18 · The mobile app

There is a native Android app: the same review loop as the web app, running the same core (parser, scheduler, progress store) compiled into the app, so it works entirely offline, including a trace deck’s predict/reveal/self-grade walk. It is early software with a deliberately small surface: reviewing decks. Pairing it with a running alix server on your network lends it the tutor, the AI exam (a trace’s compression exam included), deck generation, and note-taking: see Pairing a device.

Settings (the ☰ button) → Theme picks from the web gallery’s 18 non-kids themes (the three Kids palettes are web-only; see Themes); the app re-themes live, no restart.

Install

Grab alix-arm64-v8a.apk from the project’s GitHub Releases (the alix mobile vX.Y.Z releases) and install it. Android will warn about installing outside a store; that is expected for now. The app works on Android 7+ and keeps its decks in private app storage: a fresh install ships a few sample decks so there is something to review immediately, and pairing with a desktop server (see Pairing a device) adds the Generate deck row for bringing in more.

Settings → About shows two versions: the app’s own and the embedded core’s. The app has its own release stream; it does not track the CLI’s version.

The deck list

The first screen lists the phone’s own decks and, once paired, the pulled copy of the desktop’s below them. The two are listed separately and the phone’s own appear first; the screen stays responsive while a large workspace is still being read, and shows nothing in place of the list until the first answer arrives. A deck read once stays parsed in memory for as long as the app runs, so coming back to the list after a review does not read every deck again; a deck whose file changed on disk is read fresh.

Tapping a deck opens it at the depth it was last reviewed at. Long-press a deck row to choose the depth for this session instead. The same sheet opens with a Cram switch above the depths. Switch it on, then pick a depth: that one session also serves cards that are not due yet, under exactly the rules the web app applies (see Cramming). Cram belongs to the launch and is never saved, so the switch is off again the next time the sheet opens, and a plain tap on the deck never crams.

Reviewing

The review screen is the web app’s loop on a phone: reveal, then grade, or pick a choice, with the legend row at the bottom holding the primary action and the quiet extras. A card that sits under a # section in its deck (see Sections and sub-cards) shows the section’s heading as a one-line pill above the question; tapping the pill opens the whole section, heading and prose, in a sheet. Neither appears on a card without a section, and the card itself never moves to make room. The first card you ever meet from a section opens that sheet by itself, once; swipe it away and the pill stays as the way back in. Every later card from the section, in this sitting or any later one, shows the pill only.

Syncing with the desktop

Once paired (see Pairing a device), a pulled entry’s row gains a Sync action in its ⋮ menu: it pushes every local deck whose progress changed, then pulls that entry when the desktop’s copy differs from the phone’s. The app also runs one cycle in the background each time it opens, for every entry already on the phone, once the paired desktop answers and still serves the same root; an entry whose files did not change on the desktop is left as it is. A review session’s summary silently pushes that deck’s progress too, with no visible step on a normal pass.

A pull replaces the files the desktop owns for that entry (its decks, their augment and asset files) with the desktop’s current copies; anything the phone added on its own inside the entry is left alone and reported as phone-only. A member the desktop deleted stays on the phone while its progress is not yet pushed, listed as kept, so nothing you reviewed is lost before it reached the desktop. A conflicting deck, one whose progress changed on both sides since the last sync, stops review of that deck and asks: keep the phone’s progress or take the desktop’s, naming what each choice discards. An entry the desktop no longer serves stays on the phone, reviewable, listed as orphaned, with a Remove action once you’re done with it.

A desktop entry the phone has never pulled shows below the phone’s own entries: its name and size only, in a subdued row with no ⋮ menu and no review action. Tapping it pulls it for the first time; once it lands it becomes an ordinary entry, reviewable like any other.

Tapping the status line above the deck list (shown while a cycle runs, or its last report is unread) opens the full report: landed, pushed, kept, phone-only, removed, renamed, and refused categories, plus left out on the desktop (members inside an entry the desktop could not load) and not on this phone (entries the desktop serves that this phone has never pulled, the same ones shown as rows below the deck list).

Settings gains a Paired desktop row once a pairing is saved, opening a sheet to choose which paired desktop’s entries the picker shows below the phone’s own; the phone’s own decks stay listed whichever desktop is active.

Workspace deadlines

A workspace’s personal “ready by” date shows on its row (date, days left, and ready percent, colored to flag urgency inside the last week or past due) and again once you drill in, the same readout as the web picker. Long-press the workspace row to set, move, or clear it. The date lives in the workspace’s own alix.local.toml (see Workspaces); the phone’s own offline sessions bend their scheduling toward the date exactly as the desktop does.