First Look: CheckOff 4.0 for Mac OS X

I'm one of those people who "Gets Things Done" the old-fashioned way. I've tried just about every To-Do list manager for the Mac and iPhone, and I still end up resorting to writing lists in my Moleskine notebook and then crossing off the completed items. Still, when I saw that an upgrade to CheckOff had been shipped by Second Gear Software, I decided to give it a try.

CheckOff 4.0 is not the latest navigator and weapons officer for the USS Enterprise. It is a compact and easily accessible to-do list for Mac OS X, and it runs both on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. CheckOff 4.0 is shareware, and requires that you purchase a US$12.95 license to use it for more than ten to-do items.

After installing and launching the 4.4 MB application on your Mac, a check mark icon appears in the menu bar. To add or delete items from your to-do list, you click on the check mark to make the CheckOff menu appear (below):

What you see is the complete user interface for CheckOff 4.0. Those five icons are used to add a new item, add a new folder, delete an item, change the color or category for an item or folder, and to delete checked (completed) items. There's a place for notes down at the bottom of the the window.

There's a lot to like about CheckOff 4.0. It's unobtrusive, it's a great little list manager, and you can set it to start up when you power up or restart your Mac. However, it's missing one key feature -- an iPhone counterpart. SecondGear is a Mac and iPhone development house, so perhaps they have an iPhone app in the works so that your to-do list can travel wherever you go. At this point your portability choices are either printing the to-do list or exporting it to a text file and moving the file to your iPhone.

I also found the app to be somewhat buggy. After launching the app for the first time on my iMac, I found that I was unable to get into the Preferences to change the name of a category. I quit CheckOff, then tried to start it again. No such luck. Activity Monitor showed that it was beginning to launch, and the application would then quit.This happened not only on my iMac, but also on my MacBook Air. An email to Second Gear Software remained unanswered after two days, so I'm running this First Look with the caveat that you may run into issues with CheckOff 4.0.

Author's Note: The newly-released CheckOff 4.0.1 appears to fix the issue.

What's your favorite Mac application or iPhone app for list management? Leave a comment below.

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Source: http://www.secondgearsoftware.com/checkoff/

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Software Odds and ends First Look

I'm one of those people who "Gets Things Done" the old-fashioned way. I've tried just about every To-Do list manager for the Mac and...

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Yitz

Question: I have an older (free!) version of CheckOff on my computer and don't want to spend for the upgrade. Does anyone know how to get rid of the update from my AppFresh list? Thanks.

August 26 2009 at 7:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MrMojo

I think your unanswered email was an anomaly... I had reason to contact the CheckOff developer a couple of days ago and Justin consistently responded very quickly during a correspondence involving several email messages.

I have used CheckOff for quite a while and I prefer it to "analog" To Do lists because it is always available in the Finder Menu Bar. And creating a printed CheckOff list is very easy to do.

SecondGear is considering a companion app for the iPhone. I suggest that those interested in seeing one developed should drop them a line and let them know so they can gauge the level of interest among Mac unsers.

August 26 2009 at 4:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Skeeter

I just finished my own task manager for the iphone. I think there is a lot of potential for real innovation in the task manager space. My own integrates maps and twitter directly into the app. Two things a moleskin notebook cant do.

More info: http://www.taskerapp.com

August 26 2009 at 2:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Andrew

I just use Gmail Tasks. Nice, simple, integrated with Gmail.

August 26 2009 at 1:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

oxjox

My favorite task manager is Text Edit. I use it on a daily basis. I have one Text Edit document sitting in my doc for easy access and keep all my work notes in there.

I sometimes use Evernote and Entourage as well.

Ironically, it seems to me most GTD apps just get in the way of getting anything done.

August 26 2009 at 12:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jash Sayani

I use Remember The Task (AIR app): http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.offering&offeringid=10052&marketplaceid=1

August 26 2009 at 12:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

4 replies to Jash Sayani's comment

Patrick

Pen and a piece of paper....works every time.....takes less than 4 megs.

August 26 2009 at 12:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Emmy

noooklearrr wessles

August 26 2009 at 11:35 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Emmy's comment

MikeWard1701

Beat me to it!

August 27 2009 at 7:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

rob

I'm a huge fan of DoBeDo, a free dashboard task management app:

http://www.bluehenley.com/products/dobedo/

I really like having a task management app available via the dashboard as you can just hit a button to bring it up. You can also create multiple list, sync with iCal and Entourage, and most important to me, easily sort tasks according to any number of criteria (priority, due date, or alphabetically). And of course, it's free!

August 26 2009 at 11:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Josh

If it ever gets released, SimpleTask 1.1 will be the must have GTD app on OS X. It's free too and has an iPhone counterpart.

August 26 2009 at 11:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Josh's comment

Josh

I should mention that 1.0 is available but doesn't have enough features at the moment to be all that usable but 1.1 definitely has the needed features.

August 26 2009 at 11:28 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jash Sayani

If it syncs with Remember The Milk, then i'm in!

August 27 2009 at 4:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply