ohare93
Need guidance: How to preserve study progress when updating decks with Brain-Brew
Current Behavior
I'm using Brain-Brew to generate Anki decks from source files. When adding new questions to my deck:
- I update the source files with new questions
- Recompile using Brain-Brew
- Delete the existing deck in Anki
- Import the new deck
Problem
I'm concerned that deleting the old deck before importing the updated version might be causing loss of study progress (card scheduling, review history, etc.).
Questions
- What is the recommended workflow for updating decks while preserving study progress?
- Does deleting the old deck before importing an updated version cause loss of progress?
- Is there a way to merge new cards while keeping existing cards' progress intact?
Additional Context
- Using Brain-Brew for deck generation
- Creating flashcards from book notes
- Need to frequently update deck with new questions
(Not @ohare93, (just a happy user of BrainBrew), so I might be wrong.)
- What is the recommended workflow for updating decks while preserving study progress?
Your workflow, but without step 3 (deleting existing deck).
- Does deleting the old deck before importing an updated version cause loss of progress?
AFAIU almost certainly yes. I believe that once you delete the deck (and hence the cards), Anki has no way of preserving the progress. (I haven't tested this, but I'd be surprised if this were not the case.)
- Is there a way to merge new cards while keeping existing cards' progress intact?
Assuming that you have a GUID field in your source files and that you don't change the GUID for the old notes/cards, then just reimporting the new version of the deck should do "the right thing":
- Update the old notes with any fixes (typo fixes etc.)
- Keep your progress for the old cards.
- Add the new cards.
(The GUID is the "id" which allows Anki to uniquely identify the note.)
I hope this helps!
@aplaice is correct (as usual!)
Try it out, and let us know if it doesn't seem to work 👍
