Mnemogogo: making Mnemosyne mobile

Mnemogogo is a plugin extension for the spaced-repetition flash-card program Mnemosyne. It enables cards to be reviewed on a mobile phone. Mnemogogo does not replace Mnemosyne—cards are still added and edited at a computer. Rather it adds the ability to export several days worth of scheduled and new cards to a mobile device, like a phone or palm pilot, where they can be reviewed and graded before eventually being imported back into Mnemosyne.

Exported cards are reviewed on a phone using custom apps. Two apps are currently available:

Unfortunately, there is no support for iPhones.

Installation

  1. If necessary, download and install Mnemosyne 2.x.
  2. Download the Mnemogogo plugin. (The previous version, for Mnemosyne 1.2.2 is still available here.)
  3. Start Mnemosyne, choose Settings/Manage plugins..., then click Install new plugin and select the file downloaded in the previous step.

Configuration

  1. Start Mnemosyne.
  2. From the Cards menu, select Mnemogogo.
  3. Select the Options panel, see Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the options panel of the Mnemogogo dialog box.
    Figure 1: The Mnemogogo options panel.
  4. Choose the number of days to include in the export. I recommend choosing between 5 and 8 days. More days means less frequent updates, but also that exports will take more space and time to store and load on your phone. If you choose too many days, it may not be possible to run the client software on your phone at all.

  5. Choose a directory to save the exported cards. This directory must either be on your phone, or, if not, it must be later copied or synchronized with your phone. More detailed instructions are given below. Usually, it is most convenient to mount your phone's SD card (as a USB mass storage device) and to export directly to a folder within it.

    For Mnemojojo, the Java client, it is usually best to export directly into a top-level directory called cards on your phone or SD-card. For Mnemododo, the Android client, it makes no difference where the cards are exported.

  6. If you have a Java-enabled phone then choose the Mnemojojo interface. If you have an Android phone then choose the Mnemododo interface.
  7. Fill in appropriate maximum values in the Exported image limits section. These values are used solely to tune the images exported to your mobile phone so that they will fit on the screen and within the available memory. The export and mobile clients will work regardless of whether the numbers are accurate or not.

Use

  1. From within Mnemosyne, open the Mnemogogo panel; see Figure 2.
    Screenshot of the main panel of the Mnemogogo dialog box.
    Figure 2: The Mnemogogo main panel.

  2. Click the export button to export cards and statistics to your phone. This will also (temporarily) prevent reviewing within Mnemosyne, but it will still be possible to add, edit, and delete cards. It is not possible to simultaneously review cards on your PC and on your mobile phone.

    Note that Mnemogogo only exports active categories. Categories can be activated or deactivated from within Mnemosyne (From the Cards menu: (De)activate cards...).

  3. If necessary, copy the exported subdirectory onto your mobile phone.
    This can be done manually after mounting your phone as an external hard drive, or by using software provided with your phone. Alternatively, using dedicated synchronisation software will reduce the chance of making a mistake (and possibly losing hard-earned gradings). Suitable applications include:
  4. You are now ready to review the exported cards on your mobile phone, per the instructions for Mnemododo (Android) or the instructions for Mnemojojo (Java).
  5. After reviewing cards on your mobile phone, the statistics need to be imported back into Mnemosyne. First, make the cards directory available on your PC at the path configured in the Options panel; either by mounting it appropriately, by copying the folder manually from the phone, or by running synchronisation software. Then start Mnemogogo and click the import button.
  6. For further mobile reviews, simply repeat the above steps. In particular, click export immediately after an import, and resynchronize, in order to continue mobile reviewing with updated cards.

Solutions to common problems

The filenames of the exported files and directories (STATS.CSV, IMG, etc.) are in lowercase on the phone.

All of the filenames must be in UPPERCASE letters. If you are using Linux, you may have to add the shortname=winnt option to the entry in /etc/fstab for the SD card filesystem.

Help! My phone crashed and now Mnemododo complains that ‟The exported cards are corrupt”.

This indicates that your phone crashed so suddenly that Mnemododo was not given enough time to fully write the STATS.CSV file. You should be able to recover most reviews by copying STATS.BKP over the top of STATS.CSV and restarting Mnemododo.