Feature request: Let us change the ease modifier settings

Currently Anki modifies the ease of a card when you answer again (-20), hard (-15), or easy (+15). I’d like to be able to modify these values. Specifically, I’d like answering good to add +5 as a way to regain ease lost from lapsed cards. Unfortunately add-ons wouldn’t easily be able to change the reviews on AnkiMobile or I would simply go that route.

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More control may come in the future, but I’m not sure this is the best approach - you may be better off allowing the material to become a leech, then reformatting it and resetting it if you must continue studying it.

I certainly do that now and and think that works fine for “knowledge” type cards, but I’d like to do this for my vocab cards. Anyway, without wanting to start a discussion on the pros and cons of either approach I think the option would be appreciated by some people.

Hi. I would just like to say that I would greatly appreciate it if the suggested feature of having the option to change the ease modifier settings was added. Like the person who suggested it replied, it would also be beneficial for me for when I study vocabulary. In the meantime I am using some add-ons in combination called “low-key anki”. The add-ons reset the ease and disable the ease modifier which is what I want it to do. Why I would still very much like to have the option to change the ease modifier settings is because the add-ons that I use to solve this do not work on ankiDroid. It would also allow people to experiment and give feedback on what the best ease modifier would be for certain types of decks.
I hope this will be implemented in the future, but nonetheless anki has been very valuable to me. Keep up the good work!

I have a question: is there any rationale, studies behind the fact that:
Again = subtract 20% from ease
Hard = subtract 15% from ease

Why not both values are the same? I think allowing users to set these values would allow better custom control per card, in other words how often they see the card. My understanding is that this would be good, considering that card content is different, some cards have content easy to remember, some have content hard to remember.

I use add-on to show me card ease {{info-Ease:}} and it gives me a kind of precise tuning of my repetition intervals per card. With ability to set ease modifier for example + - 10 for Hard and Easy I would be able have more control of my per card learning process. At least this is my subjective feeling. Because for some cards I don’t tend to increase ease to 250% but rather keep them at lower ease for years, until I have the feeling that I really know them very well. This is especially the case for leeches.

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+1. That would be a nice and useful feature, in my opinion. I find -15 too much for Hard, and use Easy (+15) to avoid ease hell, but definitely I’d like to try other settings (+5 for Good also sounds very reasonable to me)

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The eases can be customized with the custom scheduling option in the v3 scheduler.

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Is this difficult to achieve? I have been trying to do exactly this using your code from the V3 FAQ page but having some difficulty getting it to work.

if (states.good.normal?.review) {
  states.hard.normal.review.easeFactor =
    states.good.normal.review.easeFactor - 0.1;
}

Seems like it should change the 15% penalty to 10 but yields no change on a test deck. Is there something else I need to be doing or is the custom scheduling feature still experimental?

Thanks

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That code works for me - pressing hard reduces 250% to 240% on a test card. Did you test with the latest Anki and add-ons disabled? Do you get a message in the console if you use console.log(“something”)?

This code is unclear to me. If I want to have
Hard -10%
Easy +10%
Would it be like this?

if (states.good.normal?.review) {
  states.hard.normal.review.easeFactor = -0.1
    states.easy.normal.review.easeFactor = +0.1;
}

Any chances for visual / GUI options for this in the future?

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No, that is not correct. There is an example of changing the easy bonus on The 2021 scheduler - Frequently Asked Questions

I’d say making such tweaks more accessible would be too risky. Understanding Anki’s scheduling is already a major hurdle for new users. Imagine what it would be like if a significant portion of the userbase has their own custom scheduler settings :eyes:

Maybe grouping these new options under “advanced” settings would be a nice compromise.

Another option would be adding more examples to the help page, to build a small “library” for the most common uses of the new custom scheduler feature. That would be really helpful for those of us who don’t really have any idea about programming, but want / need to tweak more advanced settings.

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What would happen? I think, nothing.
Ease is not an advanced mysterious factor but basic per card interval changing factor. If someone is too lazy to read manual or watch youtube video then it is not my problem.

Maybe grouping these new options under “advanced” settings would be a nice compromise.

How Ease is more advanced than interval modifier or any other factor?

Either you spent some time to learn how Anki works and you know it or you don’t. The same applies to other subjects in live, like your phone or your car or whatever. Learning other software like MS Office, which is essential in business, is not easier, yet millions of people are able to learn it.

Another option would be adding more examples to the help page, to build a small “library” for the most common uses of the new custom scheduler feature.

This is a good idea and I support it because I still can’t figure out how to achieve the result I described above.

I guess I misunderstood that question of yours:

It sounded to me like you wanted GUI options for custom scheduling in general, not just for your ease use case.

Sorry but this is such a wrong approach. You can’t build software with this attidude nowadays.

It really doesn’t. Phones are super intuitive - because the devs know most people won’t read any manuals.

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I was thinking only about GUI for ease. But I will be fine with using code as long as it is well explained in documentation.

This is a bit off-topic discussion. It depends what you compare. Mobile applications have different purpose than desktop applications. I know dozens of desktop software that is more complicated than Anki. Even some Anki add-ons have lots of options. And your are telling me that adding one more option would make Anki too complicated? Please, learn advanced features of MS Office, Power BI or become proficient in Adobe software to acquire proper perspective.

I am not against user-friendly approach. Actually when I ask for ease GUI options it is asking about user-friendly solution. Less options doesn’t mean user-friendly. I just point out that we need a proper balance about what we call advanced and normal.

By happenstance, I am proficient in Adobe Software. What perspective do you expect me to have aquired? That’s professional software for niche audiences - the same can be said about advanced MS Office features*.

* Personally, I wouldn’t use MS Office as an example for user-friendly software. People know how to use it because they’re forced to (in school, at work).

Anki however caters to a much broader audience. Look at the heading on its landing page:

“Remembering things just became much easier.”

“Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki.”


Anki already has more options than any comparable SR software (mainly due to its open source nature). Tweaking the scheduling algorithm is something proprietary solutions would be very unlikely to offer. The benefit for a niche audience that would actually be able to use a custom scheduling GUI to their advantage (enthusiasts, programmers) is very small and wouldn’t outweigh the increase in support work.

It might not be your problem, but it certainly is one for @dae and others who want to provide quality support for the community. Any new option means an increase in support load, as it provides new potential issues for inexperienced users.


Why are Apple products so polished? Because they keep their product lineup at a minimum and limit sheeple’s capabilities to mess things up by providing a super limited operating system. These limitations might drive a niche audience away towards Linux, Windows & Android, but the main userbase benefits from these measures.

“Remembering things just became much easier.”

It doesn’t mean that Anki is addressed to lazy people. If someone wants to learn a language or medicine or anything it means a lot of work. A bit of work to learn Anki is not a problem for such people. But there a a lot of such new users who announce: “Hey, I have an exam in two weeks. How to use Anki?” But frankly, I don’t care about such people. Your time is your problem.

Tell me how many options is to much? Maybe we should make a poll and ask users? Is 20 options too much or a 100?

How many is too much and what is the number at which Anki should be stopped to develop and provide only support?

“Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki.”

Anyone who is not so lazy to learn it. Actually anyone can use default options.

Maybe we should remove all options and keep it default? Would you be satisfied? Anki would become so simple to use that literally anyone would be able to use it.

The benefit for a niche audience that would actually be able to use a custom scheduling GUI to their advantage (enthusiasts, programmers) is very small and wouldn’t outweigh the increase in support work.

How can you measure it? Do you have any statistics or opinion polls or this is just your subjective opinion? I believe this is just your imagination.

Any new option means an increase in support load, as it provides new potential issues for inexperienced users.

What do you mean by support load? Bugs? Eventually they will be fixed. But this applies to any new feature.

If you mean questions, there are a lot of active users here and on reddit to provide support.

new potential issues for inexperienced users

What kind of issues? Please, be specific.

There is a path of learning from inexperienced user to experienced user. But it is only individual choice which one you want to be.

Why are Apple products so polished?

I don’t know because I am a Linux user. I don’t mind learning new software. For me good software is such that fulfill its purpose.

So, what you are trying to accomplish here with your arguments? Are you against adding any GUI options?

I have an impression that you speak on behalf of beginner users not knowing what they really want. Before giving such opinions you should ask them (make a poll) how many of beginner users want to stay beginner and how many want to do whatever it takes to become proficient in using Anki, just because Anki can make them proficient in subjects they want to learn.

Actually, I don’t care. I only proposed an idea. I will be fine as long as I know how to set the values that I ask for.

Edit:
Photoshop CC Bible 1st Edition
Paperback ‏ has 1152 pages.

And you are telling me that Anki can’t have more options because it will become too complicated. Sorry but I don’t buy this argument.

I think the idea is to allow people to make arbitrary changes to the scheduler, of which this is one example. Obviously where we only want to make a small change it’s a tad annoying, but it will allow a lot more flexibility in general. I’d rather this approach be pursued rather than waiting while options are added individually and hoping my requested features will be next.

Anyway, thanks @dae, love your work!

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