Should making a checklist affect only direct children or all levels or children?

[Erica]

For example, let’s say we have a list like below:

• Parent
  • Child
    • Grandchild
  • Child
    • Grandchild
    • Grandchild

When you convert “Parent” into a checklist, should items called “Grandchild” get checkboxes as well?

• Only the direct children should get checkboxes
• All levels of children should get checkboxes (current behavior)

Show results

[Craig_Oliver]

My opinion is that toggling the checkbox should toggle the checkbox state for all children of the item. This is simple and easy to remember.

It would be great if we could also toggle the children too: for example, toggle Parent to give all the nodes checkboxes, then toggle the first Child to remove the checkbox from it and the first Grandchild.

[Erica]

My opinion is that toggling the checkbox should toggle the checkbox state for all children of the item. This is simple and easy to remember.

A few counterarguments to this that we considered (we considered both sides):

1. Numbered lists work differently and do no propagate to grandchildren items.
2. That’s also most general purpose editors work too, e.g. Dropbox Paper and Notion. Not saying Dynalist is the same as them, just asking if enough users see this behavior as the expected behavior.

It would be great if we could also toggle the children too: for example, toggle Parent to give all the nodes checkboxes, then toggle the first Child to remove the checkbox from it and the first Grandchild.

The intention of this poll is to shed some light on this issue: Toggle checklist at any level at will

We see two solutions:

1. Only let checklists add checkboxes to children, not grand and grandgrandchildren items, or;
2. Make it so you can toggle a children or grandchildren of a checklist to stop it from having checklist.

1 is simple, whereas 2 is more complicated but more flexible (it can achieve any composition of checkboxes you want, 1 can’t). So we’re trying to weigh the options.

[Craig_Oliver]

My opinion is that toggling the checkbox should toggle the checkbox state for all children of the item. This is simple and easy to remember.

A few counterarguments to this that we considered (we considered both sides):

Numbered lists work differently and do no propagate to grandchildren items.
That’s also most general purpose editors work too, e.g. Dropbox Paper and Notion. Not saying Dynalist is the same as them, just asking if enough users see this behavior as the expected behavior.

Thanks Erica. I worded my idea poorly above. Although I wrote “toggle”, I really meant “override”. My suggestion is that when the user makes a parent item a checkbox, all its children become checkboxes (regardless of their previous state). And if the user makes a parent item a non-checkbox, all its children become non-checkboxes (again, regardless of their previous state). Much like the way completing an item works.

So that’s a long way of saying that I think your option 2 is a good solution.

[Carlos]

+1
"you can toggle a children or grandchildren of a checklist to stop it from having checklist."

[123]

while i dont use it

everything shoul get checkboxes, why randomly cut it off at any given ‘level’? doesnt make any sense

you dont know how far someone’s todos/tasks would go

plus it’s not like you actually need to ‘check’ everything, i’d just check the top level and be done with it

also like what someone had said first comment ‘simple and easy to remember.’ (didnt think of that)