An open source web-based flashcard studying system
github.com
github.com
Do not use this, just use anki.
Anki has a free web version (anki web), and has free-as-in-AGPL desktop apps as well.
Maybe one day this software will be comparable to anki, but right now it's missing spaced-repetition (which is the only thing that really makes large decks usable), and practically all the other features of anki.
The current flashcard implementation is not what it is intended to be in its final stage - it’s more of a showcase of initial functionality and a proving ground for building upon what other projects (like Anki) already offer.
Anki web is an option, but the Anki project as a whole can be daunting to new non-technical users with the variety of implementations it has. Scholarsome is intended to be simpler to use for these users while still offering more powerful study tools.
I use it and it’s not for the many, and learning with spaced repetition should be.
If your goal is to just poke around without a plan, or to just copy features without a unifying vision, it seems unlikely it ends up simpler or more powerful than anki.
As far as I can tell, there's no vision written down anywhere, no list of things other systems got wrong but you'll get right, no insight into what needs to be done in this space.
The only selling points / differentiators I see listed right now are: "no paywall/free, open source". Those do not differentiate it from anki.
Shouldn't this be a deck of cards?!
I echo your sentiment. I also agree the Anki is a bit of a morass. A streamlined UI for creating Anki cards could be nice.
But I didn't see a single sentence about how this is different from Anki and why? Why do you want to reinvent the wheel when Anki is good enough?
I am using Anki now, btw, although I use it in a very simple way, but I think the point still stands. (Also, I agree that any new SRS should be somehow Anki-compatible.)
"Make good flashcards" is indeed a difficult problem, but not one that is mitigated by a different tool.
"Review every day" is a question of habit formation, which is difficult, but also not a problem that a different tool will do better.
So the default Anki settings are good enough to get started, and allows itself to be customized as the user gets more familiar and better knows their need.
Without Anki import and export, a new tool simply seems to be a dead end to me, even if it slightly simplifies getting started.
I acknowledge it’s simple, runs on terminal only and lacks bells and whistles. But this is also probably why I use it so much.
Question: ...
Answer: ...
All it takes is one quick look at their docs to turn people away to a more mainstream option. Condensing its features into a more bite-sized application can make a world of difference for usability.
I don't think that anyone denies that Anki could be a lot better if it were completely rewritten with the experience of having had Anki for years and knowing its pain points. You just have to have a plan, best based in analysis of Anki (and SuperMemo) to do that.
> There's definitely space for an easy to use SRS out there.
I think there's definitely even space for a hard to use SRS that's easier to deal with. But it's got to start by covering at least 80% of what Anki does already or it's not worth switching.
yes
> and inefficient
no. You can tweak every aspect of srs for each deck as you wish, if it’s inefficient for you - adjust the settings.
Well, sometimes "good enough" isn't really the point. People have different tastes and different motivations.
Why did people use Windows before v3.0 when Mac at the time was objectively better? Why did people bother using OS X when Windows at the time was objectively better? Right now, why are people using Mac OS when UI and UX on Windows is objectively better?
Why use Linux circa 1995 when FreeBSD was objectively better? Why use netBSD now when everything else is objectively better?
I don't know if maybe English is your first language or not, but objective means "based on established fact".
In other words, you don't know the criteria I've used to rank one above the other in all my comparisons, you only know that it is something based on fact.[1]
> these are subjective comparisons that you are making.
No, they aren't.
The reasons a person may choose one option over another can be subjective. The fact that one performs better than another on a certain criteria is objective.
> and different people have different subjective tastes.
But I already said that:
>> People have different tastes and different motivations.
See?
My entire point was that, even if something is objectively better than something else, people may still want the something else due to reasons of taste and motivation.
[1] And, in fact, you could switch almost all of my comparisons around (except for the poor UI/UX on Macs - that comparison was restricted to only the UI/UX) just by using different criteria in the objective comparisons.
UI and UX is not subjective.
That Mac, in 2023, doesn't even have snapping Windows is not an inaccurate observation. No window groups. Barely visible and hard to hit Window titlebar buttons. Fails to remember Window placement for some tools (tkdiff) but not for others.
Without 3rd party addons, Mac window management is unusually poor (compared to various other Window managers, including Windows). Window management is a major component of a UI based on application windows.
None of those things are subjective.
Even with 3rd party add-ons, I eventually gave up and stopped using the MB M1 as soon as I could.
They can exchange data. Years ago I used Anki to prepare some decks which I then used with AnkiDroid.
I think AnkiDroid is mostly written in Kotlin now.
I'm using a completely non-Anki based flashcard app just because of the lack of this feature.
Shipping isn’t easy.
Anki is definitely nice and full of features but also a victim of design by committee and kind of consulted at times.
Lots of space out there for options and alternatives.
It’s also over complicated for something as simple as flash cards.
Relatedly: Can I pay for this? Anki won't accept money, and it makes me nervous that one day the software is going to change and become unusable. I don't know how ankiweb can afford to host decks at no charge.
Once it has been added, I’d encourage you to look around and see if Scholarsome can fit your use case. To be upfront - this is still very in-dev. Anki is much more feature complete, and will be for some time, but I’m a believer in shipping fast and early to get feedback from users.
I don’t have any plans to monetize my hosted option. At most, I may add a donate button in the future. Releases are all containerized, so it should be easy to host yourself on a system under your control if you trust that more than using a third party.
Every aspect of my child's life is intensively, scientifically designed to be addictive and hyperstimulating except learning.
Then we're back to digital flash cards that somehow manage to suck even worse than analog hand written flash cards.
Not beating up on your early demo. Solid foundation. But please try to imagine a child using it and enjoying it. And whatever design decisions that implies will probably serve us adults better too.
This is a point where I’m not as well-versed. Would love to hear any recommendations for study games that you might find useful.
As a side note, this is more targeted at an older audience, i.e. ~16+.
Duolingo operates in this space, and their gamification model, I believe, is to motivate users to study by allowing them to display their streaks and levels to others. (competition)
Anki also has a streak-based gamification, and it's somewhat successful, as seen here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/search/?q=streak&restrict_sr=1.
However, these gamifications are not as fun as real games. It won't make your heart thump like FPS games do.
I believe there is room to incorporate features from incremental games (like Cookie Clicker) into flashcard apps, although it is not as simple as it sounds. Habitica [1] is another example of integrating incremental features into a task management system, but it lacked a diversity of content when I tried it last year. Incremental games are not merely about numbers increasing; they also involve the discovery of various elements (like grandmas, farms, factories, mines, shipments, alchemy, portal, ... in Cookie Clicker).
why does the app give me a total number of cards to do? why not always present the card I'm most likely to forget and leave me to decide when to stop?
why is it so hard to understand the concept of a note vs a card?
why aren't there more ways to have cards be updated over time, to subscribe to updates?
why does the app cost $25 on iOS?
why can't I execute JavaScript within fields if my html/css is rendered in a browser anyway?
just off the top of my head. many more to list. i love Anki but let's not act like it doesn't have serious downsides
You aren’t under any obligation to continue learning until you’re done with all cards. The number of cards to learn is customizable.
> why is it so hard to understand the concept of a note vs a card?
It’s not that hard, but I guess it makes the learning curve a bit harder. Why it’s done this way? I guess to provide more flexibility. Is flexibility lacking in modern apps? Yes, absolutely. So in that sense this is indeed a dated feature.
> why does the app cost $25 on iOS?
Why is it “dated”? Also - why not? You’re free to use free desktop and web versions. Paying for ios app is a way to support the developer.
> why can't I execute JavaScript
Dunno about this one. What’s your use case? Can’t theg plugins cover it?
Honest question, I haven't kept up with Anki, but just saw that a new scheduler (v3) seems to be default now.
If you want to learn the elements for example, instead of having multiple notes of the form "element name->symbol", "element name->atomic number" and so on, you can have a note that includes the fields "element name", "symbol", "atomic number" and so on.
The cards then specify which possible combinations to show.
As you said - Anki has some aspects that are due in part to its 20 year age. We’re going to be addressing those issues so that people are not reliant on only one option.
That being said, the big hurdle with SRS software is ... lack of content.
I wrote one too but gave up on it because creating the content takes too long.
What I'd like to see someone create is an open and free wikipedia-type-everyone-can-contribute-content project specifically for flashcards.
When I sign up to any SRS I want to be able to point the software to (for example) www.srs-commons.org/topics/programming/languages/kotlin, or maybe www.srs-commons.org/topics/history/south-africa/the-boer-war, or www.srs-commons.org/curriculums/us/grade-10/trigonometry.
Students seem particularly motivated to create a commons of cheating material, maybe they could be similarly motivated to add to a commons of study material.
However, the project is more focused on giving individuals the platform to create their own sets/import from elsewhere, rather than hosting a large repository.
>A free, open source, local-first, spaced repetition system that works offline, has p2p syncing, plugins, and first class support for collaboration.
https://github.com/AlexErrant/Pentive
Very much a WIP, completely unusable, but I recently made a video demoing the technical proof of concept. I plan on it being more or less Anki-compatible though, so there'll be cloze deletions, note types, etc.
I can use AnkiDroid with the device in airplane mode.
For some users, it is absolutely critical that the spaced repetition program runs on a mobile device, because that lets them use any spare moments they have in any situation anywhere for the purpose of studying.
It's a web app, but the installation talks about Docker containers ... seriously?
In the future, we may potentially look into adding companion apps that can sync back to the server, but that is a far ways off from now.
tbh after trying SwiftUI the last few weeks I am tempted to give it a shot myself but being really unfamiliar with this type of web development trying to figure out the API routes seems a bit daunting
If you’re serious about giving the mobile client a shot, feel free to shoot me an email hwgilbert16@gmail.com and I might shift some priority over to the API.
What „larger sites“ does it refer to? All the comments here are about Anki but this seems to target something else?
Having more than a few decks also slows everything in Anki to a crawl. The community has responded by dumping everything into an uberdeck (killing reusability, which gets sourappled), when we could instead be coming up with theories on how best to juggle multiple decks to maximize learning.
To me, just for the sake of having a data point down, summarisation in writing is how I remember stuff.