You can process all elements in a given branch or in a browser subset by means of the subset processing menu. This menu is available as Process browser on the browser menu, or as Process branch on the contents menu. The options of the subset processing menu are listed below. References to subset elements should be understood as references to the elements of a given branch or the elements listed in the browser.

• Learning
  • Learn - make outstanding repetitions on elements included in the subset. The sequence of repetitions is determined by how elements are sorted in the subset (i.e. not by the global repetition schedule). Once outstanding repetitions are made, proceed with memorizing subset elements that are listed in the pending queue
  • Review all - review all elements in the subset. Elements that are not outstanding are subject to mid-interval repetition. Mid-interval repetition results in optimally rescheduling the element. If the review interval is much shorter than the optimum interval, the new interval will not be much longer than the preceding interval. If the review interval is close to the optimum interval, the new interval will be nearly as long as if the repetition took place at optimum time. Dismissed elements are not subject to review. Elements that have already been reviewed on this particular day will also be skipped. Use Review if you urgently need to review a portion of material (e.g. before an exam). You could use Learn before using Review to make sure you start from the outstanding material. Alternatively, you could sort the subset by the date of the next repetition (starting from the earliest dates) to maximize subset recall in case you do not manage to complete the entire review
  • Review topics - review topics only
  • Postpone - increase intervals of all outstanding repetitions by a selected factor (e.g. 1.02 will increase intervals by 2%)
  • Advance - opposite to Postpone for topics. All topics will be rescheduled with intervals falling into a selected range. For example, if you want to thoroughly review all topics related to whiplash injury over the period of two weeks, search for whiplash (Ctrl+F), choose Advance, and select 14 (number of days in the review period)
  • Dilute - same as Postpone but with this difference that all elements in the subset will be affected (not only outstanding elements)
  • Spread - reschedule all elements equally in a given period of time (e.g. make sure that all items related to geography are rescheduled in equal portions of 20 items per day in the period of one month). Please note that you might want to first choose Child : Outstanding (see above) to make sure that you reschedule only outstanding repetitions, i.e. not all repetitions in the entire subset. You can also choose Child : Items to make sure you reschedule only item repetitions. See also: Mercy
  • Remember - memorize all elements that have not yet been memorized
  • Forget - remove all memorized elements from the learning process and put them at the end of the pending queue
  • Dismiss - dismiss all elements, i.e. ignore them in learning
  • Undismiss - return all dismissed elements to the pending queue
  • Done - execute Done on all elements. Upon confirmation, Done will delete the contents of individual elements, dismiss them, and delete these elements if they have no children (see: incremental reading)
  • Add to drill - add all elements to the final drill queue
  • Reset history - reset the repetition history of all elements
• Ordinal - change the ordinal number of all elements in the set:
  • Set ordinal - give all elements the same ordinal number
  • Set difficulty ordinal - give all elements ordinals derived from item difficulty (easier items will get lower ordinals). This makes it possible, for example, to sort the pending queue in such a way that easy elements come first in learning
  • Spread ordinals - give all elements ordinals increasing in equal steps from a given lower limit to a given higher limit
  • Blend ordinals - set ordinals by position in the subset weighed against the position in another subset. If you have the same set sorted in two different ways, you can find a sorting order that falls into the middle between these two sorting orders. For example, if you have a collection that has been ordered by the position of elements in individual branches, you can set up a pending queue in such a way that difficult elements are pushed slightly towards the end of the queue. To accomplish this goal, sort the set by difficulty and save it in a subset file. Then sort the set by the original order and blend ordinals with the previously saved difficulty order set. The blend factor will determine how much the current sorting order is modified (0 for no change and 1 for the order from the subset file)
  • Set position ordinal - give all elements ordinal numbers equal to their physical position in the collection (e.g. to sort the pending queue in the order of adding elements into the collection)
  • Set pending ordinal - give all elements ordinal numbers equal to their position in the pending queue
  • Modify ordinal - increase or decrease ordinal numbers of all elements
• A-Factor - change the A-Factor of all elements in the set:
  • Set A-Factor - set the A-Factor to a selected value
  • Modify A-Factor - multiply A-Factors by a selected number
• Forgetting index - change the forgetting index of all elements
  • Set forgetting index - assign a given forgetting index to all elements
  • Default forgetting index - make all elements use the default forgetting index. The default forgetting index is set with Tools : Options : Learning : Forgetting index
• Template - template operations (for more details see: Using templates)
  • Apply template - apply a selected template to all elements in a given element subset. Unlike in earlier versions of SuperMemo, this operation is reversible. You can always apply a different template or use Detach template on element menu to remove the applied template from individual items
  • Impose template - execute Impose template operation on all elements in the subset. This will make sure that the source template of all elements is overwritten with the template applied to those elements 
  • Replace template - replace the template in all elements (see Using templates). This operations is similar to Apply template but it is not reversible, i.e. the source template of all elements will be overwritten
  • Add template - add a template to all elements (see Using templates). You can use this option, for example, to add a picture to all elements in the subset
• Move
  • To a branch - move the elements to a selected branch in the knowledge tree
  • To a category - move the elements to a selected category
• Type - change the type of topics or items (tasks will not be affected)
  • Make items - convert all topics to items (see also: Topics vs. items)
  • Make topics - convert all items to topics (see also: Topics vs. items)
• Set title - assign a given title to all elements
• Statistics (Ctrl+Shift+B) - collect learning statistics for the elements in the subset. In the example below, a subset of 2455 elements is being analyzed. Some exemplary statistics of interest: the average item intervals is 988 days, the average number of repetitions is 3.9, and the measured forgetting index is slightly higher than the requested forgetting index (this is quite understandable considering a high number of postpones). The forgetting index for the first repetition equals 27% only to drop to 8.4% for most recently executed repetitions. Overall retention is 95% and the total size of texts in the subset is 280 KB.

SUBSET STATISTICS (Jun 19, 2004)
c:\sm2004\systems\all

Elements: 2455
Items: 2423
Topics: 32
Memorized: 2423
Dismissed: 32

Items: 2.36% of all items
Topics: 0.02% of all topics
Memorized: 1.20% of all memorized
Burden: 4.143 elements/day (0.34%)
Item Burden: 4.143 items/day (1.83%)
Topic Burden: 0 topic/day (0%)
Item Repetitions: 3.87
Topic Repetitions: 0
Item Interval: 988.063
Topic Interval: 0
Item A-Factor: 4.923
Topic A-Factor: 1.56
Average item postpones: 5.125
Average topic postpones: 0
Total postpones: 12418 + 0

Requested forgetting index: 9.96%
Measured forgetting index: 10.26%
First repetition f. index: 27.3%
Last repetition f. index: 8.38%
Forgetting index cases: 11313
RETENTION: 94.78%

Item text size: 280.909 KB
Topic text size: 0 bytes
Total text size: 280.909 KB