Ankidroid 2: Collapsing and expanding decks

[Dotan Cohen]

Hi all. I've recently upgraded to Ankidroid 2 and in porting my Anki 1
workflow over I have a very complicated deck hierarchy. I find it
cumbersome to long-click then choose inflate / contract deck (I'll do
this three to six times each time I switch decks). I will propose a +
/ - icon for this similar to Desktop Anki, but I want to ask opinions
here first. Does their exist a better paradigm than the binary + / -
icon?

Also, I will never likely want to study a deck that has subdecks (I
would only study the subdecks, i.e. I don't put cards into decks that
have subdecks). Therefore, clicking on the deck itself would be my
ideal way to inflate / contract the sub-deck list. However, I
understand that other people have different workflows, so would an
option to inflate / contract if and only iff there and no cards in the
deck be a superfluous feature request?

Thank you for your input.

--
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com

[Ing. Guillermo Zapata]

On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Dotan Cohen <dotan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does their exist a better paradigm than the binary + / -
icon?

I also consider the long click a minor usability issue. And I have a couple of ideas in mind. Doing a double-tap (apparently is supported since Android 1.5) or using left/right swipes (not sure if it is easy to implement in older phones) as alternatives to the expand/collapse deck operation/

 

 

Also, I will never likely want to study a deck that has subdecks (I
would only study the subdecks, i.e. I don't put cards into decks that
have subdecks). Therefore, clicking on the deck itself would be my
ideal way to inflate / contract the sub-deck list.

I don't have more than one-level nesting in decks, so this is not a big problem in my workflow.

I have a couple of alternatives in mind, though, Could you save some navigation with filtered decks? 

Or what if we can support deck shortcuts? I use evernote and I can create in home/launcher a shorcut to a particular note. Do anybody believe that could be a good alternative?

 

--

Guillermo

[Dotan Cohen]

On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 8:18 PM, Ing. Guillermo Zapata
<ing.guille...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Does their exist a better paradigm than the binary + / -
>> icon?
> I also consider the long click a minor usability issue. And I have a couple
> of ideas in mind. Doing a double-tap (apparently is supported since Android
> 1.5) or using left/right swipes (not sure if it is easy to implement in
> older phones) as alternatives to the expand/collapse deck operation/
>

A double-tap itself seems a terrible idea, I don't even have
double-click enabled in my OS on my desktop (KDE)! A side-swipe might
be alright if it works for e-ink devices as well (I can test that),
but I fear that won't be as intuitive as a solid icon to click on.

>> Also, I will never likely want to study a deck that has subdecks (I
>> would only study the subdecks, i.e. I don't put cards into decks that
>> have subdecks). Therefore, clicking on the deck itself would be my
>> ideal way to inflate / contract the sub-deck list.
>
> I don't have more than one-level nesting in decks, so this is not a big
> problem in my workflow.
> I have a couple of alternatives in mind, though, Could you save some
> navigation with filtered decks?
>

That would be more a hindrance than a help, I've experimented with
this quite a bit. I may have use cases for filtered decks, but the
natural organization of my material is very hierarchal and I'm more
interested in solving this 'last inch' issue than devising a whole new
way to organize the material.

> Or what if we can support deck shortcuts? I use evernote and I can create in
> home/launcher a shorcut to a particular note. Do anybody believe that could
> be a good alternative?
>

Shortcuts would be a terrific alternative, if it were on a separate
"main screen" than the current full deck list. Some users would prefer
to have the full deck list as the main screen, some would prefer the
non-hierarchal shortcuts list, and each could see the other type with
a click.

If the shortcuts could have per-device names (I use Ankidroid on two
mobile devices) that would solve an issue that I have with my rooted
Nook which does not show Hebrew in the deck list (but the Samsung S3
does).

[Tim]

I've recently upgraded to Ankidroid 2 and in porting my Anki 1 workflow over I have a very complicated deck hierarchy. I find it cumbersome to long-click then choose inflate / contract deck (I'll do this three to six times each time I switch decks).

Could you please briefly explain your workflow and why you need to inflate/collapse decks so often?

 I will propose a + / - icon for this similar to Desktop Anki

This is a reasonable idea, and I'm not against it as long as the button is not too big and doesn't make the look of the interface suffer. It may be annoying for some users to have to tap a small button though...?

would an option to inflate / contract if and only iff there and no cards in the deck be a superfluous feature request?

The normal usage case for subdecks is that people will start the review process from the parent deck, so that they consecutively study all the subdecks by only pressing the review button once. Whether the parent deck has cards in it or not is irrelevant. 

[Dotan Cohen]

On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 3:04 AM, Tim <perceptu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you please briefly explain your workflow and why you need to
> inflate/collapse decks so often?
>

Sure, I manage my content hierarchically:
Languages
- English
- Russian
- Hebrew
- Romanian
- <a few more>
Spelling
- English
- Hebrew
Studies
- Math
- - Calculus
- - Numerical Analysis
- Physics
- - Newton
- - Relativity
- - Statics

It goes deeper and wider, but I think that you get the idea. Not all
those subjects are fit for mobile study, which was great in Anki 1 as
I could sync specific decks. For instance, Relativity is good to study
on the mobile, but not Statics.

>> I will propose a + / - icon for this similar to Desktop Anki
>
> This is a reasonable idea, and I'm not against it as long as the button is
> not too big and doesn't make the look of the interface suffer. It may be
> annoying for some users to have to tap a small button though...?
>

I agree that a small button may be annoying, but it is _less_ annoying
than the current long-click 'solution'. So it is an acceptable
short-term fix.

>> would an option to inflate / contract if and only iff there and no cards
>> in the deck be a superfluous feature request?
>
> The normal usage case for subdecks is that people will start the review
> process from the parent deck, so that they consecutively study all the
> subdecks by only pressing the review button once. Whether the parent deck
> has cards in it or not is irrelevant.
>

I see.

[cenap...@gmail.com]

Hi there. Is anybody annoyed of having the sub decks name displayed when you want to study the entire super deck and the info of the sub-deck displayed spoils your study?

In real it is this situation: I am going to master an examen as taxidriver in a big city. For that I have to know a few hundred points of interest of the city. 

So I made a superdeck called "Objects" (Points of Interest). Within that deck are the sub decks of the various districts with flash cards like Q: Name of a Museum - A: Adress. I organized it like that to have the chance to study concentrated the objects district for district but also to have the chance to mix it by studying the entire super deck "Objects".

The problem is now: Whenever I study the entire deck in ankidroid (on android) it shows me on the top of the card the subdecks name (districts name). So I have a huge hint than for the adress! But I dont want this! 

How can I say Ankidroid not to display the subdecks name whenever I want to study a superdeck?

Thank You

[Xiao Sun]

I agree with Dotancohen, he has the same idea as I mentioned not too long ago. 

https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!search/authormsg$3Aanki-android$2CDZ3ZexmhDKkJ$20after$3A2014$2F3$2F1$20before$3A2014$2F4$2F1|sort:date/anki-android/fcz2qOlx7H0/CpslreoTuj4J

+/- for expand and collapse would be much better. 

[cenap...@gmail.com]

OK I sol ed my Problem by tagging all cards of a superdeck with the same tag and creating than a filtered deck. I guess those so called 'cram decks' is a new feature? Havent seen this option before.
Many thanks anyway

[Tim]

Added an issue on the tracker for dotancohen's idea:

https://code.google.com/p/ankidroid/issues/detail?id=2030

On Sunday, February 24, 2013 2:52:26 AM UTC+9, dotancohen wrote:

[Dotan Cohen]

Thanks, Tim.

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