I am pleased to announce the release of something that has long been in the works: a major update to Check Off. Check Off is a quick to-do list that sits in your Mac’s menu bar. Simply click the check mark and your personal to-do list will drop down.
This release focuses on modernizing the the application going forward. Much like Apple is doing with Snow Leopard, I wanted to update Check Off so that it is ready for the next decade of software and hardware advancements.
The release sports a new coat of paint with a modernized interface. Check Off now looks and feels like it belongs on Leopard and Snow Leopard with its modernized toolbar, list styles and preferences window.
Check Off 4 also includes a new purge feature which will allow you to remove all of your checked off items with a single click so you can just focus on what’s left to be done on your list. The application is also more friendly to international users with its new support for non-ASCII characters in the list, printing and exporting.
Under the hood, the application saw substantial upgrades and enhancements. Check Off was originally developed during the 10.2 days when Project Builder was the IDE of choice. There was no such things as Bindings, Core Data, and garbage collection back then. The idea of a 64-bit OS was still a ways away as well.
I took the opportunity of 4.0 to rewrite key portions of the architecture to use Objective-C 2.0 features such as properties and garbage collection. Sprinkle in support for bindings, an updated data engine and support for 64-bit and what came out is a code base that might not recognize its old self. Check Off should be leaner, more stable and maybe even a bit snappier as well.
The new core will make it much easier to add functionality to the application going forward. It also gave me the opportunity to fix some lingering usability issues. Check Off now behaves more like a Mac application should and even has standard keyboard shortcuts.
I’m very proud of this release and am glad that others can finally get a chance to use it.
The Transition From Free To Paid
Check Off has long been a free product, but with 4.0, I have decided to start charging a license fee. There are a variety of reasons for this, but it boils down to having to support myself and my company. I want to continue to build great products for the Mac platform, but short of inheriting quite the trust-fund, making for-pay products is the only way I can do that.
Single user licenses are $12.95, or you can purchase the family pack for $19.95 for use on up to five computers in your household.
Transitioning from free to paid is always an awkward situation and I’m not sure if there is a right way to do it. As part of the transition I have offered free 4.0 licenses to anyone who has made a donation towards Check Off in the past three years. Whether it was a dollar or fifty, I wanted to thank those that took the time and saw fit to support the development of a free product.
Give It A Try
I use Check Off as the quick list for everything I don’t want to put in Things or as reminder of the things I need to fix or tweak before I can completely close out a ticket in FogBugz. I’m sure you can find a use for it too. Please download it today and let me know what you think.