Bug: Changing a deck's reminder settings changes even other deck's ones, unexpectedly

[snowtimeglass]

Reproduction Steps (1)

1. Create a deck and enable its reminder and specify its time.
   
   

2. Create another new deck.
   

3. Check the second deck's [Deck Options]>[Reminders]

Expected Result

Actual Result

Reproduction Steps (2)

1. Fix the time of the second deck to "02:22"
   
   

2. Check the first deck's [Deck Options]>[Reminders]
   

Its time has also been changed, unexpectedly.

These seem to be because the reminder settings belong to the option group of the deck, at present.
I think the reminder settings should be independent of the option group, that is, they should belong to the deck itself, as "Deck description" of the deck does.

Debug info

Android 4.4
AnkiDroid 2.8

[mikehardy]

This seems like a pending question vs the patches merged:

Do we want to have deck reminders stored in the options group, or per deck?

a) If we want them in the options group, then this should be closed as not-a-bug with a reference to the documentation (the merged PR ankidroid/ankidroiddocs#29 there specifically says "options group" is where it is stored).

b) If we want them in the deck, then this should stay open and the changes from the merged PR #4450 should be modified to use and persist per-deck instead of per-options-group

I think "a" (per options group) is a little surprising so I'd vote for "b" myself and could look into it if it seemed like the right direction

[timrae]

If we go for b, wouldn't that be surprising as well, since all the other options presented there are for the options group?

[mikehardy]

Hmm - I see what you mean. It's a little more mixed than that though:

• the drop down says "Deck Options", not "Deck Options Group Options"
• the "Deck description" is actually per-deck, if I understand it correctly

Some thoughts:
1- maybe rename the drop down "Deck options" to just "Options" (or split them completely)
2- maybe split the dialog into an "Options Group" section, then a hard rule, then a deck-specific section? (or have to different dialogs)
3- then (if per-deck reminders is wanted) move the reminders to deck-level storage and options area
4- alternatively, change the messaging from "Enable reminder notifications for this deck" to "Enable reminder notifications for this options group" and in the docs put a hint that people can clone options group and assign them to decks if they want per-deck options

The easy/immediate fix is to change the messaging (4 above) then have an enhancement request for whatever sounds good out of 1-3 for per-deck reminders in place of per options group

[snowtimeglass]

Thank you so much for your support.
I also vote "b".

I think renaming the item of the drop down list from "Deck options" to just "Options" is good. For one thing, it is a more accurate expression; for another, Anki Desktop uses the expression, "Options". Consitency is important.

"2" is not good. I feel it is a bit too much strict and troblesome classification. It seems to be enough to add a subtitle such as "current deck only", to the shortened title "Enable reminder notification", as Anki Desktop does on "Description" as follows.

Of course, the current title, "Enable reminder notification for this deck", tells users the point enough, but unfortunately it is a bit too long to display itself on portrait mode as follows. Consequently, shortening the current title and adding a subtitle would be good.)

[timrae]

Maybe rename the drop down "Deck options" to just "Options" (or split them completely)

I think we changed it to "deck options" on purpose in order to make it a bit more clear that there are more "options" available elsewhere in the program (the main settings screen).

I'd kind of love to remove all of this notification stuff from AnkiDroid if someone were to do something like this:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/anki-android/0LTx-avYWmg

[mikehardy]

Marking this for v2.9 so it gets swept in with #4944

[timrae]

I thought we just decided not to change that part in 2.9 lol

[mikehardy]

In the thread above I think what we decided was mostly just to make sure the messaging was super clear. My 2.9 was to make sure I re-read this and whatever text I proposed was in line with the thinking above. Nothing more :-)

[mikehardy]

I want to nail the exact change for 2.9 - here's what I'm going to PR for consideration:

• change the context / popup menu label to "Deck / Deck Group Options" so it's clear (based on the comment from Tim above) that deck-related options, but it starts messaging that there are two types
• change the actual "deck options" menu to have three sections with a "Deck Group Options" first, and "Deck Options" second
• If it isn't too hard, I'll add a header on the top of each sub-menu with the warnings from Anki Desktop (e.g., "Your changes will affect multiple decks....add new group ..." in red or "Current deck only")

That will align us mostly with Anki Desktop, but with a little less confusion between the two types of edit (where for instance in the screenshot above there is the red affects-group warning at the same time editing description says "current deck only")

[timrae]

It sounds kind of overly complex from a UX perspective to be honest, I think it needs more discussion

[mikehardy]

Check the screen shots on the PR - I would actually revert the menu change but just add the grouping and be done. Tiny change but signals the difference...

[mikehardy]

I might add a dummy preference at top of each group explaining deck group vs single deck but no more. Headers and footers etc were impractical on investugation

[timrae]

I'm not really a fan of the "disambiguation" approach. What criteria should we use to decide if a given option is tied to a deck or an option group? And consequently why do we tie notifications to the deck? Are there other current or potential options that should be tied to decks?

In general I'm not a fan of mandatory option groups in the first place, it's been one of the biggest sources of confusion for new users. I've been periodically asking @dae to consider a conceptual change there, I'm not sure what his current thoughts are on this though, I guess he's still considering various possibilities.

[mikehardy]

It's a storage issue and is why we have a second db for whiteboard etc so it can be deck specific. I did not want to go that far here, or graft deck specific stuff into collection storage (though I contemplated it for the reminders pr in general). This pr is just saying we have group things and we have deck things and desktop disambiguates because it's confusing, for now let's follow.

[timrae]

desktop disambiguates because it's confusing

I don't think desktop has any options that are applied to a deck rather than a group does it? Going back over the thread, it seems that @snowtimeglass also voiced opposition to the way you ended up implementing it

[mikehardy]

Desktop has deck descriptions that specific. The rest is per group, and both have messaging per the screen shots here. I don't like it either I see deck group reminders as temporary for 2.9 before reminders go deck specific, to avoid the inevitable confusion from deck grouos. Really I just want to button everything down for 2.9. If 2.9 can go without this I'm fine dropping it

[mikehardy]

To be clear (and the reason this was marked for 2.9 in the first place) is that I don't want to rip deck reminders out, I think they are useful (and use them myself) but implementing deck-specific storage is a big bite right now. There is already the deck-specific description which is called out in desktop vs group-related options, so this is simply trying to unify the messaging but I am still intending to do deck-specific reminders later. I re-read the comments as well and it is my understanding that everyone likes the idea of deck-specific reminders, but @snowtimeglass also liked the idea of having the menu separated to unify the messaging with desktop on whether a thing is deck-specific or not. So this is just half a loaf but it's something, maybe enough for 2.9 to avoid a torrent of issues in the area.

[timrae]

I think the way it's implemented in desktop is not perfect but it's a reasonable compromise until something better is developed:

• Call it "options" instead of "deck options"
• Note that by default everything is applied to all decks in the group apart from some specific exceptions
• In the case of the specific exceptions, write a clear message that it's applied only to the current deck

[timrae]

@snowtimeglass

On desktop what are the Japanese translations for "options" vs. the main preferences?

[mikehardy]

@timrae thanks for the clear direction - I can do those things, definitely. The more I see the menu with my disambiguation change in it, the more I don't like it - so I like the simple "Options"

I'll implement the "note by default" as a non-clickable preference because changing the layout of preferences screens is rather involved (a separate layout file and inflation etc etc) and in the end does ... the same thing.

The only exception is deck description and I'll do similar for that. Half a loaf for everyone :-)