Add Vocards widgets to your home screen and style them

You'll have Vocards on your home screen: how many cards are due, your streak, a flashcard that changes through the day, or one word for the day. Each widget gets its own colors and layout.

What you need

• The Vocards app on an iPhone with iOS 17 or later, or on an Android phone.
• To be signed in, with at least one deck that has cards. Until then, the widgets show Welcome to Vocards.
• To have opened Vocards while online at least once since you installed it. The widgets only show what the app gives them.

1. Pick a widget

Vocards has seven widgets, on both iPhone and Android.

On Android you can resize every widget after you place it. Add Card only gets wider or narrower.

The Add Card widget has its own walkthrough in Save words from any app on your phone.

2. Add it to your home screen

The steps are your phone's own, so they vary a little between models.

• iPhone: long-press an empty spot on the home screen until the apps jiggle, tap the add button in the corner, then search for Vocards. Swipe through the widgets, pick a size and tap to add it.
• Android: long-press an empty spot on the home screen, open the widgets list, find Vocards and drag a widget into place. The names there read "Vocards – Today's Review", "Vocards – Learning Cards" and so on.

3. Change how it looks

A new widget starts in the Paper style, with the default layout and no frame. Each widget keeps its own settings, so two Learning Cards widgets can look different.

• Style: one of eight colors: Purple, Paper, Emerald, Black, Neutral, Lilac, Sunset or Midnight. Every widget has it.
• Layout: only Today's Review, Learning Cards and Add Card have one.
• Card frame: None, Straight or Tilted. A frame draws the widget as an outlined card, and Tilted turns it at a slight angle. Every widget has it.

On Android:

1. Long-press the widget.
2. Tap your phone's option to reconfigure or edit the widget. What it's called depends on the phone. Some phones also open this screen when you add a widget.
3. On Widget style, pick a color, then a choice under Layout (if the widget has one) and Card frame.
4. Tap Save. The widget redraws with your choices.

On iPhone: long-press the widget, tap Edit Widget , and change the options in the sheet. The sheet is in English whatever language you use Vocards in, and it lists every Vocards option on every widget. Each widget uses only its own: Today layout for Today's Review, Add Card layout for Add Card, and Card face plus the three "Show" switches for Learning Cards.

4. Choose what a Learning Cards widget shows

By default the card shows the word and an example sentence in the language you're learning, and hides the translation. A glance at your home screen becomes a small recall test.

• Turn on Show translation to see the translation too.
• Turn on Show part of speech to see "noun", "verb" and so on.
• Turn off Show example to see only the word.

On Android these switches are under Card content, and only a Learning Cards widget has them. The text gets smaller as you turn more on.

Word of the Day and Progress + Card always show the translation. These switches don't change them.

What you'll see

The widgets draw from your active decks. Inactive decks are left out of the counts and the cards. See Organize your decks for how to make a deck active or inactive.

Learning Cards, Word of the Day and Progress + Card pick from the same short list: up to 12 cards from active decks that have reviews due, most overdue first.

Widget text follows the language you use Vocards in.

When there's nothing to show, Today's Review says one of these instead:

• All caught up! and Come back tomorrow: no cards are due.
• No decks are active and Activate a deck to see reviews: every deck with cards is inactive.
• Welcome to Vocards: you have no cards yet, or you're signed out.

Limits

• Open the app to refresh. Only the Vocards app updates the widgets, while it's open and connected. At midnight on your phone the numbers expire, because your due count and streak may have changed overnight. From then until you open Vocards, the widgets hold back their numbers.
• Signing out clears them. The widgets drop your cards and counts as soon as you sign out.
• Widget names in the phone's widget list are in English on both platforms, and so are the iPhone's Edit Widget options. The Android style screen follows your app language.

If something goes wrong

After midnight, some widgets show a placeholder instead of asking you to refresh. Your decks and progress are fine. The widget is waiting for the app.