Hi Rudy,

Rudi C <rudiwillalwaysloveyou@gmail.com> writes:

> The use case is that I use checklists to remember and track doing some
> important stuff at the start of the day; all the items are at first in a
> neutral/todo state. Some of them get done (`[X]`), but some of them fail
> during the day. For example, I have an item `- [ ] No sugar` which tracks
> whether I have consumed artificial sugar during the day. I like to be able
> to mark this as failed.

It's nice to hear that someone is having the same need for a failed state in the checkbox.

Currently, the case looks like this:

A checkbox can be in one of the three states:
1. not checked =[ ]=
2. partially checked =[-]=
3. checked =[X]=

So I use this partially checked =[-]= state to mark it as failed.
But this 'partially checked' is for checkboxes that are in parent-child
relation.
For example:

If some but not all child checkboxes are checked, the parent checkbox is partially checked.
#+begin_example
- [-] call people
  - [X] Peter
  - [ ] Sarah
#+end_example

And this 'partially checked' is set automatically.

But you can set it manually for checkbox that is not in parent-child
relation. Just insert '-' manually or press 'C-c C-c (org-toggle-checkbox)'
with a double prefix argument 'C-u C-u'.

Statics cookie works as expected.

#+begin_example
- call people [1/2]
  - [X] Peter
  - [-] Sarah
#+end_example

> I know this can be simulated using headings, but checklists are visually
> nicer and have cookies `[/]` etc.

You can also use statistics cookie '[/]' in checkbox items list.

For example:
#+begin_example
- [ ] call people [1/2]
  - [X] Peter
  - [ ] Sarah
#+end_example

--
Sławomir Grochowski