Introductory card (excluded from test) for decks

[transpain]

Hi,

Let's assume we have a deck for the French conjugation study. Right before starting the test, I would like to be presented with an introductory card or screen with the relevant information on the subject matter I am going to be tested on. In my case, I could enter in such card a picture of a table with the French conjugation. This way, I could "brush up" on the knowledge I'm going to be tested on right before the test. Ideally, this introductory card would have the following features:

1) Would be optional.
2) Would be, of course, excluded from the scoring.
3) Would ideally consist of as many screens (or cards) as the user wanted to put into it (in my example, one for the present tense, another one for the past tense, etc.).

I don't quite know if such functionality can be implemented or is already possible to deploy by modifying some setting.

Thanks in advance for taking this into consideration.

[transpain]

A different version of this idea, which might be also interesting for students.

Let's assume we have the following card:

Side 1: Verb in Spanish
Side 2: Verb in French
Side 3: Grammar rule that explains how the verb in French is built.

In certain cases, I might be interested in being asked all the three sides; but in other situations, I might want the side 3 not to show up (because I know the grammar rules and I just want to practise the conjugation).

Therefore, my question is: can I hide/unhide particular sides of the cards in a desk? If not, I would think this feature might be interesting.

Thanks again.

[norbert]

Take a look at the layouts: I would suggest creating two combination decks and define different layouts for them. Then you can decide which content goes onto which side of the card.

[Ernie]

Hi transpain,

For your first post, the app doesn't provide any way to show "introduction" cards. How about just creating a second deck that you can go through before studying your "real" deck.

For your second post, as Norbert mentioned, it sounds like you'll want to check out the "Card Layout" functionality. From the Deck Options screen, tap "Card Layout". There is a "Custom 1" (for example) layout that you can edit. Tap Edit then the layout. Here, you basically tell the app exactly what you want shown on each side of the card. On this first edit screen, there is a help button at the top right that gives you an introduction. Tap "Side 1->2", then here is where all the definitions are for what is shown on a card. Try it out and let me know if you have any questions.


Ernie

[transpain]

Thanks both, Norbert and Ernie.

As for the second post, I will try layouts straight away.

As for the first post, Ernie, I don't think your workaround can be considered equivalent. The reasons are the following (though I may be wrong given my scarce knowledge of the app):

1) That approach will unnecessarily double the number of decks. I say "unnecessarily" because the decks with just introductory information is not created for testing purposes, but just to give some general hints or description or overview... about the topic the user is going to be tested.

2) In my opinion, having to open a deck to get such hints or overview, close it and open the corresponding test deck is rather disruptive. I think collecting all the related information in a single deck smoothes the learning workflow.

3) Such introductory card could be useful to provide a general presentation of the deck to be studied. It would be like the prologue of a book. In fact, the app has already something like that: right before starting the learning, an overview of the new, active and excluded cards is given. Wouldn't it be useful for users to have the ability to add their own customized introductory overview (not with information on statistics of the deck, but on the very content of the deck)? Overviews of the content; summaries of the content; sources of the information; encouraging, motivating sentences; pictures generally depicting the topic (like the cover of a book)... I can think of many applications of this hypothetical introductory card.

Regardless of all the above, this is the best learning tool I've ever used. And your fast, detailed and relevant explanations in the forum just add more value to a near-perfect product. Thanks.

[Ernie]

Ok, thanks for your input. I understand where you are coming from. I don't see this being a very popular feature and am not going to place a high priority on this, but I'll make a note of this idea and consider it later.