AnkiView 🎴

A command-line tool for managing Anki collections: view, search, delete notes, and import markdown flashcards — all without opening Anki.

It serves also as a much more powerfull drop-in replacement for inka2.

Features ✨

• View notes - View any note by its ID in your default browser
• Delete notes - Delete notes from your collection via CLI
• List notes - Browse and search notes from the command line
• List card types - See available card types in your collection
• Import markdown - Convert markdown flashcards to Anki notes
• Smart updates - Automatically track cards with ID comments
• Media handling - Import images from markdown files
• Hash caching - Skip unchanged files for fast re-imports
• Custom card types - Use any card type from your collection
• Automatic collection file detection
• Support for multiple Anki profiles
• LaTeX math rendering support
• Clean, modern card presentation
• Cross-platform support (Windows, macOS, Linux)

Installation 🚀

From Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ankiview
cd ankiview

# Build and install
cargo install --path .

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.70 or higher
• An Anki installation with at least one profile

Usage 💡

View a note

View a note by its ID:

ankiview view 1234567890

Use a specific collection file:

ankiview -c /path/to/collection.anki2 view 1234567890

Specify an Anki profile:

ankiview -p "User 1" view 1234567890

Delete a note

Delete a note by its ID:

ankiview delete 1234567890

Warning: Deletion is permanent and will remove the note and all associated cards from your collection.

Global flags work with all commands:

ankiview -c /path/to/collection.anki2 delete 1234567890
ankiview -p "User 1" delete 1234567890

List notes

List all notes in your collection with their IDs and first line of content:

ankiview list

Filter notes by searching the front field:

ankiview list "rust programming"

This is useful for:

• Finding note IDs when you know the content
• Browsing your collection from the command line
• Quick searches without opening Anki

List available card types

List all card types (notetypes) available in your Anki collection:

ankiview list-card-types

This shows you which card types you can use with the --card-type flag.

Collect markdown cards

Import markdown flashcards into your Anki collection:

# Import a single file
ankiview collect notes.md

# Import a directory (non-recursive)
ankiview collect notes/

# Import recursively (all subdirectories)
ankiview collect -r notes/

# Use a specific card type
ankiview collect --card-type "Basic" notes.md

Markdown Format

Basic cards (question and answer):

---
Deck: Programming
Tags: rust basics

1. What is Rust?
> A systems programming language

2. What is Cargo?
> Rust's package manager
---

Cloze deletion cards:

---
Deck: Programming

1. Rust provides {memory safety} without garbage collection.
2. The {{c1::borrow checker}} ensures {{c2::safe concurrency}}.
---

Cards with images:

---
Deck: ComputerScience

1. What type of graph is this?
> ![Graph diagram](images/dag.png)
> A directed acyclic graph (DAG)
---

How It Works

1. AnkiView reads your markdown files
2. Creates or updates notes in Anki
3. Injects ID comments into your markdown for tracking
4. Copies media files to Anki's collection.media/

After the first run, your markdown will have ID comments:

<!--ID:1686433857327-->
1. What is Rust?
> A systems programming language

This allows you to edit the content and re-run collect to update (not duplicate) the cards.

Advanced Usage

# Use a specific card type (defaults to "Inka Basic")
ankiview collect --card-type "Basic" notes/

# Recover lost IDs by searching Anki
ankiview collect -u notes/

# Force rebuild (bypass cache)
ankiview collect -f notes/

# Overwrite existing media files
ankiview collect --force notes/

# Continue on errors, report at end
ankiview collect -i notes/

# Combine flags for batch processing
ankiview collect -ri --card-type "Basic" notes/

Flag Reference

Flag	Description
-r, --recursive	Process subdirectories
--force	Overwrite conflicting media files
-i, --ignore-errors	Continue processing on errors
-f, --full-sync	Bypass hash cache (force rebuild)
-u, --update-ids	Search Anki for existing notes by content
--card-type TYPE	Use specific card type (defaults to "Inka Basic")

Performance Note: AnkiView maintains a hash cache to skip unchanged files. Use -f to force processing all files.

Debug logging

Enable debug logging for any command (global flags can appear before or after subcommand):

ankiview -v delete 1234567890      # DEBUG level
ankiview -vv view 1234567890       # TRACE level
ankiview delete -v 1234567890      # Also works

How It Works 🔧

AnkiView:

1. Locates your Anki collection file
2. Opens the collection safely (read-only)
3. Retrieves the specified note
4. Generates a beautiful HTML preview
5. Opens it in your default browser

Example Output 📝

When you view a note, you'll see:

• The question and answer clearly separated
• Properly rendered LaTeX equations
• Card tags and metadata
• Clean, modern styling

Development 🛠

The project structure:

src/
├── application/     # Use cases and business logic
├── cli/            # Command-line interface
├── domain/         # Core domain models
├── infrastructure/ # External interfaces (Anki, browser)
└── ports/          # Input/output adapters

Running Tests

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Run with logging
RUST_LOG=debug cargo test

Troubleshooting 🔍

Common Issues

1. "Collection file not found"

   • Ensure Anki is installed
   • Check if the profile name is correct
   • Verify the collection path

2. "Failed to open Anki collection"

   • Make sure Anki isn't running (required for all commands)
   • Check file permissions

3. "Notetype '...' not found" (collect command)

   • The specified card type doesn't exist in your collection
   • Run ankiview list-card-types to see available types
   • Omit --card-type to use the default "Inka Basic"
   • Create the card type in Anki first if needed

4. "Different file with the same name already exists" (collect command)

   • Media file conflict detected
   • Use --force flag to overwrite existing media files
   • Or rename your image file to avoid conflict

5. Duplicate cards created (collect command)

   • Ensure ID comments (<!--ID:-->) are preserved in markdown
   • Use --update-ids flag to recover lost IDs
   • Check that you didn't manually modify or remove ID comments

6. Cards not updating (collect command)

   • File may be unchanged (check hash cache)
   • Use -f flag to force rebuild
   • Verify ID comments are correct and match Anki notes

Contributing 🤝

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Acknowledgments 🙏

• Anki - The amazing flashcard program