Flash Goban

The poor man's AI Sensei

Make Anki flashcards from (KaTrain) goban positions.

How does it work?

Here is a video example - https://rumble.com/v297lpq-flash-goban-a-tool-to-make-flashcards-of-your-katrain-goban-positions.html

We will go into detail in the "Usage" section. For now, let's just say:

Play a game
Download the SGF
Open up the SGF in KaTrain
Find a position where you could improve
Make a flashcard of the position(s)
Review your flashcards on a regular basis to improve.

A little more detail about taking the flashcards

Originally, this application made the flashcard for the front and back automatically. However, issues began to surface with pressing "Top Moves" in the KaTrain user interface. Therefore, even though flash-goban automatically makes the front of the flashcard, you (currently) must select "Top Moves" by clicking or pressing e manually.

Thus, as of this commit we are now manually making the flashcard for the back.

Installation

Download and install the Anki flashcard software

https://apps.ankiweb.net/

Download and install the Anki plugin Anki-connect

https://github.com/FooSoft/anki-connect#installation

BE AWARE: this opens up port 8765 on your local machine. I know of no security issues but CAVEAT EMPTOR.

Clone this repo

https://github.com/metaperl/flash-goban

Install Python on your machine

On Windows, I prefer to use Python from the Python software foundation. I had a brief run with Python from the Windows store as well as Chocolatey but neither worked so well.

Install the things in requirements.txt

shell> pip install -r requirements.txt

Then you can type python main.py to invoke the program. The program will then alt-tab to KaTrain and make a screenshot. Then it will click "top moves" and make another screenshot and then make a flashcard.

You MUST have Anki up with Anki-connect for flashcards to work.

Sound Effects

you may not be able to get the camera sound effects (made when taking screenshots) to work on your platform.

if so, set SOUND_EFFECTS to False in flash_goban/settings.py to turn them off.

Configure the program

You may or may not want to customize the execution of Flash-Goban in flash_goban/settings.py.

Optional: build an executable

you may get tired of opening up a command shell, cd'ing to the repo and then invoking python main.py all the time.

in this case, you can create an executable as follows:

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller make-exe.spec

Then you will find an executable named main.exe in $repo/dist/main. I like to right-click on this executable and then choose "Pin to Taskbar" so I can pin it to the taskbar.

Because flash-goban finds the kaTrain window by using Alt-TAB, just make sure to have the katrain window up when you click on the icon for your executable.

here is a video of using the executable: https://youtu.be/tr42FXu1pe8

Usage

Set your PYTHONPATH to .. Ideally you would do this in your environment settings once.
Startup the Anki flashcard software
Open up a shell
change directory to the flash-goban cloned repo
Type python main.py
Review a game in KaTrain, optionally copying the URL of the game to the clipboard (it will be added to the back of the card so that you can find the game later.)
(in default mode) When you see a position you want to remember, ALT-TAB to Flash-Goban and invoke it... flash-goban will take a picture without analysis and with analysis and add the URL on the clipboard to the back of the card.

Developer Guide

May the source be with you.

FAQ

Why not make a chrome plugin for this?

It actually was impossible as I discuss in the FAQ for OGS Buddy.

Related Work

OGS Buddy

Make Anki flashcards from Online-Go.com goban positions - https://github.com/metaperl/ogs-buddy

Acknowledgements

Sound Effects came many places:

from Pixabay is awesome
FreeSounds is awesome too

"Abort sound" came from Zapsplat.com

Contact

Email terrence.brannon@gmail.com

metaperl / flash-goban