A quick list:

1. not free (dunno if the iphone app is free)
2. not widely supported by the community (plugins and premade decks)
3. no automatic kana or pinyin generation
4. not multiplatform, I never know when I might need to use a windows machine, such as at work

The iPhone app is free.

I totally agree with 1 to 3 but not so much with 4 because the point of the iPhone version is to use it when you are not around your mac, in fact, it may be so cool to review in the iPhone that you could end up reviewing only in the iPhone and doing management on the mac.

Dicking around on an iPhone at work is a lot more conspicuous than simply using your work computer.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Dicking around on an iPhone at work is a lot more conspicuous than simply using your work computer.

So if iFlash perfected points 1 to 3 (would have what you say from 1 to 3) would you still use Anki because you can occasionally use it at work even when you could use the iPhone at least during breaks?

Even if it fixed 1-3, it still wouldn't be better than Anki. It would, at best, be equally good (excluding 4). It would need something that I want that Anki doesn't have, or just do everything that Anki does but better and faster.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Even if it fixed 1-3, it still wouldn't be better than Anki. It would, at best, be equally good (excluding 4). It would need something that I want that Anki doesn't have, or just do everything that Anki does but better and faster.

And thats basically the heart of the issue, imo.

I'm also a Mac user, but a pretty interface is not going to convince me to switch away from Anki. Your program would also have to be significantly better than Anki in performance- better algorithm, in particular, would probably be one of the only things that would provide sufficient incentive for me to switch programs.

I think this is a problem you will have with most other users too. People who are using Anki already (or their preferred SRS) are already comfortable with its UI. They are no longer confused by it (and I never was to begin with, honestly). For this crowd of people, making a new program with a simpler UI mostly misses the mark because the UI is no longer a hindrance to them. You might attract people who are new to SRS'ing and confused/afraid of a complex UI but I don't think you will convince many people to switch from their current client.

There are some people who prioritise a beautiful UI of course, but I would think most users are primarily concerned with functionality. Beautiful UI alone won't persuade many people to use your program.

jorgebucaran Wrote:Anki's UI is not bad but is not pretty either

Can you please state what exactly about Anki's UI you don't like and how you think that can be improved?

Anki is the perfect SRS for me. The interface is intuitive and easy, the options cover every eventuality and the developer is devoted, helpful and brilliant.

When I use Anki for my uni course it feels like I'm just downloading information to my brain.

Google it, is not just a random me saying that. Also I am very picky about a software UI design. Is one of the areas I've studied the most of my career. I completely agree Anki is functional and gets the job done very well. The software works well but that won't make me overlook its loose design, which does not mean bad design.

jorgebucaran Wrote:I agree is functional and gets the job done but that doesn't fix it's poor design. Google it, is not just me saying that. The software works but that won't make me overlook its loose design.

I repeat: Can you please state what exactly about Anki's UI you don't like and how you think it can be improved?

If you are just parroting a specific website feel free to post a link to it, if it exactly states what is bad about Anki's UI and how it can be improved. Just saying "Google it" won't cut it here.

Jarvik7 Wrote:1. not free (dunno if the iphone app is free)
2. not widely supported by the community (plugins and premade decks)
3. no automatic kana or pinyin generation
4. not multiplatform, I never know when I might need to use a windows machine, such as at work

Ad 1: Even if there were no ways to get around it, paying the price of a single lunch for an app that would probably make it to top 5 most used apps on people's computers hopefully isn't a big deal.

Ad 2: As of yesterday there were 265 pre-made decks available in the iFlash community library (accessible from inside the app). Also, it's easy to export / import most stuff. Plug-ins are too much "fiddling" for me personally.

Ad 3: With no 1-on-1 relationship for kanji readings or pinyin, I prefer manually entering those from scratch to correcting automatically generated errors. Better control and helps me remember, too.

Ad 4: Windows machines at work even have USB ports disabled... Installing a non-work app is a big no-no. Not using any other Windows machines anywhere.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get anyone to change and for the most part it's all down to personal preferences. In the end, it's just a tool and the contents of people's decks matter the most.

Having said that, I have been playing with iFlash on the iPhone for about a week, though, and it's amazing. I wish I had it when I was doing my kanji/hanzi studying...

1: Paying for an app (especially only $15) isn't a big deal, if it is worth the extra cost. We already have Anki which (imo) is better and free (and open source)

2: Most of which probably have no interest to me Most of the Anki premade decks on the wiki have relevance to what I do (Japanese/Chinese/etc)

3: The relationships aren't 1:1, but they are almost always accurate because they use dictionary lookups and not simple kanji reading lookups. In 99% of cases where there is a chance of having a different reading it gives you a choice. Having to double click every now and then is much better than having to input all of the kana yourself. Pinyin is even worse since you can't input the tones easily by hand. I have almost 10,000 facts worth of stuff between my decks and I can't remember the last time I had to manually fix the reading.

4: Well, that depends on the person of course. Anki can be used as a portable application I believe, so it's more a matter of downloading & running and not installing.

I'm also not trying to get anyone to switch, but he asked me for reasons that I don't use iFlash and I gave them.

Yes, and thanks for the answers Jarvik. I specially agree with Serge on (1) and (3).

Jarvik7 Wrote:2: Most of which probably have no interest to me Most of the Anki premade decks on the wiki have relevance to what I do (Japanese/Chinese/etc)

My bad. What I meant to say was that there were 265 Japanese-related decks and from what I can remember nearly 400 Chinese-related ones, including most if not all of the stuff that I saw mentioned in this community forum.

Actually, iFlash allows you to assign (multiple) categories to cards which can be quite convenient when working with large decks. Some of the decks I downloaded out of curiousity made great use of this feature such as Greek New Testament full word lists categorized by usage frequency. Kind of adds an extra dimension.

Jarvik7 Wrote:3: The relationships aren't 1:1, but they are almost always accurate because they use dictionary lookups and not simple kanji reading lookups. In 99% of cases where there is a chance of having a different reading it gives you a choice. Having to double click every now and then is much better than having to input all of the kana yourself. Pinyin is even worse since you can't input the tones easily by hand. I have almost 10,000 facts worth of stuff between my decks and I can't remember the last time I had to manually fix the reading.

My Pinyin tones are all in numbers. As for kana, does Anki translate the whole sample sentence in kana? If that's the case, I suspect that readability is impacted. My sentence cards only have kana for one or two words that are actually central to that card - seconds lost typing them in are gained by not having to fish them out from a kana string during reviews.

By anyway, not having a one-size-fits-all application is probably a good thing...

Kana is generated for everything. For things that have multiple possible readings, each reading is provided and you can doubleclick the one that is correct. And you can highlight/colour the relevant kana/words if you like (I do) so that they stand out immediately.

The whole process takes less then a second, and you get the benefit of both having kana for everything as well as the readability benefit you get by only typing in the relevant kana.

Serge Wrote:My bad. What I meant to say was that there were 265 Japanese-related decks and from what I can remember nearly 400 Chinese-related ones, including most if not all of the stuff that I saw mentioned in this community forum.

Hmm, as a relatively new study platform that is mac only, that seems like a lot of content. I'm guessing they partnered with flashcardexchange.com to use their decks, in which case most of the decks have about 10 cards each. Most of the decks at that site are one deck per section of a textbook etc.

If not.. that is surprising.

Quote:As for kana, does Anki translate the whole sample sentence in kana? If that's the case, I suspect that readability is impacted. My sentence cards only have kana for one or two words that are actually central to that card - seconds lost typing them in are gained by not having to fish them out from a kana string during reviews.

I don't do sentences on my cards so it's not a problem. You can color the ones you want as the above poster does though. I find pinyin numbers take longer to read, but I guess it really drills into your head which tone is which number (iffy if thats a truly useful skill though).

Jarvik7 Wrote:

Serge Wrote:My bad. What I meant to say was that there were 265 Japanese-related decks and from what I can remember nearly 400 Chinese-related ones, including most if not all of the stuff that I saw mentioned in this community forum.

Hmm, as a relatively new study platform that is mac only, that seems like a lot of content. I'm guessing they partnered with flashcardexchange.com to use their decks, in which case most of the decks have about 10 cards each. Most of the decks at that site are one deck per section of a textbook etc.

If not.. that is surprising.

I've been using iFlash for... can't even remember how long... 3 years? It's not that new. All decks seem to be user-generated, that library seems to function like a community. A lot of them are one deck per section of a textbook but quite a few of them are, like: all JLPT 1-2 vocab (8,000+ items), all HSK vocab (10,000+ items), etc. I'm not into using other people's pre-fab decks so I haven't really checked them out in depth.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I find pinyin numbers take longer to read, but I guess it really drills into your head which tone is which number (iffy if thats a truly useful skill though).

I don't see much difference between a number and a squiggle - both are a crunch. What I wish I could do is colour-coding the tones and that is the biggest point on my wish list for iFlash. The lack of that functionality is the actual reason why I seriously looked into Anki but that relationship just wasn't meant to be...

Smackle Wrote:

jorgebucaran Wrote:I already tried contacting the developer of Anki (Damien Elmes) but he was too busy to help and said I was wasting his time (so nice of him).

This was a needless, confrontational comment that started the drama in the thread. It's not that people are afraid to move from what already is or that they necessarily disagree with you. It's that you sometimes come off a bit rude or immature.

Hiya fellow SM user! I started in May 2005. I love SM. I tried anki. But the change to how you view your pile was too much. 2-300 a day is massive. I have a mental block where 150+ and I rush them. Do you do it all in one sitting. How long does it take per day?

jorgebucaran Wrote:This is partly because it feels like a typical Java app (I know it was developed in Python) targeted for all platforms.

What must be changed in the UI for make it not feel like a typical Java app?

jorgebucaran Wrote:I don't like that when you open the software for the first time you are not very sure what to do (happened to me) because there is no easy management for sets / decks.

How must the UI be changed so that a new users immediatly knows what to do?

jorgebucaran Wrote:Creating new decks is a hassle and it takes three steps through 3 dialogs (main window, add items, deck properties) which is not very intuitive.

What is an intuitive way to create a new deck? How can it be implemented in Anki?

jorgebucaran Wrote:Then you can edit the model but what the heck is a model?

Do you know a better word to describe a "model"? Where can the UI be changed to make it clear what a model is?

jorgebucaran Wrote:Is the first thing you ask yourself when you are there. You just want to create a new set and add cards to it. I think is too complicated.

What can be done to make it simpler?

jorgebucaran Wrote:Of course you can come in now and explain the whole thing, but why does it need to be explained? It should be obvious.

How can we make it obvious?

jorgebucaran Wrote:Well I contacted the developer and he said I was wasting his time so I am making my own now, OSX only.

What proposals did you make? Did they accuratly described what needed to be changed in Anki's UI to archive a specific effect? Did you include Python code or pictures of how the new UI might look like?

I like Anki very much, so if you know how to improve it, please step forward and present your ideas. If they are good, I will happily donate 50 € to Damien, so he'll find time to implement them. The only thing missing is a clear description of what you want to be done.

The perfect SRS is one that keeps self centered, socially ignorant individuals busy writing other SRS programs so I don't have to come across their posts in this forum.

@ xaarg: Respect. A win-win solution (perhaps even win-win-win as it would solve activeaero's problem as well).

jorgebucaran Wrote:So instead of developing a new cross-platform solution (which would be silly having a complete open source application like Anki) I decided to build a OSX native application (that will also be free and open source) incorporating the best of everything out there along with my own ideas and the suggestions I have received in the forums.

Maybe you should just bite the bullet and learn Japanese with a crappy interface while fantasizing about the un-realized possibilities of an SRS with a cute UI. That's what I do whenever I get some huge programming idea in my head and I always thank myself for it in the end. Just advice, not an attack. Do what you want if you love programming that much the balls in your court.

jorgebucaran Wrote:Now, Anki users getting upset and attacking someone/s because in their opinion Anki is a poorly designed software, well, that is beyond pathetic, that earns you a mayor kicking loser title.

Nobody has freaking attacked you so stop whining like the 5 year old you appear to be. Several people came in here and offered their opinions about Anki, said they liked it enough for the most part, and that was that.

You then came in, essentially told everyone their opinions are wrong, acted EXTREMELY awkward when emailing the creator of Anki (if you can't see that then that is your problem, not ours), and then wondered why everyone wasn't jumping hand over foot to help you. Then to make it even more absurd you claim you are going to make it platform specific because you believe only certain users are at your level of being able to appreciate a nice GUI interface.

The only loser in this thread is the one that can't comprehend that other people have lives outside of YOUR reality of what you think we should care about. I've got 10,000 other things I deem more important than being part of the "I appreciate cool GUI's" club.

If you make a better GUI then great but the way you engage other people on this forum is horrendous.

jorgebucaran Wrote:Now, Anki users getting upset and attacking someone/s because in their opinion Anki is a poorly designed software, well, that is beyond pathetic, that earns you a mayor kicking loser title.

I'm confused. What does kicking a mayor have to do with anything?

Jorge I think you need to forget about this thread and either forget about your SRS dream or work on it privately. I wish you all the best in creating the ultimate review program but this whole discussion has got out of hand.