Browser Appearence not respecting override values

Anki Suggestions
1

Note:

  1. This is discussed in detail here:
    Reddit - Dive into anything

  2. Some of the was able to be reproduced and confirmed by Profile - Danika_Dakika - Anki Forums

PLATFORM:
ANKI Desk for PC 24.04.1 (ccd9ca1a)
(Tested on this)
ANKI Droid (some confirmation on this)

ISSUE:
Browser Appearence front /back card override values not behaving as expected .
If the Browser Appearance override value is contained in the Question or Answer field, ANKI often prevents that value from displaying in the browser.

Detailed examples in the Reddit discussion

I can cut/paste the Reddit discussion here, if you prefer. Please let me know. I’m somewhat new to this forum, and am not sure what the preferences are (reproduce and copy the A reddit here or don’t duplicate it here but just reference what already exists).

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Yes, reproducible for me (but I’ll add better screenshots here) – on Desktop 23.12.1 and Droid 2.18.0. I’ll leave it up to the devs whether it should be reported in both issue trackers or just Anki.

  1. Using a fresh Basic note type, with Front field that contains only one word, and Back field that starts with that same series of characters (whether a full word or not) –
    image
    –
    “Answer” column display correctly in the Browser.
    image

  2. Adding a “Browser Appearance” to limit the “Answer” column to just the Back field instead of the full template –
    image
    –
    “Answer” column loses that matching series of characters in the Browser.
    image

@JameBond_007 – to answer your other questions:

  • Yes, you have the standard note types / templates too – they come with every Anki installation. If they’ve been deleted (or changed), you can create a fresh version in Manage Note Types > Add – choose the “Add:” ones at the top of the list [“Basic” or “Basic (and reversed card)”].
  • That’s great that you found an add-on helps you work around this. Just make sure it’s being maintained to keep up with whatever version of Anki you install. And, of course, it won’t affect what’s happening in AnkiDroid.
1 Like
3

Anki removes the question from the start of the answer, because users don’t usually want to see both in the answer column. I suspect removing this functionality would inconvenience more users than the current behaviour does.

4

Thank you for your response.

I would somewhat agree if we we were talking about the Front and Back fields when NOT being overridden by the Browser Appearance values.
(I say somewhat agree as I would ask that this behavior of surpressing all data that matches from position 1-n in the front/back fields at least be documented somewhere, instead of another user having to discover the behavior by trial and error as I did.
As a developer myself, I understand that the manual is a living document and to expect if to be perfect is impractical. So I am not complaining…I’m just asking that the manual be updated to help future users.).

However when USING the Browser Appearance to OVERRIDE field (Front or Back) I believe the fields should report as directed by the instructions (i.e. html code, field names, constant text, etc.) as presented in the respective “Override front/back template” field without regard to the value of data in any other fields.

As is, when using this Override field, ANKI tells me it is going to override with my values, but then behaves to not override in some undescribed cases. So its not actually “overriding” as I directed it to do, is it ?

To me, using this “override” is separate and distinct direction to ANKI as to exactly what the user wants the field to display…and I believe that is what it should display.

If the user wants to use the behavior that suppresses duplication of matching data from positions 1-n, then the Browser Appearance Override should not be used.

In the case of a foreign language vocabulary (in my case Spanish), there are valid cases where the Question(Front) is the same as the Answer(Back) and I NEED to see that they ARE the same to ensure they are correct. The browser is, IMHO, the best place to see that quickly.

EX: occidental(EN) and occidental(SP),
Remember, both values are sourced from separate DB fields ( one from English and the other from Spanish). Just because they alphanumerically match does not make them the same piece of data.

I would ask that you reconsider your previous statements about user dependencies when USING Browser Appearance Overrides.

Thanks for your help.

1 Like
5

Any particular reason you want to use {{Back}} in the override field? For your purpose, having that empty might be the best choice. Doesn’t cause any problems then.

But having said what I said, I do agree with this. Anybody would think that {{Back}} should display everything in that field. I’d say, making the current behaviour default is the best idea in my opinion (and I say this with complete awareness that some new users might get confused).

6

In regard to your question of whether it would be advantageous for me to have the back/answer show up as blank…it would not be advantageous.
If I were to follow your suggestion, a blank field would be indicative of two possibilities: a) the answer is the same as the question (this being your suggestion) or b) the answer being missing.
I prefer a blank value it to indicate only one possibility…the latter.
Otherwise, every time I see a blank field I would need to invoke the editor to determine if it were due to (a) or (b).

Thanks again for confirming the “removal” is by choice and not by accident (aka a bug).

I don’t really expect you to upgrade this, especially since there are partial workarounds available.

I would ask that you (or someone on the dev team) at least document the current undocumented “removal” behavior of the standard Question/Answer fields and the behavior of their associated Overrides (i.e. an override feature that doesn’t always “override”) in the manual. I am not a supporter of “tribal knowledge” :roll_eyes:

I will not be adding any more to this thread other than to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks your consideration and conversation.
Both were enjoyable.

7

@dae I think this should be in the manual. One or two lines in the relevant section for override field/card browser would be nice.

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The manual is open source, and contributions are welcome.

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