Notebases, Fields, Notes and Cards
The four pieces the learning side is built from, and how a saved lookup becomes something you review.
A notebase is a table in your Read Frog account. Everything you save while reading lands in one, and everything you review is generated from one.
There are four pieces. Three of them you set up once; the fourth appears on its own.
Fields
A field is one named slot with a type — a column of the table. A vocabulary notebase usually has fields like Term, Definition, Example sentence, Paragraph translation and Difficulty.
Five types are available:
| Type | Holds |
|---|---|
Text | Any text, from one word to a paragraph |
Number | A number, with a chosen number of decimals |
Checkbox | True or false |
Date | A date |
Select | One option from a list you maintain |
Two things about fields are worth knowing before you design a notebase, because neither can be changed afterwards:
- A field's type is fixed when you create it. You can rename a field later, but not retype it. To change a type, add a new field and delete the old one.
- The first field is the primary field and cannot be deleted. It is the one the extension fills first when it creates a notebase for you.
Only Text and Number fields can receive output from a Custom AI Action. The other three are for things you fill in yourself.
Notes
A note is one row: one value per field. A note is what a save from the extension produces, and it is also what you add by hand when you want to record something the AI did not give you.
Notes are the unit the free plan counts — 20 in total across all notebases.
Card templates
A card template is a pair of text patterns, Front and Back, with field references dropped into them. The template is the answer to "what am I being asked, and what counts as knowing it".
One notebase can carry several templates. A vocabulary notebase might have one that shows the term and asks for the definition, and another that shows the example sentence with the term removed.
Cards
A card is one note seen through one template. You never create cards; Read Frog generates them. Add a note and it gets a card for every existing template. Add a template and it gets a card for every existing note.
The card is also where the schedule lives. Its due date, its memory state, how many times you have seen it and how many times you have forgotten it all belong to the card, not to the note.
How they fit together
notebase
├── fields Term · Definition · Example · Difficulty
├── notes one row per saved lookup
└── card templates Front: Term Back: Definition
↓
cards = note × template ← the schedule lives hereTwo consequences follow from that shape, and they explain most surprises:
- Editing a note changes every card built from it. The next time the card comes up it shows the new text, and its schedule is untouched. You can do this mid-review.
- Deleting a template deletes its cards, and with them their review history. The notes stay. A new template on the same notes starts every card from scratch.
Cards from the same note do not stack up in one day. If a note has three cards, you see one of them today and the others wait, so a note you just looked up never turns into three questions in a row.
Where to go next
- Create a Notebase — the fields, and what a fresh notebase starts with
- Save from the Extension — connect an action and save from the selection toolbar
- Card Templates — write a front and a back
- Manage Notes and Fields — the table view, and what deleting things costs
- The Review Session — what reviewing actually looks like