In “Preferences > Review > Taps” you can configure gestures based on two conditions: “when question shown” and “when answer shown” but in “Preferences > Review > Swipes” you cannot. You just get swipe left, right, up, and down. It would be extremely useful if we could also control actions for those four gestures based on the same condition of whether the question or answer is currently being shown.
I think this makes sense from both a capability and consistency point of view. Making the app more capable with this added flexibility will open up new possibilities for users. It also makes it conceptually consistent with the “Taps” settings that have the same actions that can be set but also the additional conditions.
For a (hopefully very convincing) use case, please refer to my other post where I describe using a tiny ring remote with just three buttons to control Anki on your iPhone. I’m not allowed to post links here yet but it is topic 49096 with title “Using Tiny Ring Remote with Anki.”
The remote gives me three gestures. Anki on iOS upgrades that to 4 separate actions I can execute based on the condition of whether the question or answer is shown. Adding this feature for swipes would further upgrade it to six total actions (since both swipe up and swipe down would now be aware of the “question or answer shown” condition. I think it would allow most people to handle most usage scenarios with just those three little buttons which would be very helpful.
Taps are typically used for revealing/answering cards, so they have separate settings for the front and back. Swipes are more expected to be used for other actions like burying that are less frequent, since they’re a slower gesture. Such actions make sense on both front and back, so I’m not sure it would be generally useful to separate them by question/answer.
Thanks for those thoughts and details. When I hear things like “typically used for” and “expected to be used for” it makes me think that the whole point of this type of great flexibility you’ve already built into the system is for non-typical cases and unexpected usage scenarios users might come up with.
The only other thing I’d mention, and hopefully I’m not sounding argumentative, is that different gestures are used by different people in different ways, especially if you consider people that may have disabilities or certain conditions. For example, consider your point of view that swipes are a slower gesture than taps. From my perspective, swipes are much easier and just as fast. I mean if you consider the time to bring your hand to the screen, tap or swipe, and return your hand to resting position, the time difference is negligeable. What’s more, I sometimes find that taps imply I have to hit a specific space on screen which is sometimes small… sometimes I miss, sometimes the tap doesn’t register due to being too light, I accidentally get too much fingernail on it, etc. A swipe for me is more stable and reliable as it can often be done with less precise placement and movement, often not even looking at the screen, i.e. I “mis-swipe” much less than I mis-tap. Just like door handles are easier for people with arthritis than door knobs, some people find swipes easier than taps.
I just wanted to offer some additional perspective. I totally understand there is work and maintenance involved to add new features and that sometimes making things more flexible also makes them a bit more complicated… so of course you need to draw the line somewhere at your discretion to find that balance between what is “generally useful” as you say and that which would be great for more specific use cases like mine. Thanks for your consideration.
Tapping is hard to do with one hand as you need to move your finger around the screen. Swipes can be easily done by doing a swinging motion with your finger at one place.
I personally always used to think swipes are faster, so yeah agreed. Tap is easy if you need to tap only at one place. Otherwise, swiping is always better.
Personally, on AnkiDroid, I use swipes for revealing answer/grading cards and I’ve also found other people who do the same. I use taps for things like Card info, Set due date.
I appreciate you taking the time to elaborate. Due to competing priorities, I can’t promise this will be implemented soon, but I don’t have any strong objections to making such a change.