January 2012
1 post
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...
December 2011
1 post
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...
November 2011
1 post
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...
October 2011
2 posts
Smarter or simpler - changes to the Checkvist...
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...
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...
September 2011
4 posts
Watch lists with instant notifications
During this weekend we rolled out another Checkvist update:
Instant notifications (PRO feature)
If you are using PRO plan, you can now watch a list and receive instant email notifications when other people make changes to it. This option is added to the “Email subscription” window:
… and if you are not a PRO customer, isn’t it a nice reason to upgrade? :-)
And...
1 tag
Expanding a list is a difficult matter...
Some people use an outliner to create a plain list of tasks. Others plan things as complex as world domination (like software releases). The latter ones often prefer deeply nested lists.
And if you work with deeply nested lists, you may find it rather hard to peruse a large expanded list of 5+ levels.
With Checkvist you can “expand to n”. Press ec to open the expand/collapse...
A simple way to create a new list and a handful of...
When I spoke last time of sharing useful how-tos, I should have begun with ll - our favourite shortcut for browsing all lists.
Press ll on any page and start typing to find a list quickly. Press Enter to open that list.
Now there’s a little extension: you can type a new list name, and then press Enter to create a new list:
But it’s not the only place where you can use it.
When...
1 tag
Quick add tasks with contextual import
Sometimes you want to add a bunch of new list items from an external source - email, text file, or even a wiki page. And often you want to put this information under a specific node in your existing list.
The easiest way is to use contextual import with good old Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V:
Copy the text you want to import to Checkvist
‘aa’ to open the Actions menu on a list item, choose...
August 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Assign tasks with Checkvist
After a week of beta-testing, receiving feedback, implementing missing features and fixing some issues, we are updating the production server.
Now you can assign tasks to other people on your team, search and filter by assignee, receive related notifications. This is a PRO feature, and we hope it’s a good reason to upgrade :)
Here’s a short cheat-sheet:
ae - keyboard shortcut to...
2 tags
Feature preview: assign tasks
From the day one, Checkvist was a tool for collaborative work. When we added support for tags, teams started using them to assign tasks to different people. But assigning requires slightly more than just tagging:
the assignee must immediately know when a task is assigned to him
the assignee must be automatically notified about changes in the task made by others
The feature is already...
July 2011
3 posts
More bugfixes
We’ve updated the server and made several enhancements and fixes you asked for:
We’ve fixed a bug when task tags could not be edited using smart syntax
Recently we’ve made a change after which Checkvist redirects to the last visited list after the login. But sometimes it is not desired, so we’ve added an option which allows to disable this behaviour.
Fixed a...
Slightly technical: export a list to spreadsheets...
Recently we’ve received a question about exporting lists into CSV format, which allows you to open tasks in a spreadsheet application, like Excel or Numbers.
While we don’t (yet) provide any user-friendly way to do this, it’s possible. Might be a bit too technical, but with some understanding of working with command line you can already use it.
The main idea of the export is...
Performance update
On this weekend we decided to roll out some performance improvements on the server.
Due to code optimizations, we’ve got 18-25% speedup for most task operations (viewing the list, working with tasks).
The update involved changes in the database, so it took ~25 minutes (but it is July, Sunday, may be you didn’t notice the downtime).
We hope, though, that you’ll notice the...
June 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Checkvist on iPad (Safari)
iPad has a decent screen size to make Checkvist UI look quite usable. Look but not feel - the power of keyboard shortcuts is lost on the most-wanted-tablet of all times. Apparently, on touch screen devices keyboard shortcuts convenience must be compensated by something else. Gestures support, to begin with.
Today’s update features a step into the desired iPad/iPhone direction, the...
Share your idea as you see it
Recently I’ve noticed that all our “idea elaboration” lists start with a very simple two level structure of some dozen list items. Sharing a list quickly doubles the numbers (at least). Work on it for a week or so and compare with the initial list. Ha! The structure’s got on the fourth level, notes, colors, tags.
Now the time has come to use collapse/expand diversity...
Tons of fixes
We didn’t update the server for a while, and we’ve collected quite a bunch of fixes and improvements worth sharing with you. All were tested on our “beta” site, so we hope there won’t be any significant problems with the update. If there are any - please let us know :)
Functionality changes
Add A-Z sorting for the list tasks
Remember the last visited list and...
May 2011
2 posts
**it happens
During software update on the server on 25 APR (we’ve installed the latest version of Ruby in our everlasting fight for better server performance) we broke two important features - daily notifications and automatic backup.
The problem is already fixed (thanks, Przemek!)
It’s really embarrassing. Saying that now we’ll dedicate more time to testing is not enough, of course. But...
Server update - multiple fixes
This server update is mostly about “invisible” features, like performance and security improvements:
Update of underlying Javascript libraries for IE9 support
Introduce text sanitizing on save to fight with possible XSS attacks
OpenAPI now allows to update and delete checklists
The “visible” part of the update is some improvements in the Lists (ll) popup - now we...
April 2011
3 posts
Art and fun or On staying small
Seth Godin is a seminal writer, and his writing either in small or large format often changes minds of thousands if not millions. But his recent “Economies of small” was not mind-changing for us.
Instead it was mind-soothing. Now I know what to answer when asked about perspectives of being a tiny ISV. They are art and fun, my friends. Art, fun, and obligations which I take on myself...
Checkvist on the desktop with Fluid or Prism
Today as I was reading an article on novice vs. expert user behaviour, a thought occured to me that some Checkvist-related tricks we consider trivial, might be new and useful to others.
What if we start to share some of our favourite work patterns?
I can start with Kir’s and mine common pattern, and please feel free to continue with your own tips :)
Just like a desktop app
We use...
Priorities, enforced https for PRO customers, and...
Color-coding was among Checkvist’s first features, but until now it
could not fully serve as priority indicator.
In this release we introduce a couple of new features and a handful of
fixes that we believe are closing the “Add
priorities” request in our user forum.
Simplicity
You have 6 priorities to choose from. All have the simplest
key-shortcuts: select a task and type 1,...
March 2011
4 posts
Dear professor, we're so glad you're not a bot!
Everybody who runs an online service knows - each registration makes the developers happier. By the end of the day we measure the number of page visits vs. registrations and think how to make the numbers even better.
But yesterday our interest in numbers turned out pretty funny.
Imagine a family (we are a family of software developers but still) at a dinner. She (me) cooks, he (Kir) is fixing...
Re-order list items via keyboard and some fixes
Many of my lists are a chronology of all kinds of brainstorming, ideas and plans. Time flows, list grows, and suddenly I see that the structure of the list needs a good re-work and re-think.
How do I re-order items in or even through hierarchical groups?
Cut-and-paste, Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V works on nodes or single list items. The paste will place the item after the selected one.
Drag-n-drop (press...
Automatic backup of all lists for our PRO users
This update consists of one but rather important feature for our PRO users that we promised to implement for quite a long time already - automatic daily backup of all your lists to the “cloud”.
We already provide a possibility to manually download all your lists as one .zip archive file (in OPML format). Starting from now you can make the process automatic and safe — go to...
Your task manager and online outliner - now with...
As they say, we are happy to announce. That during the last month we were testing and improving, changing and tuning, and finally it’s here.
Checkvist’s not very short list of features is enriched by two rather important ones:
cross-list search
single list live filtering
How do they work? We outlined the basics in the previous post, but here’s a brief video:
...
February 2011
1 post
Search and dynamic filtering, have a look!
We’ve been quiet for a while, sorry. Big features take big time to implement and a bit of concentration, too.
Text search and dynamic list filtering are rather popular requests in our forum, and now you can try using them on beta.checkvist.com (login with your existing account).
How it works
start typing in the search field to dynamically filter the list you are currently at, or
press...
December 2010
1 post
Something for PRO and a little bit more
In this server update we’ve added a couple of features for our PRO customers. Both relate to notification settings:
Monitor your own changes in the digest email. Now you will be notified only about other people’s changes in your watched lists - by default. If you want to include your own changes in the digest, please select the option. It will affect both explicitly sent messages,...
November 2010
1 post
Expand list options and a handful of fixes
Hello, everyone!
First, a little feature for those loving long and nested lists: expand options.
I remember an email from one of our favourite customers during the first months of Checkvist public existence. He sent us an example of his list - a plot of a novel, for god’s sake, and explained why expanding from level 1 to 4 is so important for him.
I do not know how many of you write...
October 2010
2 posts
New option for adding tasks, other fixes
This server update includes one feature which was repeatedly requested by some of our users and actively rejected by others.
Since Checkvists’ first days we tried to ease the process of adding multiple tasks in succession: after adding one task with the Enter key, an empty field for another task was opened automatically. This behavior is very useful during meetings or brainstorms - when...
Server update: bugfixes
For this update we’ve fixed several bugs which revealed after the Due page rework:
Due screen (and search results) did not show list items when their parent task had a newline in the content (thanks Jason for reporting this problem)
Fixed collapse/expand state of the Due list when changing due information or list item status. Thanks to J R for reporting the problem, it was really bad.
...
September 2010
3 posts
Reworking the due dates screen, a new copy option,...
This update features the new Due screen. We’ve listened to your feedback, stumbled upon the same issues ourselves, and after a short hesitation - new features? or improved old features? decided for the second choice.
Now under the Due tab you’ll find the same keyboard navigable list of all items marked as “due” in all your lists. Use keyboard navigation to collapse or...
Share lists by link and Opera fixes
Good evening, fellow Europeans!
Good morning, day, and night the rest of our dear audience!
First, we must apologize to those who uses Opera browser. During last server updates we’ve broken a few rather important keyboard shortcuts, and somehow overlooked the fact. Thanks for letting us know. Now it should work as intended.
Second, we’ve added an option to share a list by a link....
Server update: Move a task to another list,...
Hello, Monday update is here - not huge, not breathtaking (we’re working on it) but still bringing a handful of useful features and enhancements:
mm - move a task or node to another list. Select a task (or a node) and press the mm shortcut. Then select a list you want to move the task to (do not forget to search-as-you-type to shorten a long list on the fly).
Mark extracted lists with a...
August 2010
3 posts
Monday bugfixes
This time we didn’t prepare new interesting features (they are on the way), but we’ve fixed some nasty bugs.
In Checkvist, you can change color of the list items with keyboard shortcuts 1,2,3 or Shift+1,2,3. But there is also a color change dialog, available from the actions menu popup (shortcut ‘AA’). The dialog has been broken for a while, but now the problem is...
Monday update: more keyboard, smart syntax and...
Big features take much time, and while we were developing tags, some “core” Checkvist functionality, like smart syntax and keyboard support was left aside (as some of you have noted :)
So here’s a handful of fixes and improvements:
Use Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End shortcuts to move a task to the top or to the bottom of the list, respectively.
Four or more dashes...
2 tags
Tags
Tags have been in the beta stage for quite a while already. We wrote several posts explaining how tags work. We received a lot of feedback from you, fixed bugs, added functionality we didn’t think of ourselves - thanks a lot to everyone who wrote us and shared their ideas!
The last couple of weeks were dedicated mostly to the bug fixing and polishing. So starting from today all...
July 2010
1 post
Finalizing tags
During this weekend we’ve made several updates to the beta.checkvist.com website:
As you requested, we’ve removed ‘#’ sign from tag presentation
On the search results page now you can
– hide completed tasks with hc shortcut
– ct - clear all tags from a task
– cd - clear due date
Several fixes regarding keyboard navigation and selection
We’re...
June 2010
1 post
beta.checkvist.com tags update: colors,...
We’ve just updated beta.checkvist.com with a handful of features: the first two are accessible from the Manage tag item in the tt menu.
Tag colors
Tags can be very distinctive visual cues - just give them the color you want. Colors are not shared, this is your own mark-up for tags (printable). If you want an item in the list to stand out, use the task coloring instead.
Private...
May 2010
2 posts
Tags: early access
Tags is a rather complicated feature. Especially if you want to keep the UI clean and simple :)
We’ve spent quite a long time arguing and experimenting. And by today already have achieved some stage where you can try using tags and tell us what you think of the UI and interaction model we’ve chosen. We invite you to join our “early access” program and try out the...
1 tag
Hosting upgrade
Recently we’ve heard some complaints about Checkvist performance. Not many, but still it looked like our hosting plan was not appropriate to the load we had on the server. Especially after we’ve opened early access program to tags support.
So we decided to move the production server from SliceHost to RackspaceCloud, added more memory, updated the software. It took some time, but we...
April 2010
1 post
2 tags
Autofocus with Checkvist
As any outliner, Checkvist can be used for various work scenarios. I use Checkvist as an outline: mostly planning and brainstorming. Kir prefers checklists and to-do lists (he loves to share his to-do lists so the others could participate and cross out a couple of items, too ;)
Today Dan Hersam created a screencast about his way to the productivity nirvana: the Autofocus methodology combined...
March 2010
3 posts
Fixes, improvements, and Firefox sidebar
Recently we made several rather noteworthy fixes:
Chrome extension: scroll bar for long pages is now visible (thanks a lot to Luka Kladaric, the extension author.
Please, update your current Checkvist extension to the version 1.0.2 (you can do it under the Extensions menu of your Chrome browser)
Notification improvement: we now merge several consecutive changes if they are done by the same user...
1 tag
List size matters
We rarely use lists with more than 200 items, probably because it’s easier to get a short list done. You can always extract a sublist (there is even a special shortcut for this command - xx) when needed.
But sometimes people work and collaborate on rather large lists. According to our statistics, we have 16 lists with more than 1000 items. And there are 80 lists with more than 500.
And...
Minor server update
While we’re busy writing tags support, here is a small server update:
Fixed YouTrack issues recognition in Checkvist bookmarklet
Added support for due dates recognition for the two-digit year format, like 31/03/10 (thanks @hhariri for the hint)
Minor database optimization for speedup (has anybody noticed? ;)
And thanks a lot everybody for being with us and stay tuned - more...
February 2010
1 post
Export all lists, sort tasks, quick search and...
This server update brings several features that you’ve been requesting for quite a while:
Export all: export all your lists to create full back-up of your data (a set of zipped OPML files, one per list). It’s not that we’re going to leave you in any forseeable future, but collaboration is collaboration. Sometimes your original outline will look absolutely different. Be prepared...
January 2010
2 posts
Server update: task actions and other improvements
After the release of due dates we’ve got a lot of positive feedback, thanks a lot!
But some people pointed to a problem we are very anxious about - interface clutter. As long as we add new functionality, we also add new interface elements. More functionality - more interface elements. More interface elements - harder to keep the interface clean.
Last week we made several server...
Due dates and ASAP tasks
There are roughly two kinds of people: those who love to set a due date and those who hate seeing “overdue” list by the end of the day. We belong to the second group. Plan approximately, do as much as you can, don’t regret what’s beyond your capabilities.
But still, it is handy to have a shortlist of high priority tasks which should be completed as soon as possible. This...
December 2009
1 post
The more and better, the better!
It’s good when a new great tool appears in your field. The better are tools, the higher expectations, the less half baked “app spam” you get while searching for a true helper in your work.
Besides, arrival of a new great tool stimulates the interest for the whole field. Your new “competitor” outsmarted you in visual design? Has more features? Found a better solution...
October 2009
1 post
New bookmarklet: Gmail and issue tracker...
Seems, it’s time to update your bookmarklets!
The new bookmarklet is integrated with Gmail - click the “2Checkvist” link in the browser toolbar to create a Checkvist task associated with a specific email.
Same with the issue tracker integration - click the bookmarklet while browsing your issues to create a quick to-do list for yourself, your team, specific release, etc. So...