Yukogurafu

"Yukogurafu" comes from "directed graph" and Anki's tradition of using Japanese words, and is the name for an Anki add-on that lets you build notes as directed graphs.

Theory

Consider the Anki Manual's example card:

Q: Chemical symbol for oxygen?

A: O

It would also make sense to ask the reverse question. You can set the note type to "Basic (and reversed card)", and get this card:

Q: O

A: Chemical symbol for oxygen?

But if you word it like that, the front of the card is confusing. What does "O" mean here? What is it asking for?

Q: O - element name?

A: oxygen - chemical symbol?

This reverses cleanly. It's better, but then you have to memorise the question "chemical symbol?" on the back, or remember that it's not really part of the answer.

Ideally, the front of a card shows all of the question, and the back shows only the answer.

Q: Element name for O?

A: oxygen

But in vanilla Anki, that has to be a separate note. You must repeat yourself. We can do better.

The card associates "oxygen" to "O" via the relation "chemical symbol". Another card could just as well associate "N" to "O" via "next element", or "oxygen" to "diatomic gas" via "common form", or "O" to "oxygen" via "element name". In each case, one concept and a relation make the front of a card, while another concept makes the back of the card.

Concepts/terms/phrases : relations :: nodes : edges. Each card can correspond to an edge in a graph. The front shows a term (node) and how it relates (edge) to something else (node). The back, to be recalled, shows that something else.

On any concept, there are many facts to relate it to other concepts. To keep structure explicit, and not repeat yourself, you can combine these facts into larger graphs. A term used in many questions and answers becomes a node with many edges to and from other nodes.

Setup

Install it from AnkiWeb. Or download the ZIP, and install it manually with Anki's menu. For live feedback in the built-in editor, also install python-graphviz. If needed, restart Anki. If it still doesn't work, raise an issue here with the error message and/or faulty behaviour.

Usage

Yukogurafu centres around the Directed Graph [n] note types, with n the number of nodes in the graph, holding a field for each node and each possible edge, in both directions. Those note types are dynamically created by the GUI that serves to edit such notes. Those notes each produce one card per non-empty directed edge. In each card, the front will take the form "Context Source node Edge", and the back will hold the answer "Target node".

From the top bar's Tools menu, click "Edit Directed Graph" to launch Yukogurafu's GUI. If you launch it with the note browser open, it will operate on whichever note is focused in the browser. Otherwise, it will make and operate on a new note, its cards to go in the current deck.

Two labelled text-boxes near the top edit fields Source and Context. Source can hold information that won't appear in the cards. Context holds text that appears in the front side of every card for that note. Respectively, I use those to save why I learned something and what subject it fits in, hence the names.

The text-box at the top edits a field picked based on the graph view shown below. The graph view shows nodes (concepts) spaced around a circle, and edges (types of questions) as labelled arrows between them. Click on a node to edit that node. Node text (and edge text) can include formatting or references to images, but you will have to type that as HTML.

Click and drag from one node to another to edit the single edge pointing from one to the other. That edit "creates" an edge when you add text to it, and "deletes" it (and the corresponding card) when you set it empty. There are distinct edges from node A to node B and from node B to node A, each optional.

Double-click in the space between nodes to add a new node. There is no strict maximum size of a graph, but large graphs may cause performance issues. There is currently no way in this GUI to delete nodes; use "Change Note Type" in the browser for that.

Click OK to write changes to the collection. It is only then that any cards formed from the updated graph are added.

As graph notes are just another note type, you can also make and edit them in the usual Anki editor. The built-in editor is recommended to edit notes, delete notes, copy notes, move cards, or remove nodes. Yukogurafu adds a live visual of each graph above the editor. You can make a new graph note in the built-in Add menu iff you have previously made graph notes of that size in Yukogurafu's GUI.