config-filter.md

Named filter

A named filter is a set of note filtering options used frequently together, declared in the configuration file.

For example, if you use regularly the following command to list your most recent notes:

$ zk list --sort created- --created-after "last two weeks"

You can create a new named filter in the configuration file to avoid repeating yourself.

[filter]
recents = "--sort created- --created-after 'last two weeks'"

Then, you can use the name as an argument of zk list, with any additional option.

$ zk list recents --limit 10

Named filters are similar to command aliases, as they simplify frequent commands. However, named filters can be used with any command accepting filtering options.

$ zk edit recents --interactive

Filter named after a directory

In filtering commands, named filters take precedence over path arguments. As a nice side effect, this means you can customize the default filtering options for a directory by naming a filter after it.

For example, by default zk sorts notes by their titles. However, if you keep daily notes under a journal/ directory, you may want to sort them by creation date instead. You can use the following named filter for this:

[filter]
journal = "--sort created journal"

Named filters cannot call themselves recursively, so by adding the journal argument to the filter, we are actually selecting the journal/ directory. This means that the following commands are equivalent:

# Without the filter
$ zk list --sort created journal

# With the filter
$ zk list journal