Checkvist story

A new bookmarklet with list filter and notes

A bookmarklet is simple quick way to populate your lists with new items coming from gmail or the web around you.

Checkvist’s bookmarklet has already went through several upgrades (the previous one added smart syntax support), but now it becomes even better - with links and notes.

The current, improved version allows you to

• Quickly find a target list with the live filter
• Pre-select text on the page to add it as a task note
• Use smart syntax to add due dates, tags, and assignees right in the bookmarklet
• Add multiple list items and sub-items at once (indent sub-items with the spacebar or use a dash at the beginning of the line).

Here’s a small video demonstration of Checkvist to Gmail integration:

So, please remove your old bookmarklet and install the new one from your Checkvist profile page

And an inevitable part of any release - bug fixes:

• Send notification when changing list permission reader/writer (thanks @ricardosalta)
• Fix progress bar widths on index page (thanks @sofauxboho)
• Remember selection when switching between lists (thanks @ricardosalta)
• Rename page title after list rename (thanks @ricardosalta)
• Ensure list name is selected after adding a new list (to simplify rename) (thanks @ricardosalta)
• Fix popup overlapping when profile popup was under view options popup (thanks @ricardosalta)
• Fix bug with LL popup positioning on the search results page
• Fix tag update, rename, and delete on the Tags page (thanks Franco)
• Fix tag merge (thanks Franco)

Also wanted to thank all of you who constantly shares their ideas and observation with us. Guys (and gals), the tool wouldn’t be have as good without you. Many thanks and sorry for being slower in replying and discussing during the holiday season. We’ll gain the speed now :)

List tags and list grouping

Once you’ve found more than 10 lists on your hands, you might want to organize them somehow. Now it’s easier with a new possibility to tag lists.

Just like with task tagging, list tags can be added via smart syntax by adding #tag when editing list name. Also, you can set tags for several lists at once on the Lists page - select lists that you want to tag, and then press the Tag button or tt keyboard shortcut.

Once your lists are tagged, use the “Group by tag” option on the Lists page. Your lists will be grouped by tags, so you can concentrate on #work or #home or #thesis.

But it’s also possible to filter the Lists page by one or several tags. Press / to set focus into the search field, then start typing the #tag or list name. The list page will be filtered on the fly.

But what if you’re not on the Lists page? List tags work in the Lists pop-up as well. Press ll to open the pop-up, then start typing a list or tag name, and the whole list will be filtered on the fly.

Here is a short demo which illustrates the feature:

Other minor fixes include:

• im keyboard shortcut for importing tasks
• keep sorting mode on the Tags page
• several bugfixes in completion popups when editing task text

As usual, your feedback is welcome :)

Happy New Year to everyone!

Notes re-worked, Gravatar, and fixes, fixes, fixes

This server update is many times more difficult for us and might be less impressive to you (especially taking into consideration how much we’ve spent on it).

But it’s typical for technical updates: you struggle updating the server backend like a galley slave, and all you hope to see on the application surface is “wow! it still works”. If you’re a Ruby & RoR enthusiast, you can read more details in the Kir’s blog

But three weeks is three weeks and with your help and feedback we’ve been busy not only with deep server diving:

1. Notes re-worked We made notes “a first-class citizen”, with full keyboard navigation, Undo for note deletion and a lighter look. Notes are personal remarks to the list item, that’s why it’s useful to see who’s added them. And with Gravatar picture you can see it at once.
2. Gravatar integration Gravatar is a popular free service that let’s you upload your avatar picture once and then see it on vast number of other online services, blogs, etc. In Checkvist we show your avatar picture with your notes and in the Share dialog, but only if a list is shared, i.g. when you might need to distinguish who adds what to the list.
   We’ll also need it for some new features… you’ll see :)
3. Ctrl+J/K to move tasks up and down the list, just like Ctrl+ ↑ ↓, feature demanded by our keyboard-addicted users :)

Fixes!

• Changed behaviour for ↑ ↓ arrow keys, now they don’t “rotate” after you’ve hit the last or the first list item. If you like the way it was done before, use Home and End buttons.
• Fixed the login problem, thanks @stowball
• Fixed a list layout problem in Fluid app. Thanks, Eric
• Fixed the bug with searching for “changed:yesterday” items, thanks a lot, Kevin, for helping with GMT -7 testing :)
• Fixed the public list login problem (they shouldn’t require any login)
• Extended the API once again for a company who’s working on the Checkvist desktop companion for Mac. We’ll be the first alpha-testers, and will share the impressions once we have them :)

And as usual, we’d like to thank all of you who writes us with their suggestions, ideas and bug reports. Now Checkvist has a Google+ page, which seems a good place for discussions, that are not a true blog post yet, but won’t fit the 140 twitter characters either. Join in!

Smarter or simpler - changes to the Checkvist smart syntax

Smart syntax is the second means of fast work with Checkvist (the first being keyboard shortcuts). Using prefixes like # and @ you invoke autocompletion windows right in the edit box and can add a tag or an assignee in a mere second.

But due dates smart syntax was even smarter! Any word designating a date, detected at the end of the task, turns into due date. To turn this off, you had to end that task with a dot or another punctuation mark.

Today we’re correcting this by giving due dates a prefix ^

The same prefix with completion works for the filter and search.

Enough prefixes! I loved it like it was before! The new “prefixed” option will be set by default only for the new accounts. The rest can toggle the option on their profile page:

No updates come without bugfixes!

• Added changed: previous month option to the search and filter syntax.
• Corrected wording for the changed: week and changed: month to changed: current week and changed: current month to avoid confusion.
• List separator (---- shortcut) is not counted in the list “progress bar” on the main page anymore.
• Fixed the “double-date” bug with Brazilian daylight saving.
• Removed extra multi-line space when adding a top-level task.
• Added space at the end of the edit box when adding a tag via tag completion window.
• “Dim” irrelevant parts of list hierarchy while filtering or searching.
• Minor fixes in the notification emails.

Public checklists: when and how to use

Creating public checklists is a very old part of Checkvist’s functionality, and sometimes we notice rather interesting lists that you publish. Recently we had a conversation regarding public lists with a customer. I think something can be summarized here, and as usual I hope that you’ll add your own examples and ideas to the topic :)

• How to make a list public? Public sharing is one of the basic sharing options, available to all users. All you need is to select an option in the Share dialog and then broadcast the link to your audience:
  
• Is it reversible? Anytime the list author (only!) wants to stop public access to the list, she can make it in the same Share dialog window:
• How can people interact with my public checklist? Can they strike the tasks out? Can they leave comments? Public lists are shared in the read-only mode. It means that people can’t change anything in your list, but:
  1. Anyone with Checkvist account can copy your public list for themselves, and after that alter it, complete, add notes, etc.
  2. Those without Checkvist account can export your list and then use it in other tools
  3. Anyone can kill a tree, and print your public list on paper.
  If you want people to actually collaborate on your list, it’s better to use the Share by link option and send that link to your team.

Another way of sharing a checklist with people who don’t want to create an account in yet another web application, is to prepare a .PDF document of the Checkvist’s Print view, optimized for “offline” usage, and then share it on your blog, Intranet, etc:

There are many things worth creating a checklist :) Sometimes we ourselves “convert” public texts into a more concise checklist form, like a Product pricing checklist, and sometimes find examples made by other Checkvist users, like Accuracy checklist for journalists.

Do you know good examples of public checklists? Would you like to see a public list directory on the Checkvist’s site? Got any useful lists to publish there?