Dear George Jetson: Hi, I'm from the stone age, is there any reason on Earth for Anki to need so many upgrades ? I'm on version 1.2.8 for Windows which I thought was pretty nifty, but when I went to search for decks tonight instead I get "This version is no longer supported". Your recent Anki discussions had me looking into adding more decks. As I recall I only reluctantly upgraded to 1.2.8 having been content with what came before it but was forced to change at some point. Why is that ? Do discoveries in SRS theory happen several times a week such that there's a need to continually upgrade this simple product called Anki ? Q: Can I run a new version of Anki separately or will the latest greatest seek out my old version and destroy it upon installation ? Q: Does the latest version still give me these choices ? I suspect they'll have me jumping through some new hoops. I like the hoops I already got. Yours truly, Fred Flintstone (buy my vitamins!)
It's a long, boring read, but here is a list of all the changes that have been done to Anki over the releases: http://ankisrs.net/docs/changes.html The biggest change between versions 1 and 2 seems to be related to speed, meaning that the file layout and format have changed, making later-created decks incompatible with earlier versions of the program. Seems there was also a license change, and with it the way the program also displays everything (Qt). I think once you get onto version 2, you'll like it once you start using it. I hated moving from 1 to 2 initially because of the file incompatibility, but the speed improvements alone were worth it to me. R. ==
Do I get my four choices with the number of days or months until next review displayed, as shown above ?
Look particularly for the changes to Anki 2 from Anki 1 before you upgrade. While Anki 2 is mostly about AnkiWeb and apps, which I don't use as I prefer the desktop for Anki, there are many worthwhile improvements. To your specific question about the buttons, by default in Anki 2 there are 2 steps of 1 and 10 minutes for new cards, which yields only 3 buttons. But that is customizable for each deck by selecting a deck >options>lapses>intervals. You can set the easy bonus and intervals. Thus you should be able to get that arrangement you had. My suggestion is to copy/port your Anki deck to a different machine, install Anki 2 and see what happens, and whether you can customize it to suit you.
HaaHaa! But what Peregrinus said is correct; it can be changed. It sounds like you and I have similar histories and frustration with Anki version changes. I just want to pay for a product, and have the product not change. I don't want to spend 2 hours trying to figure out a new configuration that was implemented for green-peacers using mobile devices while harpooning whales from their surfboards (there's an app for that!). I changed to anki2 in order to use my favorite shared decks. It was painful, but not as bad as some of the earlier changes. I used to support anki, even though I just use the immobile version; thought it was the right thing to do. But I quit doing that because of the constant changes. I need to do what (I think) Peregrinus suggested - get all the decks while I can. I like the synch option, but it's probably better if I just break that link too. I'll get around to it.
It was the general principle I suggested, but which of course applies to Anki. There was a point, I think when they switched to Anki 2, when a LOT of shared decks disappeared. Some of that may have been due to copyright concerns. Of course shared decks are a dynamic resource, new ones are constantly being added, and some deleted. So it pays to monitor them occasionally. While I have never found a deck I like a lot, or even enough to use unaltered, I have used several simply to save myself some typing. Even then the problem is often one of a deck having a different card type than I prefer. Well one can easily find and change to any previous build, although as noted, not all shared decks will then be compatible. While Anki doesn't seem to have the type of feature bloat that characterizes so much paid software, where they really want to transition to software-as-a-service to stick it to you every year, it still is somewhat annoying. Please hold my hand and promise me this forum will never change .[/QUOTE]
Anki 2 no longer has the same interval settings. It's the big thing I miss from version 1. It has an "Easy bonus" that affects the Easy button and an "Interval modifier" which proportionally adjusts all intervals, but there isn't a setting to change the individual buttons. Which is a shame because I find that there's never enough difference between Hard and Good (for me they're almost always only 1 day apart, for example 13 days for Hard and 14 for Good) so the Hard button is practically useless, while on version 1 I found the settings to be pretty much perfect. I suppose it's a case of it trying to be smarter and failing. Version 2 does have much better support for close deletion, and I think you need to use it if you want to sync, and both of these are essential features for me so I can't really go back.
I suspect that was done because of compound effects -- a few "hard"s in a row in the old system would have demoted it quickly to being repeated as much as a new word.
It seems that it is possible to run both Anki v1 and Anki v2 on the same machine without any interference. This isn't chiseled in granite but as far as I can tell you need to delete your data (deck files) temporarily, then install Anki v2 in it's own program directory (Windows 7 here, hah!). Run Anki v2 and import or download a deck to feed it a bone to get it to shut-up. Then restore your old v1 data back to where it used to be. Reason for doing this dance is that the first time you run Anki v2 it searches for and converts any active decks you have, destroying them for any further use in v1. I think it might do this "searching for decks" again and again if you don't feed it a deck but I'm not curious enough to find out. Since v2 has a new deck file format I'm not sure why it messes with your old stuff except that they probably figure you'd have to be an abject crank to want to run both versions. (v2 does create backups of your old files, so I'm not being honest when I say it destroys your old decks; rather, it makes them slightly inconvenient to continue with. Just to show v2 who is boss, I deleted all the backup files it made). I might move everything to v2 when I get used to it. Oh, and whenever v2 finishes uploading the 800MB+ worth of data (in order to sync) for the mere three decks I just downloaded from the Anki site. Anki, Anki, Anki, you seem to do things ridiculously sometimes. Can't wait for v3 to fix this upload the decks you just downloaded silliness ! Thanks to Peregrinus for prodding me back to Anki and thanks to Cainntear for letting the air out of my new tyres.
I had both running on my machine at one time. Then I finally switched over permanently. V2 was in no way better than V1 for me, but it allowed me to merge the decks in a series together (I downloaded some decks during V1, then they switched to V2). If and when they threaten to stop synching V2, I'll probably just stop synching; I rarely need it.
Yes, and that's about the only thing I use it for. It allows you to do anki online, or from other computers, but I never use those options. I take my laptop everywhere.
I always choose "ignore", operating on the general principle that I refuse to be a de-facto beta-tester after the supposed beta testing period. I like to lag a couple builds behind with any software and let them work out the kinks their beta testers never thought of, or were the result of different usage of the program. This has saved me a lot of grief and from undergoing vulnerability to malicious hacks. In particular, anyone who uses java who does not need to, or automatically accepts its updates is a sucker.
I'm on Anki 2.0.26 now. So 2.0.29 sounds right, after it has been out a while and another build has come out since. I do actually read the new release notes so I know which builds have serious problems and avoid them. With Anki 2, an awful lot of the features either apply to AnkiWeb, which I don't use, or otherwise implement new features that I don't care much about. The only reason I updated the last time was because a few builds previous they had added the much desired and long promised feature of being able to collapse the decks tree in the browser.
The big advantage of Anki 2 over Anki 1 is synchronization. Under Anki 1, multi-device synchronization was bolted on, and it never quite worked right. Every few weeks, I'd lose an hour of reviews, or my decks would get corrupted and need to be restored. Anki 2 has been far more reliable, because it was actually designed from the ground up to synchronize without losing data. I think I've managed to break it once in the last two years, by uploading huge, media-heavy decks over a broken network connection. This appears to have been improved in 2.0.27. All the little 2.0.x releases are basically just bug fixes and polishing. I upgrade a couple of times per year, when I have nothing better to do. This usually makes no difference whatsoever, for good or for ill.
Well, Anki forced me to update a few days ago, or else I wouldn't be able to sync. It went smoothly. But I just found out today it's been "burying" cards. I unburied them, and had an additional 50 reps. Annoying, but manageable.
