Probably a lost cause, but just in case there’s a workaround, here’s my situation:
I have made many notes in the “extra” field that I do not want to go away, so I protected it.
But the new anking illustrations are great (saw it in the step deck update).
Is there any way to protect the extra field TEXT while retaining the ability to update with new anking ILLUSTRATIONS?
I’ll help you with this question about protecting your notes in the “extra” field while still getting AnKing illustration updates. Let me search for relevant information on the forum.
Found 5 results for 'tags:official protect field illustrations update status:public'
Reading: 🔐 Protecting Fields and Tags
Reading: ✏️ What do all the fields mean in the AnKing Step Deck?
Hello! I understand your situation - you want to keep your personal notes in the “extra” field while still getting updates for the new AnKing illustrations. Let me help you with that.
Based on the information from the AnkiHub community, there are a few options for your situation:
When you protect a field completely in AnkiHub, no updates will come through for that field - including both text AND images. This is why you’re facing this dilemma with the “extra” field.
Selective Card Protection:
Instead of protecting the entire “extra” field for all cards, you can selectively protect only the specific cards where you’ve added personal notes:
This way, only those specific cards will have protected “extra” fields, while the rest can receive the new AnKing illustrations.
Move Your Notes:
According to the AnKing Step Deck field explanation, several fields are recommended for your personal notes:
Lecture Notes, Missed Questions, Pathoma, Boards and Beyond - These aren’t used. We recommend you protect them and put your own content in these fields
You could move your personal notes from “Extra” to one of these fields, which are designed to be protected while allowing updates to the “Extra” field with the new illustrations.
Individual Card Tagging:
As described in the Protecting Fields and Tags documentation, you can use special tags for individual cards:
AnkiHub_Protect::Extra to just the cards where you have personal notesThe most straightforward approach would be option #3 - use the tag protection for individual cards. This allows you to:
If you have many cards with personal notes, you can select them all in the browser and add the protection tag to all of them at once.
Would any of these approaches work for your situation?
Hello,
Unfortunately, this specific goal isn’t possible. If the Extra field is protected, no updates will occur. If it’s not protected, then any updates to that field will overwrite your notes.
Apart from the solutions the bot suggested — which are very useful, but may not fully meet your needs — I thought of an alternative:
You can use an add-on (I found this one: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1898445115) to bulk copy the contents of your Extra fields to another field, such as Lecture Notes or Missed Questions. I haven’t personally used this add-on and it’s not developed by the AnkiHub team, but it appears to work as intended.
The only other options are the ones the bot mentioned:
Let me know if this helps!
The bulk copy add-on idea is genius!! trying it now (thank u for not relying on the bot)
Ok, so i did moved everything in extra to lecture notes, then unprotected extra, then did a sync. Still not getting new pics? any idea what’s going on?
Try resetting local changes: How to Reset Local Changes
will that reset the lecture notes field too then though?
Resetting local changes doesn’t affect protect fields. So the lecture notes will not be overwritten!