AnkiDroid Browser and Sort Field issues

[susan...@gmail.com]

Hello, I 'm studying Cantonese and often spend a couple hours a day on the subway, so I love AnkiDroid. Thanks for a great learning tool. There are some great things on the new release -- I love the new preview pane as it lets me see the characters in a larger font -- but I also have a few  problems with it.

First, I have six cards for each note (English, JyutPing and Character, each both ways) and  I am getting only five cards on the droid platform. My English to JP cards are missing on the couple of test searches I've run. (When I do a search on a particular note I get only five results, not six.)

Second, I have chosen Sort Field and Answer for my columns in the browser window. It appears that I cannot change the Sort Field on the Android. But when I change the Sort Field on the Windows platform (e.g., from English to Chinese) it does not change on the Droid. Yes, I made sure  to do a a couple of syncs. And I also downloaded and installed the most recent Anki Windows update.

Also, when sorted on Chinese characters the column is practically empty -- a lot of wasted space  -- so it would be great to be able to change the width on the columns. And could we chose to have more than two columns, please? It would be very helpful to have Sort Field, Question and Answer, at a minimum. And I'd prefer to be able to scroll across and see Deck and Note, as well, just as I can on the Windows platform.

As for the browser window in general -- it looks clean but seems much less useful for my purposes, at least so far.  I use my anki database as a personal customized dictionary. I used to be able to search for a word (using card:1) and  quickly see the result I need. That does not work as well now. The info seems to be there, but is more cramped/condensed somehow, so it's difficult to quickly pull out what I need. I would have to look back at  the old release to see why that worked better for me, but it did. I think it was wider, so seemed less dense. And, btw, you guys kind of messed me up by pushing thru the update without asking  my permission -- the first time I saw the new update was during an exam in my Canto class. Less than optimal conditions, and I would certainly have done a manual backup before downloading an update. I try to set up all my aps to ask permission, but maybe there is a setting I missed.

On the whole tho, it looks good. Great job, and thanks again!

[Eginhard]

Hi Susan,

First, I have six cards for each note (English, JyutPing and Character, each both ways) and  I am getting only five cards on the droid platform. My English to JP cards are missing on the couple of test searches I've run. (When I do a search on a particular note I get only five results, not six.)

Could you run the same search on Anki Desktop and AnkiDroid to confirm they return different results and give some more details on the note type? 

It appears that I cannot change the Sort Field on the Android. 

You can change the sort field on Android by selecting "Manage note types" from the overflow menu in the main screen. Tap on the note type and then long-tap on the field and select "Sort by this field".

  

it would be great to be able to change the width on the columns. And could we chose to have more than two columns, please?

I think changing the column width would be hard from the Android UI. On phones in portrait mode there's definitely not enough space for more than two columns, but this would be a good idea for landscape mode and larger devices!

 

As for the browser window in general -- it looks clean but seems much less useful for my purposes, at least so far.  I use my anki database as a personal customized dictionary. I used to be able to search for a word (using card:1) and  quickly see the result I need. That does not work as well now. The info seems to be there, but is more cramped/condensed somehow, so it's difficult to quickly pull out what I need. I would have to look back at  the old release to see why that worked better for me, but it did. I think it was wider, so seemed less dense.

Thanks for the feedback! Please let us know if there are any specific aspects you think should be changed. 

 

And, btw, you guys kind of messed me up by pushing thru the update without asking  my permission

You can disable automatic updates for all apps in the Play Store app, individual apps don't provide such a feature. 

 

Eginhard

[Eginhard]

It doesn't work for which direction? I've just tested it myself, changing the sort field in AnkiDroid triggers a full sync and the change is then correctly reflected in Anki Desktop as well. Changing it back in Anki Desktop does indeed not trigger a full sync and therefore the sort field is not updated in AnkiDroid. This would be a bug in Anki Desktop, so you should report it in this forum: https://anki.tenderapp.com/discussions

On 11 December 2015 at 04:38, Susan wrote:

Hi Eginhard,

I've changed the sort field and uploaded several times, but it doesn't work. The sort field does not change. Suggestions? 

Thanks,

Susan

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 1:38 AM, Susan wrote:

I did that before (same search on each platform) and got different results (five on one side and six on the other) but now I cannot reproduce it. Some of my notes have only five associated cards instead of six, which is an issue, but it is now consistent across both platforms. I found the change Sort Field setting, but it requires a full upload and overwrite. It does not require that on the desktop platform. Perhaps it should, and that's why the change was not showing up on the droid.

I don't understand what you mean by more details on the note type, but that seems to be moot at the moment.

I certainly have room for three columns, if one of them was sized to fit Chinese characters. Many people use Anki to study languages with characters. It's perfect for that, as one note can generate six cards. Also, I use a hint field for the third option -- if I can't recall the JyutPing, seeing the character hint will often jog my memory. 

Sorry for the vague complaints about the browser window, and thanks for the prompt reply.

Cheers,

Susan

[Eginhard]

Yes, you have to click "Ok" in the dialog that asks you to perform a full sync, otherwise the sort field can't be updated. Did you do that? Did you also make sure to select "Sort Field" in the first column in the card browser? Also make sure that your note type doesn't have any duplicates and you're editing the correct one.

If that doesn't work, can you create some simple cards of the "Basic" note type and change the sort field there to see if that works?

On 13 December 2015 at 15:53, Susan Webeck <susan...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess I should say that it fails to change  on AnkiDesktop as well. When I select sync on droid it does triger a full upload, even tho nothing has changed on AnkiDroid. When I open ankidesktop it triggers a full download, bur again, the sort field has not changed. I have Jyitping on the desktop (a change I made on teh desktop) and  I have characters in Anki droid.

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 11:45 PM, Susan Webeck <susan...@gmail.com> wrote:

 I changed it  on Ankroid, and it fails to  change on Ankidrod.
Sort field is in canto characters. I go to manage note types, press on JyutPing, get the option to sort by this field. This trigers a notice that a  full upload will be required. (and it appears that if  I reject this upload I cannot change the sort field. So I do not have the option to change it and then change it back, or allow a normal sync to take place and lose  the change.)

So I accept, and see a little circle going around while it says updating fields. Then I back out, and go to the browser and its still showing me canto characters in the sort field. Am I failing to save the change by backing out? There does not seem to be a save change button, so I don't know  how else to get out of that  screen.

Thanks

[Susan Webeck]

Yes and yes to OK and sort field. Pretty sure I'm ok on note type/possible dups but I will look. Slammed at work at the moment, so will get back to you in a bit. Thanks!

[axel.m...@gmail.com]

Similar issue here: I can change the left sorting field setting it in the note type editor. But how can I change the right "Answer" field? It shows me a completely unnecessary field there and not the "answer". My question field should be "Japanese" and my answer field "English". Instead it shows me one of the example sentence fields there. How can I change the answer field in the card browser?

[Timothy Rae]

Default configuration is "Question" in the left column, and "Answer" in the right column. This is probably what you want.

If "Question" and "Answer" are too verbose in your note types, you can use Anki Desktop to customize what is displayed there. Those changes will be reflected in AnkiDroid after you sync on both both sides.

[Timothy Rae]

> It shows me a completely unnecessary field there and not the "answer". My question field should be "Japanese" and my answer field "English". 

ah right, so you want to change the question / answer browser appearance settings to:

{{Japanese}} / {{English}}

[axel.m...@gmail.com]

Ahh, great! Thank you so much! It took me 20 minutes to find that setting "browser appearance" but now I can finally use the card browser for the first time. Before that it was just completely useless since the wrong fields where shown.

So if someone has the same problem:
- go to note editor with Shift-Control-N
- select the note you want to edit and click on "cards"
- click on "more" button on the bottom right and choose "browser appearance"
- type in the field names for front and back, each in double brackets {{fieldname}}
- sync on desktop and mobile

Thanks again!