Organize todo lists, notes and images in libraries. Create e.g. a library for personal use and one for work. In addition, you can tag items inside a library, which allow you to easily break down larger collections into smaller parts.
Sync Your Data With NextCloud, ownCloud and More
OpenTodoList allows you to synchronize your libraries with NextCloud, ownCloud and other WebDAV enabled web storage servers. Additionally, you can also use Dropbox for synchronization. And on top, as libraries are basically just a set of folders and files, you can use any third party synchronization tool of your choice.
Your Data is Yours
We do not restrict the cloud platforms your can use to synchronize data. We have support for some platforms like NextCloud or ownCloud, which you can easily host yourself on your own or trusted hardware. In addition, you can opt to create libraries just locally e.g. on your laptop - there’s no better way to prevent confidential information to leak.
For Desktops and Mobiles
OpenTodoList is designed to run on both Desktop Operating Systems like Linux, macOS and Windows as well as mobile ones like Android.
Late in the development of the last version, a little bug sneaked in that prevented
the translations that are stored within the app for several languages to be
actually loadable. Long story short: This is fixed in this release, so if
you prefer the app to show up in your local language - you’ll get it!
Downloads
Please find the download links for major platforms on GitHub.
For Android, the release is available via Google Play.
For iOS, the release is available via the App Store.
If you use snap, you can install the app from the snapcraft.io.
If you use flatpak, you can install the app from Flathub.
For Arch based Linux distributions, you can install the app from AUR.
Known Issues
There is a minor known regression with the Qt6 based build of the app when running on Linux with Wayland. Reordering items via drag and drop works, but you sometimes have to click somewhere (e.g. the tool bar) to re-enable hover for the items after such a drag and drop operation. This has been reported as a bug against Qt in their bugtracker. Usually, you can start the app passing it the -platform xcb option to force using X11/XWayland (which does not show the same symptoms).
It has been a quite long time of silence and some of you might already got
nervous if there would be further releases of OpenTodoList. Well, rest assured,
there will be more. And we start with a big one - at least from a developer’s
point of view. 🧑💻
Yes, you might not find too many interesting changes in this release that really
show up at the surface. However, under the hood a lot has changed and this will
make it way easier bringing forth future releases. But before we start with the
usual changelog, some organizational announcement.
New Release Process
In the past, I tried to release the app about every 3 months. For a long time
this worked quite well. However, the last year showed that this schedule is
currently unrealistic:
Personally, I had a lot of stress in my professional life. On top, I was longer
on sick leave. All together, while I always found a bit of time for hacking,
fulfilling the (too big) plans I made for the individual releases never
worked out and I kept postponing this release for months.
Instead of a fixed, 3 months schedule, I will change to a release on
demand scheme. Whenever something worth releasing accumulated, there will be
a new version. The other side of the medal: If - like with this release -
something bigger needs to be done that I cannot fit into a 3 month period,
there might be a longer pause between releases again. No matter what, though,
I stay committed to release regularly and especially keep the app alive.
Especially on Android and iOS, regular releases might happen to ensure the
app still can be installed on new devices and keeps up with latest developments
on these platforms.
Now, with this being said, let’s check out what 3.50 actually includes!
Changelog
Refactoring, Refactoring, Refactoring!
I know I mentioned this in the past already, but one more time: OpenTodoList
is already quite old (in terms of software). The first release happened already
in 2013!
A lot has changed since then. Initially, the app was written on top of the Qt 5
framework, using Qt’s own qmake build tool. Nowadays, we are on Qt 6 and since
long changed to the semi industry standard CMake tool for building the app.
Why am I mentioning that? Well, a lot has changed and Qt’s CMake APIs have
evolved dramatically. On the other side, the way the app was using CMake to
build was really dated. This release sees a lot of updated on that front,
bringing the build to an up to date state. And this pays out:
Not only should this make future development easier and even help improve
the performance of the app at runtime. It is now also easily possible using
e.g. Visual Studio Code for developing the app! Why is this important? Well,
QtCreator - Qt’s in house IDE - isn’t bad. But VSCode has some power features
that really help boost development - most notably integration of AI features.
Another important improvement is, that this allows easier integration of
additional tools like qmllint, a tool to automatically check the files we
use for describing the user interface, for issues and potential improvements.
Lastly, in that go, the app was also updated to the latest Qt 6.10 release -
which is important to still be able to release the app on mobile systems and -
as always - makes some nice new features available.
So the bottom line here is: While this whole migration took quite a while,
it was really worth it and should help speeding up future development!
Fastlane Configuration For Releasing To F-Droid
Thanks to @IzzySoft, there’s now an initial
structure for Fastlane that - in the future - will help to release the app
to the IzzyOnDroid F-Droid repository. Thanks for the contribution!
Document Drag&Drop Workaround on Wayland
Thanks to another user, @eggia3, we now
have a proper documentation of a Drag&Drop issue when using the app on Wayland.
Also, big thanks here for the contribution!
This release also contains some fixes. One important one: Certificate checks
(when using WebDAV, NextCloud and ownCloud) can not be properly turned off.
This is usually only interesting if you want to test a new instance or cannot -
for some reason - use a proper SSL certificate for a custom server.
Last but not least, this release fixes the links to imaged in the README.md
file. As this file is the main entry point for someone visiting the app
on GitLab or GitHub, this is quite important - you know, first looks 😉
Downloads
Please find the download links for major platforms on GitHub.
For Android, the release is available via Google Play.
For iOS, the release is available via the App Store.
If you use snap, you can install the app from the snapcraft.io.
If you use flatpak, you can install the app from Flathub.
For Arch based Linux distributions, you can install the app from AUR.
Known Issues
There is a minor known regression with the Qt6 based build of the app when running on Linux with Wayland. Reordering items via drag and drop works, but you sometimes have to click somewhere (e.g. the tool bar) to re-enable hover for the items after such a drag and drop operation. This has been reported as a bug against Qt in their bugtracker. Usually, you can start the app passing it the -platform xcb option to force using X11/XWayland (which does not show the same symptoms).
First of all: A Happy New Year! We are already a bit into 2025, so about time
to release a new version of OpenTodoList, right? Without further ado, here is
what’s new in this release:
If you follow along the release notes regularly, you know that song: We updated
the app to use version 6.8 of the Qt framework - the fundamental layer on which
OpenTodoList is built on. And as alway, this pulls in upstream fixes and
makes new features of the framework available for use in future versions of the
app.
Green has been OpenTodoList’s color since ever. But… maybe you’d rather use
something else for the app? Good news: With this release, you can customize
the primary and secondary color of the app 🎨
Documentation is important. We kicked off an initial version of a user centric
documentation
for the app in the previous releases. However, the build of the
documentation got broken - this is fixed so updates should hit the server
again 😉
On Linux, we provide the app - among others - also as a Snap. In this release,
we switched our build to use the upstream Snapcraft image to package the app -
this should help keep the builds more stable!
Better safe then sorry, right? Sometimes its necessary to back up your data.
OpenTodoList supports synced libraries as its main purpose for this - that
way, the data is kept in sync with an arbitrary WebDAV server (including
NextCloud or ownCloud) or Dropbox. However, even that - sometimes - might not
be sufficient.
For this reason, you will now find a Backup option in the file menu. Running
this, you will get a zipped up copy of the currently open library, which you can
then save to a secure place.
For the time being, this is considered an expert option - you will notice
there is no means yet to restore a library (except by manually copying it
into the libraries folder of the app). However, we plan to extend on this
feature in future iterations, adding such a restore function and maybe even
allow snapshotting your libraries automatically from time to time, storing
a copy of the library at a particular time on the server.
You can now create backups of individual libraries as zip files.
Downloads
Please find the download links for major platforms on GitHub.
For Android, the release is available via Google Play.
For iOS, the release is available via the App Store.
If you use snap, you can install the app from the snapcraft.io.
If you use flatpak, you can install the app from Flathub.
For Arch based Linux distributions, you can install the app from AUR.
Known Issues
There is a minor known regression with the Qt6 based build of the app when running on Linux with Wayland. Reordering items via drag and drop works, but you sometimes have to click somewhere (e.g. the tool bar) to re-enable hover for the items after such a drag and drop operation. This has been reported as a bug against Qt in their bugtracker. Usually, you can start the app passing it the -platform xcb option to force using X11/XWayland (which does not show the same symptoms).
You already might have started wondering: When is the next release of
OpenTodoList coming? Did something happen? Has the app been abandoned? 😱
Rest assured: Nothing like that happened!
We had a quite busy year to date and only recently found some time resuming
work on OpenTodoList. That also means that - despite the long time since the
last release - the list of changes it not too long. However, there are some
existing changes, so, let’s waste no more time and dive into what changed:
This surely is the most exciting change in this release! We decided to tune the
appearance of the app, switching away from the Material design and started an
own one, which is based on Qt’s Basic theme.
This new scheme way more lightweight compared to Material - which should benefit
a lot situations where the app runs on lower end hardware. In addition, we
updated the color scheme - the app now uses more vibrant colors both in light
and dark modes.
Another interesting change is how the color of individual items affect the app.
In previous releases, we used to use the color to tint the background color of
pages when opening items. However, this often looked a bit odd and kind of
washed out. With the new theme, we now use the item colors to render controls
and links in the item’s page.
Surely, this is only the beginning and subsequent releases will bring updates
and improvements to the new style. We still hope you like it already 😉
The new color scheme uses more vibrant colors - both in light and dark modes.
It is possible to set brand colors in the app metadata file (which is used
e.g. on Flathub but also in some app store implementations of Linux
distributions).
We now also make use of this feature and set the new background theme colors
we also use in the app itself.
Ever so often, there are updates to Qt - the framework on which OpenTodoList
is built. This framework is the key that allows us providing the app on
a variety of operating systems and devices.
With this release, we update to Qt 6.7.2 - as always, this brings bug fixes
but also makes new features available, what we’ll use to further improve the
app.
When using a custom (enlarged) font size or using the app on a relatively
small device, it could happen that some of the popups where rendered
incorrectly.
We changes this in this release, so popups should look good (and more
importantly: Be usable) on any device.
Another issue solved in this release: The automatic downloading of translations
from POEditor!
We now use POEditor for quite a while to allow users contributing to the app
by providing translations of strings in the user interface to their respective
languages. For this, we have some integrations that automatically download the
translations so they get automatically included in new builds and releases of
the app.
Unfortunately, there was an issue (or let’s rather call it: bit rot) in this
scripting, that needed our attention 👨⚕️
Another exciting change, although it just is the beginning of something great:
We started writing some user documentation for the app! 🎉
Might sound boring at first, but keep in mind: OpenTodoList is relatively old
meanwhile - meaning it had more than enough time accumulating a lot of different
features 😉 While some of them might be easy to use, others are not - so some
written down manuals on how to use them would be handy.
We started writing such documentation - it is available on
ReadTheDocs.
Note that the documentation is still in a very early stage and we need to add
lots of information there. However, the basics and especially the automation for
building and publishing it is there.
Feel free to check what is already there and - more importantly - if you
have anything in mind that you think should be documentation: Approach us,
drop us a ticket or even feel free to raise a PR on GitLab!
Downloads
Please find the download links for major platforms on GitHub.
For Android, the release is available via Google Play.
For iOS, the release is available via the App Store.
If you use snap, you can install the app from the snapcraft.io.
If you use flatpak, you can install the app from Flathub.
For Arch based Linux distributions, you can install the app from AUR.
Known Issues
There is a minor known regression with the Qt6 based build of the app when running on Linux with Wayland. Reordering items via drag and drop works, but you sometimes have to click somewhere (e.g. the tool bar) to re-enable hover for the items after such a drag and drop operation. This has been reported as a bug against Qt in their bugtracker. Usually, you can start the app passing it the -platform xcb option to force using X11/XWayland (which does not show the same symptoms).
it is finally here: The last day of the year! So, while many of us gather with
family and friends to waive goodby to the old year and welcome 2024, what else
can we do to make the start into the new year even better? 🤔
You guessed it: A new version of OpenTodoList 🎉 And what to say… while we
had planned for even more changes then we were able to get in, this release is
packed with some exciting new features - next to the usual set of bug fixes 😉
Enough words for the introduction, let’s dive into the changes that come with
v3.47:
Changelog
Toolbar Refactoring
It is not uncommon that we do some refactoring here and there, including the
result within another, larger, change. However, this refactoring is worth
being mentioned here:
We completely changed the design of the toolbar in the app! 🎉
Why that? Before, we had a lot of individual tool buttons in and dynamically
showed them depending on how much space was available on the screen. While
this worked, it was not very convenient, especially since there was no way to
know what a concrete button did (except by trying it out). To improve here,
we switched to a layout that more or less resembles a menu structure: You
get four tool buttons, each of them making the various groups of actions
available to you.
Another nice thing: On some supported platforms (namely, macOS, Windows and
Linux systems which have a global app menu), the app also will provide a
“normal” menu - this is great, as you can see the shortcuts connected to
the various actions there.
Links - they are a useful and widely used concept in the depths of the world
wide web. And guess what? Your favorite Todo List and Note Taking app now also
supports them 😉 Okay okay, actually, links per se are nothing new, you can
add them to notes and item titles since long. But, what is new is that you
can now generate links to libraries or items and use them within the app.
This way, you can easily cross link from one item to another. But it doesn’t
stop there: On some platforms, the app also will be called if another app
tries to open such a opentodolist:// link. For example, if you have a shared
library with a friend, you can create a new item and then send a link
to them via chat - they can then open that link which should immediately get
them to that freshly created item. Currently, opening the app with such links
from other apps works on Android and iOS, but other platforms will follow
in the future 😉
Automation is a key think to get more time for the really valuable things in
life (such as, hacking on new features for OpenTodoList 😎). So, besides
development work, we sometimes also invest into how to automate further parts of
our regular workflows. This is another important step: We now can upload
releases of the app to the Google Play Store from within out CI/CD pipelines.
OpenTodoList makes one promise: If you create a local library (i.e. which is
not synced with a storage server), no data belonging to that library ever
leaves the device. This is true on nearly all platforms - but iOS. Until now,
if you’d include the app in iCloud backup, also libraries would be backed up.
While not all users might find this a bad thing, it somehow is, because that
also interferes with synced libraries - if a library which is actually synced
via a storage server is brought back by a backup, the app would try to
re-upload the entire library 🤯 So, over time to exclude libraries from the
backup.
The README.md file is an important part of many projects - it literally
is the first thing users see when they land on GitLab or GitHub and want to
learn something about the app.
Until now, that file was pretty much only text - it was up to the user to find
some other way to learn more about how the app would actually look like. Over
time to change this and add some images to the README, so when visiting
our landing page on either code hosting platform, users now get a better
impression about what they’ll get if they install the app.
Nearly the same story applies for our app page in Apple’s App Store and
Google’s Play Store. The images of the app where kind of outdated - especially
in the Play Store, the screenshots dated back even before our migration to
the Material theme 😱
We changed this, so potential users will not get an up-to-date impression on how
the app looks like on the respective platforms.
Another nasty bug 🪲 we fixed here… in some cases, when you set a due date
with recurrence on an item, you were not able to change the due date ot that
item again. This is fixed now ✅
We updated the Qt framework, which powers the app, to the new 6.6.1 release. Qt
is the basis that allows us to serve all major platforms from a single code
base - and having new versions of it available also means: Pulling in a lot of
fixes and new features we will make use of in future versions of the app 🙌
In the past, when you set a due date on an item and a recurrence pattern, if you
wanted to change the due date, the date picker would initially show the
original due date. Especially for a long running sequence item, this means that
the current date and the one that the date picker would show could be weeks or
months apart!
We changed this, so now, the date picker will show the next effective due date
of the item by default.
Similarly important as the Qt update: For the Flatpak version of the app, we
updated to a more recent version of the KDE/Qt 6 runtime. This also
pulls in Qt 6.6, plus, ensures that the runtime is still maintained and receives
bug fixes.
Another interesting new feature: You can now open items in a new window! This
works on all desktop systems, i.e. macOS, Linux and Windows. This feature
can be quite interesting and useful. For example, consider the following:
If you maintain one “todo list” to plan what you want to make for dinner each
evening and another one for your grocery shopping. Then, if you’d want to
fill up the grocery list with the stuff you need for the meals you put in the
other list, you would have to jump between the two of them all the time 🦘
With the new feature, you can first make your planning in one list, open it in
a separate window and in the main window, change to the grocery shopping list,
where you can easily fill in the ingredients you need to get. Handy, isn’t it?
There was a nasty little bug which, if you would e.g. re-open a todo list when
restarting the app, show wrong todos in that list! 😱
This was due to a race condition - you could sometimes even see the correct list
of entries first showing up before the list would then get filled by random
items. Now, this is fixed ✅
Sometimes it is all or nothing! Yes, even when handling todos. For this reason,
we added options to mark all entries within a todo list (or within a todo)
as either done or undone.
Last but not least: There was some bug which - under certain circumstances -
could cause the background sync of a Dropbox backed library to stop. You had to
kill the app and restart it for the sync to get back to a working state.
We fixes this, so now the sync should continue seamlessly in the background
as expected 😉
Downloads
Please find the download links for major platforms on GitHub.
For Android, the release is available via Google Play.
For iOS, the release is available via the App Store.
If you use snap, you can install the app from the snapcraft.io.
If you use flatpak, you can install the app from Flathub.
For Arch based Linux distributions, you can install the app from AUR.
Known Issues
There is a minor known regression with the Qt6 based build of the app when running on Linux with Wayland. Reordering items via drag and drop works, but you sometimes have to click somewhere (e.g. the tool bar) to re-enable hover for the items after such a drag and drop operation. This has been reported as a bug against Qt in their bugtracker. Usually, you can start the app passing it the -platform xcb option to force using X11/XWayland (which does not show the same symptoms).
