Anki 23.10 Release Candidate

[dae]

Hi all,

An RC is now available: Releases · ankitects/anki · GitHub

Previous discussion: Anki 23.10 Beta 5+

[Aleksej]

Since beta 4, the linux-Qt5 build’s window is blank except for the menu (on Debian).

Also, the build filenames do not contain “beta” or “rc”.

[L.M.Sherlock]

The query of card stability is incorrect when I click the card stability graph’s bar:

It should be deck:current prop:s>=251 prop:s<=260 instead of deck:current prop:ivl>=251 prop:ivl<=260

[L.M.Sherlock]

I notice that the query has been fixed in Fix stability search query · ankitects/anki@80d807e (github.com)

But the number displayed in graph is inconsistent with the number of queried cards:

133 vs 125

[dae]

Can you share a small deck with me that I can reproduce the issue with?

[L.M.Sherlock]

ALL__Learning__ChatGPT.apkg

It displayed 3, but queried 0. I guess it’s due to round().

[chrislg]

For some reason the difficulty and retrievability of the cards I review is always 100% in the card info

[MIZMU]

@dae

Those add-ons need to be updated to ignore manual rescheduling.

There is a problem with this, since manual timing is considered by many users as “another review that Anki’s normal schedule does not fit, so I had to schedule in a custom way”. Therefore it is important to include this in the addon statistics as part of the regular reviews. Which is not the case in general scheduling of the entire collection because of FSRS which is not at all related to the normal order of reviews. You can simply set all these schedule in revlog as type 5

[basiskarten]

The new way of displaying errors is a big improvement (very cool that you implemented it instantaneously!) and the porting tips for addons are helpful. Thank you, Damien!

There a few small tweaks that could make the loading of addons even more elegant:

• When a new version is run for the first time Anki could first check to see if any updates for the installed add-ons are available already. If yes it should download these updates before trying to run them. This way of doing things is more logical and would spare many users from encountering a problem in the first place.

• If you decide against this, maybe add a button “Check for add-on updates” to the error popup so the user can easily do this at least afterwards.

• [Edit: Wrote this paragraph before seeing that you changed the wording of the message] I really think the word “Error” (in the headline in the error popup for add-ons) should be replaced with “Unable to load the following add-ons:”. Reasoning: Anki is the most important piece of software for many students in the critical time of their exams and simply reading “Error” will give many of them a mini heart attack. This headline would be more precise and would allow the second paragraph to explain some common scenarios why the add-ons couldn’t be loaded (for example because they havn’t been updated to be compatible with the new version of Anki so far).

• I am glad the automatic disabling of addons was removed. Like @glutanimate I think it would be confusing to users.

• If you link directly to the page of the add-ons that failed to load this will lead to the reviews being used for bug reports which I know many add-on developers complain about. But if you link to something like addon-url + #bug-reports (i.e.: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1237621971#bug-reports) add-on developers could add instructions for how exactly they want bugs reported (via E-Mail, Anki-Forum, GitHub or so). Would probably be helpful if this is what the users see when they get sent to this page.

[Expertium]

@dae

As a subtitle I’m trying to keep it succinct, and your suggestions are a bit long. How about the following?

“The delay at which you’re 90% likely to remember”
or
“The delay at which you’re still 90% likely to remember”

Replace “delay” with “interval”.
“The interval at which you’re 90% likely to remember a card” works fine, I guess.

[basiskarten]

I just saw the new add-on error popup in RC1 and I think it’s another step in the right direction. For everyone else:

(When writing my first message in this thread earlier this morning I had just seen this screenshot from Chris Longros.)

One suggestion and two questions:

1. I think the following message would be even less threating to the user:

Unable to Load the Following Add-ons:

The following add-ons produced errors when Anki tried to load them. Their code may not be compatible with this version of Anki yet.

• Symbols As You Type
• Highlight Search Results in the Browser
• Mini Format Pack (OFFICIAL)
• Mini Format Pack (2.1.45+)
• Reset Card Scheduling
• Edit Field During Review Cloze
• popup_dictionary⁩

Click Tools > Add-ons > Check for Updates to see if there are updates available for them.

For add-ons that do not have an update available, you can also disable or delete them to prevent this message from appearing.

2. Where can we add-on developers see the debugging info for why the add-ons crashed? [Edit: Stumbled across the answer by accident] Probably via the console?

3. How much time do we have from the final RC until release to translate the new strings that were included?

[AnkiQueen]

Anki randomly crashes when I press enter on a card(answer good with the enter key).

In the console I only get this "‘./anki’ terminated by signal SIGTRAP (Trace or breakpoint trap)
"

[glutanimate]

@basiskarten

Where can we add-on developers see the debugging info for why the add-ons crashed?

I think it would be quite important to have an easy way for users to copy the traceback as before, otherwise it could make debugging add-on start-up issues fairly difficult.

[basiskarten]

Some feedback on the import options: I see that this dialog is now being shown every time when importing a deck, even if I just open a .APKG-file directly:

I fear this will confuse many users, especially new ones. Many do not understand what note types are, what it would mean to merge them or why they even need to see these options right now. They just want to get the desired cards into their collection.

In my opinion the current behaviour makes a standard action much more complicated and cumbersome for the benefit of taking care of some rare edge cases. It adds several clicks and takes a lot more time because most users will have to read up on what exactly these options do – and those texts are not even translated yet. From a usability perspective I would strongly advise against this. I’m afraid it would frustrate many users.

How about this:

• When you open an .APKG-file, it is imported directly with the standard options (like it always was).
• When you click File > Import you get a menu that looks similar to the export menu with the import options hidden at first like this:

File to import: [Button: Click to Select]
Advanced Options: [Button: Show → Options hidden by default]
[Button: Import]

• Different idea: Only ask about these options if they are even relevant. No need to change the setting to include reviews when the file doesn’t have any. Also no need to decide whether to update notes when they are identical or not present.

Sorry about the walls of text today, I hope these considerations are useful to you.

[NameLessGO]

Another issue by @hnvy

Cloze resets indentation of bullet points to level one

Issue 1: Cloze resets indentation of bullet points to level one Hello, Please have a look at the GIF below. As can be seen, Anki seems to reset indentation of bullet points to level one. This only happens if the cloze begins at a location without any bullet point. Unsure if this is an intended behaviour or a bug. Version ⁨23.10 (3394ab02)⁩ Python 3.9.15 Qt 6.5.3 PyQt 6.5.3 No addons. Harvey [bpoints] Issue 2: Cloze inserts a new bullet point GIF 1 [Bp (1)] GIF 2 [Bp (2)]

[snowtimeglass]

I think it would be desirable to have Add: Image Occlusion item in the “Add Note Type” screen.

Currently, if the “Image Occlusion” note type is mistakenly deleted or wrongly rewritten, it cannot be restored because the Add: Image Occlusion item doesn’t exist .

[dae]

@Aleksej

Also, the build filenames do not contain “beta” or “rc”.

If you wish to check exactly which version you have, you can find the build hash in the about screen.

@chrislg

For some reason the difficulty and retrievability of the cards I review is always 100% in the card info

I’m not seeing that for difficulty here. The retrievability is always going to be 100% immediately after you answer a card.

@MIZMU

since manual timing is considered by many users as “another review that Anki’s normal schedule does not fit, so I had to schedule in a custom way”

Cards can be rescheduled or reset in bulk in the browse screen as well - it is not limited to just actions taken in the review screen.

Adding new entries the revlog type will likely break some code that’s making assumptions about the possible values. It may happen in the future, but it’s not a change I’d like to make this soon to a release.

@basiskarten

If yes it should download these updates before trying to run them.

I’m not sure how practical that would be - the user may be offline or have a slow net connection, and it could potentially cause more confusion if add-ons aren’t active when the user expects them to be, with no error shown.

@basiskarten

Where can we add-on developers see the debugging info for why the add-ons crashed? [Edit: Stumbled across the answer by accident] Probably via the console?

Yep, that’s right.

@basiskarten

How much time do we have from the final RC until release to translate the new strings that were included?

I’ll make another rc in 4-7 days, and that may become the final release at the end of the month if no last-minute issues are found.

@glutanimate

I think it would be quite important to have an easy way for users to copy the traceback as before, otherwise it could make debugging add-on start-up issues fairly difficult.

Is this something you actually hit frequently? I imagine most startup issues are not machine-specific.

@basiskarten

I see that this dialog is now being shown every time when importing a deck, even if I just open a .APKG-file directly:

I fear this will confuse many users, especially new ones

I think it does more good than harm:

• It prevents users from accidentally importing scheduling info from decks shared by friends (a common occurrence)
• It allows the user to import material even when notetypes have changed (another common pain point)
• It offers control over whether existing notes should be updated - the user may have made local edits they don’t want to lose.
• It’s consistent with the csv importing screen

@basiskarten

Different idea: Only ask about these options if they are even relevant. No need to change the setting to include reviews when the file doesn’t have any. Also no need to decide whether to update notes when they are identical or not present.

• The first option controls not only review history, but also whether deck configs are imported.
• The import process can be quite expensive on large apkg files, and that all needs to happen before Anki can know whether notes have been updated or not, so these settings must be set in advance.

@snowtimeglass

I think it would be desirable to have Add: Image Occlusion item in the “Add Note Type” screen.

It’s automatically added when you open the Add screen, but I’ll add it to the manage notetypes screen when I have a chance.

[chrislg]

Can a card have difficulty and retrievability 100% at the same time?

[L.M.Sherlock]

Of course, it could be. Could you share the card info?

[Aleksej]

[text removed]
My mistake. “Preset” is the new name for an option group.