Enhance Text Formatting and Editing

Improve the text formatting options within the card editor, addressing issues with text selection, and formatting. Add support for Markdown or LaTeX for more advanced formatting.

Priority Score

Quick estimate for initial prioritization

1.1B-Tier

Effort

7/10

Time Estimate

10-12 weeks

Decompose Project into Core Components

The 'Enhance Text Formatting and Editing' project can be broken down into several key components:

Existing Editor Overhaul: Modifying the current text input and rendering logic to support richer formatting.
New Formatting Toolbar: Designing and implementing a UI toolbar for applying formatting (bold, italics, etc.).
Markdown/LaTeX Parser: Integrating or building a parser for Markdown and/or LaTeX syntax.
Rendering Engine Update: Adapting the display of flashcards to render the new formatting correctly.
Testing and QA: Ensuring new functionality works across different devices and scenarios, and doesn't break existing functionality.

Estimate Effort for Existing Editor Overhaul & Toolbar

Modifying the existing editor and adding a toolbar involves significant frontend work.

Editor Logic Rework: Refactoring the current plain text input to handle rich text states. Assume this is complex due to potential existing spaghetti code. Let's estimate 10-15 developer days.
Toolbar UI/UX: Designing and implementing a responsive toolbar with ~8-10 common formatting buttons (bold, italic, underline, lists, maybe headings). This includes state management for active formats. Estimate 5-7 developer days.
Integration of Toolbar with Editor: Connecting toolbar actions to the editor's state and logic. Estimate 3-5 developer days.

Sub-total for Editor & Toolbar: Roughly 18-27 developer days.

Estimate Effort for Markdown/LaTeX Parser & Rendering

Implementing Markdown or LaTeX support requires parsing and rendering.

Markdown Parser: Leveraging an existing library like marked.js or showdown.js would be efficient. Integration and basic configuration: 2-3 developer days.
LaTeX Parser/Renderer: This is significantly more complex. A library like KaTeX or MathJax would be needed. Integration, configuration, and ensuring compatibility with the editor's rendering pipeline is substantial. Estimate 7-10 developer days.
Rendering Engine Update: Modifying how text is displayed on the flashcard view to correctly interpret HTML (from Markdown) or MathML/SVG (from LaTeX). This could involve changes to the text rendering component. Estimate 4-6 developer days.

Sub-total for Parser & Rendering: Roughly 13-19 developer days.

Factor in Testing, QA, and Buffer

Robust testing is crucial for formatting features.

Unit & Integration Testing: Writing tests for the new editor logic, toolbar interactions, and parsing/rendering functions. Estimate 5-8 developer days.
Manual QA: Testing across various devices (iOS/Android), screen sizes, and input methods. Testing edge cases for Markdown/LaTeX syntax. Estimate 4-6 developer days.
Buffer/Contingency: Adding a buffer for unexpected issues, design changes, or scope creep (e.g., 15-20% of estimated dev time). Let's use ~15% of the mid-point estimate (22.5 + 16) = 38.5 days * 0.15 = ~6 developer days.

Total Buffer & Testing: 15-20 developer days.

Calculate Total Time and Derive Effort Score

Summing up the estimated developer days:

Editor & Toolbar: ~22.5 days (mid-point)
Parser & Rendering: ~16 days (mid-point)
Testing & Buffer: ~17.5 days (mid-point)

Grand Total: ~22.5 + 16 + 17.5 = 56 developer days.

Assuming a 5-day work week and potentially parallel workstreams (e.g., one dev on editor, another on parser), this translates to approximately 10-12 weeks of focused development effort. This is a significant undertaking, involving substantial changes to core UI components.

Mapping this to the effort scale:

1 week = Small (3-4)
3-6 weeks = Medium (5-6)
2-4 months = Large (7-8)
6+ months = Massive (9-10)

10-12 weeks falls into the Large category.

EFFORT SCORE = 7

Time Estimate

10-12 weeks

Decompose Project into Core Components

The 'Enhance Text Formatting and Editing' project can be broken down into several key components:

Existing Editor Overhaul: Modifying the current text input and rendering logic to support richer formatting.
New Formatting Toolbar: Designing and implementing a UI toolbar for applying formatting (bold, italics, etc.).
Markdown/LaTeX Parser: Integrating or building a parser for Markdown and/or LaTeX syntax.
Rendering Engine Update: Adapting the display of flashcards to render the new formatting correctly.
Testing and QA: Ensuring new functionality works across different devices and scenarios, and doesn't break existing functionality.

Impact

8/10

Revenue Proxy

Reduce monthly churn by ~1.5% absolute

Identify Primary Business Metric

The primary business metric this feature impacts is user engagement and retention. The rationale explicitly states users find the editor 'clunky and frustrating'. Improved formatting and advanced options (Markdown/LaTeX) can lead to users creating more complex and useful flashcards, thereby increasing their reliance on the app and reducing churn. It also potentially opens up the app to a more technical/academic user base.

Estimate Problem Scope and User Pain

Assessing the scope of users affected by the clunky editor:

Target Audience: General mobile users, but advanced formatting implies a subset interested in structured learning (students, professionals).
Review Analysis: While no specific data is provided, 'clunky and frustrating' is strong negative sentiment. Let's assume this impacts 15-25% of active users who regularly create cards, as opposed to just consuming them.
Feature Adoption: Advanced features like Markdown/LaTeX might be used by a smaller, more engaged segment, perhaps 5-10% of active creators.
Churn Impact: If frustration leads to abandonment, this pain point could contribute to churn among creators. Let's conservatively estimate 5-10% of churn is influenced by poor editing experience.

Research Baseline Metrics and Benchmarks

Baseline metrics for Space - Spaced Repetition are unknown, so we use industry benchmarks for similar productivity/learning apps.

Baseline Retention: A typical subscription app might have a monthly retention rate of 30-50%. Let's assume 40% monthly active user retention.
Impact of UX Improvements: Enhancements to core editing/creation workflows often yield significant improvements. For productivity tools, fixing major usability pain points can reduce churn by 1-3% absolute. For specialized features like advanced formatting, the impact might be more concentrated on the user segment that needs it.

Calculate Expected Improvement

Combining the scope and benchmarks:

Overall Churn Reduction Potential: If 5-10% of churn is related to editing frustration, and we can address it significantly, we might reduce that specific component of churn by 30-50%. This translates to an overall churn reduction of (5% to 10%) * (30% to 50%) = 1.5% to 5% absolute reduction in churn.
Engagement Boost: For the 5-10% of users who adopt Markdown/LaTeX, their card creation activity and satisfaction could increase substantially, leading to higher time spent in app and potentially conversion to premium features if offered.
Conservative Estimate: Let's focus on the retention impact. A 1.5% absolute churn reduction is a strong outcome for a single feature improvement.

Estimated KPI Impact: Reduce monthly churn by 1.5% absolute.

Derive Impact Score

A 1.5% absolute reduction in monthly churn is a significant improvement for a user-facing application. It directly addresses user frustration and enhances the core value proposition for card creators. This level of impact is generally considered Significant.

Considering the direct link to user pain, the potential for increased creation and engagement, and the measurable retention benefit:

IMPACT SCORE = 8

Revenue Proxy

Reduce monthly churn by ~1.5% absolute

Identify Primary Business Metric

Expected Profit

Financial modeling for revenue projection

Return on Investment

347%

Internal Rate of Return

24.8%

Net Present Value

$156K

Payback Period

17/mo

Related Reviews

Very frustrating bugs. I spent 30 minutes entering sequential steps I needed to learn. Copy paste controls are almost unusable (the slider to increase the copy area fights with the apps side to side scrolling through cards.) This was forgivable. But then I came back to actually use the flash cards and it screwed up the numbering scheme. So if I had steps 16-20 on a card, it turned them all into 1-4. So every card got screwed up.

Kevin Walker·2/5/2025

Honest Review: The smoothest flashcards of all. Text load fastest, but isn't feature rich. Add better stats i.e. review heatmap, faster anki deck (.apkg file) import & export, Text Editor (Markdown & LaTex) Support.

Rosh·9/24/2024

I was hoping for simple, 'plain text' editor for this cards. Instead i got unusable (its pain to select text) WYSIWYG nonsens, that proccess my work (pho-ku). ... and this broken, laggy, childish animation of fliping card.

Peter Deranger·8/3/2020

the app has great potential. i fell in love with it with the first sight. however i didn't know then it's actually extremely buggy, and i simply won't be able to create a flashcard. the thing is, the app goes crazy when i try to format the text. i was very disappointed, but i won't delete it and will try to use it without formatting, cus i hope one day the developers will fix all the issues and then we can enjoy one of the best flashcards app.

A Google user·3/15/2020

great app, however an image won't load if it's a duplicate even tho the names are different. like img, img(1) -- img(1) shows an error. and i cant format the front card w/o having it show symbols. adding bold/italics to a word incompletely also gives an error. pls add folders, underline, and resize option too :<< the ui is too great to uninstall :<<

A Google user·12/6/2019