Add initial-input argument to citar-select-ref

[andersjohansson]

This can be useful when invoking it from another function, like
org-roam-capture.

My use case is for creating a new reading note with org-roam. If org-roam-node-find doesn’t find the author/title searched for, this is passed to org-roam-capture, where the citar search is initiated from the entered search string in roam ("${title}" in the capture template below).

I bypass the citar machinery in for file-notes here, because it seemed to assume a one note per file-system (the old org-roam way) which I don’t like (I currently use yearly files with date-trees for my notes).

(setq org-roam-capture-templates
'(
("l"
"Reading notes"
entry
"* Read %(aj/org-return-reference-author-year-title \"${title}\") :#reading%^g
:PROPERTIES:
:ID: %(org-id-new)
:ROAM_REFS: %(aj/org-last-returned-citation-key)
:END:
%U
%i
%?"
:empty-lines-before 1
:target (file+datetree "~/notes/notes-%<%Y>.org" month))))


(defvar aj/org-last-returned-citation-key nil)
(defun aj/org-last-returned-citation-key ()
  aj/org-last-returned-citation-key)

(defun aj/org-return-reference-author-year-title (&optional initial-input)
  "Fetch a simply formatted reference and return it as a string.
Possibly passss INITIAL-INPUT"
  (let* ((ref (citar-select-ref :initial-input initial-input))
         (key (car ref)))
    (setq aj/org-last-returned-citation-key key)
    (citar--format-entry-no-widths ref "${author editor} (${year issued date}) /${title}/")))

[andersjohansson]

Oh yes, you already pointed to the one note per file-issue here: #518

[bdarcus]

Awhile back, I removed initial-input support in favor of pre-filtering the candidates.

See #144

[andersjohansson]

I see! Indeed, it doesn't work so well with CRM or consult-completing-read-multiple, as discussed earlier. (my use case here was for single ref selection, so I didn't realize that)

In my usage, I believe it is a little different from pre-filtering because there is no way to go back and change a bad search without quitting the command then. I see it as somewhat different than the aim to pre-filter by presence of pdfs etc, like the difference between the predicate and initial-input arguments to completing-read.

Perhaps it would be suitable only when the :multiple argument is not given to citar-select-ref then. I also saw the discussions on moving away from CRM in #492, so I guess this could be reconsidered if you choose to do that everywhere.

[bdarcus]

I just mentioned the context on initial-input, not entirely sure what you were trying to do ;-)

[andersjohansson]

Yeah, the point is to go on from a failed search for an existing roam node to immediately start searching with the same terms in the citar-database in order to create a roam node for the reference. So I do think it is a valid use case for initial-input.