Hey everyone!

We hope you had a great start into the new year 2022 🥳🎉🪅

Talking about the new year: What about starting it with a fresh release of OpenTodoList? Interested? Then let’s have a look what changed:

Changelog

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Show number of done/total number of tasks of a todo within todo lists

Let’s start with a pleasant little usability improvement. Todos in OpenTodoList can contain arbitrary many tasks. However, when you are within a toto list, there was (until now) no visual indication if or if not a particular todo had such sub-tasks. We changed this now:

You still get the “progress” indicator as background, however, if none of the sub-tasks of a todo is done, this indicator is not visible at all, hence, the new indicator adds real value.

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Improved selection of folders on Android

OpenTodoList organizes your data in libraries. These are typically stored in a location private to the app, especially if you use the built-in sync mechanism. However, you can also decide to store a library in an arbitrary location.

For this, you need to select a folder which will be used for storing your library (or, you can select an existing library folder to add it back to the app). In the past, the user interface for selecting folders was rather unusable. We improved it quite a bit in this release: On Android, we add some sanity checks to ensure we don’t try to jump into folders we cannot list. And on all other platforms where this feature is supported, we use a native file dialog to let the user pick a folder.

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Improved generic file (and image) selection on Android

For Android, we have some more nice features ready in this release. Do you know that you can attach arbitrary files to items? This requires a mechanism to select these files. On Android (and all platforms in general) we now use a proper file dialog for doing so, which should vastly improve the user experience!

Note: On Android and iOS, it still is not possible to actually view attachments afterwards. This is a known issue which we’ll hopefully be able to work on in the next release. However, you can of course attach files to items on your mobile and view them in the Desktop version of the app.

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Fix showing of the color menu when it is opened from the dots menu

The top level items within a library can be assigned colors - this makes it easier keeping an overview of them when your libraries get crowded.

One option to pick the color is opening the item and then using the color option from the toolbar or - if either the window is too small or the item title too long - the appropriate option from the dots menu - except that the latter didn’t work. 😱 This bug has been fixed in this release, so even if you use the color entry from the menu, it should work just fine now!

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Added an option to show completed todos/tasks at the end of the list

What happens to todos/tasks once you mark them as done? In the past, depending on how you configured the app, they either would remain where they are or they would be hidden automatically.

This release brings a new option you can use:

It allows you to show all completed items but at the end of the list.

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Fix sync against OpenXChange WebDAV server

WebDAV… friend and foe at the same time. It is a widely used and widely implemented protocol which allows storing data remotely on a server. OpenTodoList implements it and hence can be used with a huge number of already available servers; for example, many mail services also provide a small online storage which usually can be accessed via WebDAV.

But not all servers implement the WebDAV protocol equally well - so some set of special fixes for the WebDAV server built into OpenXChange joins the set of already implemented workarounds for various other server implementations. For you as a user these are great news: OpenXChange is widely used, so if you have an account e.g. on mailbox.org, you can now use its online storage to sync your OpenTodoList libraries!

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Clear warnings about a library when that library has been removed from the app

There was a minor issue when deleting a library from the app: If there were any problems with the library before removing it, these warnings would stick in the app, without a way to remove them. The only way to get rid of them was to completely stop the app and start it again.

This bug has been fixes, so removing a library should also clear all related warnings being shown for it within the app.

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Using Esc when the app is in fullscreen mode will cause it to be shown windowed (unless there are pages on the page stack)

On macOS, it is common that you can use the Esc key to return to windowed mode when an app is in full screen mode. This behavior is now also implemented in OpenTodoList:

• If there is more than one page visible (e.g. if you are viewing the contents of a todo list), the Esc key will - as in the past - pop one page at a time from the stack.
• However, if only one page remains (and hence, Esc would not have any other effect), the app would leave full screen mode (given it is shown in that mode at all 😉).

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Clicking a library/tag in the sidebar now always opens the library folder

Another usability improvement: In the past, clicking onto a library or tag in the side bar would only have any effect, if this item is not already shown. However, this also meant that when you were viewing e.g. a todo list within a library, selecting the library would also not have any effect.

This behavior has been changes, so now, whenever you select an item in the sidebar, that library is always opened (and the page stack cleared).

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Build one AAB file per Android target architecture

This change is not too relevant for end users, but for us, it is an important preparation for future releases…

The Qt framework the app is built on used to provide a so called multi-ABI build for Android, i.e. there was one build of Qt which had binaries for all supported Android target platforms (i.e. ARM 32 and 64bit, x86 and x86_64). Consequentially, when building an AAB file (which is required to distribute to the Google Play Store) one file would be built having all target platforms’ files.

However, this is a thing of the past: In the new Qt 6 framework, there is one Qt build for each platform; hence, also for OpenTodoList, we will have to deliver one AAB file per target. While we are still on Qt 5 in this release, we already migrated to the new approach, so we are prepared for the upgrade to Qt 6!

rpdev/opentodolist#470: Fix the Snap build after updates in the build environment

Last but not least: The Snap release of the app. There recently were some issues with the Snap build due to some upstream changes. After resolving these, we had to apply some patches so the app would run again properly. Anyway, for you as a user, this change should be transparent and ideally you won’t notice any part of this work 😉

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 are currently no known issues. If you encounter any issues, please file a bug report in the bug tracker.

We’re in October, and besides 👻 Halloween 👻 you’re probably waiting for an update of OpenTodoList, don’t ya? Now, here it comes!

Changelog

• rpdev/opentodolist#470: OpenTodoList recently got the ability to move and copy items around. To make this more convenient, we introduced (alphabetical) ordering of items when selecting a target parent item for such an operation.
• rpdev/opentodolist#478: This is a quite technical issue, but still… up to now, we used a quite dated signing scheme for the Android deliveries. This is a thing if the past now - although ideally, most of you never will notice a difference 😉
• rpdev/opentodolist#479: On macOS, the application menu was not properly translated. Although there is in general not much to see (the app doesn’t currently use that menu…) this still makes it more consistent of you’re on a non-English system.
• rpdev/opentodolist#465: Talking about translations… there was a bug that caused the app to not properly take up the system language, so you instead had to manually switch the language in the settings. The bug showed up at least on iOS and macOS, but probably also could manifest on other systems. No matter, fixed with this release ✅
• rpdev/opentodolist#471: This is an important one… OpenTodoList currently uses WebDAV for its built-in synchronization. The good thing is: WebDAV is a standard protocol with lots of servers implementing it (e.g. many email providers make online storage available via that protocol). The bad thing is… a lot of these implementations are not fully standards compliant. This caused issues with the sync. In this release, we beefed up the handling of such faulty servers, making the sync more robust. It might still not work in 100% of all cases, but the app should be usable now with many more servers out there. Please note, that if you already have added one or more accounts in your app, you have to either re-add them or edit them - pressing that OK button in the account settings will trigger a test against the server, which is required to detect faulty behavior and activate the necessary local workarounds in the app.

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 are currently no known issues. If you encounter any issues, please file a bug report in the bug tracker.

We just released a new bug fix release of OpenTodoList. Here’s the list of fixes included:

Changelog

• rpdev/opentodolist#445: On Windows, when running the uninstaller, we now ensure that the app gets terminated. This is especially important during updates. The installer first calls the uninstaller to remove the previous version. If the app continues running in the background, the installation will run into issues (complaining that the app executable cannot be written). Note that the fix will get effective only after the update, i.e. for current installations, you have to make sure the app is not running manually.
• rpdev/opentodolist#469: We added an option to the CMake build to select the Qt version to build against. This is important on systems, where both Qt5 and Qt6 are installed in parallel.
• rpdev/opentodolist#451: We ironed out a bug where source code in the notes of an item would not wrap at the end of the line.
• rpdev/opentodolist#473: Last but not least, there was a bug which sneaked in with the UI refactoring we recently made, which rendered the confirmation dialog to delete all completed items in a list unusable.

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 are currently no known issues. If you encounter any issues, please file a bug report in the bug tracker.

Usually, we’re reporting here about new releases of OpenTodoList. However, this time, we have something different to share: We will change the cadence and mode of releases of the app.

Some Background First…

After some rather unsteady development in the first years, OpenTodoList reached a stable state in 2017. And since then, we usually created one release each month.

This is a great way of releasing as it ensures new features get available as early as possible to users. However, there’s not a large development team behind the app. In fact, the main development is done by a single person. These monthly releases hence were a bit troublesome from time to time:

• First of all, creating a “proper” release costs some time. Over the past years, we’ve automated a lot, but still, each minor release we pushed out since OpenTodoList reached version v3.0 also involved quite some manual effort.
• Another thing: Having only a window of approximately a month can be a bit challenging, especially when implementing larger changes. We’ve seen this well recently, when some refactoring was done in the user interface part of the app. Due to the one month window barely leaves time for proper beta testing, quite some issues sneaked in, which is annoying for users.

Switching to Quarterly Releases

To tackle the above mentioned issues, we decided to switch to another release scheme for the app:

There will be a minor release every quarter. The next scheduled release is v3.38, which is scheduled for end of September. The next release v3.39 will then be released end of December, v3.40 end of March 2022, and so on…

With this, we’ll have more time to work on (also larger) features and test them more carefully before pushing out a new version to our users. This also will reduce the overhead for as for creating new releases, as this will happen only every 3 months now.

Open Beta Testing

For those of you wanting the most recent features as soon as possible, we’ll also improve the documentation on how to participate in beta testing. In fact, on a lot of platforms and distributions of the app (including iOS, Android, Flatpak and Snap), you can already today easily test out intermediate builds without waiting for an official release to happen. We’ll gather the required information on how to do so in the next days. And also, we’ll look into how to enable beta testing for other platforms and distribution channels of the app.

Intermediate Bug Fix Releases

In the past, when we got reports of critical issues, we sometimes pushed out a bug fix release. However, most bug fixes were not relevant enough to push them out via a dedicated release. Instead, they were part of the next regular minor release.

Of course, with the new release cadence, this would mean you have to wait for up to three months for a fix to an issue you reported - which is definitely something we don’t want to have, either. So, we’ll also push out bug fix releases on a more regular basis. However, to keep overhead low, these bug fix releases might happen more silently and also - depending on the bug - scoped: For example, if there’s a bug which affects only a specific operating system or a specific distribution channel, we might create a dedicated release for this, not pushing out new builds on all platforms as we did before.

Conclusion

With these changes, we hope to further improve the overall stability of the app, making it more reliable for “business critical” tasks while also enabling a quick way to test new versions of the app without having to wait too long.

As always, after larger changes, the chances are high that one or the other bug sneaks in 🐜

This is also true for v3.37 of OpenTodoList, so we’ll today release v3.37.1 to fix those issues.

Changelog

• rpdev/opentodolist#472: In the previous release, it was not possible to add new accounts 😱 This is particularly bad for new users (existing users of the app probably wouldn’t even have noticed). Still, this is a super important thing to get fixed!
• rpdev/opentodolist#467: Another very bad bug that needed to get ironed out. The main window of the app would not show up on Windows. This, as well, is fixed in this release.

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 are currently no known issues. If you encounter any issues, please file a bug report in the bug tracker.