Anki/docs/manual.txt

Anki User Manual
__________________
Damien Elmes <anki@ichi2.net>

Introduction
============

Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it is a lot
more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your
time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you remember in a given
amount of time.

Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki.
Since it is content-agnostic and supports images, audio, videos and scientific
markup (via LaTeX), the possibilities are endless. For example:

 - learning a language
 - studying for medical and law exams
 - memorizing people's names and faces
 - brushing up on geography
 - practicing guitar cord recognition

There are two simple concepts behind Anki: 'active recall testing' and 'spaced
repetition'. They are not known to most learners, despite having been written
about in the scientific literature for many years. Understanding how they work
will make you a more effective learner.

Active recall testing
---------------------

'Active recall testing' means being asked a question and trying to remember
the answer. This is in contrast to 'passive' study, where we read, watch or
listen to something without any output. Studies have shown that active recall
testing is far more effective at building strong memories than passive study.
There are two reasons for this:

 - The act of recalling something 'consolidates' the memory, increasing the
   chances we'll be able to remember it again
 - When we're unable to answer a question, it tells us we need to return to
   the material to review or relearn it

You have probably encountered active recall testing in your school years
without even realizing it. When good teachers give you a series of questions
to answer after reading an article, or make you take weekly progress-check
tests, they are not doing it simply to see if you understood the material or
not. By testing you, they are increasing the chances you will be able to
remember the material in the future.

You don't need to leave it up to teachers, however. Consider a language
learner who wants to memorize the following Indonesian words:

|============
|one   |satu
|two   |dua
|three |tiga
|============

Many students will look at each line in turn, concentrating on it for a few
seconds before moving on. This is passive learning, and so the results will
not be great. However, if you cover the right-hand side and check if you
recall each word, you'll find your initial memories are stronger.

Active recall testing can make for stronger initial memories, but it's only
part of the solution to learning efficiently.

The importance of review
------------------------

Even with active recall testing, if you wait too long before testing again,
you'll find you've forgotten most of the material you tried to learn. This can
be very demotivating, as it can feel like no progress is being made towards
your goals. In order to avoid this disappointment, it's essential to review
previously learnt material.

Despite the importance of review, it is often overlooked by learners. Part of
the reason for this is that reviewing was traditionally difficult. If you have
a page with 50 new words on it and you learn them in one day, some words will
fall from your memory the next day, others a few days after that, and others
may last a few weeks or more. It is difficult to return to the page and review
only the words you're about to forget.

Traditional paper flashcards make it easier to acquire material than a single
page with a list of words, since you can separate the cards into "known" and
"not-known" piles. They don't make it very easy to review the material in the
following weeks, however.

Spaced repetition
-----------------

The 'spacing effect' was reported by a German psychologist in 1885. He
observed that we tend to remember things more effectively if we spread reviews
out over time, instead of studying multiple times in one session. Since the
1930s there have been a number of proposals for utilizing the spacing effect
to improve learning, in what come to be called 'spaced repetition'.

One example is in 1972, when a German scientist called Sebastian Leitner
popularized a method of spaced repetition with paper flashcards. By separating
the paper cards up into a series of boxes, and moving the cards to a different
box on each successful or unsuccessful review, it was possible to see at a
glance a rough estimate of how well a card was known and when it should be
reviewed again. This was a great improvement over a single box of cards, and
it has been widely adopted by computerized flashcard software. It is a rather
rough approach however, as it can't give you an exact date on which you should
review something again, and it doesn't cope very well with material of varying
difficulty.

The biggest developments in the last 30 years have come from the authors of
SuperMemo, a commercial flashcard program that implements spaced repetition.
SuperMemo pioneered the concept of a system that keeps track of the ideal time
to review material and optimizes itself based on the performance of
the user.

In SuperMemo's spaced repetition system, every time you answer a question, you
tell the program how well you were able to remember it - whether you forgot
completely, made a small mistake, remembered with trouble, remembered
easily, etc. The program uses this feedback to decide when to show you the
question again. Assuming you don't forget a given question, the delay between
reviews gets bigger and bigger - so you may see a question for the first time,
then 3 days later, 15 days later, 45 days later, and so on. Because each
successive repetition results in a higher interval, the number of reviews
necessary on a given day is quite small, so this method can scale to hundreds
of thousands of cards entered in over a decade or more. And because the next
interval is adjusted depending on your previous performance for a given
question, it ensures you do the absolute minimum number of reviews necessary
to continue to remember the material.

Why Anki?
---------

While there is no denying the huge impact SuperMemo has had on the field, it
is not without its problems. The program is often criticized for being buggy
and difficult to navigate. It only runs on Windows computers. It's proprietary
software, meaning end-users can't extend it or access the raw data. And while
very old versions are made available for free, they suffer from a number of
bugs.

Anki addresses these issues. You are not forced to pay for it, so stuggling
students and teachers with budgetary constraints are not left out. It's open
source, with an already flourishing library of plugins contributed by
end-users. It's multi-platform, running on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux/FreeBSD, and
some mobile devices. And it's considerably easier to use than SuperMemo.

Internally, Anki's spaced repetition system is based on an older version of
the SuperMemo algorithm called SM2. Subsequent versions have managed to
squeeze out a little more learning efficiency, but they come at the cost of
greatly increased complexity, and they are more susceptible to scheduling
errors in real-world use. For a more in-depth discussion of this and the
differences in scheduling algorithms, see the bottom of
http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions[the Anki FAQ].

Installing & upgrading
======================

Windows
-------

 - Download the installer from http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the
download page].

 - Double click on it to run it.

 - If you are upgrading, there is no need to uninstall the existing version of
Anki, but please close your current copy of Anki before trying to install the
new one.

 - If you want to run Anki from a USB stick, follow the instructions on
http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions[the Anki FAQ].

Mac OSX
-------

 - Download the DMG from http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the
download page].

 - Open it and drag the icon into your Applications folder.

 - If you want to run Anki from a USB stick, simply drag it to the USB stick
   instead.

 - Follow the same steps to upgrade to the latest version, but make sure
you've closed any running version of Anki first.

Linux/FreeBSD
-------------

The currently recommend method is to install Anki from source, or use the deb
on http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the download page] if you are a
Debian/Ubuntu user. You may find a version of Anki is included with your
distribution, but at the time of writing a number of distros include a very
old version of Anki that has a number of known bugs.

To install Anki from source, download the tarball from
http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html[the download page], extract it, and
read the README file.

Getting started
===============

Anki is basically a intelligent flashcard program. First, you add a series of
questions and answer pairs (called 'cards'). These cards are stored in a file
called a 'deck' (as in "deck of cards"). You can add cards by typing them in
yourself, importing them from a text file, or you can use a deck someone else
has shared. Once you have a deck with some cards in it, you can start
reviewing and improving your memory.

[[creating-own-deck]]
Creating your own deck
----------------------

The most effective way to use Anki is to create your own deck, by typing in
questions and answers yourself. For example, you hear a new word on TV and
decide you want to memorize it? Jot it down and add it to Anki when you have a
chance. You learnt the chemical formula for Sodium Hydroxide in your text book
and don't want to forget it? Type it into Anki. When Anki later shows you the
idea again, you will probably remember the context you learnt it in, leading
to a stronger memory.

*To create your own deck*:

 1. Open Anki.
 2. Choose File->New.

*To add a new card to your deck*:

 1. Click image:images/list-add.png[] on the toolbar.
 2. Enter the question on the 'Front' area and the answer on the 'Back'.
 3. Click 'Add', or press Ctrl+Enter (Command+Enter on a Mac).

You'll see a screen like the following:

image:images/addcards.png[]

'Front', 'Back' and 'Add' are the important elements for now - the rest we'll
return to later. Front is a required field, so it is marked yellow until you
input something. The back can be left blank, so it is not drawn in yellow.

Making questions
----------------

Turning a given idea into a question and answer pair is simple once you know
how.

For general knowledge
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine you've just heard the following sentence:

  Canberra was founded in 1913.

The easiest way to test this is to make a 'cloze deletion'.

 1. Type the above sentence into the 'Front'.
 2. Highlight '1913'.
 3. Click the >> button to reveal more options.
 4. Click the [...] button.

As an alternative to steps 3 & 4, you can just press F9.

You'll end up with:

image:images/cloze2.png[]

For languages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine you're learning learning German and you hear the word 'bitte', meaning
"please". There are a number of ways to add this to Anki.

*As a word recognition card*:

Put 'bitte' on the front of the card, and 'please' on the back. When this card
appears later, you'll need to read the German word and decide if you knew the
meaning or not.  Recognition cards are easy to answer and will ensure you can
recognize the word when it pops up in the future.

*As a word recall card*:

Put 'please' on the front of the card, and 'bitte' on the back. When this card
appears later, you'll need to think of how to say please in German. Recall
cards are more difficult to answer, but will ensure you can produce the given
word yourself, rather than just recognize it. They are best used in the early
stages of learning, to reinforce basic grammar and core vocabularly. As your
knowledge of the language grows, recall cards become less practical, as
synonyms complicate matters.

*As a sentence recognition card*:

You can also add the full sentence you encountered to the front of the card,
optionally underlining the new word. On the back you can place a translation
of the full sentence, or just the target word. Adding the full sentence takes
more time, but means you're exposed to the word in actual use.

*As a sentence recall card*:

Sentence recall cards should be limited to core grammar or essential
phrases, as they are very difficult to answer correctly.

*As a combination of the above*:

It's possible to add more than one card at once by clicking on the button at
the top right of the 'Add Items' screen. This can be useful if you're learning a
language where reading a word is non-trivial, and you want to practice both
reading and producing the word.

Advanced input
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to input audio, pictures, movies or scientific markup, please see
the dedicated section below about adding content.

Using a shared deck
--------------------

Using a shared deck saves you from having to type in information yourself.
This is more convenient, but is not always the optimal way to learn. Consider
the user in <<creating-own-deck>> who enters new words they hear on TV. To
them, simply looking at the word should be enough to remember the context it
was used in and the meaning, naunce, etc. But to a different person using this
shared deck, it is just a single word with no context or personal
significance.

That is not to say shared decks are useless. Shared decks that are used in
conjunction with third party material such as a textbook can be quite useful.
If you and the original sharer are studying the same textbook, then you both
has the same exposure to the original idea in context. 

Shared decks that include some context on the cards (such as full sentences)
can also be quite useful.

To browse shared decks:

 1. Click File->Download->Shared Deck.
 2. Type in a string to search for, or scroll through the list.
 3. Select a deck you're interested in, and click OK. The deck will be
 downloaded and will open up.

Reviewing
---------

When you have found a deck you like or entered some cards in, it's time to
start reviewing. If the 'Add Items' screen is still open, close it by clicking
on close or pressing Esc. You should see a screen entitled 'Study Options':

image:images/studyoptions-basic.png[]

In the above example, it says there are 6 new cards today, and 6 new cards
total. If you've downloaded a shared deck, there will probably be more than 20
new cards, but Anki will only show you 20 per day by default. You can adjust
this number by changing 'new cards per day', but be wary of setting it too
high or you'll have many reviews to do over the next few days.

When you're ready, click 'Start Reviewing'. You'll then see a screen like
this:

image:images/review1.png[]

Here you need to look at the question and think about the answer. It can help
to say the answer out loud, but that is not necessary. It's ok if it takes you
a little while to recall the answer, but as a general rule if you can't answer
within 10 seconds, you should give up.

When you're ready, click 'Show Answer' or press the spacebar. You'll see
something like the following:

image:images/review2.png[]

Now you need to decide how well you remembered. Anki gives you four options.

Adding material via anki
========================
 - best practices
 - all buttons / shortcuts
 - changing fonts
 - adding text to every card

Fonts and colours?
==================
x


Reviewing / main window
=======================
 - what you see on the main screen
 - what buttons to press (see next section)


Study options
=============
x


Browsing your deck
==================
x

Importing & Exporting data
==========================

Importing
---------

text files, mnemosyne, etc

Exporting
---------

...

Printing
--------

...

Card props
==========
x

Deck props
=========
x

Preferences
===========
x

Cramming
========
x

Graphs
======
x

Statistics
==========
x


Plugins
=======
 - japanese/chinese/german etc


Sharing decks/plugins
=====================
x

Priorities
==========
x

Inactive tags
=============
x

Synchronization
===============
x

Leeches
=======
x

Media support
=============
x

Progress bars
=============
x

Running from a usb driver
=========================
x