Help with using Dataview to return the task count for all files in a folder

Help
1

What I’m trying to do

I currently have a nice “Todo” output in my folder notes created with a Task view that lists all !completed tasks and groups them by file for all files in a folder and sub-folder:

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What I am trying to do is to return the total count of !completed tasks, so in this example it would return 11 (2 + 8 + 1). Ideally, I would want this to appear on the callout header but it could also be the first line of the callout body:

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Things I have tried

I have tried using variations from a similar post (Help with using dataview to get task count) using both Table and Task views.

TABLE WITHOUT ID
	key AS Key,
	length(rows) - length(filter(rows.tasks, (r) => r.completed)) AS "Task Count"
FROM
	"path/example"
FLATTEN
	file.tasks as tasks
GROUP BY
	tasks.text
SORT
	length(rows) DESC

In the folder I am trying to get this to work in, the above returns a list of 40 keys with 35 having a count of 0 (list of all the files without tasks) and 5 keys that account for 105 tasks (yes, there are many repeated tasks like “add detail” many times within a single file).

I’m guessing I need an inline dataview/JS solution to get what I’m looking for but I am not familiar enough with the dataview structure or the language to even guess at what it might be.

I have used = length(this.file.lists.task) to return the count for an individual file, but I cannot figure out how to do it for all files in a folder and sub-folder in a dynamic way.

2 
LIST length(rows)
FROM "path/example"
FLATTEN file.tasks AS tasks
GROUP BY ""

this sort of works but doesn’t give you something you can use in the title of a callout – you’ll need dataviewjs for that

3

Thanks, this at least gets me half-way to what I want. Now I might be able to use this as a starting place to figure out the JS to get all the way there!

4

one thing that makes dataviewjs easier to get into is the prevalence of functions that let you use regular dataview queries as a starting point:

let query = await dv.tryQuery('TASK FROM "path/example"')
dv.paragraph(query.values.length)
5

Great, this is just what I was looking for, the only thing missing was WHERE !completed to make the number dynamic when I check off items.

let query = await dv.tryQuery('TASK FROM "path/example" WHERE !completed')
dv.paragraph(query.values.length)

Now, I just need to figure out a way to get it into the callout title.

6

my general approach these days is to render callouts from dataviewjs rather than insert dataviewjs into callouts, but there may be a way that you can use inline dvjs in the callout title to get your desired outcome

7

OK, I didn’t even realize I could do that!

Now I’ve got the following:

let query = await dv.tryQuery('TASK FROM "example/path" WHERE !completed)
dv.span('> [!todo]- Todo (' + query.values.length + ')')

Which gives me the callout heading I want. Now I just need to get the tasks back into the callout, haha.

8

hey you’re almost there! all you need is > at the start of all your query lines and then include it in your render. Rather than do it by hand I usually use a split and join.

here’s an example from somewhere in my vault:

let text = `
\`\`\`dataview
TASK
FROM !"template" AND #todo
WHERE !completed
SORT pri DESC
LIMIT 20
\`\`\`
`

text = "> [!TIP]+ tasks\n> "+text.split("\n").join("\n >")+"\n\n"
dv.paragraph(text)
9

Putting it all together:

let query = await dv.tryQuery('TASK FROM "2-areas/the-end-of-my-life" WHERE !completed')

let text = `
\`\`\`dataview
TASK
FROM
	"example/path"
WHERE
	!completed
GROUP BY
	link(file.link, file.path)
\`\`\`
`

text = "> [!todo]- Todo (" + query.values.length + ")\n> "+text.split("\n").join("\n >")+"\n\n"
dv.paragraph(text)```

Gives me this:

image
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It is a bit annoying that there is an extra space between the the following callout, but I can live with it.

Thank you so much @cheezopath!