Flashcards Deluxe Keyboard Maestro Macro
In my Sweet Mac Setup post for Shawn Blanc I mentioned how I use Markdown to format my flashcards for Flashcards Deluxe. This post is about the Keyboard Maestro macro that formats Markdown into a compatible format for Flashcards Deluxe.
Since there are so many Flashcards apps on the iOS market and the range of different flashcards styles within Flashcard Deluxe grows from year to year this post will undoubtedly only be useful to a handful of people, but hopefully you might get some ideas for other use cases.
Some of the basic functions of the macro
- It takes a level 3 heading in markdown and converts it to a new question card.
- Every list item is converted into a new line too.
- A double space is also a new line.
- Two asterisks are converted to bold text
- Everything in a quote is the answer card to the question.
Example 1
This is the easiest and most bullet-proof way to setup a flashcard. Use a list for the different answers, copy everything you want to have on the answer card and put it in quotes.
### Task Number 1
**What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?**
- a. Finding a needle in a haystack.
- b. Planting a tree.
- c. 42.
> - a. Finding a needle in a haystack.
> - b. Planting a tree.
> - ***c. 42.***
The result is this text:
Task Number 1||<b>What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?</b>||a. Finding a needle in a haystack.||b. Planting a tree.||c. 42. a. Finding a needle in a haystack.||b. Planting a tree.||<color lime>c. 42.</color>
In Flashcards Deluxe the question and answer cards will look like this:
Example 2
In this example I use Markdowns “two spaces” equals a new line syntax instead of a list. This has proven to be more prone to errors so I would only suggest to use it if you want a more readable Markdown document.
### Task Number 2: Mark all correct answers.
**1. Is it a fruit?**
◦ Banana ◦ Tomato ◦ Pear ◦Potato
**2. What software really exists?**
◦ iPod ◦ iMovie ◦ iTunes ◦ iPad Mini
> **1. Is it a fruit?**
>
> ***◦ Banana*** ***◦ Tomato*** ***◦ Pear*** ◦Potato
>
> **2. What software really exists?**
>
> ***◦ iPod*** ◦ iMovie ***◦ iTunes*** ◦ iPad Mini
The result is this text:
Task Number 2: Mark all correct answers.||<b>1. Is it a fruit?</b> ||◦ Banana ◦ Tomato ◦ Pear ◦Potato||<b>2. What software really exists?</b> ||◦ iPod ◦ iMovie ◦ iTunes ◦ iPad Mini <b>1. Is it a fruit?</b>||<color lime>◦ Banana</color> <color lime>◦ Tomato</color> <color lime>◦ Pear</color> ◦Potato||<b>2. What software really exists?</b>||<color lime>◦ iPod</color> ◦ iMovie <color lime>◦ iTunes</color> ◦ iPad Mini
In Flashcards Deluxe the question and answer cards will look like this:
For customizing the macro to fit your Flashcards Deluxe needs visit the developers site and check out the “Creating Your Flashcard Text – Formatting Text” section.
There’s much more possible with Flashcards Deluxe and you might see me posting some other use cases involving pictures sooner or later.
Bonus. Okay… if you made it this far you might want to see how much I suck at regular expressions:
