Writing Check Boxes Using Markdown in Zulip?

[TheCedarPrince]

At this time, is it possible to write checkboxes in Zulip via markdown syntax? It would not appear so as writing a checkbox makes Zulip interpret it as a bullet. It would be great if the following syntax was supported:

- [ ] I am a checkbox
    - [ ] I am a nested checkbox

• I am a checkbox
  • I am a nested checkbox

[timabbott]

@TheCedarPrince it is not in a general message, however the /todo slash command does something a bit like it (like /poll, it'd be the entire content of a message).

The main complexity with this sort of feature in the markdown is that's challenging to define/determine the sender's intent in terms of who should be allowed to toggle the checkboxes, and how it should interact with policy settings around who can edit messages. I think these are solvable problems -- but ones that do require some thought.

I'd be curious to hear your thinking about how you think that should work.

[zulipbot]

Hello @zulip/server-markdown members, this issue was labeled with the "area: markdown" label, so you may want to check it out!

[benostendorf]

I would also love to see this feature implemented. Regarding the permissions aspect: I think as a start it would be easiest to simply inherit the message's editing rules containing the checkbox, so only the author would be able to edit.

Further down the line this feature would be super useful when combined with messages that are editable by different users (as requested here or in the form of community notes), in which cases different users would be allowed to toggle a checkbox; as stated in these issues, I think collaborative/community notes would be great to have in addition to the already existing collaborative to-do lists, which are much more restricted in terms of formatting.