Cheqlist User’s Guide

Installing

To install and use Cheqlist, you must first install Qt, Python (Python 3 recommended) and PyQt5.

Cheqlist fully supports Linux and should work on Windows and macOS, but some things might not work properly or natively.

Arch Linux users can use the cheqlist package from the AUR. Users of other Linux distributions need to install it themselves; PyQt5 packages should be available in OS repositories. macOS users can install python3 from Homebrew, pip for that Python manually and pyqt5 from pip (in a virtualenv, or with pip install --user) to satisfy all dependencies. Windows users can use installers provided by Python, Qt and PyQt5.

Main Window

Cheqlist opens with an empty task list, but a file may be provided on the command line. There are three menus (File, Edit, Help) and two toolbars that allow access to common commands.

Tasks can be added by pressing Ctrl+T on the keyboard or by clicking the Add button in the toolbar/in the menu. Tasks can be edited with Ctrl+E or double clicking. Tasks can be deleted by pressing Delete or clicking the Delete button in the toolbar/in the menu. Tasks also offer right-click menus with Add/Edit/Delete and formatting.

The entire list can be cleared with Ctrl+R or the Clear button. There is no confirmation, but it can be undone (Ctrl+Z).

Files (*.cheqlist) may be opened or saved, see File format for details of what input is taken and what is saved to files. Opening or saving a file links Cheqlist to that file (further Save operations won’t ask for a file name). Closing Cheqlist with unsaved changes will prompt to save them.

Mac users: Replace Ctrl with ⌘ Command and Alt with ⌥ Option.

Formatting

There are four formatting options available: bold (Ctrl+B), italic (Ctrl+I), underline (Ctrl+U), and strike out (Ctrl+Alt+S). Bold, italic, and underline have no meaning to the application (they are for decoration only). Strike out has no meaning unless Ignore struck out tasks is enabled from the Edit menu (saved in configuration between sessions).

Pressing Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down moves items up and down on the list.

Undo, Redo, Undo Window

All operations can be undone. Saving a file clears the undo list. To see all operations, you can use the Show undo window option from the Edit menu.

Pasting items

The Paste items… option in the edit menu (Ctrl+V when not editing a task) allows users to add tasks from the clipboard. It can also be used to add multiple tasks without having to press Ctrl+T after every task (i.e. Collection Mode/Bulk Add) Input is parsed the same way as files — check the File format section for details.

Bulk operations

There are three bulk operations in the Edit menu. Check All marks all tasks as done (sets completion to 100%). Check None marks all tasks as undone (sets completion to 0%). Invert Selection marks all done tasks as undone, and all undone tasks as done (completion = 100% - previous completion)

File format

Cheqlist uses a very liberal parser for files, loosely based on GitHub Flavored Markdown’s list syntax. The following rules apply:

  • If a line starts with asterisks or dashes followed by spaces, those are removed. (bulleted list syntax)
  • If a line starts with [ ] (after removing asterisks/dashes), those are removed and the task is marked as incomplete.
  • If a line starts with [x] or [X] or [*], those are removed and the task is marked as complete.
  • If text is wrapped in single asterisks or underscores (*italic*, _italic_), it is interprted as italic text.
  • If text is wrapped in double asterisks underscores (**bold**, __bold__), it is interprted as italic text.
  • If text is wrapped in <u> HTML tags (<u>underline</u>), it is interpreted as underlined text.
  • If text is wrapped in double tildes (~~strikeout~~), it is interpreted as struck out text.
  • A zero-width-non-joiner character (U+200C) on both sides of a line may be used to preserve raw asterisks, underscores, tildes or <u> tags at start/end of lines.
  • Text formatting options may be mixed, eg. <u>~~***all formattings***~~</u>
  • Cheqlist itself starts lines with dashes and [ ] or [x] in saved files.

The source distribution has some example files that show available formats, alongside a file generator (that often produces garbled output to test the parser).

Configuration

Configuration is stored in ~/.config/kwpolska/cheqlist/cheqlist.ini. The current configuration values are:

  • [directories]
    • lastdir — last directory used when opening files
    • homedir — home directory for lists (used only if open_from is set to homedir)
    • open_from — place to open from (lastdir or homedir)
  • [settings]
    • ignore_struck_out (true/false) — whether or not to ignore tasks that are struck out

Logs are stored in ~/.config/kwpolska/cheqlist/cheqlist.log.