Status of this package and a way ahead

[orgtre]

I wonder if there are many people still using this package? For me at least it is still a very important part of my workflow. There is now org-anki, but it lacks many for me essential features that anki-editor provides (e.g. it only supports notes of type front-back and the front is limited to the heading). What is your experience?

Given that people still use this and that we don't all want to switch to org-anki, it would be nice to have an actively managed and centralized place to discuss and develop anki-editor. As of now there are 86 forks, but none of these have been reforked a lot or have otherwise attracted attention.

Since @louietan is not maintaining this package anymore, maybe he could announce a new maintainer for anki-editor? (Thanks for developing this package btw!) Or the community could decide on one? (As was done at pdf-tools.) Maybe we should also fork the repo to a GitHub Organization so that there can be several maintainers? (As was done at Selectrum.)

Given the importance anki-editor has for me, I would volunteer as maintainer, but the important thing is that there is someone who actively maintains it and there might be someone more suitable. In my fork orgtre/anki-editor I have merged the develop branch into master and made a range of minor modifications (e.g. to allow a more flexible note structure). I also finally published an add-on which allows one to import all notes from Anki into org and anki-editor's note format: orgtre/ankiorg.

Maybe someone else also has some interesting add-ons or modifications to share? And what are your thoughts on all this?

[cmirdesouza]

I was looking exactly for some actualized version. Im going to use your version, thanks for maintaining it.

[doolio]

Firstly, thanks @orgtre for opening this issue. I'm also interested in seeing this package updated and maintained. I had a quick look at all 89 forks and there are some with changes we may like to see merged in to any maintained version. I'm tagging anyone who has forked this package and made some changes irrespective of whether they submitted a PR here. If you did perhaps you might consider submitting a PR to orgtre's fork? Failing that orgtre perhaps it is worth looking at some of the changes these people have made and whether you should implement them directly - maybe the current PRs would be a good place to start?

@aktiur, @alexhenning, @Artraxon, @cashpw @emacsbliss, @furusi, @HyunggyuJang, @iveskins, @jeffalstott, @jody-frankowski, @kevinjfoley, @leoc, @marzipankaiser, @lexa, @matthew-piziak, @nicories, @pidofme, @sakesun, @Sodel-the-Vociferous, @Tevqoon, @ThanosApollo, @torfjelde, @tsmckelvey, @xianmin, @YangYiFeng-A, and @YorkZ.

If you are no longer interested in this package I apologise for tagging you so feel free to unsubscribe from this issue.

[ghost]

@doolio thanks for tagging me and bringing this to my attention. I'm using org-anki mostly because it's faster to create cloze cards, there are many features from recent anki versions that anki-editor lacks such as hierarchical tags. I might start working on something but it will be more similar to org-anki(no org-drill like syntax) for my own personal needs, so I'm not sure it will replace your anki-editor workflow, I will share it when it's usable. But I will gladly support anyone that picks up this project anyway I can.

[Artraxon]

most people that forked it probably just added the additional argument for request--curl-callback to make it work and have it in a repository, so that wouldn't be a big contribution :D

[orgtre]

Thanks @doolio for looking through the forks! I do indeed welcome issue reports and pull requests to my fork and would try to address them (time permitting of course).

Other than old forks, good places to look for ideas for improvement of anki-editor might be related packages such as org-drill (the original inspiration for anki-editor), org-anki (an active, independent project with basically the same goals; allows two-way sync between Anki and org for basic notes), brain-brew (allows two-way sync between Anki and csv files), CrowdAnki (allows two-way sync between Anki and json files), ki (allows two-way sync between Anki and md files), and genanki (Python library to create Anki decks).

[cmirdesouza]

From Org-Anki I think that the best use-case is simpler basic and cloze-cards. Im using anki-editor because it has acces to all the kind of cards I have, but for simple cloze cards and basic cards the syntax of org-anki is better. Other packages for emacs and spaced repetition mentioned on the readme of org-anki are pamparam and org-fc

[leoc]

Thanks for the mention!

I would love to see my pull requests #61 and #75 merged in a more actively maintained branch. This should allow heading nesting similar to org-anki afaict. :+1:

In any case I can help by rebasing my stuff if wanted. :smile:

[cmirdesouza]

I would love to have those features, can you make a pull request on the anki-editor of org-tree?

[orgtre]

@leoc and @cmirdesouza I believe most of this functionality is already there now via this and this commit. Not sure why your code was not simply merged though. It is probably worth checking what is still missing and what might have been done better by you @leoc.

[cashpw]

As for me, I forked to incorporate some pending PR's on this repo. However, I've since moved even deeper into the Emacs ecosystem by migrating entirely to org-fc.

[doolio]

As for me, I forked to incorporate some pending PR's on this repo. However, I've since moved even deeper into the Emacs ecosystem by migrating entirely to org-fc.

Thanks Cash. I've also looked at org-fc in order to have my SRS completely within Emacs. I continue to use Anki because of its mobile support which is important to me to ensure I do my reviews each day. My idea is to be able to use both as each package uses different PROPERTIES. Your gist is useful though. FYI, in the PR the link to your gist is still using your old username.

[IllustratedMan-code]

@orgtre it appears that @louietan is on github about twice a year and the last emacs related commit was about 3 years ago. I'm not super enthusiastic about a reply from them. Maybe it makes sense to make your repo standalone and try to replace the package on melpa with yours.

I'm also a fan of the organization idea!

[orgtre]

Thanks! These are sensible suggestions. I've emailed louietan just to make sure he doesn't want to give his input on this (in particular, if we want to replace his repo on MELPA it would be good to have his consent I imagine).

I've also created issues for making the repo standalone and replacing anki-editor on MELPA. Input would be helpful.

A Github organization would be great, but it would only be worth it if there is more than one person that continuously makes contributions. Unfortunately, right now, I am not seeing that.

Myself, I've also not been working too much on anki-editor, but I have some ideas which I'll put up as issues for discussion on orgtre/anki-editor once I've developed them more. Moreover, I've worked on some packages which, at least for me, enhance the experience with anki-editor: org-cc, org-colviewx, and csvorg. In addition there is anki-org. As always, any input, like bug reports or feature requests, is welcome!

[thanosapollo]

@doolio thanks for tagging me and bringing this to my attention. I'm using org-anki mostly because it's faster to create cloze cards, there are many features from recent anki versions that anki-editor lacks such as hierarchical tags. I might start working on something but it will be more similar to org-anki(no org-drill like syntax) for my own personal needs, so I'm not sure it will replace your anki-editor workflow, I will share it when it's usable. But I will gladly support anyone that picks up this project anyway I can.

A year+ later, I came back to this issue to keep my word :)

I've made gnosis, it's available via MELPA. Feel free to check it out if you are looking for an emacs alternative to anki.

[doolio]

Thanks @thanosapollo. Looks promising.