Hi,
I post this because it took me ages to find the place where it’s shown : the number of cards in the selected deck is shown in the title of the window of the “Browse” view. I was thinking “there is no way this information isn’t shown somewhere” so I kept on digging, and finally found it thanks to google.
I think showing this information in a “status” bar at the bottom of the middle panel of this view, right below the cards would be much more logical and easy to find. And it’s an important information in my opinion : when you create a new sub-level in a deck, in order to learn specific subtopics, you want to make sure all your cards belong to a subdeck, in order to avoid missing important cards which aren’t classified.
FYI for everyone, this stat is shown in AnkiDroid’s study overview screen. Sometime ago, it was briefly removed but had to be restored due to popular demand.
Why take up screen space with a “status” bar at the bottom of the screen just to show something that is already showing in the title bar (where it is closely clustered with the menus [on some platforms])?
Because it’s clearly not a place where people are used to find dynamic information, at least not on windows. On mac, i never used mac so I don’t know.
Yes I agree, in term of vertical space, in the title bar, it’s better of course. But it’s better only if you can find it. I don’t think Anki is only made for power users. Here loosing a little bit of vertical space only means the scrollbar will appear sooner, it’s not a big issue.
On windows, the consensus in term of UI is to use a status bar for that kind of information. It could be also a tooltip which would appears when you hover over a list of selected cards, both are valid, and usually UIs tend to do both.
You can speak for yourself on that – but I think it’s overblown to say “it’s clearly not a place” and point to a consensus of UI design. There are plenty of things in the title bar of plenty of Windows apps. I don’t think Anki is unique here.
I’m stuck on this a bit too. Are you saying that you had a hard time finding it because it was at the top of the screen instead of the bottom? That seems like an unusual issue, and I’m not sure why it was so difficult for you to overcome. There’s a limited amount of information on the screen, and it seems like it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds of looking to find it.
I think especially with the Browse window/editor in Vertical layout (I can’t remember if that is still the default), it wouldn’t make sense to put that counter at the bottom of the screen on the far side of the editor.
This is not a logical statement, I can’t prove it, I can only back it up by taking lots of screenshots of different applications. Windows file explorer, Filezilla, 7zip, notepad++, etc.
Here is Filezilla :
There is a argument about the way totals are generally displayed. In a table, when you want to display the total of a column, you display it at the bottom of the related column.
There’s also an argument for the fact that the ‘master’ application in terms of displaying files/items in Windows is the Windows file explorer. And that application uses a status bar at the bottom of the panel displying the files.
I guess it’s related to the eyes movement, to the fact that we read from top to bottom, etc.
Now, I’m sorry if I’m speaking boldly, but I’m confident when I say that the consensus on Windows for this kind of information is in a status bar at the bottom of the frame that displays items, like the (ugly but clear) mockup below. And yes, I couldn’t find it without a google search.
