Its been a little over a month since I released the first Benkyo Box beta. Thank you all for your feedback and encouragement!
Last month I added drawings. With drawings, you can draw a question, an answer, or draw over an image. I've found out that even a crude drawing can be extremely helpful for remembering something.
As a complement to the drawings feature, I also added a shortcut for duplicating the question into the answer and vice-versa. This makes it easy to draw a question over an image, then draw the answer on top of the same image, but used as the answer. See here for a demonstration:
Speaking of images, I also improved copy-paste to support images from Safari, which used to only paste their URL.
I've also received feedback asking for sample content to see what the app is capable of, so I've included sample folders that you can optionally add to your library. It'll help you understand the types of cards that you can create and be better at identifying dog breeds as a bonus 🐕.
As I've been using Benkyo Box more and more, I've realized that I enjoy simply scrolling through my cards to review them. While scrolling, I might even know the answer to a question without even having to look at it. Likewise, I could know the answer, but because it took me too long to remember it, I want to mark it as "not known". This is why I added a quick way to score cards in the list by swiping them:
After implementing swiping-to-score, I realized that studying in the list is nice for when I want to skip to specific cards. To provide the full study experience in the list, the long press menu allows you to score cards. It'll only show up if answers are hidden of course (it's cheating otherwise!).
These list scoring features are also a great way to prune your cards before a longer study session.
There are more new features and bug fixes, such as:
And others. I'll let you discover those on your own :)
All that said, I want Benkyo Box to be used by everyone who would be benefitted by it, regardless of their income. That's why Benkyo Box will be free to download, and I'll work hard to ensure that you'll be happy using it with only the free features.
I also intend to keep working independently so that I can make product decisions that benefit you, not advertisers / etc. That's why I am including a paid product called Advanced Learner that brings in a few quality of life features. My intention with this product is:
The first Advanced Learner feature is Hidden Folders: a way to stop folders from appearing in studies so that you can focus on other folders. These folders won't appear in your daily studies and you won't receive notifications for them. When you are ready to study them again, unhide them, as shown here:
Hiding/unhiding doesn't change any progress done on the cards. This means that you can safely ignore a folder, then get back to it later when you are ready. Note: If you unsubscribe from Advanced Learner hidden folders will appear in studies again, but it'll remember their setting next time you re-subscribe.
There's another Advanced Learner feature in the plans, which may or may not make it to the first AppStore release 🤞. Of course, there's plenty of free features in the plans as well.
Finally, please tell your friends to try Benkyo Box out, send feedback, ideas, etc. I hope Benkyo Box reaches more people looking for a tool for their lifelong learning!
