How NtTie Solves Every Flashcard Problem I Ever Had

In my previous post, I walked through years of frustration with Anki, Microsoft Word, OneNote, Notability, and Obsidian. Each tool had its strengths, but none of them quite worked for how I actually needed to study.

NtTie wasn't designed from theoretical "best practices." Every feature exists because I personally hit a wall with existing tools. Let me show you how each problem gets solved.

View Mode: Go Through Everything Once

The problem: Anki wouldn't let me go through all my material once before diving deep. I'd get stuck reviewing the same 50 cards while 450 others sat untouched.

The solution: NtTie has a View Mode where you can see all your flashcards in one big, scrollable list. Just open a deck and scroll from top to bottom. Done. You've now seen everything once.

You have two options in View Mode:

• Questions and answers visible: Just scroll and read. Perfect for last-minute review right before an exam when you want to refresh everything quickly.
• Hover to reveal: Answers are hidden until you hover over them. This lets you mentally test yourself while still maintaining the speed of scrolling through everything.

You can also optionally display any linked notes alongside your flashcards. Everything in context, all at once.

Container/Box Review System: Simple Like Real Flashcards

The problem: Anki's spaced repetition algorithm felt like a black box. When would I see a card again? Why this card now? The algorithm was fighting my study goals instead of helping them.

The solution: NtTie uses a simple system that works exactly like physical flashcard boxes.

You have containers: Hard, Medium, Easy, Done. (You can also create custom containers if you want.) When you review a card, you decide which box it goes into. The card goes to the back of that box.

That's it. No complicated intervals, no hidden algorithms.

Want to focus on hard cards? Open the Hard box and review. The progression is card-based, not time-based. You'll see other cards in that box before seeing the card you just placed there again.

Don't want to categorize a card right now? Just hit the arrow key to skip to the next one. No penalty, no algorithm getting confused.

You can also tag cards by importance and prioritize high-importance cards when reviewing. Full control, always.

This is particularly valuable for cramming: you can quickly go through your Hard and Medium boxes right before an exam, putting the answers fresh in your short-term memory exactly when you need them.

Separated Content: No More Lag

The problem: My Microsoft Word documents with 500+ flashcards became unbearably laggy. Drawing made it even worse.

The solution: In NtTie, content is naturally separated. Each flashcard deck is its own entity. Articles (notes) are separate from flashcards. You're never loading everything at once.

This keeps performance smooth no matter how much content you create. Your 50th deck loads just as fast as your first.

Integrated Drawings: Embedded, Not Disconnected

The problem: Using OneNote or Notability for drawings meant constantly screenshotting and pasting into flashcards. Changes never synced. Over time, I lost track of which drawings belonged to which notes.

The solution: In NtTie, drawings are embedded directly in your notes and flashcards. Not linked from another app, actually embedded.

There's also a Drawing Library where you can easily find and reuse drawings across different notes and flashcards.

The best part: drawings remain editable in place. If you update a drawing, the change syncs everywhere that drawing is used. Edit once, updated everywhere. No more manual screenshot-and-paste workflows.

Single Database: No Syncing Hell

The problem: Obsidian + Anki required manual syncing between two separate systems. Forget to sync? Your changes aren't in Anki. Something breaks during sync? Good luck debugging.

The solution: NtTie is one application with one database. Notes, flashcards, drawings: everything lives in the same place.

There's nothing to sync because there's nothing separate. Edit a flashcard, and it's edited. Open a deck, and you see the current state. It's an online application, so there are no local file systems to manage either.

This is fundamentally different from Obsidian (files on disk) + Anki (separate database) which require explicit syncing to stay in agreement.

Dedicated Fields: No Formatting Restrictions

The problem: The Obsidian-to-Anki add-on required extremely specific formatting. No empty lines. Certain special characters broke everything. I'd spend hours debugging which flashcard in a 200-card file was breaking the sync.

The solution: NtTie flashcards have proper, dedicated fields for questions and answers. They're not pattern-matched from plain text. They're actual data structures with separate fields.

Write whatever you want in the question field. Write whatever you want in the answer field. Empty lines? Fine. Special characters? Fine. The format of your content never affects how the system works.

No more debugging which card broke the sync, because there's no pattern matching that can break.

Standalone & User-Friendly: Anyone Can Use It

The problem: Obsidian + Anki required multiple add-ons with matching versions. Explaining the setup to non-technical study partners was nearly impossible. They'd create flashcards wrong, and I'd have to fix them.

The solution: NtTie is one standalone application. No add-ons to install. No version compatibility issues. No configuration required.

The interface uses concepts everyone already knows: notebooks, folders, files. You create a notebook, add folders to organize content, create flashcard decks and articles inside. Click on a deck to open it. Click "Review" to review.

The fields are clearly labeled. Question goes here. Answer goes here. There's no special syntax to learn, no formatting rules to follow. If someone can use any basic app, they can use NtTie.

Built for Flashcards, But Not Limited to Them

NtTie was specifically designed for flashcard-based learning, but it's not only a flashcard app. The articles feature gives you full note-taking capabilities. The drawing tools let you create visual content. Everything links together.

If Anki works perfectly for your use case, that's great. Keep using it. But if you've ever felt like your tools are fighting against how you actually need to study, give NtTie a try.

Every feature exists because I personally needed it. I'm betting you might need it too.