Checkvist story

We’ve updated the production server with several fixes and improvements: - We’ve...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:55:44 +0100

We’ve updated the production server with several fixes and improvements:

- We’ve fixed some problems with the ‘mark done’ command in due notification e-mail: added visual feedback via a “humanized” message and a possibility to UNDO the operation
- Increased “Remember me” duration to 90 days (was 30)
- Fixed bug: iGoogle gadget and Checkvist Chrome extension didn’t redirect to the last visited list when corresponding option was enabled
- Fixed bug when selection wasn’t passed to bookmarklet in GMail
- Added scrolling to the current selection after filter reset
- Minor UI tweaks

Moving forward in small steps :)

Server update

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:11:06 +0100

While working on a bigger stuff (group plans) we’ve updated the server with a number of fixes and improvements. Most of the fixes were based on the feedback from Ricardo Salta, thanks a lot, man!

Bookmarklet

- Some pages were incorrectly recognized as Youtrack pages (tnx @ricardosalta)
- Bookmarklet didn’t work at all without text selection in FireFox (@ricardosalta)
- On some pages, bookmarklet was partially hidden under bookmarked page content (@ricardosalta)

Due tasks

- In the Due tasks view, due tasks are now sorted by the due time under a list (Ryan Campbell).
- In due e-mail notifications for PRO users, we replaced ‘clear due’ action with ‘mark done’
- Fix problem with incorrect lists popup contents on the Due page
- We’ve fixed the broken selection after pressing ESC in notes on the Due page

Technical stuff

- OpenAPI includes information about task tags
- Checkvist migrated to use Rails 3.2.1 (with some performance improvements)

Other fixes and improvements

- Toolbar with shadow, changed font for the list title
- Fix a bug when lists popup on user profile page displayed tag numbers instead of tag names (@ricardosalta)
- Sometimes part of task text could be hidden when editing a task with assignee or tag (@ricardosalta)
- SGML-like tags were lowercased
- Fix a problem with selection: when task notes were expanded, the selection always jumped back to the task after adding a subtask.
- On the list index page, it was hardly possible to select the last list on the page (action panel overlapped last row) (@ricardosalta)

We hope this update will make your work with Checkvist smoother :-)

A new bookmarklet with list filter and notes

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:53:00 +0100

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

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:17:04 +0100

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

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:13:32 +0100

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:

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.
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 :)
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

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:25:51 +0200

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

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:37:00 +0200

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?

Watch lists with instant notifications

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:33:39 +0200

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 more…

While working on the instant notifications feature, we also re-designed all manual and automatic notifications. Now the emphasis is on the main thing - the task that was changed.
We tried making print view more readable and also added task colors, so you can benefit from using color printers. Don’t forget the “print background” option, though. Thanks @Franko for the suggestion!
Smarter handling of the input field size (changed and polished the field re-sizing algorithm). Thanks @Neil for the sharp eye!

And the last but not least - Checkvist now has a native Android application, developed by Jabanaki Software. You can download it from the android market.

We are very glad that people continue writing software with Checkvist API. If you want to join them and need any help, advice or participation from our side - just leave us a note

Expanding a list is a difficult matter...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:58:35 +0200

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 dialog window and arrow down to set the level you need.

There’re also quite useful options to expand only the selected branch or show all notes.

A simple way to create a new list and a handful of fixes

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:38:43 +0200

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 you want to to move a task or a node to another list, press mm (easy mnemonic for mmove). In the same pop-up select the list you want to move a task to. If you’d like to move it to a new list - just type the new list name into the textfield, and press Enter.

It’s a small thing, but it can make life’s easier when working with a lot of lists. Hope, you’ll like it, too.

Among other things, we’ve updated server with a handful of bugfixes:

Improved email notifications for assigned tasks. Improvements include better text, readability, better action merge (less spam, more value in each email).
Improved calculation for the width of the editing box (thanks @Neil)
Fixed a bug with the filter on the Due page (thanks @Yura)
Added support for ‘tues’ in smart syntax for Tuesday in addition to ‘tue’.
Option “Close parent task when the last child is closed” didn’t work for Checkvist mobile UI - fixed
Fixed a bug when “reset filter” shortcut didn’t work in some situations

Many thanks to all people who help us making the tool better!

Quick add tasks with contextual import

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 19:14:00 +0200

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 ‘Import tasks’
Paste the copied list items into the Import dialog window
Voile! Checkvist will create one task per imported line of text

It is not a new feature, but can be quite useful when you keep your lists in one place, up-to-date.

Today when I was moving data from a .txt file to Checkvist, I thought it might be interesting for others as well. May be you want to share your own tips? A tip a day, what do you think? Shall we collect 365 ones? :)

Update Now you can invoke the Import window with the new im shortcut!

Assign tasks with Checkvist

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:28:00 +0200

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 assign the selected task
ca - to clear assignee on the selected task
@username - smart syntax to use in the task’s text, filters and searches.

All this can be found under the Assignee section of the reference (? shortcut).

The assignee-related information is imported/exported in all supported formats. You can also assign tasks in the mobile UI.

There is a bunch of other improvements and fixes, included into this update:

We’ve added support for due:tomorrow in search/filter
Search field is highlighted when a list is filtered
In the completed down mode, last closed tasks are shown on top of the previously closed ones (thanks Neil for the suggestion)
Support for local file URLs (like file://etc.) has been added

As usual, we’re eager to hear your feedback, either as comments to the blog post, or via e-mail to kirsa@checkvist.com Thanks!

Feature preview: assign tasks

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:39:56 +0200

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 available on our beta server:

Use smart syntax (prefix @) to assign a task to a person who’s also on the list
Invoke the “assign” window by typing ae on the selected list item
Remove assignee with the ca shortcut
Filter current list or search in all lists for tasks assigned to a given person (@username syntax, code completion should work)
The assignee will receive an email notification after a task has been assigned to him and each time “his” task has been changed by another person.

Besides, we reworked and unified the behaviour of all related “task add-ons”: tags, assignees, and due dates. Now clicking a tag or a due date label filters current list. If you want to color a tag or change due date, you can do it either by editing a task using smart syntax or invoke related dialog window. Shortcuts have not changed: dd for Due Date, tt for Tags, ae for AssignE. And you can use universal aa shortcut to invoke Actions menu.

We also plan to rework list notifications. Instead of single daily digest option, you’ll be able to specify whether you want to receive the daily digest or ongoing notifications, sent as soon as something’s got changed in the list.

When this feature goes live on the main server, we are going to make it available for PRO users only. PRO users will assign tasks, but all assignees will receive the related notifications regardless plan they use.

More bugfixes

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:37:21 +0200

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 long-standing bug when logout in one browser caused logout in all other browsers, on all machines.
Fixed a selection issue on the Due page (thanks David for the report)
Share link text is now more usable, now it’s “you + 4, public”. Thanks, Neil Bowers
SSL access for OpenAPI calls for Pro users is not mandatory anymore (json and xml). It must fix the problems for the third-party tool authors.
Minor fixes for mobile UI (make multi-line text more compact)

As always, all kinds of bug reports are welcome either at uservoice forum, or directly via e-mail.

Slightly technical: export a list to spreadsheets (CSV)

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:23:11 +0200

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 to use XSL transformation to convert the list, exported in OPML format, into a CSV file. The generated CSV file will contain task parent path, task name, last modification date, status, due date, and tags columns.

If you’re a programmer, you can even modify the XSL template to tune it for your needs (there are some explanations inside).

To the battle:

Download the opml2csv.xsl file from github
In the file, set the correct CSV separator (but most likely, this step is not needed, the default separator is ‘;’)
Download Saxon home edition
Unzip downloaded saxonhe9-3-0-5j.zip , you’ll get saxon9he.jar file
Download and install Java JRE, if you don’t have it already (JRE would be enough, JDK is not needed)
Export Checkvist list to an OPML file (see ‘export’ command in the toolbar)

Generate CSV file with the following command (make corrections in paths):

java -jar path/to/saxon9he.jar -s:path/to/checkvist33223.opml -xsl:path/to/downloaded/opml2csv.xsl -o:path/out/target_file.csv

Open generated target_file.csv file in Excel/Numbers whatever.
That’s it.

Thanks Douglass Yeager for the inspiration and interesting request :)

Performance update

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:12:59 +0200

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 speedup :)

P.S. We’ve also fixed the bug when “Show details” option didn’t persist between page reloads.

Checkvist on iPad (Safari)

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:47:00 +0200

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 facilitation of the most often used actions on iPad (Safari browser):

Close/reopen a task with the right/left swipe.
Invoke all major actions by tap-n-hold (Edit, Add task and Add subtask are on top).
Edit with double-tap is an experiment as we can’t decide whether it’s much easier than using the top level item of the Actions menu.

Hope those who had to use a walk-around by using the Hints panel links as action controls, are now happier with some basic gesture support :)

What have we overlooked? What are the nastiest usability problems with Checkvist on iPad? Of course, true dedicated iOS and Android apps would (and will) do much more, but later. Thanks for the patience!

UPDATE: Add a new task by double-tapping beside/below the task list. The new list item will appear under current selection. Thanks @Keithwberry for the suggestion!

Share your idea as you see it

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:49:47 +0200

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 together with filters, list numbering, and “hide completed” option to concentrate on the tasks you’re working at. If you want to show your team what exactly they must look at, use the new permalink feature.

List permalink

What’s a permalink? It is a link that keeps the state/place of the item it’s linked to. Before now Checkvist had only permalinks for tasks (view task details - hover over the last edit timestamp to see the link):

The new list permalink allows your co-workers to see the list as you shaped it, filtering out or collapsing items of less priority. You can get it by hovering the list name, then simply copy the URL and send it to your peers.

You can also use this permalink feature to invite new users. Just make sure the “Keep the list’s current state and filter” option is checked in the Share dialog:

This can be useful when calling a meeting (tag the items you want to discuss, filter, send the link to the attendees), delegating some items to a new person, etc.

Print a filtered list

The print view already had some intelligence: collapse/expand, toggle notes visibility, and checkbox visibility options. Now it also supports filter - filter a list out, press the print icon in the toolbar - and print yourself a list of your “daily dos”, a meeting plan, etc.

Don’t close parent task, when all its children are completed

This request collected quite a few votes. We find such behaviour useful as well, so we’ve added a corresponding option to the List Settings on your profile page. When enabled, parent task can be opened even when all its children are closed. But not vice versa - you cannot have a closed parent with opened subtasks.

Other fixes

“Share list by link” option now allows to share list in the read-only mode (PRO feature)
“Share list by link” option allows to change the link’s lifetime (you can also make it non-expirable)
Preview changes you’re going to notify your peers about (opens a new window with changes highlighted):
Print view now remembers the state of “Show/Hide checkboxes”. So if you don’t use checkboxes for printed lists, switch to the “Hide checkboxes” mode once and forever (in that very browser)
Node collapse/expand controls (arrows) now match color of the node border and are less “loud”.
Task edit box keeps normal size after you’ve added a large chunk of text via copy-paste.

Tons of fixes

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:20:45 +0200

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 redirect to it after the login
OpenAPI additions for those writing third-party integrations with Checkvist: create/update/delete notes

Fixes/improvements

Enhance keyboard processing while task is being sent to the server: avoid loosing focus on Tab/Shift+Tab and make Up/Down arrows working
“Show as a numbered list” option was unavailable in IE9
added 4/5/6 to the color figure hints in the AA dialog
Fix a bug when deleted tag usages were shown on the tags page
Fix a bug when adding/filtering of international tags didn’t work
Fix a daily backup issue (for some users, backup didn’t work in some cases)
Fix a bug when ‘ll’ popup didn’t work for user profile pages
Enhance input sanitizer to replace
Fix several other minor bugs and problems

Performance

Speedup task reordering
Speedup copy/move operation for the whole list (action from toolbar)
Speedup task import from text and OPML

**it happens

Mon, 16 May 2011 08:44:29 +0200

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 we’ll try harder.

Sorry.