Protect flashcards

[Shun]

Hi, it sometimes happens to me that custom flashcards are changed into dictionary-based flashcards if I add them to another category or accidentally import them with "Merge Cats" activated. This way, the custom flashcard definition becomes hidden, which I usually won't notice until much later.

Is there some mechanism in the works that would allow me to lock flashcards down until I unlock them, in Card Info, during an import or using a Batch command? (statistics could still be added) Since you are planning to integrate custom dictionaries in the flashcard database, thereby making the flashcard database more important, this functionality may become even more necessary. Thanks.

 

[mikelove]

Are you sure the flashcards are just set to "merge cats" and not to "update + merge"? It sounds like the latter is what's happening here - updating the card text in addition to adding to to the new category.

FWIW, you can use the newly added "restore hidden custom definitions" command in Edit / Batch to bring back those missing definitions in bulk. In general I'm more inclined to make it easy to roll back accidental changes (by keeping around custom definitions that are replaced by dictionary entires) than add a new 'locking' mechanism with a lot of extra UI / confused support emails from people who don't know why their flashcards won't edit / etc.

 

[Shun]

That was likely the case, yes. But what would you do with large dictionaries that are added to the database? I would want to make sure I leave them intact and only make duplicate cards of the same words, otherwise I could never know for sure where a card came from.

 

[mikelove]

We're not planning to put all user dictionaries in the flashcard database - most of them would still be their own standalone data files.

The user dictionary / flashcard merging plan (if we do decide to go through with it) would essentially just be treating your flashcards as a dictionary in addition to a flashcard database, with custom definitions from them showing up integrated with other search results, and making that the place where you go to add new words that you encounter / explanatory notes or new definitions for existing words / etc.

To create a 'user dictionary' in this new model you would either a) select a bunch of flashcard entries to dump into a user dictionary file or b) import a user dictionary from a text file, but those user dictionary files would be separate, independent dictionaries just as they are now.

 

[Shun]

Perfect, thanks! I think it would be a cleaner experience overall if you go through with it. Currently I'm using the search function inside Organize Flashcards way too often.