On import, make note type unique by appending imported deck name

This is a small change that, I believe, could improve users of shared deck experience. The thought came after reading https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/v9yxwy/each_time_i_download_a_deck_it_adds_a_custom/

When you import a new deck, and there is a conflict in note type, especially with standard names such as “basic”, instead of adding a random string, which is kind of ugly, add the name of the imported deck. Still use a random string if even that leads to conflict, but it must be rarer.
Maybe just use a fixed length prefix of the last part of the deck if it is a subdeck.

2 Likes

Maybe there could be an option to “merge” the two note types if they are the same (idk what is the current behavior, but I have the impression it never checks for that and just appends random stuff), since most users won’t change the basic note types.

The trouble would be when:

  • you import a deck D1
  • original author of D1 update their note type
  • you import a new version of D1

Currently, having separate note type would allow to update the note types coming from D1 and not the other note type coming from other shared deck, or that you created.

Admittedly, I don’t know how often this feature is used, and it’s, in my opinion, not ideal and may break in some rare complex case. (I mean, case I could create for the sake of the argument, but that I would not deem realistic. The issue being that with who knows how many millions of user, even something that would occurs only for 0,01 percent of users would occur for many people)