(for upgrading users, please see the notes at the bottom)
Bazel brought a lot of nice things to the table, such as rebuilds based on
content changes instead of modification times, caching of build products,
detection of incorrect build rules via a sandbox, and so on. Rewriting the build
in Bazel was also an opportunity to improve on the Makefile-based build we had
prior, which was pretty poor: most dependencies were external or not pinned, and
the build graph was poorly defined and mostly serialized. It was not uncommon
for fresh checkouts to fail due to floating dependencies, or for things to break
when trying to switch to an older commit.
For day-to-day development, I think Bazel served us reasonably well - we could
generally switch between branches while being confident that builds would be
correct and reasonably fast, and not require full rebuilds (except on Windows,
where the lack of a sandbox and the TS rules would cause build breakages when TS
files were renamed/removed).
Bazel achieves that reliability by defining rules for each programming language
that define how source files should be turned into outputs. For the rules to
work with Bazel's sandboxing approach, they often have to reimplement or
partially bypass the standard tools that each programming language provides. The
Rust rules call Rust's compiler directly for example, instead of using Cargo,
and the Python rules extract each PyPi package into a separate folder that gets
added to sys.path.
These separate language rules allow proper declaration of inputs and outputs,
and offer some advantages such as caching of build products and fine-grained
dependency installation. But they also bring some downsides:
- The rules don't always support use-cases/platforms that the standard language
tools do, meaning they need to be patched to be used. I've had to contribute a
number of patches to the Rust, Python and JS rules to unblock various issues.
- The dependencies we use with each language sometimes make assumptions that do
not hold in Bazel, meaning they either need to be pinned or patched, or the
language rules need to be adjusted to accommodate them.
I was hopeful that after the initial setup work, things would be relatively
smooth-sailing. Unfortunately, that has not proved to be the case. Things
frequently broke when dependencies or the language rules were updated, and I
began to get frustrated at the amount of Anki development time I was instead
spending on build system upkeep. It's now about 2 years since switching to
Bazel, and I think it's time to cut losses, and switch to something else that's
a better fit.
The new build system is based on a small build tool called Ninja, and some
custom Rust code in build/. This means that to build Anki, Bazel is no longer
required, but Ninja and Rust need to be installed on your system. Python and
Node toolchains are automatically downloaded like in Bazel.
This new build system should result in faster builds in some cases:
- Because we're using cargo to build now, Rust builds are able to take advantage
of pipelining and incremental debug builds, which we didn't have with Bazel.
It's also easier to override the default linker on Linux/macOS, which can
further improve speeds.
- External Rust crates are now built with opt=1, which improves performance
of debug builds.
- Esbuild is now used to transpile TypeScript, instead of invoking the TypeScript
compiler. This results in faster builds, by deferring typechecking to test/check
time, and by allowing more work to happen in parallel.
As an example of the differences, when testing with the mold linker on Linux,
adding a new message to tags.proto (which triggers a recompile of the bulk of
the Rust and TypeScript code) results in a compile that goes from about 22s on
Bazel to about 7s in the new system. With the standard linker, it's about 9s.
Some other changes of note:
- Our Rust workspace now uses cargo-hakari to ensure all packages agree on
available features, preventing unnecessary rebuilds.
- pylib/anki is now a PEP420 implicit namespace, avoiding the need to merge
source files and generated files into a single folder for running. By telling
VSCode about the extra search path, code completion now works with generated
files without needing to symlink them into the source folder.
- qt/aqt can't use PEP420 as it's difficult to get rid of aqt/__init__.py.
Instead, the generated files are now placed in a separate _aqt package that's
added to the path.
- ts/lib is now exposed as @tslib, so the source code and generated code can be
provided under the same namespace without a merging step.
- MyPy and PyLint are now invoked once for the entire codebase.
- dprint will be used to format TypeScript/json files in the future instead of
the slower prettier (currently turned off to avoid causing conflicts). It can
automatically defer to prettier when formatting Svelte files.
- svelte-check is now used for typechecking our Svelte code, which revealed a
few typing issues that went undetected with the old system.
- The Jest unit tests now work on Windows as well.
If you're upgrading from Bazel, updated usage instructions are in docs/development.md and docs/build.md. A summary of the changes:
- please remove node_modules and .bazel
- install rustup (https://rustup.rs/)
- install rsync if not already installed (on windows, use pacman - see docs/windows.md)
- install Ninja (unzip from https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases/tag/v1.11.1 and
place on your path, or from your distro/homebrew if it's 1.10+)
- update .vscode/settings.json from .vscode.dist
* Enable state-dependent custom scheduling data
* Next(Card)States -> SchedulingStates
The fact that `current` was included in `next` always bothered me,
and custom data is part of the card state, so that was a bit confusing
too.
* Store custom_data in SchedulingState
* Make custom_data optional when answering
Avoids having to send it 4 extra times to the frontend, and avoids the
legacy answerCard() API clobbering the stored data.
Co-authored-by: Damien Elmes <gpg@ankiweb.net>
* Add card meta for persisting custom scheduling state
* Rename meta -> custom_data
* Enforce limits on size of custom data
Large values will slow down table scans of the cards table, and it's
easier to be strict now and possibly relax things in the future than
the opposite.
* Pack card states and customData into a single message
+ default customData to empty if it can't be parsed
Co-authored-by: Damien Elmes <gpg@ankiweb.net>
* Add crate csv
* Add start of csv importing on backend
* Add Menomosyne serializer
* Add csv and json importing on backend
* Add plaintext importing on frontend
* Add csv metadata extraction on backend
* Add csv importing with GUI
* Fix missing dfa file in build
Added compile_data_attr, then re-ran cargo/update.py.
* Don't use doubly buffered reader in csv
* Escape HTML entities if CSV is not HTML
Also use name 'is_html' consistently.
* Use decimal number as foreign ease (like '2.5')
* ForeignCard.ivl → ForeignCard.interval
* Only allow fixed set of CSV delimiters
* Map timestamp of ForeignCard to native due time
* Don't trim CSV records
* Document use of empty strings for defaults
* Avoid creating CardGenContexts for every note
This requires CardGenContext to be generic, so it works both with an
owned and borrowed notetype.
* Show all accepted file types in import file picker
* Add import_json_file()
* factor → ease_factor
* delimter_from_value → delimiter_from_value
* Map columns to fields, not the other way around
* Fallback to current config for csv metadata
* Add start of new import csv screen
* Temporary fix for compilation issue on Linux/Mac
* Disable jest bazel action for import-csv
Jest fails with an error code if no tests are available, but this would
not be noticable on Windows as Jest is not run there.
* Fix field mapping issue
* Revert "Temporary fix for compilation issue on Linux/Mac"
This reverts commit 21f8a261408cdae49ec031aa21a1b659c4f66d82.
* Add HtmlSwitch and move Switch to components
* Fix spacing and make selectors consistent
* Fix shortcut tooltip
* Place import button at the top with path
* Fix meta column indices
* Remove NotetypeForString
* Fix queue and type of foreign cards
* Support different dupe resolution strategies
* Allow dupe resolution selection when importing CSV
* Test import of unnormalized text
Close #1863.
* Fix logging of foreign notes
* Implement CSV exports
* Use db_scalar() in notes_table_len()
* Rework CSV metadata
- Notetypes and decks are either defined by a global id or by a column.
- If a notetype id is provided, its field map must also be specified.
- If a notetype column is provided, fields are now mapped by index
instead of name at import time. So the first non-meta column is used for
the first field of every note, regardless of notetype. This makes
importing easier and should improve compatiblity with files without a
notetype column.
- Ensure first field can be mapped to a column.
- Meta columns must be defined as `#[meta name]:[column index]` instead
of in the `#columns` tag.
- Column labels contain the raw names defined by the file and must be
prettified by the frontend.
* Adjust frontend to new backend column mapping
* Add force flags for is_html and delimiter
* Detect if CSV is HTML by field content
* Update dupe resolution labels
* Simplify selectors
* Fix coalescence of oneofs in TS
* Disable meta columns from selection
Plus a lot of refactoring.
* Make import button stick to the bottom
* Write delimiter and html flag into csv
* Refetch field map after notetype change
* Fix log labels for csv import
* Log notes whose deck/notetype was missing
* Fix hiding of empty log queues
* Implement adding tags to all notes of a csv
* Fix dupe resolution not being set in log
* Implement adding tags to updated notes of a csv
* Check first note field is not empty
* Temporary fix for build on Linux/Mac
* Fix inverted html check (dae)
* Remove unused ftl string
* Delimiter → Separator
* Remove commented-out line
* Don't accept .json files
* Tweak tag ftl strings
* Remove redundant blur call
* Strip sound and add spaces in csv export
* Export HTML by default
* Fix unset deck in Mnemosyne import
Also accept both numbers and strings for notetypes and decks in JSON.
* Make DupeResolution::Update the default
* Fix missing dot in extension
* Make column indices 1-based
* Remove StickContainer from TagEditor
Fixes line breaking, border and z index on ImportCsvPage.
* Assign different key combos to tag editors
* Log all updated duplicates
Add a log field for the true number of found notes.
* Show identical notes as skipped
* Split tag-editor into separate ts module (dae)
* Add progress for CSV export
* Add progress for text import
* Tidy-ups after tag-editor split (dae)
- import-csv no longer depends on editor
- remove some commented lines
* Use submodule imports in aqt
* Use submodule imports in pylib
* More submodule imports in pylib
These required removing some direct imports to get rid of import cycles.
* Add _bytes methods for all methods in the backend
Expose get_note in qt/aqt/mediasrv.py
* Satisfy formatter
* Rename _bytes function to _raw and have them bytes as input
* Fix backend generation
* Use lib/proto/deckOptions in deck-options
* Add exposed_backend to qt/aqt/mediasrv.py
* Move some more backend methods to exposed_backend_list
* Use protobufjs for congrats and i18n
* Use protobufjs for completeTag
* Use protobufjs services in change-notetype
* Reorder post handlers in alphabetical manner
* Satisfy tests
* Remove unused collection methods
* Rename access_backend to raw_backend_request
* Use _vendor.stringcase instead of creating a new function
* Remove SKIP_UNROLL_OUTPUT
* Directly call _run_command in non _raw methods
* Remove TranslateString, ChangeNotetype and CompleteTag from SKIP_UNROLL_INPUT
* Remove UpdateDeckConfigs from SKIP_UNROLL_INPUT
* Remove ChangeNotetype from SKIP_UNROLL_INPUT
* Remove SKIP_UNROLL_INPUT
* Fix typing issue with translate_string
- Adds typing support for Protobuf maps in genbackend.py
* Do not emit convenience method for protobuf TranslateString
* Preload external css files to prevent flash of unstyled content
This is an implementation of the approach mentioned in the commit
message of 46b85d5.
* Tweak max_age value for css files
Ensure that css preloading works even on a slow PC.
When we updated to flask 2.0, the default caching time changed to
0. When setting the HTML of a new card side in the DOM, the browser
first removes the existing content (including styling), then sends a
HTTP request to us to check whether the file has changed or not. By the
time the answer has arrived, the browser has repainted without the
styling, and thus we get a flicker.
A side-effect of reverting to flask 1.x behaviour is that external changes
to media files will not be reflected in Anki for an hour, unless Anki
is restarted, or the caches are cleared manually with an add-on. An
alternative approach would be to pre-fetch the css files like we do with
images, but there are other things like fonts to think about as well.
Closes#1455
Kept the favicon, but have reverted the rest, as it unfortunately did
not seem to prevent the issue from occurring.
Original discussion: https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/1369
This reverts commit 6d0f7e7f05.
* Only collect card stats on the backend ...
... instead of rendering an HTML string using askama.
* Add ts page Card Info
* Update test for new `col.card_stats()`
* Remove obsolete CardStats code
* Use new ts page in `CardInfoDialog`
* Align start and end instead of left and right
Curiously, `text-align: start` does not work for `th` tags if assigned
via classes.
* Adopt ts refactorings after rebase
#1405 and #1409
* Clean up `ts/card-info/BUILD.bazel`
* Port card info logic from Rust to TS
* Move repeated field to the top
https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/1414#discussion_r725402730
* Convert pseudo classes to interfaces
* CardInfoPage -> CardInfo
* Make revlog in card info optional
* Add legacy support for old card stats
* Check for undefined instead of falsy
* Make Revlog separate component
* drop askama dependency (dae)
* Fix nightmode for legacy card stats
This adds Python 3.9 and 3.10 typing syntax to files that import
attributions from __future___. Python 3.9 should be able to cope with
the 3.10 syntax, but Python 3.8 will no longer work.
On Windows/Mac, install the latest Python 3.9 version from python.org.
There are currently no orjson wheels for Python 3.10 on Windows/Mac,
which will break the build unless you have Rust installed separately.
On Linux, modern distros should have Python 3.9 available already. If
you're on an older distro, you'll need to build Python from source first.
Matches should arrive in alphabetical order. Currently results are not
capped (JS should be able to handle ~1k tags without too much hassle),
and no reordering based on match location is done. Matches are substring
based, and multiple can be provided, eg "foo::bar" will match
"foof::baz::abbar".
This is not hooked up properly on the frontend at the moment -
updateSuggestions() seems to be missing the most recently typed character,
and is not updating the list of completions half the time.
- changes can now be undone
- the same field can now be mapped to multiple target fields, allowing
fields to be cloned
- the old Qt dialog has been removed
- the old col.models.change() API calls the new code, to avoid
breaking existing consumers. It requires the field map to always
be passed in, but that appears to have been the common case.
- closes#1175
- anki._backend stores the protobuf files and rsbackend.py code
- pylib modules import protobuf messages directly from the
_pb2 files, and explicitly export any will be returned or consumed
by public pylib functions, so that calling code can import from pylib
- the "rsbackend" no longer imports and re-exports protobuf messages
- pylib can just consume them directly.
- move errors to errors.py
Still todo:
- rsbridge
- finishing the work on rsbackend, and check what we need to add
back to the original file location to avoid breaking add-ons
The original reason for the catch-all message was users with bad
data such as decimal intervals, but those get automatically coerced
these days. The common case should now be invalid search strings, which
we can show verbatim.
