health" and press Enter then close the Quick edit

If you followed the steps above you will notice the "Visit dentist" note did not change its color to green. However, if you open "Visit dentist" in a new tab, new split, or new window and set the category value to "Health" and press Enter the note's color will change to green.

I suspect this is runOnAttributeChange not triggering in Quick edit.

TriliumNext Version

0.99.5

What operating system are you using?

Other Linux

What is your setup?

Local + server sync

Operating System Version

Arch Linux x86_64 (Linux 6.17.9-arch1-1)

Error logs

No errors showing up in the backend logs or the frontend console

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @bglogic! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the Trilium team.

You're right—runOnAttributeChange is not triggered in Quick edit, and this is a known limitation in TriliumNext 0.99.5. The backend listens for attribute changes and should trigger scripts regardless of how the change is made, but Quick edit uses a debounced update and a dedicated modal context. If the modal closes before the debounced update completes, the backend event may not fire in time, so the script doesn't run. This matches reports from other users and is likely due to the timing and lifecycle of Quick edit, not a configuration issue or error in your setup. For now, editing attributes in a full note view (tab/split/window) reliably triggers runOnAttributeChange as expected. Reference

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[eliandoran]

Hi,

This is not a bug, per se.

• runOnAttributeChange is actually executed in Quick Edit as well. You can confirm this by doing a console.log (or api.log) inside the frontend part of the script. The reason is that runOnAttributeChange is actually not related to the UI/client at all, since everything is run on the server.
• What does cause an issue for you is api.getActiveContextNote(). The active note context always represents the active tab. Even if there is a quick edit popup open, it will still return the currently active tab (which in your case happens to be the board).

Although I don't see documented anywhere, there is this magic api.originEntity property which is populated automatically for runOnAttributeChange. This is the way to go, since it always points to what has changed (the attribute/label that got changed in this case).

Using originEntity, entire script can be modified to not depend on the UI at all. You can replace the entire script with:

const attr = api.originEntity;
if (attr.name !== "mycategory") return;
const note = api.getNote(attr.noteId);
if (attr.value === "Health") {
    note.setLabel("color", "green");
} else {
    note.removeLabel("color");
}

[bglogic]

Thanks Elian, this fixes the issue and helps making the script less convoluted. There is documentation for api.originEntity, but I didn't notice it since I'm new to Trillium scripting.

What does cause an issue for you is api.getActiveContextNote(). The active note context always represents the active tab. Even if there is a quick edit popup open, it will still return the currently active tab (which in your case happens to be the board).

It might help adding a "Warning" section in the api.getActiveContextNote's documentation warning about this caveat.