Changelog

Fresh Cards updates are constantly adding new features and tweaking existing ones. Here’s where you’ll find a complete list of changes over the years.

Version 2.18 2024/03/19

macOS

Fixed bugs related to custom spaced repetition algorithms like FSRS
Improvements to algorithm editor UI

iOS

Fixed bugs related to custom spaced repetition algorithms like FSRS
Fixed import bugs

Version 2.17 2023/09/28

macOS

Fixed layout bug where export progress would overlap the deck list
Adjusted card color slightly in dark mode
Fixed race condition bugs that could cause import to hang

iOS

You can now export your decks to file and share them with others! This feature is available in the deck settings.
Improved the import feature: you can now import directly from within the app. This feature is also available in the deck settings.
Fixed various import bugs, including race condition that would cause hang during import.
Fixed bug: sync indicator was overlapping with playlist settings. Now moved indicator next to sidebar button.
Cleaned up swipe gesture interactions on iOS during lessons
Adjusted card color slightly in dark mode

Version 2.16 2023/09/20

macOS

Fixed major bug where if you brought up the lesson settings or appearance settings in a lesson and then hit Esc key to dismiss them, the app would not save your changes
Some UI updates: play button color updated, stats screen colors updated, in-app purchase UI updated

iOS

Updated playlist UI to be a bit easier to use
Added a new Study Settings screen to make it easier to configure your study sessions
Added a new Playlist Settings screen to make it easier to switch playlist modes
Minor improvements to stats screen colors
Updated flip icon in editor

Version 2.15 2023/08/24

macOS

Improved card editor
- You can now add multiple cards at a time. If you tab “out” of a card, it’ll start editing the next card or create a new one to edit.
- The new UI is much cleaner and easier to use.
- Editor will now prompt you if you try exiting the UI without saving.
- Tag picker is smart and will pick up tags you’re using in the editor.
Quality of life improvements
- double-click now edits the card in the playlist instead of showing stats
- pressing return on a card in the playlist edits it
- spacebar now shows stats screen
Minor UI tweaks here and there. More to come in next update.
Bumped up minimum required OS version to macOS 12

iOS

You can now add audio files to your cards in the card editor
You can now add a photo directly from the camera
Lots of UI improvements to card editor
Bumped up minimum required OS version to iOS 15.6

Version 2.14 2023/01/10

Hello, and a belated Happy New Year!

This minor update just has bugfixes:

Fixed sync bug: There was a bug where files would get stuck in “pending download” state. Apologies for this one as it really broke sync.
Fixed bug where mode selection preference was not saved to device. (If you switched to Cram mode and quit the app, for instance, the next time you launched, it would go back to Scheduled mode.)
Changed where mode filter preferences are stored. They are now stored on each device separately and not synced. This is to avoid unnecessary syncs.

Version 2.13 2022/12/18

Happy Holidays, everyone!

This release has two big features: MathJax support for displaying math equations, and an improved sync engine.

MathJax support has been added to Markdown- and HTML-based cards! Simply write your math equation between two dollar signs ($) and it’ll be rendered using math notation. To enable this, you will need to explicitly go into the UI Settings during a review session and set the checkmark on. This will enable the MathJax for the current deck.
The sync engine has been significantly rewritten to be more reliable and efficient. I know a lot of users have been experiencing sync issues, so I re-designed it to handle failure scenarios better. There is also now a sync status indicator in the deck list which will tell you how many files are uploading or downloading. This should help you keep track of devices that are still in the process of transferring files. If you tap this status, you’ll be presented a summary screen where you can investigate which decks are still transferring files, and which specific files are being transferred.

Please note that there are still some cases where iCloud will take a few minutes to finish uploading or downloading a file, so please be patient when that happens. You’ll be able to tell that this situation occurs because you will see the upload or download icon appear in the sync status UI, which shows up at the bottom of the deck list.

Next up on my list of tasks is full Anki deck compatibility. Look forward to this in January!

Read on for some more minor changes, and Have a Happy New Year! ✨

Marker button appearance

Cards that do not have any content on the back will show the marker buttons right away now. You won’t need to flip to see them.
You can also now turn marker buttons on all the time in the UI Settings.

Misc

Lesson progress is now saved more frequently during reviews instead of only when you stop reviewing.
Tweaked progress bar behavior during reviews.
App will now do some temporary folder cleanup on launch to reduce disk usage.
macOS only: You can tap left to “undo” the last card in slideshow mode. Basically, left/right can navigate through the cards.
iOS only: All UI settings show up now when you tap the “…” button. You no longer need to take two taps to see it.

Version 2.12 2022/11/02

Hello and welcome to the autumn season and another Fresh Cards update!

This update contains a lot of quality of life improvements. Here are the quick highlights:

Choosing front-to-back and back-to-front ordering has been greatly simplified. Bring up the Settings screen when you start a lesson to see the new setting to pick which side you see first.
Card order has been fixed. There were several bugs found regarding ordering of cards during the lesson when they weren’t shuffled. If you choose un-shuffled order, they will now properly be presented in playlist order.
Lesson summary card order has been updated to match review order and now highlight the most recent batch that you reviewed.
You can now more easily add tags using existing tags used in a deck. Try editing tags now. On iOS, you’ll see a button to pick known tags. On macOS, you’ll see a dropdown menu to pick from a list of known tags.
On iOS, you can now long-press on a card in the card list to add a tag or start a lesson/slideshow.
A sync bug was found that could cause sync to stop working. It’s fixed in this release.

iOS changes in great detail

Fixed major, but hopefully rare, bug in the sync engine. When journal files were corrupt, the sync engine would simply stop processing the file. This update makes processing more resilient and skips the corrupt area.
Many quality of life tweaks to lesson order:
- lesson summary screen now displays cards in the order that you just reviewed them. Previously, they were sometimes randomized in the list, and newer evaluations were prepended to the list.
- lesson summary screen also now highlights the cards you just reviewed and appends them to the end of the list
- if you skip to the end of a batch of cards early and then pick up where you left off with the Continue button, it will now continue where you left off. There was a bug before where it would sometimes randomize the cards that you skipped.
- fixed a ton of bugs having to do with picking cards for review. Cards are now properly picked from the playlist in playlist order, unless you set the shuffle setting. There were lots of cases previously where cards were inadvertently shuffled in the deck even if you didn’t ask the app to.
You can now long press a card in the playlist to
- start a lesson from there
- start a slideshow from there
- tag it quickly
Fixed layout bug that caused header in main playlist to be pushed down the screen too much
You can now quickly add previously-used tags in the tag editor
Removed “Reverse card review” setting from deck prefs since new Review Direction setting replaces it
Removed Manual Score checkbox from app prefs since it’s more readily available in the lesson UI settings
Tweaked lesson settings UI so it’s more obvious you can scroll the list of settings.
Removed lesson size setting from deck prefs since they’re already in the lesson UI settings
Removed Auto-play audio setting from deck prefs since they’re already in the lesson UI settings
Removed “Reverse card review” setting from deck prefs since new Review Direction setting replaces it
Fixed bug where haptic feedback was enabled on buttons in lesson
Flash the UI scroll bar so it’s more obvious that it’s scrollable
Changed lesson UI settings colors so it’s easier to see scroll bar
Made lesson settings UI bounce in
Added better error information when encountering purchase issues

macOS changes in great detail

Fixed major, but hopefully rare, bug in the sync engine. When journal files were corrupt, the sync engine would simply stop processing the file. This update makes it more resilient and skips the corrupt area.
You can now quickly add tags in the card editor - just select it from the drop-down menu beside the tags field
Added better error information when encountering purchase issues
Show scroll bars for lesson settings and UI settings so it’s more obvious that there are lots of options
Adjusted lesson PAUSED label so it’s less in the way when viewing settings
Changed lesson UI settings colors so it’s easier to see scroll bar
Removed Manual Score checkbox from app prefs since it’s more readily available in the lesson UI settings
Removed Auto-play audio setting from deck prefs since they’re already in the lesson UI settings
Removed lesson size setting from deck prefs since they’re already in the lesson UI settings
Removed “Reverse card review” setting from deck prefs since new Review Direction setting replaces it

Version 2.11 2022/10/04

Hello and welcome to another Fresh Cards update.

It’s spooky season and the leaves are changing color here in the Pacific Northwest. That means shorter days, but more coding time for me! This update has a couple great new features, but watch out as I will be adding even more fun stuff in the next few months.

Okay, let’s talk about the updates…

Slideshow

This release adds a new feature: slideshow mode! On iOS, simply long-press the play button to access it. On macOS, right-click the play button or access it from the File menu.

Slideshow mode will auto-play the front and back of each card, allowing you to view the deck in a hands-free mode. It’s also useful if you want to record a video of your flashcards to share with others.

Quick Tags Search

It’s now easier than ever to filter by tag. Many people asked for this, so I’m happy to introduce this new feature.

On iOS, long-press the search button to bring up a list of tags used in the current deck. Tap one to filter by that tag. Once you’re in search mode, you can also tap the “+ search tags” button to add additional tags to your search.

On macOS, you can select tags from the Tags drop-down list.

Lesson UI changes under the hood

Some code for the lesson UI was rewritten to support slideshow as well as future planned features. Everything should still work as it did before, and you shouldn’t notice any changes. However, if you do encounter any bugs, please reach out to let me know.

These under-the-hood changes will make it easier to add two future features: template-based cards and better Anki importing!

Other macOS changes

Window size will now be retained between sessions (thanks to Sebastian for the request!)
Fixed bug where [sound:audio.wav] syntax was not removed from imported Anki decks

Other iOS changes

Fixed bug where long-pressing Play button wouldn’t work if search field was the focus
Fixed bug where [sound:audio.wav] syntax was not removed from imported Anki decks

Version 2.10 2022/09/08

Welcome to another Fresh Cards update. Just a few minor tweaks in this one as well as the addition of notifications to iOS.

macOS changes

When clicking the “eye” to cycle through front/back visibility, when back card is hidden, the front card takes the full width
Reduced default daily goal size to 10
Included “NEW” count in stats screen progress
Adjusted % Learned calculation to assume average 3.5 score

iOS changes

New feature: Notifications to review. Fresh Cards can now optionally notify you on days that you have cards to review.
When tapping the “eye” to cycle through front/back visibility, when back card is hidden, the front card takes the full width
Reduced default daily goal size to 10
Fixed app settings bug where “Haptic feedback enabled” and “Use manual 1-5 score input” wouldn’t toggle on tap
Minor tweaks to deck list: Moved New Deck down and moved sync status up
Made status messages stay on screen for slightly longer
Fixed UI bug where review status text would get truncated on iPhone mini devices
Included “NEW” count in stats screen progress
You can now rename a deck by tapping the deck name in the playlist view
Adjusted % Learned calculation to assume average 3.5 score

Version 2.9 2022/08/25

Playlist Screen Changes

Emphasized daily review count

The header has been redesigned to emphasize the number of cards you’ve reviewed today.

Daily goal badge

There’s now a daily goal badge that appears in the header. This replaces the little rocket (or flag) you’d see in the summary section below the header.

At first, this was just a minor aesthetic change I was playing around with, but after using it for a bit, I think it works a lot better. The gold badge jumps out right away, making it much easier to know if you’ve hit your daily goal.

Color scheme

The overall color scheme has been improved. The old color scheme was a little bit too colorful and made it difficult to emphasize other elements that needed it. (The tags label and progress bar colors have been muted, for example.)

% Learned

This one is really exciting. This new feature displays how much of a deck you’ve learned so far.

This number is an attempt at quantifying how far along the learning journey you are for a given deck. More specifically, it measures how close you are to getting a review interval of 35 days for all cards.

How % Learned it works

As you may know, the spaced repetition algorithm schedules out each card into the future, based on how well you’re learning it. The more times you’ve successfully remembered a card, the further into the future it’s scheduled out.

This % Learned feature will evaluate at what stage each card is in that journey to reaching a 35-day interval. It first estimates how many days from that very first review it would take a typical card to get to that 35-day interval. Next, it figures out, for each card, how many days it’s been since that very first review (or since the last “reset” of reviews in the case that you got a card wrong). Finally, this number is divided by the first one to get a “% Learned” for a single card. Fresh Cards does this computation for all cards and averages them to give you a final number.

So, it’s a little complicated. The math isn’t really important right now, and most likely the formula will be changed over time. The main purpose is just to give you some encouragement and an idea of how far along you are in your studying of a deck.

Caveats

Some things to keep in mind:

This percentage is a little jittery because of some intentional randomness (i.e. “fuzzing”) in the scheduling algorithm.
You can’t make this number go up just by reviewing the same cards over and over on a single day. Each time you review a card, it only marginally increases the interval between scheduled reviews. The only way to increase this percentage is to review your cards regularly on a long timeline.
Adding new cards to a deck, will make this number go down since you’re adding to your overall “learning journey”. If you are learning new things regularly, don’t be discouraged if this number goes up and down each day.
Getting a card wrong will also make this number go down. The percentage is a reflection of the best information Fresh Cards has at the time. It’s an estimation of how well you remember cards based on the last review. If you do a review today and find out you don’t actually remember a card anymore, then the new percentage should reflect that.
The “35 days between intervals” is a somewhat arbitrary metric for measuring how well you’ve learned something. I could use a longer interval, but I wanted to keep it low enough to be meaningful as a form of encouragement. (The higher this number is, the less progress you will actually see day to day.)

I really believe this is an important feature. Being able to measure your progress in some form, and getting feedback on how each review adds to this progress, is, I believe, an incredible motivator.

If you have additional thoughts on this metric, please do reach out to me to let me know what you think.

In-lesson Changes

The post-lesson summary now displays correctly in dark mode. Hooray!

I’ve updated the button for changing the lesson settings in the lesson. It now reads “Settings” instead of a gear icon on iOS or “Customize” on Mac. Hopefully this makes it a little easier for people to see and know that they can change lesson settings.

Fixed search queries

When you search for cards, the search terms are now logically ANDed instead of being ORed. This is pretty major. This change was suggested in the Discord. (If you’re not on the Discord, why not? Come join us and send your suggestions. They do get in the app!)

What this change means is that if you search for “#verbs eat”, it will find all cards that have both the tag “#verbs” AND the text “eat”. Previously, it would search for any cards that had either “#verbs” OR “eat” in the text.

Version 2.8 2022/08/20

This update has a few UI improvements.

Post-lesson Summary

The post-lesson summary screen has been updated.

It will now show a total count of cards reviewed in a session, instead of the number just reviewed in the previous batch. The total remaining is now displayed at the bottom. The buttons have also been updated so that it’s clearer that you have two options: stop reviewing or continue reviewing more cards.

I’m hoping this change has the effect of encouraging doing more reviews per day.

Note: I didn’t have time to update this for dark mode, so apologies for those in dark mode. This screen shows up as light mode colors for all users. I’ll work on fixing it in the next update.

Pre-lesson Status Message

The status bar message shown at the start of a lesson has been simplified.

The “Reviewing 5 of 250 cards” message was a bit confusing before. With the post-lesson summary screen updates, I didn’t think showing the “250 cards” part was necessary. The status bar will now just show you how many cards you’re about to review in the batch.

Lesson Preferences defaults changed

To make the app easier to understand for newer users, the following lesson preferences were changed:

By default, 2nd round (review reverse side) is now skipped
By default, reviewing new cards twice the first time is now turned off

I decided to change these defaults because I think new users may be confused and turned off by the number of times they have to review cards. In the long run, I think it’s better for learning to have the old settings, but that’s a personal preference. If you prefer the old settings, you can simply tap the gear or “customize” button during a lesson to change them for a deck.

iOS-only changes

Added a tip jar. If you’re enjoying the app and want to support it further, please consider making a donation here.
Fixed issue where the buy button was overlapping the status bar showing you how many cards you just reviewed.
Improved About screen.

Version 2.7 2022/07/20

This latest version of the app includes a ton of Quality of Life improvements to the review interface:

New lesson “rules” settings
New lesson UI settings
Option to skip cards
Improved lesson summary screen

And some other minor changes:

Tweaked stats screen fonts and colors
Improved responsiveness of app when typing in search field

Read on for more details.

Lesson “Rules” settings

When a new batch of cards is started, you can hit the customize button to change the lesson “rules”. These rules dictate the order of the cards presented to you.

Cards per batch – change how many cards are reviewed in each batch
Toggle shuffle or review in playlist order
Toggle review of both sides of each card
Toggle whether cards marked incorrect are re-reviewed at the end
Toggle whether new cards should be shown twice

Lesson UI settings

You can now customize some aspects of the lesson UI. On iOS, tap the “…” button at the bottom of the screen and select UI Settings to view the settings. On macOS, click the “Aa” button during the lesson to see the settings.

Adjust text size
Toggle dynamic text sizes
Toggle autoplay of audio
Toggle wide cards (only has an effect on iPad and macOS)
Toggle manual score input

Skipping cards

During a lesson, if you don’t want to review a card anymore, you can tap the skip button (the one that looks like fast-forward). The card won’t show up again in the rest of the lesson session.

The next time you start a new session (i.e. you return to the playlist and hit PLAY), the card becomes available for review again.

Improved Lesson Summary Screen

The lesson summary screen has been revamped to be easier to grok. The old one was a bit of an eyesore.🤷‍♂️ This new screen organizes the info in an easier to read way.

iOS-only changes

Added a dedicated undo button so you don’t have to dig through the context menu
Fixed layout issues with long titles
Improved feel of taps in-lesson. Flipping and marking cards is now handled on the touch-down as opposed to touch-up.

macOS-only changes

Added checkbox to enable inserting of tab characters when editing card text

Version 2.6.0 2022/06/24

This update adds a new free mode. Everyone can now download the app without a fee, but some features are locked down, requiring an upgrade to the Pro version.

⚠️ If you had previously paid for Fresh Cards in the App Store, you will automatically be upgraded to the Pro version. You will not need to pay to upgrade.

How do you know if you weren’t upgraded? You’ll see a button saying “Upgrade to Pro”.

If the app does not automatically detect your previous purchase, you can try pressing the “Upgrade to Pro” button to launch the upgrade screen and from there press the “Restore previous purchase” button. If that still does not work, please contact me at support@ussher.ca so I can investigate any issues.

Pro mode is a one-time purchase, as before, so there are still no subscription fees required to use the app.

Hopefully, this helps introduce more users to the app. 🎉 Be sure to let your friends know about the app so they can give it a try themselves! Point them to www.freshcardsapp.com.

macOS bug fixes

Fixed two crash bugs
Fixed bug in card editor where deck default card type was always showing Markdown.
Increased line height in markdown/html cards slightly

iOS bug fixes

Fixed two crash bugs
Fixed title of default card style in deck prefs screen
Fixed bug where Cancel button wouldn’t work in image picker
Increased line height in markdown/html cards slightly

Version 2.5.0 - 2022/06/09

This update adds the much-requested Markdown styling to cards. 🎉

Yes, it’s finally here! You can now style your text using markdown. This update also introduces an option to style your cards using basic HTML.

Please note that HTML styling still has some rough edges. For instance, it’s not possible to add javascript or custom stylesheets to HTML cards. Fear not, as those are coming eventually. (Along with template-based cards in the future, the app will eventually support full Anki deck import too!)

Eventually, you’ll also be able to provide your own stylesheet for the markdown text.

If you have specific requests or bugs regarding these two new additions, please reach out using one of the contact methods below.

How to use Markdown and HTML styling

Here’s a quick explanation of how to use these new features. When editing a card’s text, you can now pick how the text will be interpreted using the “Card text type” dropdown on macOS and “Type” button on iOS. You can pick from Default, Standard, Markdown, or HTML.

Default will cause the card to pick up the style setting from the deck preferences. The new setting in the deck preferences will allow you to globally change the style for all cards that are using the default.

Of course, you can pick a specific setting on each card. Just customize it to be Standard, Markdown, or HTML on the specific card and the app will always interpret the card text in that style.

For more details on styling, be sure to check out the help page as it will be updated over time with more details.

Updates specific to macOS version

Made font smaller on card preview screen

Updates specific to iOS version

Made “add image” button smaller in card editor

Other changes

Fixed bug where Text to Speech button would show even if there was no text
Added future-proofing support to SlouchDB

Version 2.4.0 - 2022/05/17

This update improves the overall performance and reliability of the app. Many things under the hood have been rewritten.

macOS updates

Improved sync speed.
Improved fidelity of Anki deck imports. Cards with multiple templates are exported correctly. Cloze deletions are handled correctly as well.
Fixed off-by-one issue where the last item in the card list would sometimes not show up properly
Fixed crash caused by dragging deck on top of another deck
Fixed bug where dragging file into deck list did not kick off import
Updated minimum macOS required to 10.15.

iOS updates

Improved sync speed.
Improved fidelity of Anki deck imports. Cards with multiple templates are exported correctly. Cloze deletions are handled correctly as well.
Added option to edit tags in a lesson
Fixed crashing bug when switching decks
Fixed off-by-one issue where the last item in the card list would sometimes not show up properly
Fixed deck reordering redraw bugs
Made font smaller in What’s New

Version 2.3.0 - 2022/04/05

macOS and iOS updates ⬆

Show only reviewed cards in Cram and Strength modes

You can now choose to show only cards you’ve already reviewed when in Cram and Strength modes.

Minor scheduling adjustment in the spaced repetition algorithm

The spaced repetition scheduler now uses 6h and 16h instead of 30m and 12h for its initial review intervals.

macOS-only updates

This update has a ton of improvements to the macOS app.

Improved tagging 🏷

You can now bulk edit tags on multiple cards. Just right-click after selecting some cards to access these new tagging features.

There’s a most-recently used list of tags as well, so you can tag cards very quickly!

Drag and drop text to import 📦

You can now drag and drop text you find on the web to create flashcards. Here’s an example. If you scroll down to the “Basic Portuguese Words A-Z” section, you can select the text in the list and drag and drop it into the app to start an import!

If dragging text isn’t convenient for you, you can also copy the text into the clipboard and then select Import from Clipboard from the File menu.

This new drag and drop feature is still a work in progress, so let me know how it’s going. I plan on setting up a page on the Fresh Cards site with more details on how to use the feature and some great examples.

The CSV import settings screen now has a larger list of potential delimiter characters, including “=” and several dash types. The app will now try to determine the most likely delimiter that a file (or dragged text) uses.

Export to open flashcard format improvements

Firstly, you can now drag and drop selected cards directly into a text editor to export. This is a great way to share cards quickly.

Secondly, the exported text no longer includes “front-text:” and “back-text:” prefixes if they would be redundant.

Finally, if cards have image or audio resources but no card text, we’ll export a “missing” text label to make sure the deck can still be imported later.

Minor card editor improvements

The card that’s being edited is now highlighted.
You can now just hit tab to toggle the front and back card editing.
You can Paste as New Card from the Edit menu if you want to create a new card with the contents of the clipboard. This currently just works with text and image file.

Version 2.2.2 🎁 - 2022/03/18

Match Game is finally back! If you have been missing this feature, thank you for your patience. It’s finally here again. Yay! 😀

On iOS, you can access Match Game by long-pressing the Play button. On macOS, you can ctrl-click the Play button or start it from the File menu.

For those of you using dark mode, I’ve improved the color choices for the lesson UI. I think you’ll find they’re a lot more harmonious. For macOS users, dark mode is now used for the lesson UI.

Version 2.2.1 - 2022/02/15

Two big improvements:

🗣 You can now enable text to speech so that the app reads the card text back to you in your chosen target language. On macOS, bring up the font menu (“Aa” button) to pick voices. On iOS, find them in the deck settings.
🌸 Improved lesson colors and appearance. (Light mode only for now.) I got good feedback that the colors weren’t so great in the lesson UI, so this improves it.

Several bug fixes and tweaks in this one:

Updated in-lesson hand setting to increment by 5
Audio will now start playing only after card has fully presented on-screen
Fixed bug where changes to the mode, filter, fonts, or hidden state did not immediately refresh the UI on other devices
Update font picker list to include all members of a font family and ensure current font shows up in the list, even if it was not found in the system
You can now change and save the sample text in the font picker
Adjusted font sizing on CJK characters so it only uses medium font when there are more than 4 characters.

Match Game is coming back! I wasn’t able to get it in this release, but hopefully the next one will bring it back.

Version 2.2.0 - 2022/02/06

macOS Version 2.2.0

Stats have been improved! This also includes some other minor improvements to update the macOS app to match the iOS release.

Added ability to hide card text when viewing in the card list. Just hit the little eye icon.
Updated UI slightly: moved stats button to footer, moved number of cards reviewed today to top of card list.
Tweaked timeline UI appearance
Dark Mode tweaks here and there
Use better underbar character for cloze deletion blanks.
Updated play button to match mode
New app icon! Spiffy. Let’s pretend the previous one never existed.

iOS Version 2.2.0

I hope you love this new version as there are a ton of new features and tweaks made based on your feedback.

Here’s a list of changes:

New stats screen! You now have way more information to tell you how you’re doing.
New app icon! Spiffy.
Dark Mode support!
New playlist view: instead of limiting the number of cards you can review per day, you can now select from multiple modes to pick which cards you wish to focus on.
Improved lesson interface. The UI has been revamped and gives you more options to repeat the last lesson, or string together several lessons in a row.
New bulk editor for creating multiple cards at once. You can now create several cards at once, and not only that, the app will let you know if it finds any potential duplicates.
Scrollable card contents. You can finally have long content for cards.
Customizable fonts! You can now pick your own fonts for the front and back of the card.
Manual 1-5 input buttons. You can now enable manual score input in the app settings and provide your own score from 1-5 instead of the left/right option during the lesson.
UI improvements across the board. There are way too many too mention!
Option to hide front and back contents in list view.
Updated SRS algorithm. It now takes early reviews into account when scheduling and avoids accelerating the SRS schedule too soon if you review a card many times in succession.

macOS Version 2.1.1 - 2021/11/27

New feature: front and back fonts can now be customized!
Dark Mode is now supported in the macOS version!
You can now paste images into the card editor using cmd-V.

Home Screen Updates

Limitless reviews. The app no longer prevents you from doing reviews outside of the spaced repetition schedule. If you only wish to see recommended cards to review, choose Scheduled mode and “Due or New” for the filter.

Playlist-style reviewing. What you see is what you get. Hitting play button will now start reviewing cards in the current search results, in roughly the order that you see the cards.

Four different modes for sorting cards. There are now four different sort orders for the “playlist”. Each mode has its own custom filters to let you limit the cards reviewed. The two main modes you’ll likely use are Scheduled Mode, which orders cards based on spaced repetition schedule, and Cram Mode, which orders based on their last review.

Lesson Updates

Cards can now be scrolled for longer content. You can finally scroll through the content in a card. You can enter as much text as you like in a card and the card will automatically size itself to fit the text.

Option to repeat reviews. When you finish reviewing a “hand” of cards, you can now repeat that same hand on the review summary screen.

Updated spaced repetition algorithm. The algorithm now takes into account if you review too early. The review interval is now computed as a weighted average of the previous evaluation and the next one should you review a card early. What this means is the next review date will not get farther and farther into the future if you choose to review early.

Updated font to Georgia. This font choice leads to better CJK text rendering and better rendering for other non-English languages. This still may not be the best font in all cases, so a future update will add in a font picker per deck.

You can pick between two different card widths during lessons. Cards can be resized to a wider format if you prefer that.

You can now press the 1-5 keys on the keyboard if you wish self-grade that way instead of marking cards as correct or incorrect. There is also now an option in the app preferences to enable “manual score input”, which will show 1-5 buttons instead of the traditional correct/incorrect buttons.

You can customize how many cards you wish to review within a lesson. Sometimes you want to review more cards and sometimes you want to review fewer. When you begin a lesson, you can customize how many cards you wish to review in the current hand.

Once a review ends, you can quickly start another one, using the remaining cards. Fresh Cards now lets you quickly start another hand of cards for review after you’ve finished one hand. The next hand will take from the remaining cards in the playlist, so you don’t have to worry about repeating cards from the previous hand.

You can now skip through reviewing the remaining cards in a round. There is a button beside the progress bar to skip ahead to the next round if you decide you have had enough with the current round. You may use this to skip the “reverse side” round, or even the “incorrect cards” round.

Miscellaneous

Breaking change in how lateness is computed for srsFunc. It now represents a value between -1.0 and +1.0 indicating how early or late the review is on the interval scale. For instance, if the interval is 100 days and the card is reviewed 50 days from the last review, the lateness factor is -0.50. If it is reviewed on the due date, the lateness factor is 0.0. And finally, if it is reviewed 100 days late, the lateness factor is 1.0.

Drills have been removed since the playlist-based essentially replaces the functionality in a better way.

Removed matching game. This feature didn’t fit with the current new playlist style review, so it has been temporarily removed.

New app icon!

Version 1.26 - 2021/10/18

This version includes several bug fixes.

The card sort order of imported decks was not being honored. This version fixes that. Imported cards now show up in the order that they were found in the original deck. They also get added into the deck in proper order. Imported cards will now no longer show up before any existing cards in the deck.

When choosing new cards for a lesson, they were previously picked randomly from the deck. This version makes it so that those cards are picked based on the card creation sort order. Along with the first item above, this makes it so that if you import a large deck in a specific order, your lessons will now be based on that order.

Sorting decks would sometimes not work. This is now fixed. Previously, sometimes dragging the first deck in the list to another position would not move the deck to the new position.

Be sure to check out the “Future Plans” section at the bottom of this page for info on upcoming features.

Version 1.25 - 2021/10/11

This small update fixes some sync issues users are seeing. If you were seeing issues with saving a new card taking a long time or data after a lesson taking long to be updated, this fixes that as well. If you encountered that bug before, with this new update, the first time you try to save a new card or finish a lesson, you might still see a delay. However, after that initial delay, subsequent actions shouldn’t take as long.

Please let me know if you still see sync issues or if this update fixes any for you. It’ll help me understand the types of sync problems users are seeing.

There is a larger update on the way, but it’ll take at least a couple of weeks more to complete. The new update will include a large revamp of the lesson UI and home screen.

Version 1.24 - 2021/08/23

This new version adds a much-requested feature: deck reordering. On macOS, you can now drag decks to reorder them. On iOS, you can tap on the sort order icon in the deck list to enter edit mode and drag decks to reorder them.

This update also has many UI updates, including a refresh of the deck list theme. It does away with the dark appearance and uses a new lighter theme. For those wondering, yes, dark mode will eventually get added, but I’m not sure quite when I’ll get to it.

On macOS, the card editor has been improved. The editor is much easier to use and includes the ability to scroll through the text content.

Lastly, if you haven’t yet, please be sure to give the app a review in the App Store. It helps improve its search ranking. Thanks!

Version 1.23 - 2021/07/18

This new version fixes a major bug with the sync engine that would often cause the sync to get “stuck” and never complete. If you are still seeing sync issues after this update, please email support@ussher.ca with details.

This update also adds a new feature, Match Game. This can be found in the Drills section of the app and is a simple game where you are given a random set of six card fronts and backs, which you must match one by one. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Version 1.22

This version number was skipped due to build issues.

Version 1.21 - 2021/06/27

This is a minor update for both iOS and macOS. This new version fixes a bug where new cards in lessons would not be reviewed more than once if they came at the end of the lesson. This version also allows you to turn off auto-playing of audio.

macOS

Fix bug where sometimes new cards shown once late in the lesson, would not be presented again
You can now turn off auto-playing of audio. Scroll down to the bottom of the deck preferences to see the option.
Fix bug where card editor would sometimes not dismiss after saving or canceling edit

iOS

Fix bug where sometimes new cards shown once late in the lesson, would not be presented again
You can now turn off auto-playing of audio. The option is in the deck preferences screen.

Version 1.20 - 2021/06/10

macOS

This release features several new shortcut keys to make using the app even easier:

if you do a search for text and hit cmd-N while in the search field, your new card will auto-populate with the search text. This should help in situations where you are searching to see if there is already an existing card, and if not go and create it.
shift-cmd-A in card editor will now toggle “add another card” checkbox
cmd-E during lesson will edit card, cmd-P will pause
cmd-E can be used to quickly edit a card that’s selected in the card list view
cmd-R shortcut to start a review and shift-cmd-R to start a quick review
added Import Deck option in File menu

Lesson tweaks:

tweaked lesson card so that cards don’t repeat so frequently; failed cards are now tested once you’ve gone through all cards
for double-sided cards that are new, if you’ve seen the front side, you won’t be forced to see the back side twice

iOS

Lesson tweaks:

tweaked lesson card so that cards don’t repeat so frequently; failed cards are now tested once you’ve gone through all cards
for double-sided cards that are new, if you’ve seen the front side, you won’t be forced to see the back side twice

Bug fix:

fix major bug where app would crash after finishing a large lesson

Version 1.19 - 2021/06/05

macOS

Major improvements to importing: better dupe checking, better user experience
Improved performance of loading card list. Switching between decks will be faster.
Fixed bug where empty Anki tags were imported
Made it so that if you include commas in tags line of import text file they will be treated as separators
Fixed bug when importing semi-colon CSVs: previously did not use the correct back card index unless it was manually set

iOS

Major improvements to importing: better dupe checking, now full-screen
Fixed bug where empty Anki tags were imported
Made it so that if you include commas in tags line of import text file they will be treated as separators
Fixed bug when importing semi-colon CSVs: previously did not use the correct back card index unless it was manually set

Version 1.18 - 2021/05/09

macOS

Several minor fixes and improvements:

deck import is now much faster
fixed bug that would cause sync to never complete (could happen on imported decks that had a large amount of text)
adjusted in-lesson schedule to space out cards more: new cards will be re-shown after 10 cards, and wrong cards will be re-tested after 20 cards
associated .flashcards type with the app so that you can simply open them from Finder
associated .apkg with app as well for easy opening

iOS

Several minor fixes and improvements:

It’s now possible to import decks! Use the Files app to share the following file formats to the app to start an import: .txt, .csv, Open Flashcards, Freshpack, or Anki decks
fixed bug that would cause sync to never complete (could happen on imported decks that had a large amount of text)
adjusted in-lesson schedule to space out cards more: new cards will be re-shown after 10 cards, and wrong cards will be re-tested after 20 cards
added sync progress bar
removed touch impact when swiping
made files viewable in Files app

Version 1.16 - 2021/04/09

macOS

This release has a ton of improvements that focus on the learning aspect of the app.

The spaced repetition algorithm has been improved significantly! The difficulty of a card is more precisely computed. Cards done late, but done well, are now given a bonus. Failed cards are now scheduled sooner for review.
Huge improvement in card order during lessons: the next card in the lesson is now optimized based on how well you’re doing. New cards and left-swiped cards are tested more immediately. The reverse of a card is now only tested if you are successful on the first side.
New feature: You can now customize the spaced repetition algorithm used for scheduling. Create and pick the right algorithm for each deck.
New feature: smart drills. You can now drill through cards outside of the lesson setting. There are multiple options for picking out cards you wish to drill, including just drilling on the difficult cards.

Miscellaneous minor improvements:

Drills now get recorded in your daily and historical stats
Lesson now uses current time to get overdue cards instead of using a 1-day window
Slight improvements to scrollbar layout
Touched up UI in various places

iOS

This release has a ton of improvements that focus on the learning aspect of the app.

The spaced repetition algorithm has been improved significantly! The difficulty of a card is more precisely computed. Cards done late, but done well, are now given a bonus. Failed cards are now scheduled sooner for review.
Huge improvement in card order during lessons: the next card in the lesson is now optimized based on how well you’re doing. New cards and left-swiped cards are tested more immediately. The reverse of a card is now only tested if you are successful on the first side.
New feature: You can now customize the spaced repetition algorithm used for scheduling. Create and pick the right algorithm for each deck.
New feature: smart drills. You can now drill through cards outside of the lesson setting. There are multiple options for picking out cards you wish to drill, including just drilling on the difficult cards.

Miscellaneous minor improvements:

Drills now get recorded in your daily and historical stats
Lesson now uses current time to get overdue cards instead of using a 1-day window
Touched up UI in various places
Tapping tab item will now scroll to top of the list

Version 1.15 - 2021/02/28

macOS

Fresh Cards keeps on improving! This new version has a ton of new features and bug fixes.

New features:

Added custom sort order: cards are now auto-sorted by next due date, but you can also sort by front card and creation order
Added multi-card selection. Select multiple cards to start lesson them, delete them, export them, or set their due date to today.
Drill mode. This is accessible by selecting multiple cards and bringing up the context menu.
Cards are now auto-sorted by next due date

Bug fixes and improvements:

Delete button can now delete decks or cards (versus just backspace)
Fix import bug on text files that had CR/LF instead of just LF line endings
Fix import bug on Open Flashcard zip files where they had a subfolder before the flashcards.txt file

iOS

Fresh Cards keeps on improving! This new version has a ton of new features and bug fixes.

New features:

Added custom sort order: cards are now auto-sorted by next due date, but you can also sort by front card and creation order
Added multi-card selection. Select multiple cards to start lesson them, delete them, or set their due date to today.
Drill mode. This is accessible by selecting multiple cards and taking action on them.
Cards are now auto-sorted by next due date

Bug fixes and improvements:

Fix jitter during card animation on iPad Pro
Added some footer space to the card list so buttons don’t obscure last row
Improved feel of swipe animation

Version 1.14 - 2021/02/06

macOS

Several perf improvements when syncing or updating the UI
Fix bug where cards with colons could not be imported from text file format
Improved deck renaming UI; you can now just double-click anywhere within the deck list item
Fix minor UI issues if you tap left or right quickly in succession
Minor perf improvements when importing large anki decks
Fix bug where in rare cases resources would not be synced

iOS

Several perf improvements when syncing or updating the UI
Fix bug where in rare cases resources would not be synced

Version 1.13 - 2021/01/18

macOS

A wonderful set of improvements:

Cards are shuffled in lessons such that you don’t always review front-to-back first
Added CSV/TSV file import — you can now drag and drop a multi-column CSV file and pick which columns to represent front and back
Added export to text file format
Allow up to two lines for title in deck list
Adjusted aspect ratio of cards and corner radius
Fixed bug where if you got one side correct easily but other side wrong, it would not schedule your card for the next day
Fixed an issue where image sync could sometimes be attempted too frequently on failed files, using up CPU resources
Fix scroll view in Deck Preferences
Made background of transparent images white so they’re easier to see
Bumped minor version number to match iOS versioning

iOS

Several minor improvements this release:

Cards are shuffled in lessons such that you don’t always review front-to-back first
Add option to rename deck in deck settings screen
Adjusted aspect ratio of cards and corner radius
Fixed an issue where image sync could sometimes be attempted too frequently
Fixed bug where if you got one side correct easily but other side wrong, it would not schedule your card for the next day
Made background of transparent images white so they’re easier to see

2021/01/04

macOS (Version 1.0.22)

Fresh Cards continues to improve with each release! This update has a ton of improvements, some listed below:

Lesson UI has been updated. Cards can now have different sizes and layouts based on their contents. Long-form content is now rendered in larger cards with smaller fonts. Text and image cards are displayed more compactly.
Reversible card reviews! By default, cards are now reviewed from back-to-front as well as front-to-back. Setting can be toggled in the deck preferences. Cards with no back content aren’t reviewed back-to-front.
Tweaked lesson behavior: you are no longer required to “swipe right” twice on a card to dismiss it, unless the card is new.
WASD can now be used as keyboard input.

Nitty gritty details:

Changed card animations during lesson
Cards are now also presented reversed in lessons. The score will be a combination of forward and reverse scores, with a slight weight on “failing grades” to ensure card is repeated soon if one side is weaker.
App will no longer ask you if you wish to quit when you hit the close window button (unless you are in a lesson or navigated to a sub-page)
Tweaked lesson scoring: you are no longer required to “swipe right” twice on a card to complete it, unless it is a new card and the first answer took you a while. This should speed up lessons a bit and reduce unnecessary re-reviewing of cards during lessons.
Hid the nav bar on the main content screen to give more room to content
Minor stats screen layout improvements, including bugfix where last heatmap entries would be cut off
Fixed bug where stats screen rows were selectable
Reduced “computing next review times” animation
Ending a lesson early will now take you to the lesson summary screen if you reviewed any cards
Layout of cards with image and text is now differnent. Text appears on top of image.
Card font size is now adjusted based on size of window, with a maximum.
Made image drag area smaller in card editor
Added some streak emojis
Improved card layout – text will be rendered side-by-side or overlapping image, depending on image and screen size
Updated tutorial
Changed progress bar to orange when new card is encountered
Can use WASD instead of arrow keys

iOS (Version 1.12)

Fresh Cards continues to improve with each release! This update has a ton of improvements, some listed below:

Lesson UI has been updated. Cards can now have different sizes and layouts based on their contents. Long-form content is now rendered in larger cards with smaller fonts. Text and image cards are displayed more compactly.
Reversible card reviews! By default, cards are now reviewed from back-to-front as well as front-to-back. Setting can be toggled in the deck preferences. Cards with no back content aren’t reviewed back-to-front.
Tweaked lesson behavior: you are no longer required to “swipe right” twice on a card to dismiss it, unless the card is new.
Larger cards on iPad.

nitty gritty:

Cards are now also presented reversed in lessons. The score will be a combination of forward and reverse scores, with a slight weight on “failing grades” to ensure card is repeated soon if one side is weaker.
Changed card animations during lesson
Improved card layout – text will be rendered side-by-side or overlapping image, depending on image and screen size
Updated tutorial
Changed progress bar to orange when new card is encountered
Reduced “computing next review times” animation
Tweaked lesson scoring: you are no longer required to “swipe right” twice on a card to complete it, unless it is a new card and the first answer took you a while. This should speed up lessons a bit and reduce unnecessary re-reviewing of cards during lessons.
Ending a lesson early will now take you to the lesson summary screen if you reviewed any cards
Card font size is now adjusted based on content and screen size
Added some streak emojis

2020/12/24

macOS (Version 1.0.21)

Fresh Cards gets better and better:

New energy bar shows how strong your memory of a card is
Improved deck context menu. You can now do the following from there: pause/resume lessons, rename the deck, remove the deck

iOS (Version 1.11)

Fresh Cards gets better and better:

New energy bar shows how strong your memory of a card is

2020/12/07

macOS (Version 1.0.20)

Added Open Flashcard format, an improved text format for importing cards with resources
Improved import logic: Anki deck can now be previewed before import
Updated quit message and logic slightly
Fixed layout problems encountered in Big Sur
Updated app icon
App is now built for Apple Silicon and Intel

iOS (Version 1.10)

Fix double-swipe bug where card would get stuck
Updated quit message and logic slightly
Updated app icon

2020/11/15

macOS (Version 1.0.18)

Add deck preference to disable cloze deletions [like this]
Allow use of normal brackets instead of cloze deletions by escaping them like this [ ]
Fixed bug where sync would not update deck based on remote changes.

iOS (Version 1.8)

Add deck preference to disable cloze deletions [like this]
Allow use of normal brackets instead of cloze deletions by escaping them like this [ ]
Fixed bug where sync would not update deck based on remote changes.

2020/11/12

macOS (Version 1.0.17)

Randomized new cards chosen for lesson and shuffled order of cards within lesson
New cards only need to be seen twice instead of three times
Slightly reduced animation times at end of lesson
Fix issue with placeholder text not being visible on back card

iOS (Version 1.7)

Randomized new cards chosen for lesson and shuffled order of cards within lesson
New cards only need to be seen twice instead of three times
Improved the deck list UI appearance
Slightly reduced animation times at end of lesson

2020/11/08

macOS (Version 1.0.15)

Added Blanks feature (aka “cloze deletions”) – just wrap text [like this] that you want to be hidden and it will show up in the back card automatically if you leave the back card empty
Use smaller font when detecting text has a newline in it and bold the first line
Fixed bug where “new” label wasn’t showing up in lessons
Update back card color to black and rounded corners slightly to make it pop
Made text editor use a smaller, normal font
Updated app icon

iOS (Version 1.5)

Added Blanks feature (aka “cloze deletions”) – just wrap text [like this] that you want to be hidden and it will show up in the back card automatically if you leave the back card empty
Use smaller font when detecting text has a newline in it and bold the first line
Fixed bug where “new” label wasn’t showing up in lessons
Update back card color to black and rounded corners slightly to make it pop
Updated app icon
Fixed bug where audio play button would not show in lessons

Version 1.0.14 - 2020/10/29

First Mac App Store build.

Version 1.0.3 - 2020/07/18

First beta