Live

Study Desk

A free, offline flashcard app I built for studying, with decks you edit as a spreadsheet.

When: 2026
Stack: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python 3
Try it: fellobello.github.io/flashcard-study-app
Code: github.com/fellobello/flashcard-study-app (MIT license)

Study Desk start screen showing four study modes, difficulty, section picker and a focus timer — The start screen: pick a mode, a difficulty and which cards to study.

Why I built it

I needed to study a 242-card deck for my distributed software development midterm and wanted cards I could edit in a spreadsheet or with an LLM. Everything runs offline.

What it does

Four study modes: flashcards, multiple choice, matching, and a timed true/false speed round.
Three difficulty levels that change time limits, answer choices, lives and scoring.
CSV decks: each card has a section, tags, a term, a definition and an optional example.
Progress tracking: got-it and study-again marks, starred cards and best scores.
Pomodoro focus timer that keeps running between games.

Interesting parts

Choosing cards with set operations

Sections, tags and piles (like "study again") each work as a set. Clicking a name intersects it with the current selection, + adds its cards and − subtracts them, so the deck you study is (selected items, intersected) + added − subtracted. The picker shows that formula and the resulting card count as you build it.

Saving progress without a backend

Opened straight from disk, the app saves progress in the browser. After running a small Python script, progress.json is saved next to the deck, so it survives clearing the browser and can be copied between machines.