Birthday Card Generator for Anki

A macOS application that generates Anki flashcards from the birthdays in your Apple Contacts. The app creates a tab-separated values (TSV) file that can be imported directly into Anki to help you remember your friends' and family's birthdays.

Features

• Extracts birthday information from Apple Contacts
• Generates Anki-compatible flashcards in the format "When is [Name]'s birthday?" → "[Date]"
• Native macOS GUI with progress tracking

Installation

Download a .dmg from https://github.com/GabrielDougherty/bday-anki/releases and run it.

Usage

1. Launch the application
2. Click "Generate Cards" to create flashcards from your contacts
3. The app will request permission to access your Contacts if needed
4. Choose a location to save the output file (optional - defaults to Downloads)
5. Import the generated TSV file into Anki:
   • In Anki: File → Import
   • Select the generated file
   • Set field separator to "Tab"
   • Import the cards

Requirements

• macOS 11.0 or later
• Permission to access your Contacts (the app will prompt for this)
• Anki (for importing the generated cards)

Development

Building without Nix

1. Install Zig 0.14.1 from ziglang.org
2. Clone this repository
3. Build the application:

   zig build

4. Run the application:

   ./zig-out/bin/bdays

Building with Nix (Recommended for reproducible builds)

1. Install Nix with flakes support
2. Clone this repository
3. Enter the development environment:

   nix develop --impure

   The --impure flag is required to access macOS system frameworks.
4. Build the application:

   zig build

5. Run the application:

   ./zig-out/bin/bdays

Alternatively, you can build directly without entering the shell:

nix develop --impure -c zig build

Debug Mode

To see detailed output during card generation, run with the --debug flag:

./zig-out/bin/bdays --debug

Creating a Release

To create a distributable DMG installer:

1. Ensure you have create-dmg installed:

   brew install create-dmg

2. Run the release script:

   ./release.sh

3. When prompted, enter the version number (e.g., 1.2, 2.0, etc.)

The script will:

• Update the app bundle's version information
• Build the latest code
• Copy the binary to the app bundle
• Create a DMG installer named AnkiBirthdays-[VERSION].dmg

Architecture

The application is built in Zig and uses:

• Objective-C runtime for macOS GUI integration
• Cocoa frameworks (Foundation, AppKit) for native UI
• AppleScript for accessing Contacts data
• Multi-threaded architecture with progress reporting

The codebase is modularized into:

• main.zig - Application entry point and shared state
• src/objc_helpers.zig - Objective-C runtime utilities
• src/ui_components.zig - GUI component creation
• src/app_delegate.zig - Application event handling
• src/threading.zig - Thread management and UI updates
• src/file_operations.zig - File system operations
• src/anki_generator.zig - Core card generation logic

License

See LICENSE.md for details.