Vault-wide card generation- The one thing stopping this from becoming the NO.1 flashcard plugin

[Ali-C-Ila]

I am aware that this issue has been brought up multiple times in #94, #123 or even threads as old as #27, but I want to argue that this issue is of the highest importance, among all enhancements and even bugs. I'll quote #123 and put the description like this:

the "Generate Flashcards Command" would scan my entire vault (or specified) folders for new flashcards/changes and not only the currently active file!

When people use Anki, we are talking about hundreds of cards to memorize. And with obsidian, users will likely also make hundreds of .md files for them ( in order to do wiki links). So actual users will likely encounter cases like this:

I have been creating anki cards for hours, and I realize that I forgot to create cards for some files. Now I will need to go over hundreds of files to check which ones I forgot. If I updated some cards, the same problem arises. What's worse, I might not even realize that and go on for a long time, without realizing what I have failed to learn.

Bugs create problem for some users, yes. But lacking this feature is a pain for anyone that uses this plugin! Really hope this can be added soon, thanks!

Alternatives:

1. The most effective one: Ditch this Plugin and use obsidian_to_anki
2. Stack all the cards in one file, and cause a lot of trouble when using the quick switcher or generating wiki links
3. Put all the files that have been generated into cards in another folder. Still a lot of trouble, and not 100% trust worthy.

Notes:
Like the title said, I think this is only one step from being the NO. 1 anki-based plugin. The usage is stable, instinctive and user-friendly. Since the current NO. 1(obsidian_to_anki) has gone inactive for 2 years, I think it is not a far goal to surpass it.

[github-actions]

Thank you for taking the time to report the issue and help me to make the project better! 🙂

[reuseman]

@Ali-C-Ila thanks for the constructive feedback. At the beginning, the decision to make it work only on a single file was to keep the code simple and the user conscious about what was generating and being active in the process of flashcards generation. But you are totally right, and it's a pain in terms of usability when people write a lot of flashcards.

For this reason, as soon I can find a co-maintainer #125, we are going to implement this feature. Right now I am extremely busy and cannot manage to do it. But it will arrive soon!

[Yourself1011]

An interesting idea I had for this: To increase efficiency, maybe have an option to add the last time cards were created for a file. Then, compare this to the date modified of the file to see whether a file needs new cards added.

[bytewife]

Hey @reuseman, I just attempted to add this (what I thought would be trivial) feature by adding the following to main.ts:

		this.addCommand({
			id: 'generate-flashcard-all-files',
			name: 'Generate for all files',
			checkCallback: (checking: boolean) => {
				const allFiles = this.app.vault.getFiles()
				if (!checking) {
					allFiles.forEach(file => {
							this.generateCards(file)
					})
				}
				return true;
			}
		});

Unfortunately it appears that the files are being parsed incorrectly and so 0 files get a flashcard created. Why is this the case? Perhaps there's an error with Obsidian not having other files loaded? It's hard to gather based on the lack of documentation.

If you have ideas I can try them out