Anki-Builder 1.31 User Manual

Copyright © 2002-2005 Copera, Inc.
All rights reserved.

The Anki-Builder installer was created using Inno Setup by Jordan Russell.


Contents


Introduction

This document describes the Anki-Builder 1.31 software for PCs with the Windows operating system.

Throughout the document, the names of interface elements such as menus and labels are indicated with bold text. Filenames are indicated with fixed-width text.


System Requirements

This software requires a computer running Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0 or higher, 2000, or XP. However, Unicode support is only available in those OS's that support it, namely NT 4.0 or higher, 2000, and XP. Without Unicode support, Anki-Builder will not be able to load or create databases that contain Unicode text.


Installation

To install Anki-Builder on your computer, simply run Anki-Builder_1.31.exe. This program can be uninstalled by using the Add/Remove Programs tool in the Control Panel.


Glossary

The following words are used throughout this document to describe fundamental Anki-related contepts:

Database - a database of Anki study content. The purpose of Anki-Builder is to create and edit databases.

Term - an entry in a database. In flashcard sessions, one term is displayed per flashcard. In multiple choice questions, one term is used per question. Terms contain a list of values. Terms can also belong to any number of categories.

Value - a piece of information associated with a term. A value is specified for a particular attribute. The type of information in a value depends on its parent attribute, but is usually a string of text.

Category - a unit of categorization inside a database. Categories are used to subdivide terms into logical groups that can be selected all at once. A database of content from a textbook might contain categories like 'Chapter 1', 'Chapter 2', and 'Chapter 3'.

Attribute - a description of a certain kind of information that will be stored in the terms in a database. An attribute has a name and a media. The media indicates what kind of data will be stored in this attribute. Media include Ascii and Unicode text strings. A database containing English-Spanish definitions might contain an 'English Word' attribute and a 'Spanish Word' attribute, both of whose media would be Ascii.

Ascii - a standard that assigns a number to each character in the basic Latin alphabet (in additional to many other commonly-used characters). Ascii can be used to store text in English and other Latin-based languages. Languages with other character sets, such as Chinese, Korean, and Greek, cannot be represented using Ascii.

Unicode - a standard which makes the handling of multi-lingual text on computers easier, by assigning a unique number to very wide range of characters used in human writing. Anki uses Unicode to store text when normal Ascii is not enough. Unicode can be used for almost all languages, including those represented by Ascii. Go to http://www.unicode.org to learn more about Unicode.


Basic Usage


The Welcome Dialog

The Welcome Dialog is shown each time you launch Anki-Builder. It has several buttons that help you begin editing quickly.

The Welcome Dialog

  • Create a New Database - pops-up the Create a New Database Dialog so you can begin editing a new database.

  • Open the Most Recent Database - opens the last database you were working on. If you have not yet saved a database, this button will be disabled.

  • Open an Existing Database - pops-up the Open Dialog, which lets you select and load any Anki database.

  • View Help - views the Anki-Builder User Manual.

  • Quit - exits the program.


Creating a New Database

You can begin a new database by clicking Create a New Database in the Welcome Dialog, or by selecting File -> New Database... from the Main Menu, or by pressing Ctrl+N. The following dialog box will be displayed:

The Create a New Database Dialog

You may now select a database template from the list. Templates are sometimes useful to speed up the process of creating new databases. A template is simply a normal Anki database that has been saved in the Anki-Builder/Templates directory. Go here to learn how to create your own templates. If you do not wish to start from a template, then select Blank from the list. Then click OK. You can also click Cancel or press Escape to cancel this operation.


Editing Database Properties

Each database you make has a name and description. The name will appear in the Database Selection Screen in Anki. The description can be viewed from Anki by tapping the Info button while the database is selected. You should use the description field to summarize what is in your database, where the content came from, what type of information is included, etc. The Database Properties Dialog will open automatically when you create a new database, or you can access it later by selecting Edit -> Properties from the Main Menu. Fill in values for each field and click OK when you are done. You can click Cancel to cancel the changes you have made.

The Database Properties Dialog


The Main Interface

The following screen shows the different parts of the main editing interface.

The Main Interface

  • A. Main Menu - Most editing functions can be executed from this menu. It is also possible to execute many of the most frequently used functions by using the Toolbar or by pressing a shortcut key.

  • B. Toolbar - Buttons in the Toolbar can be pressed to access frequently used functions more quickly.

  • C. Term List - This section contains a list of the terms in your database. The left column displays the position of each term. The right column shows one of the attributes from each term. You can adjust which attribute is displayed by using the View -> Display Attribute menu.

  • D. Value List - This section contains a list of the values for the currently selected term. The left column indicates the attribute, and the right column shows the value.

  • E. Category List - This section shows a list of all the categories in the current database. The checkbox to the left of each category name indicates whether or not the currently selected term(s) are members of that category.

  • F. Attribute List - This section contains a list of all the attributes in the current database. The left column displays the media for each attribute, and the right column shows the attribute's name.

  • G. Status Bar - This bar displays useful messages about operations that have been performed by the user.


Creating and Editing Attributes

Use the Attribute List section of the interface for all operations related to creating and editing attributes in your database. To create a new attribute, either right click on the Attribute List and select New Ascii Attribute or New Unicode Attribute, click on the +A or +U Toolbar icons, or select Edit -> New Attribute -> Ascii or Edit -> New Attribute -> Unicode from the Main Menu. The new attribute will then appear at the bottom of the Attribute List. Create Ascii attribute for English and other Latin-based languages like Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Create Unicode attributes for all other languages.

Creating a New Attribute

To change the name of an attribute, click on the attribute to select it, then click again to begin editing. You can also press Enter to begin editing. When you are done, press Enter or click off of the attribute name to submit your changes. Press Escape to cancel the changes you have made. You can only use Ascii characters in attribute names.

To delete an attribute, click on the attribute to select it, then either right click on the attribute and select Delete, select Edit -> Delete from the Main Menu, or press the Delete key. If the current attribute is being used by any values in any of the terms in your database, a warning dialog will pop up to confirm the delete operation. Clicking Yes from that dialog will remove the attribute from your database and delete any values using that attribute. This operation can potentially remove a lot of data from your database, so be careful when using it. If the currently selected attribute is not being used by any values in any terms in your database, then it will just be deleted without any warning message.


Creating and Editing Categories

Use the Category List section of the interface for all operations related to creating and editing categories in your database. To create a new category, either right click on the Category List and select New Category, click on the +C Toolbar icon, or select Edit -> New Category from the Main Menu. The new category will appear at the bottom of the Category List.

Creating a New Category

Changing the name of a category is similar to changing the name of an attribute. Click on the category to select it, then click again to begin editing. You can also press Enter to begin editing. Press Enter or click off of the category name to submit your changes. Press Escape to cancel your changes. Like attributes, you can only use Ascii characters in category names.

To delete a category, click on the category to select it, then either right click on the category and select Delete, select Edit -> Delete from the Main Menu, or press the Delete key. If any of the terms in your database are members of the category, then a warning dialog will pop up to confirm the delete operation. Deleting a category does not affect the terms in the category, besides removing them from the category being deleted.

The checkboxes to the left of each category are used to indicate and modify which terms are members of a particular category. Go here to read about setting term categorizations.


Creating and Editing Terms

The Term List section of the interface is used to create, select, cut/copy/paste, and delete the terms in your database. To create a new term, either right click on the Term List and select New Term, click on the +T Toolbar icon, select Edit -> New Term from the Main Menu, or press Ctrl+T. The new term will appear at the bottom of the Term List. The categorization of the new term will be the same as the currently selected term (if a term is selected).

Clicking on a term will display it's values in the Value List.

Creating a New Term


Editing Values

When a single term has been selected, its values will be available for editing in the Value List. To edit a value, select it and then either click on it again or press Enter to begin editing. Cut, copy, and paste are available during editing. When you are finished making changes, press Enter or click off of the value to finalize editing. You can press Escape if you wish to cancel the changes you have made.

Editing a Value

You can quickly delete a value by pressing Delete while the value is selected.


Editing Category Membership

Each term in your database can belong to any or all of the categories in the database. To put a term or group of terms into a particular category, select the term or terms, then click the checkbox to the left of the category you wish to place them in. A check will appear in the checkbox and the selected terms will officially become members of that category.

Adjusting Term Categorization

To remove the selected term or terms from a category, click the checkbox again to remove the check.

When you select a term, the categories it belongs to will become checked. If you select multiple terms, any of the categories that contain one or more of the selected terms will become checked.

You can quickly select all of the terms in a particular category by selecting a category and right clicking, then selecting Select Terms from the pop-up menu. This is useful to view which terms are in which categories, and to perform an operation on all the terms in a category.


Moving and Copying Terms

You can reorganize the terms in your database using the cut and paste operations. First select one or more terms in the Term List by clicking on a term, then either holding the Shift or Control buttons while clicking on additional terms or scrolling the cursor using the arrow or pageup/pagedown keys. Then either right click on a selected term and select Cut from the pop-up menu, or select Edit -> Cut from the Main Menu, or press Ctrl+X to cut the terms. The term that have been cut will be marked with a - (minus) sign in the left column of the Term List. You can now move the cursor to a different location in term list by clicking on another term or by scrolling the cursor using the arrow and pageup/pagedown keys. Then to paste the cut terms, right click and select Paste from the pop-up menu, or select Edit -> Paste from the Main Menu, or press Ctrl+P to paste the terms before the term at the current position of the cursor.

Pasting a Group of Cut Terms

You can duplicate terms in your database using the copy and paste operations. Select the term or terms you wish to duplicate from the Term List. Then either right click and select Copy from the pop-up menu, or select Edit -> Copy from the Main Menu, or press Ctrl+C. The selected terms will be marked for copying with a + (plus) sign in the left column of the Term List. Now move the cursor to the location where you want the copied terms to be inserted, and either right click and select Paste from the pop-up menu, or select Edit -> Paste from the Main Menu, or press Ctrl+P. The copied terms will be duplicated and inserted before the current position of the cursor. The categorization of the duplicated terms will be the same as the original copied terms.

Delete terms from the list by selecting a term or terms, then right clicking and selecting Delete from the pop-up menu, or selecting Edit -> Delete from the Main Menu, or by pressing the Delete button. This operation will destroy data, so a confirmation dialog will appear before deletion confirming the operation.


Merging Databases Together

Select File -> Merge from the Main Menu to merge an external database with the current database. When the file selection dialog pops up, select the external database to merge, and click Open. Attributes and categories with the same names will be merged, and terms from the external database will be added to the end of the current database.


Importing an Anki Text File

Select File -> Import -> Anki Text from the Main Menu to import data from an Anki Text file. This operation will close the current database. Anki Text files can be created by exporting an existing database from Anki-Builder using the File -> Export -> Anki Text command, or by editing a text file using an external text editor and following the Anki Text format.

Anki Text files are encoded in Ascii or Unicode (UCS-2), and are composed of two sections: the header and the term list. The header contains any number of lines, each starting with a keyword (Title, Description, Attribute, Category) followed by a value appropriate for that keyword. The header may contain any number of Category and Attribute lines. The term list section begins with a line containing only the text "Terms:". Each line in the term list represents one term in the database, and is composed of a list of tab-separated values. The first value is a pipe-separated "|" list of categories to which this term belongs. The remaining are values for each attribute in the database. The easiest way to understand this format is to export an existing database to an Anki Text file and take a look.


Importing a Tab-delimited Text File

Select File -> Import -> Text (Tab delimited) from the Main Menu to import text from an Ascii or Unicode text file. This operation will close the current database. The text file should contain one line for each database term. Values for each term should be separated by a tab character.

This operation is particularly useful for importing data from an Excel spreadsheet. From inside Excel, select File -> Save As... from the Main Menu. Then for Save As Type select Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt) from the dropdown list, to create a tab-delimited text file that can be imported by Anki-Builder.

Some manual editing may be necessary after import, depending on the format of the imported text file.


Importing a QuizApp Flashcard Module

For QuizApp users, Anki-Builder can import QuizApp Flashcard modules (but not multiple choice modules) directly into an Anki database. Select File -> Import -> QuizApp Module from the Main Menu, the select your QuizApp file. This feature is only intended for users who have already created their own QuizApp content, and would like to use that content with Anki.


Importing an Ergane Unicode Wordlist

Ergane is a useful Windows program which can translate words between many different languages, using Esperanto as a go-between. Ergane can also automatically build and export a wordlist between two arbitrary languages. Anki-Builder can then import that wordlist, using the File -> Import -> Ergane (Unicode) command. The Ergane file must be exported as Unicode.

Importing an Ergane Wordlist

Go to http://download.travlang.com/Ergane to learn more about Ergane.


Exporting an Anki Text File

Select File -> Export -> Anki Text from the Main Menu to export the current database to an Anki Text-formatted text file. If your database contains Unicode attributes, the text file will use Unicode (UCS-2) encoding; otherwise, it will use Ascii. The format of this file is described in the above section Importing an Anki Text File. Anki Text files contain all of the information stored in an Anki database, including name, description, categories, attributes, and terms. So, unlike exporting to a tab-delimited text file (which does not store the category and attribute data), you can export to Anki Text, make modifications, and reimport as Anki Text, without any data loss. This can be particularly useful if you wish to edit your database in a way that Anki-Builder does not allow, such as rearranging attributes and categories.


Exporting a Tab-delimited Text File

Select File -> Export -> Text (Tab delimited) from the Main Menu to export the current database to a tab-delimited text file. If your database contains Unicode attributes, the text file will use UCS-2 encoding; otherwise, it will be in ASCII. Each line in the file represents one term in the database, and each value is separated by a tab character.


Setting the Font

It is sometimes necessary to change the font Anki-Builder uses, depending on the language you are creating content in. Each Windows font contain characters for a particular set of languages. If you have enabled additional language support in Windows using the Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional Options dialog, fonts for each additional language will be available for use with Anki-Builder.

To change the current font, select View -> Font from the Main Menu, then use the Font Dialog to select any of the fonts installed on your computer. Font names beginning with an @ character are vertically-oriented and probably not suitable for use with Anki-Builder.

If you have it installed, the Arial Unicode MS font is selected by default, because this font covers a wide range of languages. Users editing Japanese text might use the MS Mincho or MS Gothic fonts, and the MingLiu font for editing Chinese text.


Setting the Display Attribute

The right column of the Term List displays a single value from each term in the list. Which values are displayed can be adjusted using the View -> Display Attribute item in the Main Menu. Select an attribute name from the sub-menu and the Term List will be updated to show values for that attribute.


Advanced Usage


Using the Quick Input Modes

There are two quick input modes that can be used to speed up data entry. These modes affect what happens when you finish editing a value (by pressing Enter or clicking off of the value). One Term at a Time Mode allows you to enter all the data for a single term at once, without needing to use the mouse or arrow keys to change which value is being editing. If this mode is active, when you finish editing a value, you will immediately start editing the next value in the current term. If there are no values remaining, you will start editing the first value of the next term in the database. If there are no more terms remaining, then a new term will be created and you will begin editing the first value of this new term. Activate this mode by clicking Input -> Quick Entry Mode - One Term at a Time or by pressing Ctrl+2.

The second input mode, One Attribute at a Time Mode, operates in a similar manner to One Term at a Time Mode, except that when you finish editing a value, you will automatically begin editing the value for the same attribute in the next term in the database. If there are no more terms remaining, a new one will be created and you will begin editing the value of that same attribute in the new term. Click Input -> Quick Entry Mode - One Attribute at a Time or press Ctrl+3 to activate this mode.

Select Input -> Normal or press Ctrl+1 to go back to the normal input mode.


Using the Pinyin Conversion Input Mode

There is a special input mode for entering in Chinese Pinyin text. When this mode is active, if you enter a number between 1 and 4 while editing a value, an accent will be added to the last lowercase vowel you entered. These accents correspond to the four Mandarin tones used in Pinyin Romanization. Click Input -> Convert Pinyin Numbers to Accents or press Ctrl+P to toggle this mode on and off.

Note: You should use Unicode attributes for storing Pinyin text, because not all accented letters needed to display Pinyin are available in Ascii.


Creating Your Own Templates

Template databases are useful when you need to create several similar databases quickly. To add a template into the template list, create a new database with the attributes and categories you want in your template, then save it into the Templates directory (by default located at c:\Program Files\Anki-Builder\Templates. The next time you run Anki-Builder and select New Database..., your template will be available in the list.


Creating Foreign Language Content

Creating content in Anki-Builder using a language that is different from the native language of your Windows installation can be done in several ways. One way is to install and activate a Windows IME (Input Method Editor) by going to the Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional Options dialog, then adding an Input Locale in the Input Locales tab. You can then switch to that IME by pressing Left Shift+Left Alt, and use it to enter text into a value in Anki-Builder. See your Windows Help documentation for further information regarding the use of IMEs.


Navigating the Interface Without the Mouse

It is possible to move between the different lists in Anki-Builder by using the left and right arrow keys. If you press the right arrow while in the Term List, focus will automatically be shifted to the Value List. Pressing the right arrow again will move you to the Category List, and then to the Attribute List, and finally back to the Term List. Using the left arrow will move you in the opposite direction. Use this technique to avoid having to move the mouse over to switch between lists, to accelerate your data input speed.


Restoring the Backup Database

Every time you make a change to the database you are editing, Anki-Builder makes a backup copy of the database in the same directory as the Anki-Builder executable (default is c:\Program Files\Anki-Builder). The backup is called backup.PDB. In the event that you lose the data in your database (because of a system crash, accidental deletion, hardware failure, etc.), you may be able to retrieve your database by copying the backup.PDB backup database.


Getting Additional Information

If you have a question about the Anki-Builder software that is not covered by this document, first check the support documentation at http://www.anki.com/support.html. If you cannot find an answer to your question, then e-mail customer support at support@anki.com.