Stego Support
Flashcards and practice tests for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Getting started
- Create. Add a title and fill in cards. The front is the prompt, the back is the answer.
- Study. Tap or click a card to flip it, then swipe or use the arrow keys to move through the deck.
- Test. Pick a deck, choose your question mix, and take a graded practice test.
Card text can be bold, italic, underlined, or
struck through, and can hold bulleted or numbered lists. The formatting bar
appears above whichever side you are editing. Typing - or
1. at the start of a line also starts a list, and the usual shortcuts
work on Mac: ⌘B, ⌘I, ⌘U, and
⌘⇧S for strikethrough.
A new install includes a sample deck called Dinosaur Basics so there is something to try straight away. Edit or delete it whenever you like.
Studying
- Tap or click the card, or press space, to flip it.
- Answer in two steps. First Review again or Got it, then how hard it felt: Easy, Medium, or Hard. Splitting the question keeps each half simple. To answer with one tap instead, turn off Rate how hard each card felt in Settings › Studying.
- Show first switches between Front, Back, and Mixed.
- The shuffle and restart buttons are in the top bar.
Study modes
| Mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| All | The whole deck, in order, paged freely |
| Due | Only the cards the schedule says are ready |
| Dynamic | Repeats the cards you miss until none are left |
In Dynamic, a card you miss comes back a few cards later, and a card you get but rate Hard comes back much later in the same run. The run ends only when every card has been got without a struggle, and finishing plays a small celebration. If a card keeps returning but you actually know it, Not hard after all clears it.
Spaced repetition
Every answer moves that card's schedule. Cards you find easy come back less often, cards you miss come back within minutes. The deck list shows how many cards are due, and Review studies just those. A card missed many times is flagged so you can reword it, since a card that keeps failing is usually the card's fault. Test results feed the same schedule.
Building a test
You control how much of the deck is used and how many questions of each type. Four presets, Quick 10, Even mix, Write-in only, and Whole deck, are there as starting points.
| Type | How it works | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Write-in | You type the answer | 1 card |
| True / False | Judge whether a pairing is genuine | 2 cards |
| Matching | Match prompts to an answer bank | 2–8 cards per block |
Cards are drawn at random each time, so no two tests are identical. A card with a blank front or back is skipped, because it cannot be turned into a question.
How answers are graded
- Capitalization, punctuation, accents, and extra spaces are ignored. A leading "a", "an", or "the" is ignored too.
- Small typos are forgiven on longer answers. Answers of four characters or fewer must be exact.
- Alternative answers. Separate them with a semicolon or a vertical bar and any one of them counts as correct. For example
T. rex; Tyrannosaurus. - Matching blocks give partial credit: one point per correct pair.
- After submitting you get a score, a breakdown by question type, and a review of every question with the correct answers.
Syncing your decks
Stego works fully offline and needs no account. If you want your decks on more than one device, create a sync account in Settings › Sync. It is a username and a password, with no email address.
- Syncing happens when the app opens, shortly after you edit a deck, and whenever you press Sync now.
- Sync theme is off by default. Turn it on for a device that should take its dinosaur, color, and appearance from the account. Leave it off for a device that keeps its own look.
- Syncing while offline says so rather than failing quietly. Your decks are always kept on the device as well.
- There is no password reset, because there is no email address on the account. If you forget it, the account cannot be recovered, though your decks stay on your devices.
- Signing in as a different person replaces the decks on that device with theirs. The previous account keeps its own decks, and signing back in brings them back.
On iPhone and iPad, decks are also kept in your own private iCloud container, which works without an account but only between Apple devices signed in to the same Apple Account. The Mac version stores decks locally, so use a sync account, export, or the share sheet to move decks to it.
Sending a deck to someone
If you both have accounts, you can send a deck straight to someone by username. Open Export, or the share button on a deck, and choose Send to a Stego user.
- Decks sent to you wait in Sent to me, reached from the button in the deck list. Nothing is added to your library until you accept it.
- Every received deck can be rejected, reported, or the sender blocked so they cannot contact you again. Blocked people are listed at the bottom of that screen and can be unblocked.
- Usernames are private. Someone has to know yours exactly to send you anything.
- What may and may not be sent is set out in the Community Rules.
On Mac
The Mac version has the same decks and the same tests, with a few additions that make sense with a keyboard.
| Shortcut | Does |
|---|---|
Space or Return | Flip the current card |
← / → | Previous / next card or question |
1 / 2 | "Review again" or "Got it" |
1 / 2 / 3 | Easy, Medium, or Hard, when that prompt is turned on |
⌘S | Save the deck you are editing |
Esc | Close a dialog |
Your decks are stored in a single decks.json file. To find it, use
File › Reveal decks.json in Finder from the menu bar.
Importing and exporting
Decks live in a plain JSON file, so they are easy to back up or move. Export asks which decks to include, then where to send them: saved to a file, shared through Messages, Mail, or AirDrop, or sent to another Stego user. Import adds the decks in a file alongside your own, so importing can never overwrite anything. On Mac you choose where to save. On iPhone and iPad the file appears in the Files app under Stego.
Your data
Stego has no ads and no analytics. Without a sync account, nothing ever leaves your device. With one, your decks and username are stored on the sync server so they reach your other devices, and nothing else is collected. There is no email address on an account, and you can delete the account, and everything stored with it, from Settings › Sync. Full details are in the privacy policy.
Requirements
- iOS or iPadOS 14.0 or later.
- macOS 12.0 (Monterey) or later.
- A sync account is optional, and only needed for syncing between devices or sending decks to other people. You must be 13 or older to create one.
- No internet connection is required to create, study, or test.
Reporting a bug or asking for a feature
Email jonlee174@gmail.com, or open an issue on GitHub. Useful details: what you expected, what happened instead, and the steps that led there.