Conversion blocks AnkiConnect from adding more cards until conversion is done

[kanjieater]

Sometimes I take full window screenshots at 1440p and add them via Rikaitan. I noticed that when the add-on is enabled it does a great job shrinking the screenshots down to reasonable file storage sizes, but if I'm not mistaken, seems to be blocking the server from any further card creation until it's done.

Is there any way the adding of a card via Rikaitan/ankiconnect and applying the image transformations could be done in a way that doesn't tie up the server or prevent users from adding multiple cards while the work is being done?

[tatsumoto-ren]

Sorry, had to update your comment because it mentioned untrusted software. The Ankiconnect server? Apparently it has to wait until conversion is finished. But I don't think it runs long enough to interrupt mining with Rikaitan unless you create cards literally every second.

[tatsumoto-ren]

Anki provides the editor_will_process_mime hook that addons can use to edit whatever is being pasted. It takes mime data and returns mime data. Because the add-on has to return something, it blocks.

When a new note is added through ankiconnect, it has no ID yet, so the add-on edits it before the note_will_be_added hook returns.

An alternative would be to return immediately, then process the image in a separate thread, then search the Anki collection to find the new note, then replace image references and update the note.

[kanjieater]

Sorry, had to update your comment because it mentioned untrusted software. The Ankiconnect server? Apparently it has to wait until conversion is finished. But I don't think it runs long enough to interrupt mining with Rikaitan unless you create cards literally every second.

Unfortunatley, for large images, it can take multiple seconds. If there are more than one words to mine in a phrase, I find myself waiting for 5-10s waiting for the image to process. I have a very 13th gen i9, so I imagine users with slower CPU's or 4k displays see this number increase even higher.

Given that it relies on the clipboard, you also don't want to read the next line of whatever you're consuming, given that advancing will clear whatever image is on your clipboard.

I would think a seamless process like the one you described that doesn't block the users actions would be ideal:

An alternative would be to return immediately, then process the image in a separate thread, then search the Anki collection to find the new note, then replace image references and update the note.

[tatsumoto-ren]

Yeah I imagine this will be fine.

Okay so if you want to work on this issue I can assign you on github. Or you can work on the avif support #30. Either is fine. I'll try to deal with the other thing.

Also don't forget to join DJT on Telegram or Matrix because we usually discuss everything related to AJATT development there.

[kanjieater]

Unfortunately I don't have time currently to contribute myself (I'm in the middle of restoring an akiya). I'll instead just disable the add-on and run in batch on a month or so interval until a maintainer is able to address it.

[tatsumoto-ren]

If you would like me to deal with this instead, you may want to donate to ajatt-tools. It can be done here.