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WebSocket server

asbplayer takes advantage of the two-way nature of WebSocket connections in order to expose an interface accessible from outside of the browser.

In this design, asbplayer is a WebSocket client that maintains a connection with a WebSocket server that runs locally on the user's computer. The server then exposes an HTTP interface that triggers commands to asbplayer, the client. A technical reference on the pre-packaged server is here.

The server was originally written to enable a one-click mining flow that enriches AnkiConnect addNote requests with asbplayer-supplied media, and so one of its primary functions is also as an AnkiConnect proxy.

note

The preferred way to do one-click mining is with the asbplayer Anki add-on. The AnkiConnect proxy described below is an alternative.

Run the server​

  1. Clone the asbplayer repo.

    git clone https://github.com/asbplayer/asbplayer.git asbplayer

  2. If not already installed, install Golang.

  3. Run the server:

    cd asbplayer/scripts/web-socket-server
    go run .

The proxy is very lightweight, so it's fine to leave it running in the background. On Windows, RBTray can be used to minimise it to the taskbar.

Connect asbplayer to the server​

Configure and enable asbplayer's WebSocket client from the misc settings. By default, asbplayer is already pointed at the WebSocket server's default IP address and port, and so in general all that's required is to enable the WebSocket client.

One-click mining with the AnkiConnect proxy​

Follow the directions on Yomitan's website to install Yomitan and configure it with a dictionary for your target language.

Then configure Yomitan:

  • The AnkiConnect URL should point at the AnkiConnect proxy rather than AnkiConnect. The default proxy URL is http://127.0.0.1:8766.
  • Yomitan should be using the same Note Type as asbplayer.

Mining sentences using Yomitan will create cards with word definition, image, and audio already provided. A truly one-click mining flow can be achieved if the proxy's POST_MINE_ACTION is 2 (update last card). See the server configuration for details.

To always use asbplayer's subtitle text for the Sentence field, enable Always use subtitle text for sentence field under Mining settings. This replaces the sentence text supplied by Yomitan with the mined subtitle text from all tracks.

API reference​

See the technical reference for a description of the API.