Be more explicit about Anki desktop sync server vs Anki standalone sync servers (Python/Rust) #193
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| # Self-Hosted Sync Server | |||
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| Anki 2.1.57+ includes a built-in sync server. Advanced users who cannot or do | |||
| not wish to use AnkiWeb can use this sync server instead of AnkiWeb. | |||
| Advanced users who cannot or do not wish to use AnkiWeb can use a self-hosted | |||
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Let's not mention that desktop Anki has sync server just yet. Let's list out all possible options all at once later.
The reason for this rewording is that "Anki 2.1.57+ includes a built-in sync server" was confusing to me, because I didn't know wheter that's referring to:
- the built Anki desktop app
- or that the Anki repository starts containing code for the standalone sync servers as of 2.1.57+
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| ## Installing/Running | |||
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| There are various ways you can install and run the server. | |||
| There are various ways you can install and run the server. You can use either: | |||
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List a short summary of the possible ways to go about this all in one place, so nobody gets confused.
I know that "the desktop version of Anki" is kind of a thoughtcrime to write, because there's no such thing as "Anki desktop" - there's just "Anki" that is implicitly, obviously, desktop. However I felt the need to make the distinction here to draw a clear line between "Anki desktop that is the graphical app, which just so happens to have the syncserver" and "the minimal standalone sync servers for Anki that are terminal only"
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| ### With Pip | |||
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| If you have Python 3.9+ installed, you can run from PyPI without downloading | |||
| all Anki's GUI dependencies. | |||
| To avoid downloading desktop Anki's GUI dependencies, you can run a standalone Anki sync server using a Python package downloaded from PyPI instead. | |||
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Reorder the sentence so the more important reason for using the standalone sync server is first. I think people first think "hmm I wonder if there's a lighter headless server" rather than "hmm I already have the python 3.9 package installed, wonder if there's a python implementation".
There's no version information about from which version of Anki the standalone Python sync server is available. I browsed the blame for a bit (ankitects/anki#2329) but I don't know if that's the definitive PR that added it, or was it available earlier. Should a sentence like "available from Anki [version here]" be added too?
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I don't think it really matters, as the commands below will install the latest Anki version anyway.
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| Protobuf (protoc) will need to be installed. | |||
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| After running that, you can run it with | |||
| After building, you can run it with: | |||
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Nitpick, but added it to be more specific, "After running that, you can run it" irked me
| If you have Rustup installed, from Anki 2.1.66+, you can build a standalone sync | ||
| server that doesn't require Python, using the following: | ||
| From Anki 2.1.66+, you can alternatively build a Rust implementation of the standalone sync server using the below command. | ||
| Make sure you have Rustup installed. | ||
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| ``` | ||
| cargo install --git https://github.com/ankitects/anki.git --tag 2.1.66 anki-sync-server |
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| cargo install --git https://github.com/ankitects/anki.git --tag 2.1.66 anki-sync-server | |
| cargo install --git https://github.com/ankitects/anki.git --tag 23.10 anki-sync-server |
Since the 23.10 release introduced breaking changes, I think it'd be worth it to update the docs so that they download the latest release when copy-pasting.
Inevitably, somebody will just mindlessly copy the snippet and wonder why their 2.1.66 sync server is not working with Anki desktop 23.10
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Also the Replace 2.1.66 with whatever the latest Anki version is. line below would need to be updated to mention 23.10
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Looks reasonable - thanks! |
Explanation in code comments.