Hey!
I posted a 'tip' on reddit (under /u/d2dev_) a while ago that takes the text from the "Back" field on your card, and when Anki shows the card, it'll go to Wikipedia and get a relevant description for you.
- Using JS meant time spent getting stuff from Wikipedia every time you opened a card
- Ankidroid (and I assume Anki for iPhone) wasn't working. I don't think they support AJAX calls.
- Use Python! We pull in the data once, so it doesn't have to be fetched over and over - AND since the data's in your decks, that fixes the mobile problem, too!
(Disclaimer: There are bugs that I'm still working out. This is more experimental than production-class code.)
Update (2019/03/31): With latest update, bug no longer crashes Anki plugins, heheh...
- Go to https://github.com/davidd647/wiki-anki-addon
- On the right, there's a green "Clone or download" button, clone or download.
- Open Anki --> Tools --> Add-ons --> View Files
- That will show you a folder. Each add-on has its own folder here. Add the files into a new folder
- Restart Anki
- Make sure your card has a "Back" and a "Wiki" field.
- Type something into the "Back" field.
- When you click outside of the "Back" field (anywhere else on the screen), the "Wiki" field will be automatically filled with information from Wikipedia!
Issues with my approach:
- I'm not super familiar with Python. If you enter generic information into the Back field, the program errors out. I know it's because the information Wikipedia is giving me something other than a string, but I don't know how to convert the data type to a string, or just ignore the data and spit out some fallback data.
- Have to do this one-at-a-time. But I dunno... Would you even want to batch-add this information? I guess.
- The information in the Back field needs to be short. Some might find this limiting. I disagree, but acknowledge the perspective. I still think shorter cards are better for testing memory.
Bonus: I wonder what other things we could auto-populate this field with... Maybe I could get Wikimedia images on a future version or something like that. Any ideas?