Checkvist story

New bookmarklet: Gmail and issue tracker integration

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:04:00 +0300

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 far Checkvist “understands” Atlassian Jira and JetBrains YouTrack issue link formats.

But of course you can use bookmarklet to save references to any web page as well and conveniently create a list of tasks while browsing the web.

Other enhancements include:

No pop-up window (no problems with browser pop-up paranoia)
ESC to close the bookmarklet window
Ctrl+Enter instead of clicking the Add button.

Here’s a short demo.

Drag and drop the new bookmarklet to the browser toolbar: 2Checkvist or update it later from your profile page.

Embed checklist to your web page

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:48:49 +0300

After releasing the iGoogle gadget for Checkvist it was rather natural to give users an easy way to embed lists to their web pages. Just like in an example below:

This checklist is marked as public, so anyone can view it even without having Checkvist account.

Now, when checklist author marks it as public from the share dialog, there is a code snippet which allows to embed this checklist to any HTML page (see screenshot below).

You can copy/paste code fragment from the text field and insert it into a web page. If needed, you can tweak width and height parameters.

Add Checkvist to your iGoogle homepage

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:01:13 +0300

Here’s a little something for your convenience: an iGoogle gadget. Add it to your personalized Google homepage and work with your list using the same keyboard shortcuts:

Select a list you want by pressing ll
Hide/show completed tasks by pressing hc
Navigate the list, add new tasks, subtasks, complete or invalidate, use color - all fast, not taking your hands from keyboard.

Click the button to install it now:

OpenAPI usage examples (Javascript, Ruby)

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:00:00 +0300

We’ve got a number of requests to provide some examples of accessing Checkvist via OpenAPI. When I started preparing one, I found some inconsistencies in the OpenAPI docs and in the implementation. These issues have been fixed and now I’d like to give you some code examples.

In the examples, I’ll demonstrate usage of the JSON format for the returning data. Checkvist API also supports XML format, for details, please see the documentation.

Javascript

The Javascript example illustrates how to obtain checklist tasks data and embed the list into your web page.

The list will be organized into a hierarchy with simple UL tags. Completed tasks in the list will be striked, invalidated tasks are marked with italics. The parent UL tag will have CSS class checkvist_list to enable styling according to your needs.

Here is a sample of the generated HTML code:


  This is an item
  This is another item
      
        This is a subitem
        This is a completed subitem
        This is invalidated subitem

To embed the checklist, follow these steps:

Step 1. Add Javascript library for accessing Checkvist

In the HEAD section of your web page, add the following line:

This sample library contains the code which accesses the Checkvist via OpenAPI and builds HTML for embedding into web page. You can download it and customize for your needs, if you want.

Step 2. Prepare target location for the embedded checklist

Add the following markup on your page at the place where you want to see the checklist:

Step 3. Determine the ID of the checklist you want to embed

This is an easy part. If your checklist has URL like http://checkvist.com/checklists/3318-checkvist-test-plan, than required checklist ID is 3318.

Step 4. Get your OpenAPI key

Visit your CheckVist profile page and click “View/update remote OpenAPI key” link. Copy the key from the text field.

Step 5. Add code which actually loads the checklist

Add the following block in the HEAD section of your Web page:

In this code, you need to specify your login to CheckVist - e-mail address, OpenAPI key, and checklist ID to show.

If your checklist is public, there is no need to authenticate, so checkvist.login call can be omitted.

Actually, instead of calling setInterval function, you can invoke method load_checklist in your usual place of Javascript initialization code for your web page.

That’s it. When the page is loaded, the element checklist_container will be filled with checklist tasks. You can take a look at the checkvist_api.js and use it as a base for solving more complex tasks.

Ruby

As long as Checkvist OpenAPI is HTTP-based, you can use a standard Net::HTTP module to create requests, and JSON gem to parse responses.

Here is a sample class for accessing Checkvist from Ruby:

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'
require 'rubygems'
require 'json'

class SampleCheckvistApi 

  def initialize email = nil, api_key = nil, site = "http://checkvist.com"
    @email = email
    @api_key = api_key
    @url = URI.parse(site)
  end

  # Obtain a list of checklists
  def checklists()
    json_call Net::HTTP::Get.new("/checklists.json")
  end

  # Obtain a list of tasks for given checklist
  def tasks(checklist_id)
    json_call Net::HTTP::Get.new("/checklists/#{checklist_id}/tasks.json")
  end

  # create a task in given checklist
  def create_task(checklist_id, content, parent_task_id = nil, position = nil)
    json_call Net::HTTP::Post.new("/checklists/#{checklist_id}/tasks.json"), 
      { "task[parent_id]" => parent_task_id, 
        "task[position]" => position, 
        "task[content]" => content }
  end
  
  # update a task attribute. For task attributes, you can use "content", "parent_id", "position"
  def update_task_attribute(checklist_id, task_id, attr_name, attr_value)
    json_call Net::HTTP::Put.new("/checklists/#{checklist_id}/tasks/#{task_id}.json"), {"task[#{attr_name}]" => attr_value}
  end
  
  def json_call request, parameters = nil
    request.basic_auth @email, @api_key if @email
    request.set_form_data(parameters) if parameters
    
    res = Net::HTTP.start(@url.host, @url.port) { |http|
      http.request(request)
    }
    
    case res
    when Net::HTTPSuccess
      JSON.parse(res.body)
    else
      res.error!
    end
  end

end

And here is a sample of how to use SampleCheckvistApi class:


  # Specify authentication data:
  api = SampleCheckvistApi.new('email', 'OpenAPI key')

  # For each public non-archived checklist
  api.checklists.each do |checklist|
    # Obtain its tasks:
    tasks = api.tasks(checklist['id'])
    # Tasks are sorted by parent_id, position 
  end


  # Create a task in the first checklist
  # Get ID of the first checklist:
  first_checklist_id = api.checklists[0]["id"]

  # Create the task at the end of the checklist:
  new_task = api.create_task(checklist_id, "new task from api")

  # Change task content to 'new text'
  api.update_task_attribute(new_task['checklist_id'], 
      new_task['id'], "content", "new text")
  # Change the parent of the task:
  api.update_task_attribute(new_task['checklist_id'], 
      new_task['id'], "parent_id", tasks[0]['id'])

If you’re interested in using Checkvist API, or you’re going to use it, please let us know :). You may also want to subscribe to the checkvist-api newsgroup.

Good luck!
KIR

Bugfix server update

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:02:49 +0300

Hello,

For the last days we didn’t do a lot of new development, but bugs cannot wait, so here is a short summary of what was fixed for the last time:

Fixed Remember Me support. Now users who checked “Remember Me” mark will be redirected from home page to their checklists page (as it was before introducing the paid plan)
There were some bugs when recognizing URL in checklist text. If you notice incorrect URL recognizing, please let us know.
OpenAPI fix: when tasks were returned in JSON format, the data was OK for Javascript interpretation, but didn’t confirm to JSON standard.
No notifications were sent about deleted notes
Copy/Paste/Move now copy notes for tasks as well
MySQL database were updated to avoid some locking problems
OpenAPI documentation was corrected in several places

And thanks all of view for your feedback, we really appreciate it!

Extract checklist and UI customization

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:59:31 +0300

This week we introduce a couple of features and a handful of bugfixes:

Extract checklist - when a checklist gets too long, you can easily break it into several ones. Just select the top task of the node you want to extract, and press xx (new shortcut for xtract feature). The top task becomes the new checklist title, and the original list contains a link to the new one. See reference for details.
UI Customization available to our Pro users - The first addition to the Pro plan allows changing the logo and colors of the Checkvist’s interface. Those who are sure of their web design skills can use custom CSS to customize Checkvists face into anything they fancy. See reference for details.
(bug fixed) Changed behaviour of a parent task upon completion in the “Hide completed mode (see the discussion of this issue)
(bug fixed) Corrected URL linking (thanks, Ricardo!)
(bug fixed) Saving credentials upon login (the “Remember me” option) (thanks, Oleg!)

And - as usual - thank you so much for your feedback and so many ideas!

It's settled: Checkvist Pro

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:31:00 +0300

We’ve been almost silent for quite a while. And there is a reason behind that.

For more than a year, Checkvist was completely free. We have a lot of happy users, a lot of great feedback. It is a real joy to work on the tool.

We got some requests from people who would like to donate to our service to say thank you - and these were indeed pleasant requests. On the other hand, monthly hosting bills led us to a thought that Checkvist should probably pay for itself, or at least cover some expenses.

So we spent some time and introduced Checkvist Pro plan. As we promised before, all previous features, already available to Checkvist users, remained free.

Checkvist Pro plan is subscription-based, and it costs $15 for 6 months. Its benefits are valuable mostly for those who collaborate using Checkvist:

Daily digest of the changes. You can either subscribe on changes in specific checklists, or subscribe for all available checklists.
Private read-only sharing. This feature is useful in a case when you want to show results of your work to someone, but disallow modifications from your reviewer (writeable sharing is still available for free).
Full HTTPS support. You can use HTTPS protocol to work with your lists, which makes your communications secure. For all (including non-Pro) accounts, HTTPS can still be used to register in the system and update user profile.

There is also a couple of new things available to free accounts as well:

You can specify a custom message when sending a notification about changes
You can choose recipients of the notification, and also send a copy to yourself
Notification e-mail message was reworked and is available in HTML format

Under the hood, we’ve also made several time-consuming changes, in particular, migration to Ruby on Rails 2.3.3 and MySQL InnoDB engine.

And now, after the release, we can provide more frequent updates.

Stay tuned and thanks for being with us :)

A forgotten milestone: 10000 lists

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:28:17 +0300

As our friend mentions, Checkvist is already over 10 000 lists, which can be considered a humble milestone. While thanking him, I was wondering why I do not really find numbers that important. What are we developing for? What is important, then?

It’s not money - the tool is free and we do not aim to get ourselves a Ferrari by adding a paid plan, or selling it to a big company.
It’s not market dominance - we’re pretty aware of other tools, their smart and rich features.
It’s the joy. The joy of making a tool that would prove useful not only to ourselves but to some number of people who’d love it and use it. The joy of communicating with those people, discussing future plans and features, creating the tool together.

This is it, I think. We see a long road ahead - adding search and tags, and dates (and other attributes), creating new web app for iPhone, improving UI look and feel, polishing existing keyboard support, etc, etc. With your help and participation it’ll be the biggest fun a software developer can get.

10000 lists is great, but let’s continue. For the joy of it :)

Read-only publishing and HTML support

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:11:00 +0300

Disclaimer: this is not a fools day issue. This is a normal, ordinary update of the server. No surprises. Here’s what kept us busy:

Read-only publishing of your checklists/outlines (suggestion)

To share your outlines with anyone on the web, press “Publish” button in the Share dialog, then copy the URL and send it to your boss, friends or put it on your blog. The readers cannot make changes to it, but are able to copy or export your outline (useful if you want to share something other people can utilize in their work).

If you or your co-workers make changes to that outline, they’ll be immediately visible to the public. To make the outline private again, simply click Un-publish in the same dialog panel.

Support HTML in tasks and comments (thanks joebadmo for suggestion)
Fix problem for multi-line task rendering in preliminary mobile version of Checkvist + add support for HTML as well (thanks Serge Beauregard for this report and for many others)
IE8 support, including option to add numbering to outline (see view options in toolbar)
Allow to send a copy of Checkvist invitation to self when inviting people
More fixes and improvements. Among them a fix for the bug when creating a checklist in Safari 3.1.2 or AJAX update of sharing information.

Enjoy!

OPML import and a handful of fixes

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:50:26 +0200

The only new feature in this update is OPML import. We thought it would be rather important to support two-way integration with, let’s say your favorite desktop outliner and Checkvist. Please bear in mind that this file format is not strict, and sometimes importing/exporting OPML needs some manual fine-tuning.

With OPML import you can:

Backup your checklist offline and import it back if needed. Statuses, notes, coloring - all this stuff can be exported and than imported, so the list presentation will stay intact.
Provide some interoperability with other outliner tools. For example, Checkvist understands some non-standard attributes from OmniOutliner.

Besides, many Checkvist reviews claimed that it supports OPML import. We had to turn these claims into the truth.

We’ve also made several minor fixes, which are worth mentioning:

Fixed wrong outline numbering after closing/opening/editing a task in Safari/Chrome
Fixed recently damaged keyboard support in Opera (version 9.5 and newer should work flawlessly now)
Delete a task when the user has deleted its text (in the editing mode) and pressed Enter (or Save)
Fixed a curious interaction bug: pressing TAB could totally conceal a task if there was a hidden completed node above it
Support Shift+1, Shift+2, Shift+3 for setting background color (in addition to 1,2,3 for foreground color)
Option to export color. For plain text export this option is not supported, for Confluence Wiki background color is exported as foreground color, for OPML we add ‘color’ and ‘bgColor’ attributes to an outline element
Fixed a nasty bug introduced by the previous update when task status change was incorrectly reported in notification e-mails
Added the explicit “Rename” command to the options for checklist modifications (which are available on title hovering)
Show a message on clicking the toolbar “add notes” link when no task is selected
In the View options popup the whole line is clickable, not only its text
Fixed a bug in URL parsing - now several URLs are recognized within task/note text
After pasting (or duplicating) a task with Ctrl+V/Ctrl-D we set selection to the duplicate and scroll to it.

And we’d like to say huge thanks to all those people who send us emails with feature requests and bug reports, who participate in the user forum, tweet @checkvist_news, and leave comments on this blog. Your help and feedback help us greatly. Thank you!

Server update: improvements and fixes

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:55:00 +0200

It’s hard to concentrate when your product begs for a dozen of big features and dozillion of small ones. Of course we want Checkvist to be able to do all that’s mentioned on http://checkvist.uservoice.com. But we want to do it as perfectly as possible, hence the importance of “small things’ updates”.

This update features:

Number your list items: select the “Show as a numbered list” option in the View options pop-up to create an ordered list. Very convenient for those who take a large outline of tasks to the meeting: it’s easier to reference a task or a group of tasks by number. (Sorry, Internet Explorer users. Let’s wait for the 8th incarnation of this browser. Or - while we are waiting - please try FireFox or Chrome?)
Change status of a parent task: now changing status of a parent task will also work (via updating status of its children). Undo it (Ctrl-Z or uu or click the Undo link) if you did it mistakenly. Please, note that if the group is collapsed, the first key press will open it and the second one will change status. So to complete a collapsed group of tasks, you must press Spacebar twice.
Add new task above the selected one: press Alt+Enter instead of Enter and a new task will appear above the selection.
Paste task below the current selection It looks like this behaviour is more natural and more predictable.
View Options popup is visible even when you’ve scrolled down the list (type oo and it will appear in the top right corner of the screen).

Fixes include:

When task is closed and “Hide completed” mode is enabled, the selection is moved to the next task in the list. Previously, the selection was lost in this situation.
When “Tab” is used to move the task one level right under a parent, we expand the parent group. Previously, the moved task disappeared from view because it went to the collapsed group.
Undo link will disappear after a minute.

And speaking about more significant stuff … yes, we’re working on it :-) . Stay tuned!

Adding colors to tasks

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:34:00 +0200

Weekends are for doing something nice. For fun and bright colors. So we picked a couple of features that would add color to Checkvist and make it more fun to use.

Mark tasks with color - a feature we longed for ourselves. Open the Colour dialog (6 letter spelling for three colors) from the toolbar to select one of the coloring options. Or simply type 1 to mark task with red, 2 - with blue, 3 - with green, 0 - yes, to get back the defaults. Update: Shift+1, Shift+2, Shift+3 will change the background color (Thanks Noel for suggestion!)
Icons for FluidApp - finally, you’d say. Yes. Took some time first to get the icons (thanks, Fruttacotta, a wonderful graphic designer, but alas with no web-site to link to!), and second to overcome a couple of nasty Fluid misbehaviors.
Fresh updates bar - a feature you didn’t ask us for, but we hope you’ll like it nevertheless. To ensure you don’t miss any new goodies, we added a light unobtrusive bar at the bottom of the page. Read it, close it, and it won’t appear until we update the server with something new and useful.

Want more? Less? Don’t forget to tell us what you need or (god forbid) the bugs you’ve encountered at our user forum.

Print: the first icon on the toolbar

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:15:21 +0200

Checkvist was thought, designed, and created with support for printing. Print.css has been there since version zero. And still we hear questions: but how do you print it? Will it print? And even - I’d use your tool if it could print my checklists out.

Ok. Lessons learned. Nobody wants to explore an application, they want to use it. “Don’t make me think” is not just a nice title of a bestselling book, it’s a law.

So we thought and added a small print icon to the otherwise icon-free toolbar. Click it - and see your checklist stripped of all extra UI elements, just your list of tasks, ready to print.

And if you want to print tasks with notes - there’s a link in the top right corner of the preview screen that shows or hides all notes in your checklist.

Other small enhancements that went into the same update include:

Home, Page Up, and Page Down keyboard shortcuts (doing just what you think they do but with task selection)
+ and - on numeric keypad to expand or collapse a branch of tasks
Notifications about notes are not sent automatically anymore (you must press “Notify about changes” button to let your peers know what you’ve done, with one single email).

Enjoy!

Mobile UI

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:57:30 +0200

Hello everyone,

The holidays are gone, and we’re glad to offer one of the most requested features for Checkvist - a mobile interface. It has beta quality, i.e. we are not aware of any serious bugs. Mobile UI was tested on iPhone, Opera Mini, and IE mobile.

The current basic functionality includes:

Create/rename checklist
Create/delete tasks (deletion with undo)
Edit tasks and change task status
Add subtasks
View task notes and details (last update information)

We plan to add more features in the future, probably some iPhone nicities or even offline support (as a premium feature).

But we need your feedback on how does current version work for you, do you have any problems with it, and which functionality you really miss.

Please check it out: http://checkvist.com/m/ and write about your impressions to kirsa@checkvist.com .

Please use http://checkvist.uservoice.com to request improvements in mobile UI.

Thanks!

Small improvements: Hide completed tasks

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:38:49 +0200

Today’s update features a small but noticeable improvement we’ve made (while working on Checkvist mobile UI): the “Hide completed tasks” option.

Find it under “View options”, in the toolbar:

As always, we did our best to support ~~our own habits~~ keyboard navigation:

Press oo to open the View options pop-up (particularly useful when you’re working somewhere at the “bottom” of a very long list)
Use arrow keys to navigate up and down the list
Select checkboxes by pressing Spacebar or Enter

Besides, you can toggle completed tasks visibility with the hc shortcut (aka hide completed), and viewing details - by holding the Ctrl key.

Enjoy!

Duplicating vs. Templates

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:40:00 +0200

Recently we have received a couple of questions regarding possibility to use templates in Checkvist.

And though the tool doesn’t have a feature explicitly named “templates”, we ourselves use a similar thing quite often.

In most cases the answer to the problem is duplicating a checklist and giving it another name, right? Today we use “Release test, Dec 2008”, in a month we’ll create a copy and call it “Release test, Jan 2009”:

We will open the initial checklist, our “template”.
Open the Copy dialog by clicking the corresponding toolbar link

Check the options - we want to create a new checklist (default option in the Target checklist dropdown), we’ll keep the notes and clear task status, so all the new checklist items will be open.

Press Copy - and all you’ll have to do is to give your new checklist a name and share it with your co-workers.

Have you tried using the Copy feature to emulate templates? Encountered any other problems? Do you need more sophisticated templates? And if yes - for what kind of tasks?

Checkvist reviewed by Lifehacker

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:01:11 +0200

A very nice review on Lifehacker brought Checkvist a wave of new users. Positive feedback by email and tweets, new feature suggestions in our uservoice forum, some questions we’ve never thought of…

Now the main challenge is to prepare Checkvist for its 1.0 release keeping it “darn simple” with all those new features waiting for implementation!

Hide old stuff, don’t delete it

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:33:00 +0200

If you are like me, you keep piles of old notebooks, sketches, and other paper stuff even if you hardly need it in the future. You keep email in the fathomless archives of gmail, and when it comes to task lists (or other written plans), you tend to keep the old ones “just in case”.

Archiving was planned in the very beginning of the checklist.com development, but now it has become absolutely necessary.

Deleting a checklist removes it from the application - forever. If you were the owner of that list, it will disappear not for you only, but for your co-workers too.

Archiving is so much safer. The list will just “hide” and won’t occupy the real estate of the homepage and the navigation popup. Other people can continue to use it. Need it again? One-click un-archive will bring it “back to life”.

Both features come with undo, and both are available now from on the Checkvist homepage and on the individual checklist pages.

View a 30-sec demo

Hope you find it useful! If you have any ideas of how we could improve your experience with Checkvist please, do share them at checkvist.uservoice.com

Browser bookmarklet

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:46:00 +0200

Drag this bookmarklet to your browser’s toolbar to make posting to Checkvist easier and more convenient:

2Checkvist

Tip: pre-select text in the browser if you want to add it to a checklist.

Improving notifications

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:18:25 +0300

Those of you who tried using Checkvist in teams (it was designed primarily for collaborative use), might have noticed that email notifications contain very little information about the actual changes made by your peers. To see the changes one had to follow the link.

Not anymore. Now notification emails tell you everything: who changed what (was - such, became - such). The link is still there - if you want to respond to the changes or view them in a broader context.