Potentially change version naming?

Today I had to explain that 25.07 is not 25.02.7 three times



Maybe use letters for minor patches? Like 25.02.a, 25.02.b, 25.02.c?
Either that, or strategically time releases to avoid coincidences like 25.07 and 25.02.7 :sweat_smile:

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I assume letters cannot be used since they typically convey some special meaning. As an example, ā€œbā€ means beta, ā€œaā€ means alpha, ā€œrcā€ means release candidate…

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A section in the manual/FAQ or in the website explaining that Anki uses Calendar Versioning would mitigate this issue

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I’m not sure documenting it would help, since folks are having this confusion far from the documentation. The issue here is that there’s a sort of numerical consonance with the 2’s and 7’s (and the 5’s to a certain extent) – that makes the numbers mistakable at a glance. It’s just a coincidence, unlikely to be repeated, so I’m not sure a change is warranted. [Would we even notice it now if the last patch had been 25.02.6 or 25.02.8?]

Obviously, the other issue is that Expertium is going around loudly proclaiming the release of 25.07, with the full knowledge that the main downloads page is deliberately not being updated yet and continues to point to 25.02.7. When the audience for those announcements is a group of folks (bless their hearts) who tend towards complete freak-out about any new Anki version, it’s a situation ripe for confusion. :sweat_smile:

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No, but in this world we did, and we can’t ā€œun-noticeā€ it

Btw, I agree that adding the info about version naming to the manual (if it’s not there) wouldn’t help much. Sadly, few people read the manual

EDIT: I realized that the next patch will be 25.07.2. So there will be Anki 25.02.7 and Anki 25.07.2. Man…

@dae can you quickly release 25.02.8? Lol
Maybe it will reduce confusion a little

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How about nudging people to learn to pay attention into reading version numbers
We should strive to make people smarter, not to dumb down things indefinetely because you cant do this at first try

My biggest pet peeve is that people cant read domains
Google was in a privileged position to teach people about domains, but infamously removed all notion of domains so you learned to ā€œtrust themā€ instead

But the domain is the anchor to reality when dealing with the internet

As a result of this dumbing down practice, something that is relatively easy, knowing by heart a useful domain, people cant even read an email and know if is a scam or not. They dont even know if a link is legit or not

They used to be very aggressive with hidding the domains even tho now they have calmed down a little and at least show it without having to dig to find it, but in my mind the damage is done. People learned to use the internet without using domains at all

My point with this is that I agree to not make things unecesarily complicated, but knowing to tell apart 02.7 from 07.2 is as basic as it gets. If this trips them, they are going to struggle a lot with the rest of anki. If you train them not to even read the version number, what chances does the manual has

Of course some people are going to maybe confuse them, me included, but i think theres value in paying attention and recognizing is a me problem at that point

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Maybe explaining the year, month, and update would reduce misreading? Like this:

Anki July 2025 Update (25.07)
Anki July 2025 Version 2 (Minor Update, 25.07.02)
Anki July 2025 Version 3 (Minor Update, 25.07.03)
Anki July 2025 Version 4 (Major Update, 25.07.04)
Anki July 2025 Version 5 (Patch Update, 25.07.05)

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My first thought a few hours ago was that this is useless. Now I think not, alphabets are free after all, if it’s a plus then it’s a plus and we should use them in version names instead of sinking time debating over whether the problem expertium faced might ever recur.

One more suggestion from me: what if 25.07.a was actually 2025.07.a? That would make the calver clearer for people.

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I think that this is 90% of the problem.

And I’m a strong no to changing the version naming, specially if the reason is something shallow like that.

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Yes exactly. Many apps amd operating systems have the same versioning system eg. TrueNAS 25.04.01 and no problems or misunderstandings occured

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I my opinion the most confusing thing is that 25.07 was released as stable but links on main website are pointing to the previous version. I see official info on for example reddit and git but go to main Anki website and I see something else - confusing? Provoking questions?

If you are not sure of beta version is not stable - do not release or release and allow for that some minor problems will be discovered by regular users.

Less user is technical - less probable that he/she will make upgrade - they do not care about new version.

If user monitors new version of Anki everyday - more probably they more are able to overcome technical problem or/and are able to upgrade after minor changes.

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PS. proposed new naming convention is great and as a technical person I love precision.

I just trying to point that root cause of the problem is not stated in the right way in my opinion so proposed changes (even if they are great), they won’t solve problem.

No, you’ve seen no ā€œofficialā€ announcement of this release – that’s the whole point. See: Anki 25.06 Beta - #167 by dae .

There’s no uncertainty about the stability of this version, it is just being rolled out more slowly to address any issues with the new installer. As I mentioned above, it’s the the unofficial announcements [on Reddit, on Discord] that are the cause of the confusion – and where those screenshots are coming from.

Those folks are certainly not the ones getting confused by this. :sweat_smile:

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official or not - users are confused. Let’s just update links on main webpage - discussion is done.

That will happen as soon as the version is ready for a wider release. Pushing that to happen faster isn’t good for users either. Please be patient.

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