How I Made an Anki Add-on That Feels Like Notion

Overview

The video describes how the creator built two Anki add-ons inspired by modern productivity/UI concepts—specifically:

• Notion-like editing
• A calendar-style study workflow

It also explains an approach for building Anki add-ons quickly using ChatGPT (“chatbt”) plus a coding helper (Codeex mentioned), along with iterative testing and debugging in VS Code and the Anki add-on environment.

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Add-on #1: “Weekly Planner” (inside Anki)

Purpose / feature set

• A weekly study hub that lets the user schedule when to review specific Anki decks across the week.
• Designed to match realistic study patterns (e.g., doing certain decks on Monday, others on Tuesday) rather than trying to do everything every day.

How it works (as described)

The add-on provides an add-on panel in Anki where you can:

• Add a deck (via an add-bar/search-like behavior).
• Double click a deck to jump to the review session for the scheduled day.
• Use a minus sign to mark completion for the day.
• If not done, move it forward (e.g., from today to the next day), continuing through the week.

Key implementation/detail

• The creator emphasizes that the schedule persists after restarting Anki by saving state within the add-on’s stored data/file, so items remain in place after reopening.

Behavior/limitation noted

• If you fail to move an item forward in time, the add-on may delete it or remove it from that day’s plan.
• The creator recommends either:
  • Moving incomplete items forward when necessary, or
  • re-adding them for the next day.

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Add-on #2: “Smart Keyboard” (Notion-like editing in Anki)

Purpose / feature set

• Designed to make Anki note-taking feel more modern and fast, mimicking Notion-style structured editing.

Key interaction features

• Bullet points / lists

  • Creates bullet list items quickly (e.g., using “dash + space” or “dash + enter” patterns).

• Toggles

  • A toggle block that can be opened/closed with a keyboard shortcut (described as Option + Enter).
  • Lets users add content inside the toggle and supports nested editing (like bullet points inside the toggle).
  • Toggle open/close is driven by template interaction.

• Headers

  • Uses “hashtag” shortcuts on Mac (Option+3 described) to insert:
    • Large header for one hashtag
    • Smaller header with two hashtags
    • Even smaller variants with more hashtags

• YouTube embed/import

  • Paste a YouTube link and press Enter to add a YouTube video into the editor/cards.
  • The creator notes this was important because previously they had to paste HTML manually.

Overall claim

• The add-on is intended for daily use, aimed at improving Anki editing speed and usability.

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How it was built (workflow using ChatGPT + tools)

Add-on discovery / scaffolding

• The creator advises starting from existing Anki add-on files:
  • Look at prior add-ons for common structures such as:
    • an initial file to initialize add-on logic
    • manifest/meta files
• They don’t go deep into internal details, but suggest ChatGPT can explain the structure.

Tooling mentioned

• VS Code as the editor.
• Codeex (downloadable coding extension/tool) used to generate or modify code.
• ChatGPT used to:
  • explain file structures
  • help define prompts for generating code
  • assist in debugging by describing issues and requesting fixes

Iterative generation + testing loop

The creator repeatedly:

1. Prompts Codeex/ChatGPT to produce or repurpose add-on files
2. Restarts Anki to see changes
3. Tests functionality
4. Collects bugs and feeds the bug description back into ChatGPT/Codeex for targeted fixes

Repurposing an add-on template

• They describe copying an existing add-on project (a “ring template” is mentioned) and re-prompting Codeex to repurpose it for a new idea (example concept: a ring progress widget similar to an Apple Watch ring).

Debugging approach

They emphasize that the system doesn’t always work perfectly, so:

• Clearly define the bug in English
• Ask for a solution
• Paste the bug plus the desired behavior back into the tooling
• Iterate until it’s stable

Time cost highlights:

• Quick prototype possible (hours)
• Fixing weird edge bugs takes longer (estimated ~10 additional hours per project)

Practical advice

• Find existing Anki add-ons that do similar things (e.g., symbol replacement) and reuse structural patterns.
• Keep an “idea first” mindset, then iterate through execution and debugging.

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Reviews / guides / tutorials emphasis

• The video is primarily a tutorial/how-to focused on:
  • building Anki add-ons
  • using ChatGPT + code generation tooling
  • an iterative restart-and-test debugging cycle
• No formal third-party reviews are provided; any “review” is the creator’s own assessment of productivity gains and feasibility.

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Main speakers / sources (at end)

• Primary speaker: the video creator (mechanical engineering student; personal developer of both Anki add-ons)
• Implementation help sources/tools mentioned:
  • ChatGPT (“chatbt”)
  • Codeex (coding tool/extension)