What does it mean to Disable a Flashcard?
A flashcard that is disabled still exists but is not enabled for study. A disabled Flashcard will no longer be shown during practice at any level i.e. whether you are studying at the document, folder, subset, or global level, a disabled flashcard will not appear.
Why Disable Flashcards?
Sometimes you will want to avoid studying a specific subject or Rem. Perhaps because you feel you have truly mastered it or because you wish to look for a quiz or exam that doesn't cover it. Regardless of the reason, Disabling your card(s) will ensure that you can still study them later. It is a more temporary and easy-to-reverse solution than deleting them.
You might also wish to disable flashcards as you make them if you do not yet need to study them or are unsure if they are correct. Disabling allows you to create flashcards ready to go but not yet included in your Spaced Repetition Studying.
Disabling Flashcards at the Rem Level
Disabling individual flashcards can be achieved by:
1. Disable from the Card Preview
If you click on a given Flashcard’s arrow, it opens the card preview menu. In the bottom right is a small box you can untick or tick to enable or disable a flashcard.
When you do, you will notice in your notes the arrow changes to a flat line to remind you that the Flashcard is disabled.
You can also reenable a card by ticking that box again.
2. Disable a Card with the - (hyphen) Symbol
You can disable a flashcard while typing with the - symbol. Type it immediately after the delimiter (aka arrow), and you will see it change to the flat line delimiter. If you click on it, the flashcard preview will indeed show the Enable Cards box is not ticked.
When you wish to enable it once more, either click on the card preview and will allow it, or delete and retype the arrow with >> << or <> as appropriate.
It is worth noting that regardless of how you disable one or more Flashcards, it will not remove the formatting from Concept or Descriptor cards. So it is safe to disable those cards too.
Disabling/Enabling Multiple Cards Simultaneously
You can also select multiple Rem and disable all Flashcards among them. To do so, highlight the Rem you wish to disable and type stop (or Suspend, or Disable) and then select the option “Stop Practicing Rem” from the Omnibar to disable all the cards in the chosen Rem.
You can use the same method to reenable multiple Rem Simultaneously with the “Start Practicing Rem” option. Which you can find by typing start.
Sometimes, however, you will want to disable even larger groups, perhaps entire subsections of your hierarchy.
Using Disable Descendant Cards Feature
You can disable every Flashcard in an entire document/folder/descendant rems by disabling them directly at their Parent Rem.
From the Rem Options Menu
Zoom into that Rem (click to open, or click on options and then Zoom into), then select the three little dots in the top right for the Rem options. Select Disable Descendant Cards.
Doing so will disable all the Flashcards in all children of that rem, any children of those, and so forth. You can reenable them through the same menu by clicking on Enable Descendant Cards.
As you can see, this method adds the Disable Descendent Cards Power-up Rem as a Tag to the parent you selected. But you can also do this manually and more quickly by tagging it directly.
With the Disable Descendant Cards Tag
Type ## followed by Disable and select the Disable Descendant Card Power-Up. You can identify it as a Power-Up by the circle with an upward arrow. Hit enter, and it will be applied to the Rem, disabling all Flashcards in its descendants.
You can click on the x next to the tag to remove the Power-Up, reenabling the Flashcards of all the Rem’s Descendants. Note that while this Tag is active, you CANNOT reenable the cards individually or collectively unless you remove the tag first.
With these tools, you can now easily disable and enable your flashcards. Use them to streamline your studying and better manage your notes or workflow.