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Comment by hanklazard | Hacker News Reader

I’m a big believer in checklists, ever since my medical residency when I realized that not having a very clear, organized list of what I had and hadn’t done could lead to someone getting hurt.

My current todo list lives in Obsidian.MD which syncs via GitHub to my phone and computers.

Question: are there any ways in standard markdown to indicate a partially complete checkbox as illustrated in this post? I’ve not found anything. Seems like a “[/]“ would be a good way to indicate partial completion since an “[x]” (or another character) is usually checked box.

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I would challenge the need to track partial completion. A well-crafted item in a checklist is either done or it is not.

If your concern is about indicating that you started something and are now waiting on results, then I would argue that there are actually 2 separate items there ("do the thing" and "receive the results").

The problem with a "partial completion" indicator is that it doesn't really tell you anything about how much of the thing is still left to do. You'll have to think about it when you come back to it, which you will do anyway if you simply leave the item unchecked.

Agreed. Partially completed might be nice if you're tracking someone else's work (subordinates) but for my own, I would need at least one more item saying where I left off or why I didn't finish in one sitting.

I'm sure this works for Adam making god knows what at ILM though.. its just not for me in a software dev environment.

Good point! (And this is how I’m currently operating). If your list will be stretched over a team or over multiple days, I think it’s worth it to prioritize the specifics of what has been done and not done.

However, for a single day, personal todo list, I’d prefer to have fewer lines in my list and keep the details of what exactly is still pending in that partially complete item in my head. Seems easier to glance at. It would be nice for markdown interpreters to have an option for this for those who want to use it. I wonder if this could be added as a CSS tweak …

In my Dropbox-synced todo list I use the following notation:

  [ ] Todo. 
  [?] Pending feedback. 
  [>] Currently underway.
  [X] Complete.

Mine:

    o task 1 [not started]

    / task 2 [started]

        x nested task A

        o nested task B

    + task 3 [blocked, e.g. on hearing back from somebody]

    x task 4 [done]

I started using Obsidian recently and have been using it for markdown checklists. I tried to create collapsible sections, but found that as soon as I enclose a section with a <details> tag, Markdown rules are no longer applied, so if I want my items on separate lines I need to at <br> tags. It’s not the end of the world, but I’d love a workaround if you’ve found one.

- "If I want my items on separate lines"

What's wrong with

- [ ] Text

- [ ] Text2

This works in the raw markdown edit mode, but in preview mode, if I write this:

<details> <summary>People</summary> [ ] Bob [ ] Alice [x] Nemosaltat </details>

Preview mode will yield this (all on one-line):

[ ] Bob [ ] Alice [x] Nemosaltat

It’s collapsible, but not visually pleasing for longer lists.

My solution has been to do this:

<details> <summary>People</summary> [ ] Bob <br /> [ ] Alice <br /> [x] Nemosaltat <br /> </details>

But it’s less pleasing to look at in edit mode, and I have to remember to append the break tags.

I don’t have a solution for that, but I did just start looking through the large community plugins list — there are a lot that address these types of specific use-cases, so it might be worth a browse:

https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/blob/master/...

(not able to edit my previous post at this point, but wanted to follow-up for you and anyone else reading this in the furture)

I just watched a video for an Obsidian plugin called "Outliner" and I think it does what you're trying to do with collapsible sections. Here's the video, it's the first plugin that he reviews: https://youtu.be/2234DXKbNgM

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