From 7f8cb81eb86d855865e7c34bc8bde6fa2ae396bc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jedidiah Barber <contact@jedbarber.id.au>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2021 18:28:35 +1300
Subject: Article for Flashcard Deck Converter added

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+
+{% extends "base.html" %}
+
+
+
+{% block title %}Flashcard Deck Converter{% endblock %}
+
+
+
+{% block content %}
+
+<h4>Flashcard Deck Converter</h4>
+
+<p>Git repository: <a href="/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/fresh-deck">Link</a></p>
+
+
+<h5>11/11/2021</h5>
+
+<p>Anki is a sophisticated spaced repetition flashcard program. It also has a codebase going on 15
+years old made of Python and Rust, dependencies that make heavy use of Go, and a
+<a href="https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/wiki/Database-Structure" class="external">
+convoluted deck format</a>, all to produce a desktop program 100-140MB in size depending on
+operating system. In short? It's a mess. But since it has been around for so long and is currently
+the most used open source flashcard program it is also the one with the most decks people have made
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>The nearest competitor to Anki in my assessment is Fresh Memory. It is a much more compact and
+tidy project written in C++ using Qt with similar functionality for spaced reptition using
+arbitrarily sided flashcards. On the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flashcard_software"
+class="external">list of what's available</a> the only other open source options are Mnemosyne,
+another massive mess of Python, or OpenCards, which uses Microsoft Powerpoint of all things for the
+deck format. Unfortunately Fresh Memory was abandoned shortly after it was open sourced and has a
+whole host of minor issues that need working on. I'll get around to doing that eventually.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, here's a utility that converts Anki .apkg decks to Fresh Memory .fmd decks.
+Oh, and it can also output to comma separated value format too if you find that more useful. Due to
+differences between formats some information does not carry over very well, but for most decks it
+should still perform adequately.</p>
+
+<div class="figure">
+    <img src="/img/deckconv_screenshot.png"
+         alt="A screenshot of the command line deck converter"
+         height="573"
+         width="824" />
+    <div class="figcaption">Command line utility</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Aside from the command line there's also a simple graphical interfaces put together using FLTK.
+Not the most pretty, but it works.</p>
+
+<div class="figure">
+    <img src="/img/gdeckconv_screenshot.png"
+         alt="A screenshot of the graphical interface to the deck converter"
+         height="301"
+         width="502" />
+    <div class="figcaption">Graphical utility</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Anyone trying to compile this utility or otherwise taking a quick peek at the code or readme may
+note there are quite a few dependencies involved. This is due to Anki's aforementioned convoluted
+deck format. Digging down through layers of JSON inside an SQLite database inside a zipfile is a
+little bothersome. Dealing with Fresh Memory's current XML based deck format is a walk in the park
+by comparison, even if it is more unwieldy due to any deck with media not being all one file.</p>
+
+{% endblock %}
+
+
-- 
cgit