Un-used space on the screen left and right

Good afternoon

There’s a lot of un-used space on the left and right side of the list, space that could be useful for a lot of other things.

Typically on the left there would be a navigation sidebar, so instead of having Lists, Due and Tags at the top they could be on the left side. Either on separate tabs or in collapsible sections. I realise that alludes to mouse navigation but there’s no reason to avoid mousing around even if you have incredible keyboard shortcuts.

And on the right would be additional information about the selected item. I suggest moving all the Notes/comments from below the item to a right-hand sidebar so it looks more like the chat it is than a sub-item.

Thanks for your consideration.

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Makes sense to me :slight_smile:

Hello!

I must confess, we tried moving the navigation links to the left sidebar, just didn’t like the results.

Once you put lists-due-tags there, you still have a lot of ‘unjustified’ white-space. What else? Profile, settings, help? Word count numbers? And whoops - you have a typical vertical column of things not really related to the list you should focus on.

Not really a focused, minimal, keyboard-centric approach, right? :slight_smile:

That’s why Lists-Due-Tags are still in the top bar. Maybe not forever, as we are serious about constant re-design and changes :wink: But the goal is to keep the UI minimal, anyway.

As for the right side, I am dying to see the Customisation panel there. Right now customizing Checkvist is not the easiest thing to do.

But if you customize on the same page and see the outcomes immediately, that would be a huge improvement.

Moving there notes is definitely worth playing with. I am just afraid, that if people see something ‘chat-like’, they will demand a true chat functionality. Still, will be interesting to try that :slight_smile:

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Good morning

Thanks for sharing the official point of view.

Another option would be to allow the List to use the whole width of page (or at least more of it)?

True enough. But I think the left-side navigation panel is such a ubiquitous paradigm it feels weird not having it. I guess my eyes just tend to look left, rather than up, to see where I am and figure out where to go.

I disagree. Both MS Office and Google Docs have comment streams confined to a single document and tied to specific points in the document/sheet - so I don’t think people will expect Checkvist to become a chat app when the comments are tied to an item.

If you look at the office suites they use the right-hand sidebar to show the stream of comments and history (track changes) so I think this is another ubiquitous UI that people expect and will adopt easily. It’s certainly a feature I use all the time, whether it’s just to track the chronology of my own thoughts or to share my comments on a specific point with the team working on the document. And by placing them on the right-side, out of the document itself, it keeps the visual flow of the actual document intact.

Thanks.

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Agree. The current notes listing should be moved horizontally to the right. The current vertical downwards positioning hurts the eyes as it gets mixed with the sub-items.
Notes should be treated as a separate element, that is shown differently from sub-items

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There’s a UserVoice idea for this too that could use some votes, https://checkvist.uservoice.com/forums/2121-checkvist-web/suggestions/8096058-full-screen-mode

My thoughts on that topic. Checkvist is refreshingly different. It doesn’t have to rebuild what’s in MS Office or Google Docs. I don’t want it to fill up all the space. I want it to let me focus; also visually. If you feel there is a lot of space unused, make the window smaller and use the space for something else. There are already a lot of information items in place (tasks, hierarchy, color, tags, PC with completion, links, link icons, markdown elements, due dates, repeating due dates, time estimates, breadcrumb, completed tasks, invalidated tasks, single/multiple selections, …). I don’t say there can’t be useful improvements, but there have to be really good reasons to break up the dense visual representation. (Like a customisation panel, which is a different thing because it’s not “my content”.)

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Could it be done via CSS?

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With all the apps/software I have open at any given time it really helps my productivity to have consistent UI’s.

That’s a good idea.

I played around with the CSS in Chrome’s Inspector and I managed to use more of the white space but I’m not sure what needs to be done to make it work consistently. I’m not that good at CSS. And I’m not a paid subscriber, yet.

Just making the list wider isn’t really the solution though, none of my items need the full width, it would just make the un-used space less obvious. Every other tab I have open uses all the space it’s given so my browser window is always maximized (and really every other software I use too).

So I’m just thinking about the other software and web-apps I use and how they use their space most effectively for me.

Maybe someone has a better idea of what to do with that un-used space. Maybe Checkvist will decide the best use is as a buffer against other visual pollution. Maybe I need to decide if consistent UI’s are more important to me than the features that lead me to Checkvist.

Thanks

Guys, thanks a lot for the feedback!

We all use Checkvist differently for different tasks and in different environments. Consistency with other apps is a good reason, but it’s not enough.

Side panel with notes/comments is a common pattern. And in our case, it will solve a usability problem - as @Saurab says, right now notes are visually mixed with sub-items. And we received quite some feedback confirming that.

That makes a ‘togglable’ right panel a likely feature candidate – for notes, and for customization.

The left panel idea is not justified (yet). You can access Lists, Due and Tag pages easily. That’s just not so common in web apps that are more ‘material designy’. Well, let’s live with it until we have a better reason for a change.

We are really eager to enrich Checkvist with new smart features, and to make current ones more usable. And your feedback is our main source of inspiration. Let’s hope upcoming releases will compensate the absence of the left panel :))

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I want a tattoo that says ‘refreshingly different’. Or at least a t-shirt :slight_smile:

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InfoQube maybe the best app, but it can’t use in the web.

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Yes! Keep it minimal!

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Put a list of lists here. Same as Workflowy, Trillium and others do. Checkvist itself is so much better but the navigation between lists is terrible. I want to be able to make a checkvist of my checkvists.

Just use the shortcut ll to jump to another list.

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Hi. New Checkvist user. Still in the tire-kicking phase. There is a lot to like about Checkvist!

I had the same thought about left and right space. Looking at my screen, easily half is unused. My first little test list only has about 120 items in it, but much of the information is off the screen, and yet there’s so much white space.

So hopefully you’re still thinking about useful ways to use it.

Me, I want the screen to be information-dense. I want to be sitting in my information like a spider, able to instantly follow any thread.

I am enjoying taking a look at your product, you’ve got a lot to be proud of!

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