I’ve never been a fan of flashcard learning. I didn’t exactly doubt their effectiveness as a learning method, but always considered that the time I spend on making them would be better spent actually learning.
This was before I actually gave them a chance, and I have to admit they’re very effective. Things got even better when I tried an app since It was the typing was a lot faster than actually having to write by hand the questions and answers.
Memorado is a Linux flashcard app. It’s free and open-source, and its main purpose is to help you create (and organize) cards with questions and answers and then use them to learn.
In terms of actual features, there’s not much to write home about, as Memorando is a super simple app. First, you create a deck (used to store flashcards for any particular subject). To create a deck, you also have to choose an icon (better said, an emoji, as the icons are all emojis).
Then you populate the deck with cards (or flashcards), the questions and the answers. Once that’s done, you simply open any deck, and go through every question until you get the answers right.
Since this is a GTK4 application, I would have loved to see a bit more customization (i.e. a theme picker – however, the app does automatically change to the system’s theme).
Since we’re on the subject of what could be better, the app could use an automatic timer settings/option. This way, you could (theoretically) learn faster without requiring the need for inputs on your part.
The only real “extra” feature of the app is the ability to import and export your decks. Both import and export is done with the standard database format (.db).
Clearly, this is an app that won’t blow anyone’s socks off. Nonetheless, I often find that simple apps usually work better for most simple things. Hence, if you’re a fan of learning with the help of flashcards, it might be worth giving this tiny app a run and seeing what’s what.
