I came from vacations and tried to use anki

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usis35 Member
From: Buenos Aires Registered: 2007-03-31 Posts: 205

I came back from my vacations in Feb 7th and tried to resume my Japanese studies. I opened my anki deck, which I've been using for 4 years, and found that there was a problem when trying to sync. I did the research in RTK forum and found that a new anki version was out. The options resolve offered were to migrate to the new version, or to keep using the old one, but syncing with dropbox. I just wanted to study, not to learn how to use new programs...
But I had no choice if I wanted to keep syncing my decks easily in my 3 computers. I put in 4 hours reading forums, anki manuals, instructions to migrate, but it is so tedious, and many things I don't understand just reading, unless I do experiments. So I installed the new version in one of my PC's. First thing I found was that there were like 1000 cards missing... I looked out and found something about having imported cards in the past, I don't remember if I did that. Besides that, the new version is so different, so many things to investigate.. I justed wanted to resume my studies of Japanese, not spending countless hours experimenting how anki has changed.
I guess that for now I just have to stick to the old version, syncing my decks in Dropbox, and in future times, slowly, when I have the time, try to decode how the new version
works, and maybe then see how can I migrate without losing my work.

ryuudou Member
Registered: 2009-03-05 Posts: 406

Anki 2 major changes and summary: http://ankisrs.net/docs/changes.html

Anki 2 complete manual: http://ankisrs.net/docs/manual.html

I understand your frustration in upgrading to something that is different from what you're familiar with, however you shouldn't be complaining about our software being updated. This is a good thing. Would you rather use old software for the rest of your life because it's more convenient to you? Do you expect software authors to delay updates and features just to suit your personal schedule? I really don't understand the point of this post.

As for cards missing if you really believe this is the case when you have time you can ask on the Anki Google Group forums, or submit a ticket on the Anki Desktop bug tracker. The software author typically checks it and responds to tickets on a daily basis usually.

Last edited by ryuudou (2013 February 09, 6:12 am)

mourei Member
Registered: 2012-12-16 Posts: 40

Resolve et al have put down countless hours into this project for years, and you're getting the results of that work for free. A cloud sync system costs time and money to maintain, which is why Damien opted to shut down the old one. I understand that some people want to criticize the new version, but making a new topic just to complain isn't the same thing and feels a bit misguided, to say the least.

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egoplant Member
From: Canada Registered: 2012-07-08 Posts: 161

There was tons of warnings wasn't there? That they were gonna shut down?

Marumaru Banned
From: ◯ Registered: 2013-01-03 Posts: 104

usis35 wrote:

I came back from my vacations in Feb 7th and tried to resume my Japanese studies. I opened my anki deck, which I've been using for 4 years, and found that there was a problem when trying to sync. I did the research in RTK forum and found that a new anki version was out. The options resolve offered were to migrate to the new version, or to keep using the old one, but syncing with dropbox. I just wanted to study, not to learn how to use new programs...
But I had no choice if I wanted to keep syncing my decks easily in my 3 computers. I put in 4 hours reading forums, anki manuals, instructions to migrate, but it is so tedious, and many things I don't understand just reading, unless I do experiments. So I installed the new version in one of my PC's. First thing I found was that there were like 1000 cards missing... I looked out and found something about having imported cards in the past, I don't remember if I did that. Besides that, the new version is so different, so many things to investigate.. I justed wanted to resume my studies of Japanese, not spending countless hours experimenting how anki has changed.
I guess that for now I just have to stick to the old version, syncing my decks in Dropbox, and in future times, slowly, when I have the time, try to decode how the new version
works, and maybe then see how can I migrate without losing my work.

It must be really hard for you, specially after coming from vacations. winkwinkwink しょうがないね

Last edited by Marumaru (2013 February 09, 7:47 am)

usis35 Member
From: Buenos Aires Registered: 2007-03-31 Posts: 205

I understand that any upgrade is for good reasons. And I understand that the program is free. It is a great resource and I am thankful to the author. My post was not a critize of Resolve's great work as some of you understood. I just shared what I felt unexpectedly when I came back after some weeks. I just don't have the time right now to invest in the upgrade, I read about the new features and I don't find them attractive or necessary for me. The changes are so many that it would take me a lot of time to learn them and dominate as I do with the old version. But again, the program is free. I would rather pay a small monthly fee for support, and begin to experiment slowly, when I have the time, to see if it is good for me to migrate in the future. Right now, I just wanted to study Japanese.

vix86 Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2010-01-19 Posts: 1469

I guess this is going to become a weekly thing with everyone coming on here and making a new post talking about how much they hate the new Anki 2. Which you know, would probably be a hell of a lot more constructive to post on the Anki group.

Stian Member
From: England Registered: 2012-06-21 Posts: 426

Anki 2 is slightly inconvenient, but it's not rocket science. The only thing that annoys me about it is that I have to copy stuff from websites over to notepad and then into Anki because otherwise anki also copies the formatting data (font color, size, etc.)

Adding and reviewing cards isn't that difficult anyway... though the learning/relearning mode is slightly grinding my gears because it increases the number of reviews (relearning of relatively young cards = 2x 1-day intervals), though setting the minimum interval to 10% avoids this from happening to any mature cards at least..

Apart from that, it's not that much different from Anki one.
@vix86: programs like Anki are made for the users, so it is natural to expect a computer program to be as user friendly as possible.

Zgarbas Watchman
From: 名古屋 Registered: 2011-10-09 Posts: 1210 Website

Stian wrote:

Anki 2 is slightly inconvenient, but it's not rocket science. The only thing that annoys me about it is that I have to copy stuff from websites over to notepad and then into Anki because otherwise anki also copies the formatting data (font color, size, etc.)

It does? o.O... It doesn't copy the formatting data when I add cards.

usis35 Member
From: Buenos Aires Registered: 2007-03-31 Posts: 205

vix86 wrote:

I guess this is going to become a weekly thing with everyone coming on here and making a new post talking about how much they hate the new Anki 2. Which you know, would probably be a hell of a lot more constructive to post on the Anki group.

I posted here instead of the Anki group, because I wanted to know the opinion of this forum users. And I opened a new topic because others that I saw were discussing more technicals aspects of the program.

vix86 Member
From: Tokyo Registered: 2010-01-19 Posts: 1469

Stian wrote:

Anki 2 is slightly inconvenient, but it's not rocket science. The only thing that annoys me about it is that I have to copy stuff from websites over to notepad and then into Anki because otherwise anki also copies the formatting data (font color, size, etc.)

Select the text thats formatted in your field and press CTRL+R, either that or find the button up top that says "Remove formatting" and click it.

@vix86: programs like Anki are made for the users, so it is natural to expect a computer program to be as user friendly as possible.

It depends on your users though. It could be that Damien wants Anki to be accessible to lay people as possible, without hindering the ability for power users who want fine control. Many people think going too user-friendly results in handicapping the software. Consider for instance if Damien decided that he wanted to make sure that setting up a card wasn't confusing, so in response, removes the ability to manually create your own card and instead makes the card format be auto generated. You have a limited amount of control over what you can do to the card via settings. There are many different ways to do this.

Last edited by vix86 (2013 February 09, 10:09 am)

oefirouz Member
Registered: 2012-08-07 Posts: 23

I don't understand this hatred of Anki 2. It's better in almost every way. Yes the user interface isn't great, but Anki 1 wasn't great either. If you want an easy UI use Mnemosyne. And if you want to sync, dropbox works well too.

This is a project run by one guy off of donations and one paid app. I don't think you guys understand how much work it would be to create an awesome UI, have two different syncing services, etc all for such small pay.

It took me about one week, or 3-5 hours to become comfortable with Anki 2.

And yes the concept of notes is strange but you don't need to use the notes as notes. You'll find the concept makes sense, and it really helps speedup the backend.

Zgarbas Watchman
From: 名古屋 Registered: 2011-10-09 Posts: 1210 Website

I actually like anki 2, though it does take a while to get used to (then again, so did the original anki).

Stian Member
From: England Registered: 2012-06-21 Posts: 426

Zgarbas wrote:

Stian wrote:

Anki 2 is slightly inconvenient, but it's not rocket science. The only thing that annoys me about it is that I have to copy stuff from websites over to notepad and then into Anki because otherwise anki also copies the formatting data (font color, size, etc.)

It does? o.O... It doesn't copy the formatting data when I add cards.

Well, every Yahoo!辞書 reduced the font size to 10pt or so and changed the color to black (from 30pt lime). It would make more sense to have a "paste formatted" alternative instead of having the most common way as the alternative.

Also, I'm not saying it has to be dumbed down Apple-style, but having an OS that makes the most common and simplest tasks take as little time possible, instead of all the extra mouseclicks here and there; in Anki 1, most stuff was really obvious whereas you have to study the manual for Anki 2 for it to make sense.

And the learning mode (esp. the relearning mode) should have been optional, and it would have been nice if it was graduated right after I pressed good after one failed attempt.

I am starting to like it now though, and moving cards is so convenient when you have huge card-dumps from subs2srs, of which the mast majority is useless. :p

Last edited by Stian (2013 February 09, 3:35 pm)

Marumaru Banned
From: ◯ Registered: 2013-01-03 Posts: 104

I don't get the Anki 2's interface being inferior to Anki 1. In Anki 2 you have a more simple interface and less of the hideous open software icons all over the place.

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