How can I work with the type content in show rules to check for content and maybe even change it?

[SillyFreak]

@Adrian_Weitkemper

But when I do

#show list: it => {
  it.children.at(0)
}

it throws the error “Missing argument: index”
Using .first() instead throws the error “Cannot access fields on type array”.

This gave me a different error: “Maximum grouping depth exceeded”. I understand this is because a single list item is treated as a list with one item, which again results in the show rule being applied, etc. Normally I’d expect “maximum show rule depth exceeded”, but I guess this results in both the show rule and grouping depth rising, and the maximum grouping depth is lower.

One way around this (since you presumably want to do more with the list item anyway) is to use repr(...):

#show list: it => {
  repr(it.children.at(0))
}

The next step would be to access the body:

#show list: it => {
  it.children.at(0).body
}

Neither leads to the same problem, since the problem was not with the access but with the specific intermediate element

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I know that was pretty specific for this one problem, but maybe it already helps you. For more information, I would recommend these two topics:

How can I manipulate content values?

Content is not really meant to be manipulated, usually the better way is to only create content from data that has already been processed in any way necessary. This is often the right advice for e.g. tables – however, it is not really applicable to your use case because the data you have is fundamentally already formatted text. The next best way, though, is not manipulating the full hierarchy of the content value you’re dealing with, but applying a rule. Your specific case can be handled by thi…

Is there a way to convert content to bytes for use in plugins?

There is no built-in way, but it’s not too hard to build one yourself (with limitations). There’s been this post on handling content, which I think is at least somewhat relevant: A main takeaway here is that, whenever you can, you should strive to not have content as the basis of your computation. Use structured data as long as possible and then format it. In your case, you want to specifically create bytes to communicate arbitrary content to a plugin. The approach will be similar to what is…

Maybe these help you narrowing down your issues. Feel free to follow up here with a more concrete question