MarkDown to ANKI

A simple NodeJS utility to create ANKI cards from a regular markdown file.

Reason

ANKI is a great tool to learn something new or refresh your knowledge. But creating ANKI cards manually and editing it one by one can be a tedious task. So, I decided to make this simple NodeJS utility to automate it. You write your markdown file once. Mark by special marks where your questions/answers begin, run this tool and it will create new cards via REST API thanks to this ANKI extension ANKI Connect

• Example of markdown file example.md:

DECK=JavaScript Test
MODEL=Basic Code Highlight

#QUESTION#
What is the JavaScript?
#ANSWER#
JavaScript is the programming language.

#QUESTION#
Write a simple programm which prints "Hello World" in JavaScript
#ANSWER#
    ```
    console.log("Hello World")
    ```

• This file above will generate 2 ANKI cards with corresponded questions and answers.
• #QUESTION# and #ANSWER# selectors defining the starting of question and answer respectively.
• DECK and MODEL defining deck name and model name (note type) respectively.
• Thanks to highlight.js source code will be highlighted in the right way.

Prerequisites

• ANKI
• ANKI Connect
• NodeJS >= 10 (I always used the latest NodeJS library but guess that older will work as well)

Usage

• git clone
• npm install
• npm run index
• Important:
  • When you update notes ANKI browser must be closed, see this issue: updateNoteFields returns errorless but does nothing
  • If you use it on the Macbook, keep ANKI active when you're running this script, otherwise it might be extremely slow due to AppNap see this issue: Response taking SECONDS in MacOS :O

Configuration

The configuration is done in the .env file located in the root folder.

ANKI_URI=http://localhost:8765
ANKI_API_VERSION=6
MARKDOWN_QUESTION_SELECTORS=#QUESTION#
MARKDOWN_ANSWER_SELECTORS=#ANSWER#
MARKDOWN_PATH_TO=/Users/anatoly/Documents/git/anki-cards/
OVERRIDE_NOTE=false

• Most settings are self explaining.
• MARKDOWN_QUESTION_SELECTORS and MARKDOWN_ANSWER_SELECTORS are selectors which defining the start of the question and answer, see example.md above. They both can contain multiple selectors separated by a comma.
• MARKDOWN_PATH_TO, path to directory where markdown file placed. Right now only single markdown file supported. Images must be places in this directory in images sub-directory
• OVERRIDE_NOTE, if true it will override answer for the note with the same Front field
• I advice you to clone the Basic model (note type) and add to its styling section the one of the following CSS styles supported by highlight.js to support highlighting.
• To support inline highlight you should use the following workaround, manually add the following CSS to styling section:

.inline-code {
    padding: .2em .4em;
    margin: 0;
    font-size: 85%;
    background-color: rgba(27,31,35,.05);
    border-radius: 6px;
}

For more details, look at this issue when using renderInline, highlight doesn't work.

• Note title are global, i.e. two notes with the same title can't be created even in different decks, see this issue canAddNote returns false when note with same field's value exists in a different deck.
• After all preparations are done just invoke from the root folder npm run index, ANKI obviously must be open when you run it.