A Long Overdue Update & Major Announcement (Patreon)

👋 Hey everyone,

I hope you're all well and managed to stay healthy during these crazy times.

So, where to begin... To address the elephant in the room, this is my first Patreon post in ages. While I've been talking to some of you guys through DMs and comments, quietly pushing some add-on updates on AnkiWeb and Github, and also popping up in my socials every now and then, I've mostly been radio silent on here for over a year a now.

There's no other way to say this: This was a major mistake. I should have reached out earlier and done a much better job at updating you folks. I did not and I am truly sorry for that.

As for the reasons why this came to be – I personally don't think any of them really justify things, so I don't want to spend too much time on them; but for those of you who are curious: Let's just say that 2020 and 2021 have thrown quite a few spokes in my wheel in my life outside of Anki. That, coupled with Anki's breakneck development pace and the unfortunate frequent add-on breakages that ensued as a byproduct, created a perfect storm that made it very difficult for me to keep up.

However, all storms eventually clear, and I think a fresh start has been long overdue.

For months now I've been itching to share with you guys what I've been working on in the background. That time is finally here, and to express my gratitude to all of you who've stuck around throughout all of this, I want to kick things off with a bang:

Starting today, over the next seven weeks I will be publishing seven major add-on releases on Patreon. These will include four major updates to existing add-ons, two brand new add-ons, and one Anki 2.1 rewrite of a fan favorite.

In addition to this, I will be releasing two major updates to my Anki add-on development tools which are already used by many of your favorite add-on creators out there. My hope with this is to create a more solid foundation for add-on development and thus make it easier for add-on authors to identify and fix add-on breakages early, which has become all the more important recently.

If all of this sounds very ambitious, you're totally right. I did have some help, however: I'm happy to say that two of the add-on releases above are works that the AnKing team and I have created as a joint production! We had been meaning to put our Anki heads together for a while now and we're super happy to finally be able to bring you the results of that collaboration.

By the way, the AnKing team have been doing an amazing job at helping the community update Anki add-ons across this turbulent era of frequent add-on breakages, so - if you haven't done so already - please make sure to check out their stuff. As Anki enthusiasts you'll find all kinds of goodies on there, both for free and through their membership program.

Also, if you're using the AnKing deck in medical school, keep an eye out on the upcoming AnkiHub release as this might just revolutionize collaborative deck editing.

Release Schedule

Alright, enough time spent on introductions, it's time to get to the interesting bit – the actual add-ons and release schedule!

We are starting off the add-on extravaganza straight away today with a major update to Pop-up Dictionary, with more fun stuff to follow as early as next week:

I am happy to announce that all of the releases listed above will support Anki 2.1.46 right out of the gate (or whatever the most recent Anki version is at the time of release).

So there you go! This is the plan for the next 7 weeks. Now if you guys don't see your favorite add-on featured in this release schedule, please don't fret! You can rest assured that I will get to all of them. I already have great things planned for BetterTags, AnJoy, PDF Glossary Exporter and many more add-ons, and I am very much looking forward to sharing more details with you on all of these later this fall.

Also, I want to announce that Pop-up Dictionary, Colorful Tags, Speed Focus Mode, and  Progress Bar will see a public release on AnkiWeb soon after this add-on extravaganza. Other add-ons will follow in the future.

A Sneak Peek at what's to Come

Now, if guys remember my Patreon posts (I hope it's not been too long!), I love screenshots. So what better way to conclude the schedule announcement than to give you guys a quick glimpse at this week's and next week's add-on releases:

Pop-up Dictionary v1.0.0-beta.1

Comes with stylish new light mode and dark mode theme, major under-the-hood changes for better compatibility, and a bunch of quality-of-life improvements.

Colorful Tags v0.1.0-beta.1

Brings tag coloring and pinning to Anki 2.1.45 and up!

Exam Notifier v1.0.0-beta.1

Let's you better adjust Anki to your exam schedules and make sure that you don't miss that one potentially exam-busting card that you're always shaky about.

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I will of course be sharing more details on all of these on their release. For the first release announcement: Look out for the Pop-up Dictionary release post and download that should be coming right up after this post!

A Long Overdue Thank You

I wanted to end this announcement post by thanking all of you for the incredible support you've shown me despite my terrible job at keeping you posted. If nothing else, I hope that this update shows that I am very much planning on doing better and not going on an unannounced absence like this again.

Whether you've stuck around or just briefly joined the community over the past year: Thank you. You are amazing. Your support has really humbled me and that is not something I will easily forget.

I want to leave you with this as a special thank you: For the next seven weeks I will be enabling annual pledges and setting up a 14% discount on all pledge levels. That way you should be able to get ≈2 months for free if you want to pledge your support for a longer period of time. This is not necessary by any means of course, I'm just happy that you're here reading this post :)

Thanks again for everything, and onto an exciting add-on extravaganza!

– Aristotelis (Glutanimate)