Adding cards from Yomitan

Amgi can answer AnkiConnect requests the way Anki does with the AnkiConnect add-on, so Yomitan and other tools made for Anki can add cards to the open folder. Turn on Add cards from Yomitan in Settings ▸ General (⌘,). Amgi answers while it’s open, including from the menu bar with its window closed.

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Setting up Yomitan

1. Make a note type for the cards, such as:
   # note-types/Japanese.toml
   fields = ["Word", "Reading", "Meaning", "Audio", "Sentence"]
   cards = ["Word -> Reading, Meaning, Audio, Sentence"]
   
2. Make the deck’s file, such as cards/Japanese/Vocabulary.md. It can be empty; Yomitan lists it as Japanese::Vocabulary.
3. In Yomitan’s settings, under Anki, turn on Enable Anki integration. The server is http://127.0.0.1:8765, as for Anki.
4. Under Configure Anki flashcards, choose the deck and the note type, then fill in its fields, such as {expression} for Word, {furigana} for Reading, {glossary} for Meaning, {audio} for Audio and {sentence} for Sentence.

The add button in Yomitan’s popup now adds a note to the end of the deck’s file, with its audio and images copied to the media folder. View added note opens that file.

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How Anki’s ideas map onto Amgi

• Decks are files: Japanese::Vocabulary is cards/Japanese/Vocabulary.md, which is made if it doesn’t exist. Decks with no cards yet are listed too.
• Note types are the files in note-types. Basic, with Front and Back fields, makes Q:/A: cards, and Cloze, with Text, makes C: cards from {{c1::…}} deletions. Its Back Extra field has to be left empty.
• Fields arrive as HTML and are written as Markdown, as when importing from Anki: bold, italics, lists and line breaks are kept, and other formatting is dropped. Furigana from <ruby> follows its word in brackets, as in 日本（にほん）, since cards don’t show ruby yet.
• Duplicates are found as in Anki, by a note’s first field, in the deck or the whole collection as Yomitan asks. Whatever Yomitan allows, Amgi doesn’t add a card whose front is already in the collection.
• Note ids come from the cards’ text, like Amgi’s own card ids, so a note found before its front field was edited isn’t found by its old id.

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What isn’t supported

• Changing notes that are already added, as Yomitan’s overwrite option does. Edit the deck file instead.
• Media given as a web address rather than its contents. Yomitan sends the contents.
• Searches by date or review history, such as added:1 or rated:7. They answer with an error rather than nothing.

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Other tools

Other tools that use AnkiConnect, such as asbplayer or mpvacious, can add cards the same way. Amgi answers addNote, addNotes, canAddNotes, canAddNotesWithErrorDetail, findNotes, findCards, notesInfo, cardsInfo, deckNames, modelNames, modelFieldNames, storeMediaFile, retrieveMediaFile, suspend, unsuspend, areSuspended, guiBrowse, guiEditNote, getTags, multi, version, requestPermission and apiReflect. Only this Mac can reach the server, and in a browser only extensions and pages on localhost can use it; requests from other websites are refused. If Anki is open with AnkiConnect, it holds the port: quit it, then turn the setting off and on again.