Anki-android: Please swap search and sync buttons

[julienbaley]

Reproduction Steps

1. use Ankidroid for years
2. update to newest version
3. click on the sync button

Expected Result

It syncs.

Actual Result

It opens a search! Everyone has probably built a muscle memory regarding sync, and the sync button has just been moved to make way for a search button that's used (I believe) far less frequently. Is it still possible to fix this? Please~ :)

Research

• [x] I have read the support page and am reporting a bug or enhancement request specific to AnkiDroid
• [x] I have checked the manual and the FAQ and could not find a solution to my issue
• [x] I have searched for similar existing issues here and on the user forum
• [ ] (Optional) I have confirmed the issue is not resolved in the latest alpha release (instructions)

[david-allison-1]

Hi. I was originally concerned that menu items may be hidden if there are too many - sync is most important, so it should be at the "top" of the priority list, which moves it to the left.

But, as we're using "always show", this shouldn't be a problem

Thanks for caring!

https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android/blob/1be10dcaa8afe80c474435b9e568b6df24a0c593/AnkiDroid/src/main/res/menu/deck_picker.xml#L3-L13

[julienbaley]

I couldn't tell if your message meant you would want to fix this or not, until I saw the "accepted" label :)

Thanks for this! I haven't hit the sync button a single time since the update :-(

[david-allison-1]

@julienbaley Just to let you know, we have "auto sync every 10 minutes" in the AnkiDroid preferences.

I added a "close and sync" gesture to 2.14.0

We also have a "pull down to sync" function on the deck list.

[julienbaley]

Just to let you know, we have "auto sync every 10 minutes" in the AnkiDroid preferences.

Oooh, I'm activating this right now, that's awesome :)
Anki on desktop has recently (in the last few months) made the sync lightning fast, is this something that will happen to Ankidroid too?

We also have a "pull down to sync" function on the deck list.

I do use it sometimes, but it only works if you're already "scrolled up", and my deck list is rather long (28 decks at the moment).

[david-allison-1]

Just to let you know, we have "auto sync every 10 minutes" in the AnkiDroid preferences.

Oooh, I'm activating this right now, that's awesome :)
Anki on desktop has recently (in the last few months) made the sync lightning fast, is this something that will happen to Ankidroid too?

We also have a "pull down to sync" function on the deck list.

I do use it sometimes, but it only works if you're already "scrolled up", and my deck list is rather long (28 decks at the moment).

I've got a change which is just about to go into testing to start this work (and get all the recent Anki Desktop speed improvements). It'll take quite some time for us to get around to improving syncing, but it will happen.

[julienbaley]

Looking forward to it, thanks for the awesome work :)

[julienbaley]

we have "auto sync every 10 minutes" in the AnkiDroid preferences.

I've had it since yesterday, and wanted to give feedback on the feature. I think it's extremely useful, but would really reach its full potential if "open" was the criterion instead of "start": most of the time, I switch between apps and never really "exit" (and therefore neither "start") Ankidroid, so when I switch back to it, it doesn't seem to be considered a start and therefore doesn't auto-sync. I don't know how easy a change it would be, but that's what would make the feature useful for me. :)

[mikehardy]

interesting idea. There was a push to organize and expand auto-sync capabilities before, and "app state" (foreground or background) is actually one of the reliably detectable things in Android (tech note: using the "lifecycle" architecture components, they let you set listeners for pause/resume app state which equates to foreground/background.

[mikehardy]

Separately (because I saw it separately - I'm processing the notifications as an email queue, sorry 😅 ) thanks for the note on the lighting fast desktop sync. I wasn't aware there was more speed to be gained there but maybe there is? Maybe it's part of the bit-by-bit conversion of desktop to Rust language from Python and Rust is just faster 🤔

[david-allison-1]

And the media sync (which takes the majority of the time) is moved to the background. There's a pending issue for this somewhere in the backlog