AnkiMarkdown

This is my pet project where I experiment with my own markdown for Anki.

The idea

Anki browser is terrible. Finding data is hard and collaboration is practically impossible. The idea is to introduce a text format for Anki notes. This format needs to be minimalistic to well serve as a note. Thanks to that one could have the following workflow:

Making text notes when reading source
Adding tags and automatically generate notes from this text (easy notes creation)
notes should direct to this note in comment via a link (to give context)

Next, when we change our notes we want our notes updated as well. To make it possible notes needs to be identified. When we remove notes it should be updated as well.

All those capabilities are already implemented.

Ideally, this format should also allow public decks shared and updated socially. For that, notes need a different identifier than their deck id.

Format

Here is an example of the current format:

This is text {1}

qa: My question
aq: My answer

q: Question 2
a: Answer 2

And this {text} number is {2}

The notes generated from that are the following:

Card.Cloze(text = "This is text {{c1::1}}"),
Card.BasicAndReverse(front = "My question", back = "My answer"),
Card.Basic(front = "Question 2", back = "Answer 2"),
Card.Cloze(text = "And this {{c1::text}} number is {{c2::2}}")

Clozes can be both marked using single brace (like {aaa}), as well as using double braces with name (like {{c1::aaa}}). Though after processing the letter is generated as it should be preferred.

Also after those notes are added, ids are attached. They are necessery later for updating notes instead of duplicating them:

@1576516338844
This is text {{c1::1}}

@1576516338892
qa: My question
aq: My answer

@1576516338945
q: Question 2
a: Answer 2

@1576516338994
And this {{c1::text}} number is {{c2::2}}

Update your note with the generated one.

To see more examples, chek out unit tests.

Note types

Currently there are 4 notes types supported:

Plain text
Cloze deletion
Basic
Basic and reversed
List
Set

Types that should be introduced:

Graphic deletion
General - univerasal type that can cover any notes type

Anki Connect

Program uses Anki Connect. Install it in your Anki, and for this program to work correctly Anki needs to be open.

Usage

It is a Kotlin Gradle project. Import it in IntelliJ and it should be ready to go (supposing that you have Anki Connect installed and Anki started).

There are a few modes of usage, and they all needs to be started in IntelliJ using run button.

Sync - presented in Sync.kt, you can sync a folder or a concrete deck. A typical way to work with this tool. Before you sync for the first time, first use NodeModels.kt to add missing node models to your deck.
Write notes - presented in WriteNotes.kt, you can generate text, html or markdown from your notes.

Example program presenting existing notes from a deck in ReadAnki.

Next steps

New note types
Universal id (to support multiple note maintainers)
Support multiline code font
Distribute as a Kotlin script

MarcinMoskala / DeckMarkdown