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I can't say I have the same feeling. Getting use to the new layout was kind of a pain and setting my card layout to what I wanted was also a pain, but now that its set I don't have to deal with much.

I will just note though that part of the reason for the one monster deck thing, is because it helps with server costs for the free syncing that Damien offers people. Anki 1's database format was bloated which led to large decks. To give you an idea, my Core6k deck went from 65Mb to 10Mb after porting to Anki 2.

[RawToast]

Hyperborea Wrote:The repeated 10's of MB media synching on AnkiDroid

I had this issue on one of the betas I had all my media and it just downloaded it all again! If you're not going to be adding more media just turn the media sync off...

Hyperborea Wrote:I'm sure that the developers of Anki 2 have killed at least a lifetime or two spread out over the number of users.

They have definetly lost users, the reviews from Anki 1 users on the 'Play Store' are nasty right now.

Hyperborea Wrote:So, is there any other real alternative to Anki? Any other app?

Supermemo? And the paid alternatives: Cooori, Iknow, etc.

Hyperborea Wrote:The more I use Anki 2 the more it seems like the developer thought that users were spending far too much time actually studying stuff and not really interacting with the software. Anki 2 seeks to correct that by inverting the time you spend studying with the time you spend dealing with Anki 2.

Too many changes at once really. They should've slowly changed the software rather than go for one big re-write.

vix86 Wrote:I can't say I have the same feeling. Getting use to the new layout was kind of a pain and setting my card layout to what I wanted was also a pain, but now that its set I don't have to deal with much.

Other than the AnkiDroid media sync'ing problem, I agree with vix. I really like Anki2. About the same ease of use with much more functionality.

I'd also really like to thank the developers for all their time and hard work. Damien posts on here from time to time as well. It's great they've actively been continuing work on it.

RawToast Wrote:Too many changes at once really. They should've slowly changed the software rather than go for one big re-write.

Depending on the changes at hand, only doing a little at once can be much, much more difficult. You really can't blame them too much, since most of the developers aren't getting paid.

I think the transition was smooth enough for me. I had problems with AnkiDroid because of my internal SD card, other than that there was no problems, I converted my decks and continued reviewing like I used to. The browsing is still a little confusing because I didn't felt like checking it properly, but it seems that it gives much more filtering options than before, which is really nice!

What I'm a little annoyed about are the lack of a black bg for AnkiDroid, and the missing buttons while reviewing in Anki (all crammed in "options").

The statistics and learning mode are magnificent, I really appreciate them!

[Zgarbas]

I actually like Anki 2 =/. Got used to the new interface pretty quickly and aside from a few small quirks (browsing decks is a pain) I think it's equal if not better than anki 1.
You can delete cards by simply pressing Del when you see them though =/.

Change is not that bad of a thing .

[RawToast]

undead_saif Wrote:What I'm a little annoyed about are the lack of a black bg for AnkiDroid)

When you're at the decks screen there is a small rectange/square in the top right corner. Press it so it displays a tick

That one changed a few times in the beta :S

I'll agree that getting used to the way Anki 2 does things can take a little bit, but overall I think it's a huge step forward for organization. Being able to reorganize and merge/split decks completely changed the way I was studying. I maintain a long term and short term deck that I move things between, and it's made me a lot more efficient. My biggest gripe was the lack of fuzzy card scheduling that was rectified in the latest version of the program.

Having graphs available in the iPhone version of the software is also really huge for me in terms of being able to show people my progress. The biggest problems with Anki 2 have more to do with the migration process and getting used to it rather than any deficiencies in the software itself.

I was in on the beta when the software actually did have fewer features than Anki 1, and that really blew. I'm not sure about Anki Droid, but the release versions of the desktop software and iPhone client are extremely good.

The new syncing is also really great. I have far fewer conflicts now than I did before. I used to feel like I could never study using the iPhone client because it would muck up syncing and require me to do a bunch of manual fixing to put everything back together. The new syncing copes very well as long as you make sure to not review from the same deck in both places without syncing first. So I can finish one deck on my phone on the train, and then another deck on my computer later. Then I can sync, and have them both mesh properly. It's great.

Hyperborea Wrote:A massive rant...

Mmm rageposts. Any piece of software is going to be subject to revisions, so if you make the effort to switch, you're probably just going to be giving yourself a different set of problems.

Most of the issues you've described are either fixed, work in a different way can be worked around, or could be solved by posting on the Anki help forum and/or raising defects.

Hyperborea Wrote:you delete things by going into the "Add" function?)

Just press delete. Or do it from the Browse screen.

Hyperborea Wrote:I suppose one alternative would be to put together another open source project to fork the Anki / AnkiDroid 1 source

Or you could engage with the developers and see if there is not already a way to do what you need, or whether they'll consider changing it.

edit: I was guilty of some slightly hot-headed posts on the Anki forum myself as I also sunk a couple of days on the upgrade. But any major revision is going to take time. On the whole I prefer the 2nd version, and the tool has saved me far more time than it has cost me for picking up a new revision.

I personally haven't found anything that Anki2 can't do which was in old Anki. I was frustrated at first like most people as I somehow managed to delete my RTK deck and lots of other stuff, since deleting it on one place wipes it out everywhere without warning you. I managed to restore it all though and only lost a days progress. Anki 2 adds a lot more in terms of functionality and once you get used to it, the new structure makes a lot more sense and is quicker and easier to use than Anki1.

At this point it seems to me that the scheduling information in my Anki deck is as important as the content, so any alternative would have to allow me to import it. That's a deep moat around Anki that would probably prevent many from moving, open source or not.

It took me a while to figure out the many changes in Anki2. Can't say that I got everything yet. I also get the sense that cards graduate much more slowly to longer intervals and I can't figure out how to change that, so the time spent reviewing has increased a bit for me. Everything else seems reasonable by now. I could rant about the patronizing tone on the forum (esp. by Damien's rude sidekick) but I don't think that would serve any purpose. The manual could obviously also use a rewrite by someone with a bit more of a user perspective, but that's again just a quibble.

Maybe this is an AnkiDroid problem? I'm using Anki 2 on Mac and iPhone, it's perfect. After some difficulty moving my decks over because I was using some of the betas, it's been smooth sailing for me.

RawToast Wrote:

undead_saif Wrote:What I'm a little annoyed about are the lack of a black bg for AnkiDroid)

When you're at the decks screen there is a small rectange/square in the top right corner. Press it so it displays a tick

That one changed a few times in the beta :S

Oh thanks! I tried that before but it doesn't change the theme until you start reviewing so I unticked it again! Thanks again.

Hyperborea Wrote:"...their absolutely horrible user interface (you delete things by going into the "Add" function?)...

They must have got that from Microsoft. You shut down by clicking on 'start' ...

Hyperborea Wrote:"...their absolutely horrible user interface (you delete things by going into the "Add" function?)...

To be fair you can also delete from the "Browse" menu.

It did take me a full day or so to get used to Anki 2, but now that I've learned how to use it, I'd take it over Anki 1 any day. I think it just takes a bit of playing around with to learn all the new functionality...

Isbilenper Wrote:It did take me a full day or so to get used to Anki 2, but now that I've learned how to use it, I'd take it over Anki 1 any day. I think it just takes a bit of playing around with to learn all the new functionality...

The fact that it takes a full day to get used to it is a massive problem. I can't think of the last time I ran into a piece of software I had so much trouble figuring out. And I work with computers all day long.

Stansfield123 Wrote:The fact that it takes a full day to get used to it is a massive problem. I can't think of the last time I ran into a piece of software I had so much trouble figuring out. And I work with computers all day long.

Lol, I'm sorry but this is just ridiculous.

There is production release software (stuff you pay for!!) that takes more than a day to figure out how to use. Sometimes you even to take classes to figure out how to use it. Hell, considering that Anki is an open source software, you'd be thankful to accept that it only takes a day to figure it out. A lot of OSS out there takes more than a day to figure out, hell it often requires you to read long manual pages, FAQS, and browse mailing groups sometimes.

No, Anki 2's learning curve is perfectly fine. People need pull their head out of wherever it is and stop believing that every piece of software/user interface needs to be Apple-esque retard-proof.

Anki 2's UI is allright after you've spent an hour getting familiar with it. However, I don't like how they force features like learning mode on those of us who were fine without it. Also the furigana plugin acts weird (trying to remove okurigana from the furigana makes half of it dissapear for some reason...)

Also, I don't like the new browsing feature. Earlier you could just paste a word or character into the searchbar and the cards containing them would show up immediately, but now you have to press search. However, I like that you can for instance search for:

"added:26 deck:Japanese::Sentences"

to see how many cards you've already added this month.

Stansfield123 Wrote:

Isbilenper Wrote:It did take me a full day or so to get used to Anki 2, but now that I've learned how to use it, I'd take it over Anki 1 any day. I think it just takes a bit of playing around with to learn all the new functionality...

The fact that it takes a full day to get used to it is a massive problem. I can't think of the last time I ran into a piece of software I had so much trouble figuring out. And I work with computers all day long.

I'm honestly not sure that Anki 2 has a steeper learning curve than Anki 1. When I started using Anki 1 I didn't know how to do anything but add and delete the standard "basic" format card for about a month. I only learned all the other features along the way as time passed and I needed/wanted them. I think most other people learned Anki 1 the same way. I think the problem is, that going to Anki 2 from Anki 1, people want to know how to do all the stuff they learned in Anki 1 right away, thus making you learn all the features you took months to become familiar with in Anki 1 in a couple of days in Anki 2, creating an illusion that it has a much steeper learning curve.

Anki is really great so I would have preferred to continue using Anki 1 since I think it's doing everything I need already. But I need to upgrade if I want to still be able to sync so it's just going to take some time getting used to the new version.

I was using the priority feature so I was a bit annoyed that it was removed but I can do the same with the new subdecks (and it's actually better in the new system).

Hyperborea Wrote:So, is there any other real alternative to Anki? Any other app?

No. There are other flashcard programs that implement SRS scheduling but honestly the fact vs card model, open plugin development, LaTeX support, use of mplayer (sort of a big deal since it supports just about every audio/video codec and subs system you could want), etc make nothing else really compare.

Kewickviper Wrote:I personally haven't found anything that Anki2 can't do which was in old Anki...Anki 2 adds a lot more in terms of functionality and once you get used to it, the new structure makes a lot more sense and is quicker and easier to use than Anki1.

As a plugin developer, I'll also point out that many of Anki 2's gains were internal and performance related, which haven't fully been realized yet (but hopefully we'll see many improved/new plugins because of them).

There are a number of things which Anki 2 plugins can do that Anki 1 ones couldn't; at least safely (ie. not breaking things for the rest of the system or when interacting with other plugins) and without /drastically/ increased effort.

Hyperborea Wrote:I've lost a lot of a week's worth of studying because of this and I'm not exactly a newb when it comes to software.

For me, moving to Anki 2 has increased the amount I study almost 10 fold.

Hyperborea Wrote:Too many problems to list them all but just a few - their absolutely horrible user interface (you delete things by going into the "Add" function?)

Agreed, the Anki 2 UI is pretty much shit, but you get used to it. Most of the old functionality still exists, it's just a matter of finding it. I hope this is something they work on over the next few months.

Hyperborea Wrote:So, is there any other real alternative to Anki? Any other app?

Nothing anywhere near as robust. You could write your own. I think it's better to put up with the changes, and help mold Anki 2 into a more user-friendly program. It would probably be easier to write new plugins for Anki 2 then it would be to rewrite Anki 1.

Hyperborea Wrote:Edit: Another problem is the apparent utter brokenness of the Japanese support that limits the note type (WTF - why gratuitously change names on these things?) for the generation of readings to the "Japanese" note type. This means that you can't have more fields on a "note" than are allowed in that Japanese model or at least that you can't import them from a spreadsheet.

I'm not sure what you mean, I've imported from a spreadsheet and used the bulk add reading function just fine.

Yeah, I'm in the midst of forced-downgrade Anki-rage too. Also forced me to get a new iPhone which has its own changeover issues (although talking Japanese to Siri is ... interesting.)

Most of the architecture changes in Anki -ought- to have been largely invisible to the user. There's no reason switching to the grand unified deck should be such a big deal - so decks are stored in 1 file instead of separate files, so what? Why does that have to change a 'fact' into a 'note'? At least decks are still decks and not... collections... or ... whatever stupid reterm was being talked about in the beta phase. However, taking away almost all the UI editing of cards and making everything html coding is kind of crazy. I mean, I know html... I'd probably be coding rather than pressing buttons given the option... but I can't recommend the software now to anyone who doesn't have a compsci or IT degree. And the more the potential userbase is slashed the less valuable the shared aspects of the software become.

Anyway.

Daichi Wrote:I'm not sure what you mean, I've imported from a spreadsheet and used the bulk add reading function just fine.

Hyperborea didn't address this, but, the point is that you can only have -one- Note Type that the Japanese plugin recognizes, which must be called Japanese. Of course, you can have many different ... uhm... not Templates... let me check... Card Type! Oh, hey, that's a nomenclature change that actually makes sense. Ahem. Anyway, you can have many 'Card Types' for one 'Note Type', but all the fields you need for all your Japanese cards have to be on the same Note Type and not run into any field count limits internally or in import/export filters. I'm not sure what those field limits are but I'm sure they exist because there's a faq about having 'many fields', I just didn't take note of how many is 'many'. Anyway, it's an annoying limitation of Japanese support. Probably not insurmountable for any reasonable application of the software, but still ... annoying.

I'm not -exactly- sure how it applied to importing from a spreadsheet; I happened to only have a 'Japanese' Model => Note Type, but under Anki1 you could have had Japanese-Vocab, Japanese-Sentence, Japanese-Mumblefrotz, and Japanese-Naninani models ... if it started with Japanese- it should have been supported by the plugin (if I understood the docs correctly). I didn't have multiples so I didn't have import issues, but I can imagine the horrors of trying to unify all the fields from all of one's 'Japanese-' models into one 'Note Type'.

I'm still using Anki for now, but I have to admit, I don't like the software as much as I used to. With no way that I know of to directly sync my desktop and mobile Anki, I'm dependent on trusting the developer to continue supporting me as he forces me through his web page to keep my interfaces synchronized. Since he's already shown a willingness to pull the rug out from under us... it's less 'trust' and more... 'hope'.

(And since I'm on iPhone, I -did- pay for the software and I -still- got pushed into an upgrade that was incompatible with my hardware and forced me to pick up a new phone. Ok, it was very old phone, but still. I'd probably still be puttering on my iPhone3G if it weren't for Anki-1's imminent death.)

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:However, taking away almost all the UI editing of cards and making everything html coding is kind of crazy.

What are you talking about?
The UI is basically the same save for the fact that you now have access to a previously hidden CSS style sheet.
The only editing that existed back in Anki 1, which was on the Add card screen, is STILL THERE in Anki 2. They just cleaned the interface up and put some of the stuff most people don't use, in a sub-button. In order to set up the card layout you had to still use HTML (Which mostly amounted to <br/>) in Anki 1 and insert the {{fields}} things where you wanted them. The only thing that has changed is the CSS file has to be set on your own which I will admit, if you want it exactly how it was in Anki 1, you would have a hell of a time. But if you don't know CSS and wanted that, then you could get on the forum/group and ask, which is EXACTLY what I did and people helped me. This whole claim that editing cards is somehow more difficult than Anki 1 is ridiculous.

Quote:And the more the potential userbase is slashed the less valuable the shared aspects of the software become.

Anki 1 didn't capitalize on the "shared aspects" either. There were thousands of decks put up online, but 75% of that was mostly crap or reiterations of some other deck.

Plugins are already done by people who probably like the new format as it is. There's a lot of room in Anki 2 for a power user.

Quote:Hyperborea didn't address this, but, the point is that you can only have -one- Note Type that the Japanese plugin recognizes, which must be called Japanese.

This is no different from Anki 1. In order for the Japanese plugin to work in Anki 1, you had to make sure your deck was set to the "Japanese" model type or it wouldn't work. Not only that, but you also had to make sure you had the fields named exactly "Expression" and "Meaning." All of these things could be worked around if you know/knew Python. But again, this isn't a special limitation that Anki 2 has that suddenly Anki 1 didn't have. I have no clue what the rest you were going on about was or if the "many fields" thing is referring to something about Japanese support or not. Though I seem to recall hearing something about a field limit in general, but it was pretty high.

Looking at the code for the Japanese plugin in Anki 2, the "Japanese-<whatever>" note type/model method should still work based on the code. But you still have to have "Expression" and "Reading" as fields.

I held out until yesterday to upgrade but had to because I wanted to be able to sync to my phone. It took me a good couples of hours to work everything out and get the format of my cards working correctly. I definitely agree with others that I liked the old UI much better. I just feel it was more used friendly - or maybe that's because I've been using that interface for the last 3 years or so. Kinda like going from iTunes 10 to iTunes 11 (eugh - just reinforced how much I hate iTunes /offtopic)