AnkiMiniSync Version 0.1, an ‘offline’ sync script for AnkiMini (on the iPad)

Since I didn’t want to use the Anki Online service to sync AnkiMini on my jailbroken iPad and Anki on my Laptop I always had to copy the recent version from/to my iPad over ssh (sshfs). To automate that task a bit and save me some time I wrote this little sync script. It basically compares the two .anki decks in the local and the remote folder and replaces the older with the newer version. It does however -NOT- read the .anki file and merge the files properly. That means you can only work on one machine and then have to sync before you start working on the other one. It also means working on more than one mobile device is not possible (well, it’s possible but you’ll lose data through the sync process).

There are still some restrictions in this first version:

-Your username and directory where the Anki deck is stored must not contain any whitespaces (will be hopefully be solved in v.0.2)

-You can only sync one deck at a time (functionality to sync whole folders is planned for v.0.2)

-The .anki folder must be directly in the mounted directory of the sshfs volume

-You should have public key authentification turned on

-As far as I know this script only works on *nix systems, I have only tested it on OSX so far

If you encounter any bugs or problems besides the above don’t hesitate and write a comment! Don’t write any bug reports in the Anki support forums or to the developers of Anki (or AnkiMini), they have nothing to do with this.

Contributions to the code are always welcome of course. You are also allowed to use the code or parts of the code anywhere else, though it’d be nice to notify me somewhere along the way.

Link to ankiminisync-0.1.py

Anki: An Intelligent Study Card System For Any OS

A month ago I was looking for a new computer-based method to improve my study schedule. After a bit of searching in the endless depth of the web I discovered Anki, a flash card application that has several very useful features:

• It is written in Python and available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD – which means it runs on virtually any computer.
• There are a lot of  “Decks” (=sets of flashcards built by other users) already available on the web
• The interface is really nice and intuitive, adding sound, video or pictures to your cards is very easy, thus can be accomplished by people with little experience with computers. Also there are many options to adjust the program to your study habits.
• Anki uses spaced repetition. After each card you have to say how well you remembered it – based on that Anki will set the interval after which the card will be brought up again. With this technique facts will be pushed into your long-term memory. That means you won’t experience black outs in exams anymore as the hormone cortisol, released by your body in situations of psychological stress, only affects the short term but not the long term memory.

If that made you curious, why don’t you give it a try! Here are the download links:

Windows

Ubuntu (you can also install it with apt-get/aptitude, but the version in the repositories is pretty old)

Linux

Mac OSX

FreeBSD