
Show HN: Mochi – Make notes with markdown, study them with spaced repetition - knubie
https://mochi.cards
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AlphaWeaver
Does this have the ability to export? Data portability is pretty important
when putting your knowledge in a spaced repetition system.

Also, does it support import from Anki? That might be a major selling point.

Edit: It looks like this stores data in localStorage? From the Privacy Policy
[0] page:

> Mochi does not store any of your data on its servers. All content created in
> Mochi is stored on your computer.

While that certainly makes privacy easy, I would want to know that this
doesn't "back up" my notes anywhere. If the storage was corrupted I would hate
to lose my hard work.

[0]: [https://mochi.cards/privacy.html](https://mochi.cards/privacy.html)

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knubie
It does support exporting in the form of .mochi files, which is basically just
a zip file containing media from the deck and a plain text EDN for describing
the data, which could be easily converted to JSON or CSV or whatever.

The browser version persists to local storage, but the desktop app persists to
a flat file that is backed up every time the app launches.

~~~
AlphaWeaver
Great, thanks for the transparency.

When you say that the flat file is backed up, what do you mean by that?

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knubie
It's a bit complicated, but changes in the app are stored separately, and then
applied to the stored db on app start-up. So the previous stored db is backed
up before the new changes are applied.

Hope that answers your question.

~~~
AlphaWeaver
My primary concern is about data recoverability, which it appears there isn't
currently a solution for. Looks great though, just wanted to try to
understand.

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asdkhadsj
This looks great! Few questions:

1\. Any mobile version planned?

2\. Any planned SDK? I've got a knowledge base i'v been working on and I plan
on adding a Spaced Repetition frontend. Rather than write my own, integrating
with this excellent UI would be great!

3\. Any planned purchase options? If I can get support for my #1 and #2, I'd
love to support this with my wallet :)

~~~
knubie
Hey, thanks for checking out the app!

1\. No plans in the immediate future, but the app is written for Electron, and
is usable in-browser today as a web app, so creating a mobile version of the
web app version should be pretty straightforward. The only difficulty there
would be syncing data. Everything is offline at this point.

2\. Don't have an SDK at the moment, but there is an import option. I haven't
documented the format of import files, but it's basically a zip file with
media + an EDN (alternative to JSON). Being able to programmatically create
import files was definitely a design goal from the beginning. Shoot me an
email at matt at mochi.cards and I can help you out with your particular use
case.

3\. Thanks! I didn't add a payment option because I wanted to get feedback
from HN before I went through the trouble of adding payment / trial version
etc. If I create the mobile/web-app version with cloud syncing I would
probably charge a small monthly fee for that.

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jsonau
Kudos on the homepage "screenshot" \-- It's actually the app itself.

Love the app!

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peternicky
VERY nice work! I haven't dug too deep into the application, yet, but being
able to write flash cards in markdown and then study them using spaced
repetition is a combo that will make me more inclined to use this technique
when studying topics.

Thank you for creating this.

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Hackbraten
This is amazing. I’ve been struggling with memorizing stuff for decades.

Where has this been all my life?

~~~
knubie
Hey, thanks for checking it out! Feel free to reach out to me directly if you
have any questions, suggestions or bugs. matt at mochi.cards

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fiatjaf
Is there anything like that but with stuff you DON'T write?

I mean you write what you want to remember, but not the contents. Then you get
email reminders every once in a while and you must try to remember at that
time, without looking.

~~~
knubie
Hmm not sure I understand what you're describing. I think I may have seen
something like that posted here on HN though.

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gabrielcsapo
Looks great! Trying it out when I get home. Saw this and had to comment
[https://github.com/enyojs/mochi](https://github.com/enyojs/mochi). I miss
webos.

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remyM
Holy lord, this is awesome.

One thing - will this eventually shift to a paid service or are you hosting it
for free forever? I wouldn't mind paying for a slightly more polished version
of this in-browser.

~~~
knubie
Thanks! I'm mulling over a web app version with cloud syncing for a small
monthly fee. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to reach out: matt at
mochi.cards

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sdan
Your design looks almost exactly like Notion.so.

~~~
AlphaWeaver
Yeah, I can see they clearly took inspiration from Notion.

Also, your screenshot on the main page clips if my page isn't wide enough, and
it doesn't scroll, so I wasn't able to read the intro you put in the
application.

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rajekas
Very well done. Strikes me as literate programming married to Anki, so great
for explanation as well as memorization.

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kixiQu
This looks amazing! I've wanted something like this for work stuff that can't
leave my laptop.

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ron22
The updates for the desktop app happen automatically. I would like the option
turn auto update off.

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smartis2812
This is a great project. Thank you. I'll give you feedback in a month after
long term testing.

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sorokod
How does it compare to Anki?

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knubie
Initially I started building Mochi in response to Anki. Back then Anki was
super powerful but I had a lot of trouble figuring out the UI and I got
frustrated with how clunky the UX was.

I wanted to make something a lot simpler and a little more accessible. I also
wanted to be able to just write markdown for my cards.

Mochi also has the ability to link cards to each other, or link cards to notes
and vice versa. I'm also exploring the idea of creating cards from notes /
embedding cards into notes.

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arunaugustine
Very cool, and polished. Just what I wanted as an alternative to Anki!

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hypocrazybr
very cool! are there any release date planned for the linux version?

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knubie
Just added a Linux build to the website. Enjoy!

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hypocrazybr
thanks, will check it out!

