Next best equivalent to anki?

[feng]

At least once per week I end up thinking both my laptop and iphone are in sync (when for some reason they are not, ie a sync fails due to internet problems), and end up having sync conflicts that force me to throw away large amounts of work. Its getting really frustrating and I don't need that sort of stress in my life.

Is there an alternative? My requirements are simple, i can add/update cards on my computer, and review cards on my iphone throughout the day. Data synchronisation should be able to cope with devices getting out of sync due to either internet connectivity issues and or forgetfulness.

[Olle Linge]

If I'm not mistaken, this will be fixed in the next version of Anki. When this is released, I don't know, but I know that Damien has said that this will be solved, presumably by requiring full sync in much fewer situations. I.e., if you add cards on two different computers, these aren't really in conflict and shouldn't cause a problem. Check this:

• 
  Full syncs are only necessary on the first sync and after changing things like the number of fields in a note. If you’re about to make a change that would force a full sync, you’re warned about it and given the option of aborting.
  
• 
  Modifying many cards or notes no longer forces a full sync - incremental syncs can now handle even large amounts of data.
  

[icebear]

I would suggest studying only on your phone - that solved my problems with syncing. (Although I only follow a Spanish frequency list, so I don't need to regularly add/edit cards. I use Skritter for Chinese.)

[feng]

@Snigel Thanks for the pointer, I was aware of that. I guess I am just hoping to find a solution sooner than "at some undetermined time in the future"

@icebear I had the same idea, I have tried to use anki mobile like this, but entering many words/pinyin/zhuyin/example sentences every day using anki mobile is just painfully slow. (Although ideally adding each word or sentence via the phone as you come across them would be ideal!!!)

[icebear]

@feng

Is there a reason you aren't using the Pleco Flashcard plugin? It suites Chinese flashcards much much better than Anki, in my opinion, because it has functions which meet the needs you describe (instantly creating flashcards without needing to enter anything but the target word) and can test many sides of each card. If I wasn't so enamored with Skritter's handwriting tests I would use Pleco full time (for a flat fee).

[chinskycraze]

Indeed, next version, which is due some time soon, I think, is said to resolve such conflicts automatically.

In the meantime, however, in many cases there can actually be a way to save hour's of menial work manually, as long as it involved simply adding new cards rather than edditing old ones. How?

1) When Anki detects a conflict, cancel the sync.

2) Open your deck and select the cards you've added recently.

3) Click on the 'Add Tags" icon and add a uniqure tag, e.g. on the lines of "export_date".

4) Then in Anki's File Menu choose the option Export Facts to textfile" and in the box Limit to tags enter the tang you've just added.

5) Sync Deck choosing to retain remote settings.

6) After syncing, import the facts from textfile back to your deck.

Obviously, this option does not work if you've spent hours edditing old cards. I hope new version of Anki will be able to help there as well, though.

[imron]

Is there a reason you aren't using the Pleco Flashcard plugin? It suites Chinese flashcards much much better than Anki,

This.

[dnevets]

instantly creating flashcards without needing to enter anything but the target word

Actually Anki can do that too if you download the Chinese Toolbox plugin (or Hanzi toolbox plugin, or whatever its called). I use it to create all my cards: just type the hanzi (or even copy and paste from a webpage/doc) and it will generate a translation (same dictionary as www.xiaoma.info or if one doesn't exist it gives you a google translation) and the pinyin, instantly.

[ChouDoufu]

Gotta defend Damien (the Anki creator) here. Sync issues are really annoying, but they are also one of the hardest problems to solve in computer science. Even huge companies like apple/google get sync wrong most of the time.

Hopefully, he'll have those issues fixed in the next version.

[feng]

Regarding pleco — I have purchased the pleco flashcard add-on, it is really great for adding new words, but adding anything else, such as sentences, closures, etc are seriously annoying on an iPhone. I keep returning it it to try it out, but for me its not quite there.

Regarding syncing — I know syncing is not easy, however its far from being "of the hardest problems to solve in computer science", there are great ways to handle syncing if your system is designed correctly. (You just need to have a level of competence above "incompetent")

I take it by the answers, at this point in time there really isn't a viable alternative. I guess i'll be sticking with anki for the time being (: Hope the next version comes out soon (:

[icebear]

Regarding pleco — I have purchased the pleco flashcard add-on, it is really great for adding new words, but adding anything else, such as sentences, closures, etc are seriously annoying on an iPhone. I keep returning it it to try it out, but for me its not quite there.

Have you tried buying one of the upgraded dictionaries? Some of them have very good built in example sentences (which use a ~ for the word in question, facilitating flashcard use) and you could then batch modify all your cards to use that dictionary.

[Guest realmayo]

There needs to be a sticky somewhere about pros and cons of Anki versus Pleco for flashcards. Every time someone mentions Anki, people pop up to say "try Pleco duh". But for lots of people Pleco flashcards are almost useless -- I'd truly hate to use them. (I appreciate here the OP was asking for an Anki alternative, but I'm sure the two have been compared multiple times on the forums.)

[roddy]

Feel free to write one - some kind of structured look over the major flashcard options - Pleco / Anki / and whatever else people often use would be great.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

I recommend "Flashcards Deluxe" for iPhone: http://tinyurl.com/3ckgyr2

Flashcards Deluxe is an easy to use, yet powerful flashcard app which you can use to study just about anything you want. I use this app for my own Chinese studies, and am constantly improving it to make it better for myself and others. -- 172 Ratings - 5 stars

Anki Mobile has so many bugs (e.g. this one http://tinyurl.com/6spjhay - still not corrected), and is a pain to use because of frequent sync data losses. Unbelievable that such a buggy app costs more than 20 bucks.

The new version of Anki will cause even more problems on both sides (desktop & mobile), it will be probably bug free in 2013 or even later.

[mikelove]

But for lots of people Pleco flashcards are almost useless -- I'd truly hate to use them. (I appreciate here the OP was asking for an Anki alternative, but I'm sure the two have been compared multiple times on the forums.)

Not to turn this into a Pleco thread, but can you elaborate on why that is? Complicated settings are certainly a good reason - I don't think we do too much worse than Anki in that regard, but we could certainly make things a lot more polished for new users - but if it's something else I'd love to know what.

Our biggest feature requests at the moment seem to be iCloud sync support (coming, but as other people have said sync issues are REALLY hard), timed auto-advance (definitely coming), sentence audio (coming and with fully offline TTS) and more efficient sentence input (tricky but we're trying to find a good segmentation algorithm to help facilitate automatic pinyin/fantiizi generation), a switch from manipulating "scores" to actual intervals (easy enough to change, when we designed the original system in 2007 SRS hadn't yet taken over the world but now that it has it's time we made that the focus), and a less pathetic stroke order test (investigating several options but we'd probably have to license something), but I wouldn't say that the absence of those would make our software unusable unless the sole purpose of your using flashcards is to learn stroke order.

[feng]

@mike Thanks for taking an interest, I am not sure what the original posters issues are but mine are not just issues with the pleco but also issues with the iPhone

Firstly, In pleco, when I go to "add card" it does not have a field for zhuyin, only pinyin. This is an immediate dealbreaker.

Secondly there is a general iPhone/iPad problem that cant be solved by pleco alone, ie consider how much slower it would be to do this on an iPhone.

1. Im in the middle of a study session
   
2. Come across a word I am having trouble remembering, or is a "leech"
   
3. "Anki sync" iphone -> "Anki sync" desktop
   
4. in chrome type "tt 東西" (this is a chome shortcut that searches tatoeba)
   
5. if not useful type "nc 東西“
   
6. in anki press "Add card", paste sentence
   
7. Anki auto fills the rest of the fields
   
8. "Anki sync" desktop -> "Anki sync" iphone
   

I know this looks like a lot of steps but I can usually do all of that in less than 60 seconds, much less than it would take than if I were using an iPhone (or iPad as my primary device).

I really really want to see a day where I can use my iPhone and/or iPad as my primary study device. So much so that I am thinking I should probably make an iOS app that does the above and presents the text in an easy to copy format. If only I can work out the zhuyin thing in pleco.

[mikelove]

Thanks for the reply.

Firstly, In pleco, when I go to "add card" it does not have a field for zhuyin, only pinyin. This is an immediate dealbreaker.

We say "Pinyin" rather than "Pronunciation" there because when we used to say "Pronunciation" it confused everybody, but actually you should be able to enter Zhuyin there just fine - try it out and see. Or if you do enter Pinyin (because it's a bit easier to type on an iPhone) and configure Pleco to display it via Settings / Dictionary / Entry Display / Pron system, you'll see Zhuyin instead of Pinyin on all of your Pleco flashcards.

Secondly there is a general iPhone/iPad problem that cant be solved by pleco alone, ie consider how much slower it would be to do this on an iPhone.

That one would require a Pleco desktop client, which is not part of our immediate plans but might happen in the future depending on how things develop with Apple and Microsoft's tablet-PC convergence strategies.

[cababunga]

Does it have to be a desktop application? Can it instead be a web app that would allow one to copy/paste data, which then could be fetched by the phone? Or at least make Pleco be able to import cards from any URL, not just SD card.

[feng]

@Mike My other point was that Anki auto-fills the "pronunciation" field with more often than not, the correct pronunciation. With a 10-20 character sentence this is a serious time saver.

@cababunga As I suggested, I would deeply love to be able to remove the need to use my laptop. In lieu of pleco not having an easy way to add sentences, An app (or website) that allows searching and adding sentences (from tatoeba, blogs, facebook, etc..) directly to pleco would be pretty neat wouldn't it?

[mikelove]

Does it have to be a desktop application? Can it instead be a web app that would allow one to copy/paste data, which then could be fetched by the phone? Or at least make Pleco be able to import cards from any URL, not just SD card.

A web app is another thing we're considering, but iCloud sync between iOS and Mac OS has a lot to recommend it - that way people don't have to fiddle around with account logins and such. We could potentially do both, though, particularly if we were OK with the web-based solution being a one-way thing.

The URL suggestion is interesting - are you finding it problematic to download flashcards from your phone's built-in web browser? It certainly wouldn't be difficult for us to add the ability to enter a URL instead of selecting a file on an SD card, but we assumed that most people were finding them in the web browser anyway (at which point it's easier to just tap on the link and save it to the SD card) - do you have something set up that would let you easily paste in an arbitrary piece of text and then have it fetchable from a set URL?

@Mike My other point was that Anki auto-fills the "pronunciation" field with more often than not, the correct pronunciation. With a 10-20 character sentence this is a serious time saver.

Yes, that was actually in the list of requested features in my earlier post; the tricky thing is segmenting a sentence properly so that we know where the word boundaries are for the purposes of spacing and of looking up the pronunciation for each word in our database. After spending most of the last 4 years porting various features that were originally implemented in a somewhat half-assed way on Palm and Windows Mobile to iOS and then Android (and spending more time on the porting than we did on the original development), we've gotten a bit more gun-shy about adding new ones - we don't want to do something like this unless we can do it really well. But we're making good progress on the segmentation front and we're hoping we'll soon have something that can do a reliable enough job of character-to-Pinyin mapping for us to introduce this.