Everybody knows that you cannot just delete a card, you can only delete notes. However in my day-to-day reviewing, I often do things that are akin to “deleting cards”. This typically involves one of the following actions:
Clear field “X” of all content
Move the contents of field “X” to field “Y”
A combination of the above (e.g. clear field “T”; clear field “U”; move “A” to “B”)
In the case of cloze deletions, deleting Cloze x means clearing the field of any {{cx::___}} delimiters.
In some cases, there is no clear path to deleting a card, in which case deleting the entire note is the only way.
To illustrate, let’s say I review a card with note type Basic (optional reversed card). I can still use the note deletion shortcut (Ctrl+Backspace), but I can also use a card deletion shortcut (let’s say Alt+Backspace).
If I was viewing a card of type “Card 2”, deleting the card would mean, that it clears “Add Reverse”, and suspends the card (possibly giving it a special flag). Triggering Empty cards later on would delete the card.
Deleting Card 1 cannot be configured, so the only way is to delete the note. Triggering the card deletion action would give me a warning “This card cannot be deleted without deleting the note. Continue?”, which, if confirmed, would do the same as Ctrl+Backspace.
For this feature to properly work, it needs to properly set up, of course. I would imagine that this could be done in the “Cards” window.
What does everybody think of such a feature? Would you find such a feature useful?
IMO, there’s already a little bit of confusion between cards and notes, probably due to the way both concepts have evolved and and have been implemented on the program over time.
For example, if you add a tag to a card, you’re actually adding the tag to the whole parent note (and related cards), not just to the single card you’re working on. And that happens with tags but NOT with flags, which is, in my opinion ilogical and inconsistent, and doesn’t make sense from the point of view of the user.
So, while I can see that the ability of deleting single cards would be useful in some cases (for example to avoid having to manually clear the {{cx::___}} symbols), maybe (MAYBE) such a feature would add some extra confusion to the whole picture.
And finally: I’m probably missing something here, but, what would be the advantage of deleting cards over just suspend them?
As @cqg, I think this statement is somewhat optimistic.
Such a feature could definitely come in handy. However, while I don’t see it increasing the confusion about cards and notes, I think it may be confusing in general to have one action do such different operations.
I’m relatively new to Anki. Can someone explain the reasoning behind the fact that an individual card cannot be deleted from a deck? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Say I make a new card and realize it actually belongs in a different deck. There’s nothing I can do about it? I’m just stuck with the wrong card in that deck?
I tried opening a deck, then when viewing a card I clicked “Browse”, in the Browser window I clicked "Cards>Change Deck…:. The “Change Deck” window opens with a list of my decks with the current deck highlighted. If I click the “Move Cards” at the bottom, nothing happens and a “0 cards moved” message appears even though I highlighted the card I wanted moved. I would expect to be asked which deck I wanted the card moved to.
