Couple of 1PW 8 for Mac comments
Hey,
I like the new design but overall I'm disappointed that it really doesn't feel very "Mac" like. It "feels" wrong. The preferences menu has a huge amount of missing features and information compared to 1PW 7. You also cannot move the preferences window around. It's stuck as a modal ontop of the main window. A perfect example of not being Mac like. The "Show in large type" option is a separate window that can be moved and dragged around, so why not the preferences one.
The close button at the top right of this window is also the complete opposite to where Mac users expect it to be. You close the main window at the top left, but the preferences window at the top right? Why?
Also, if you have a fullscreen app open and open 1Password, it opens ontop of the fullscreen app and there's no obvious way to move it off this app to the Desktop. It should open on the most recent Desktop space and not ontop of a fullscreen app.
I like the design and style but it's missing it's Mac-ness which is one reason I loved it. It sort of feels not native anymore and just feels a bit "off".
I've also noticed, which is something I commented on several years ago and still frustrates me a lot now. When you attach a file to an item, that file gets it's own item attached and a link from the main item to the attachment item. There is not link from the attachment back back to the other item. For example, my Driving License item has a photo of my license linked. The item for the image file should be automatically linked back to the Driving License item. It shouldn't;t be up to us, the user, to create that extra back link.
Just some of my comments after a short mess around with it.
1Password Version: 8
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: MacOS Big Sur
Comments
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Hi there, @rctneil. I'm sorry you never got a response here!
We've heard some of this same feedback from other users, and we're still listening. For the most part these are intentional design decisions. For example, the preferences screen being modal is different, but in my use of the app it hasn't really been an issue because I don't need to interact with the rest of the app while I'm tweaking preferences. The large type password, on the other hand, is something that has obvious use cases to be in its own window.
The fullscreen issue was new to me, so I double checked that we have an issue filed for that one so we can investigate. It looks like this is an artifact of the app being "always on" when you have it in your menu bar because it doesn't happen if you have quit the app completely, but it should still be something we can address.
ref: dev/core/core#9424
When you attach a file to an item, that file gets it's own item attached and a link from the main item to the attachment item. There is not link from the attachment back back to the other item.
This is actually something we've improved in version 8. When you're editing an item, you can now attach a file directly within the item:
This doesn't create a separate Document item or item link. Perhaps you're looking at a file that you attached using version 7? If I'm misunderstanding, though, do let me know.
Thanks for giving the early access a spin and letting us know what you think!
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I am glad to see the "Attach a File" feature. I have lot's of linked files in 1P7 and it is very frustrating that when I move an item to another vault, all the links beak and the documents are left in the original vault (still works this way in 1P8 with linked files). With attached files they do move along to the other vault.
Now, can you give us a way to migrate a document link to make it become an attached document? That would alleviate a big problem for me.
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Now, can you give us a way to migrate a document link to make it become an attached document? That would alleviate a big problem for me.
That would be incredibly useful. I've passed it on to the team. 👍
ref: dev/core/core#9519
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@rob Thanks for replying. I realise that some of your changes may not cause an issue, but for me, the frustration lies within the consistency between 1Password and the operating system it is running on.
UI elements and the UX of using them should be consistent between applications and that is where I see this new front-end falling down. It may work and function fine but there is no consistency.
Also, resizing the window is horribly janky and nowhere near smooth and fast.
Thanks for the file attachments though. I will certainly take a look at this and try to move all my linked file items back to good old attachments.
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I realise that some of your changes may not cause an issue, but for me, the frustration lies within the consistency between 1Password and the operating system it is running on.
I've heard this frustration a lot, as has anyone who's spent much time in the Early Access forum category recently. As someone who has really only used Macs his entire life, I've been thinking about why this doesn't bother me, and on a whim I flipped through all the apps I have open right now.
Of those ten apps, the only ones that have a standard macOS preferences window are the ones made by Apple, five of them. That's highly anecdotal and I know there are many third party apps, perhaps most even, that have standard macOS preferences windows and typical macOS UI. But the third party apps I use constantly do not. That didn't even include 1Password actually; it's in the menu bar but not open at the moment.
Maybe this means the macOS third party app ecosystem is turning to trash. Or maybe it means these developers are spending more time writing apps that are incredibly useful and less time re-implementing them in multiple OS-specific UI frameworks.
Thanks for the file attachments though. I will certainly take a look at this and try to move all my linked file items back to good old attachments.
Great! I'm excited attachments are back too. :)
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A lot of the Mac ecosystem is turning to trash, as developers prefer for their apps to look and feel the same on the Mac as they do on platforms with worse UI paradigms. It seems like you probably use a lot of apps that don't make any effort to feel like Mac apps.
I ran through the apps in my Dock: Safari, Messages, Mail, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Pages, Numbers, Scrivener. They all have standard Mac preference windows of one sort or another.
I also checked out apps I use at work but not on my home Mac, namely Word, Excel and Outlook. They both have standard Mac preference windows. They are also very good Mac UI citizens despite having a very foreign element, the Ribbon. They have proper, complete menu systems. They have proper preferences windows. They have proper window controls throughout. None of their in-app menus is bound to the height of whatever window is in the forefront.
We also use Teams at work, which is, of course, Electron garbage.
And I also looked at three apps in my "Recently Used" section of my Dock: BBEdit, which has a preferences window that feels a bit like Mac OS 9, but it isn't modal and can be moved around and otherwise feels very native to the Mac; Mela, a brand new recipe management app with a standard Mac preferences window and a stellar interface overall; and Nisus Writer Pro, which has a standard Mac preferences window.
I picked my platform because of the UI, and whether software conforms to the expectations of the UI in no small part determines how likely I am to end up using it.
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I think it's a bit of column A and column B. The macOS third-party ecosystem is largely turning to trash because developers find making cross-platform apps with web technologies to be easier. From a business perspective, I understand your decision. The Mac market is small and Apple presents a huge threat. But at the same time, it's frustrating to users when you present 1Password 8 as a huge upgrade where it is mostly a regression in terms of features, interface, and performance.
I think this is mostly a marketing/PR failure from your team. You did a bad job setting expectations, a bad job outlining the killer features Electron will allow, and then the worst sin is how defensive and argumentative you've got with your users.
If you had a good marketing person, they would have advised you to:
Be transparent and open about Electron, the design change, and why you made the decision from a technical and business standpoint. More users would empathize with this.
Then show us all the new amazing features this is going to allow. Not just allude to it, actually show the killer new features. If they aren't ready yet, there is no reason to release the app.
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To be honest I haven't really been aware of all things Electron. I just checked every app on my system and I have only 3 Electron apps. One is a little geotagging app I rarely use, the others are VSCode and Github Desktop. I tried to like VSCode because that's what all the cool kids seem to be using. It has some nice features but I really didn't like the way it worked and felt (I didn't realize it was an Electron app so it was not a pre-conceived notion that I wouldn't like it). I ended up buying a license for Panic's Nova but I find myself still mostly using BBEdit. I don't use Github Desktop at all.
I've been using 1Password since version 2 so I've been along for the ride for a long time. I've just played with 1P8 a bit now so far. Performance doesn't seem so great but I'm hoping that is a function of this just being a preview. If you are at all interested I'm also in the camp looking for a native Mac version.
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I think it is time we accept the fact that the ship of 1Password 8 has sailed. The weird choice of design and glaring inconsistencies will remain, as they are consistently being defended by the team. Even the close button on the top right of preferences menu. The responses mentioning why the team hasn't felt what we are feeling, are outright hilarious and deeply saddening.
There are companies that will do as much as possible for their users (Apple) at great costs to themselves (Privacy policy instead of ad revenue) --- a user oriented policy mingled with business. And those that will sacrifice anything in the name of soon to arrive features and apparent efficiency improvements to reduce the amount of work needed to maintain great apps --- a business oriented policy throwing in some individual users.
In order to move forward, changes are necessary. Sometimes disruptive changes. However, if all they bring are regressions in terms of features, performance and design and hopes of some ground breaking features, none of which are apparent right now, is the unveiling of a whole new system even worth it?
Regardless, every other major password manager has already gone down this path: Lastpass, Bitwarden, Dashlane(partially). I went through all of them and landed on 1Password for 2 reasons: (1) It was the best designed and most consistent app and (2) yes, 1Password was the most functional with the most useful features. Ironic.
Agreed on the point that there was probably design and feature parities among the different platforms. However, 1Password had been the go to password manager for Apple ecosystem. It felt like they were the unofficial collaborator of Apple who worked together to create the best damn security software for the ecosystem. To see them ditch that just changes everything.
And people wonder why Apple exercises such strict policies on the App Store. It's to prevent it from becoming Play Store.1Password is now officially in that group of softwares whose name you search on the internet just to compare its price with the others and base all your decisions on that. They are no longer special in any way.
I don't hate 1Password or the team creating it. I know all too well how much effort it takes to develop an application like this. The simple fact that I'm spending the time to write this up in here, goes to show that I still do care. And I'll wait a year to see what features they bring in exchange for an app design that looks like some futuristic version of TETRIS. But I simply did not expect 1Password team members coming up and defending every single choice they have made. Not responding probably would have been a better way to go, under some circumstances.
Anyway, if 1Password thinks it's best to do what serves their needs and benefits their business, I think it's only fair that we do the same. Only a matter of time before Apple puts keychain on steroids. Until then, a few other placeholders come to mind that cost less and do the same thing.
The most unfortunate part? I just got to using 1Password 7 on my Mac and iPhone. 2 weeks later, there was 1Password 8. Some timing.
PS: I do not expect 1Password to change the whole design and its probably not needed either. But if they don't fix the inconsistencies, I won't be taking the pain that comes with using the app as it is today. You have 1 Year. I do hope you figure things out and win us back.
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@Mayukh I think you hit the nail perfectly, with 1PW8 moving to Electron, it has made 1Password for general consumers fall into the same "blah" standard all the other password managers are in
There is no magic left, and really does open the discussion of price/security for all the other solutions
AgileBits/1Password has sold their soul, and is now focusing on how to make money in the Enterprise space (refer Dropbox and many others)
Don't get me wrong I loved the SCIM for businesses, and the secrets automation is neat, but really I would never even look at 1Password for any of these if it wasn't for the amazing dedication they used to have on the consumer side with an amazing Mac app
PS. 1Password was also one of the most expensive password managers out there for businesses, but its apps is what made the sale... guess not anymore
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Yup…the ship has sailed and macOS users are just getting a "crappier than it has to be but easier for the developers to work on" application…even a Catalyst conversion of the native iOS/iPadOS app would be better than Electron and all the non macOS UI stuff it is implementing. Doesn't matter though…management has made their decision to go for enterprise customer growth and that means that less attention will be paid to making apps that work the best on each platform that they can. I can't fault them for that…and wonder how much of that corner office attitude for lack of a better term comes at the behest of the VC folk who recently invested in the company. Yes…1PW remains the majority owner rather than the VCs…but if the VC has 25% or 49% or whatever they still have a big say in corporate policy.
Frankly…I've been looking around and so far simply haven't found another solution that provides everything I want…local vault storage, local backup, DropBox for sync, Secure Notes, and image attachments. If I had found one I would be gone already…but there isn't a solution available that I found. So…as noted in one of the other threads on local vaults…I've examined my gripes and figured out what were show stoppers and what I would be willing but unhappy about it to live with…and the only complete deal breaker for me is local backup/restore/import so that I can have copies of my data, back them up to wherever I want for my security, and reimport them back into the cloud vault eventually. I personally think that separating the database encrypt and sync encrypt to two providers provides greater security than just using a single provider with 2 passwords (Master and Secret Key) does…but as a practical matter I'm not sure it really makes that much difference beyond personal thoughts and preference.
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Why does one need local backups within 1PW? I can see that it can be very convenient, but surely the general regular backups (Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and the like) do provide all one's needs.
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@neil_laubenthal 1P8 does provide an export feature. I don't know how complete export is though. In version 7 some things are not exported, but perhaps things have improved in version 8. Have you asked them about that?
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Maybe this means the macOS third party app ecosystem is turning to trash.
This has been a general feeling of mine over the past few years, but I don't think it's isolated to the Mac. There's been a persistent trend among iOS developers to hide or even remove features that were previously available in their apps. It's frustrating.
Of those ten apps, the only ones that have a standard macOS preferences window are the ones made by Apple, five of them. That's highly anecdotal and I know there are many third party apps, perhaps most even, that have standard macOS preferences windows and typical macOS UI.
Highly subjective. I have precisely four apps that don't use a native preferences window:
- Discord. Trash app I have no choice but to use (it's marginally better than the webpage last I checked, but maybe I should revisit it).
- Obsidian. Powerful app that feels like trash to use. I'm almost certainly going to ditch it.
- Sublime Text. Powerful app that ... feels weird to use. Amusingly, it actually does bring up preferences in a separate window, though editing a JSON file is anything but standard.
- 1Password 8. I'm only keeping this on my system to see how the betas fare and to give feedback. I fully expect to remove it in favor of 1PW 7.
Personally, when I see app UX quality going down the drain, I don't think the appropriate response is to join the trend.
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@danco…one needs backup ups because there backups of my data…the only resident copy on the Mac is apparently in the SQLite database that is used for offline password lookup…and that’s not a backup at ll plus it’s not something 98% of the users can get anything out of. If a security related company doesn’t realize the mandatory nature of secure, user controlled backups of your data…then I’m flabbergasted at the lack of understanding that represents. Im happy and consider it a mandatory requirement for you to backup data on your servers…but that in no way provides the user a usable backup of their data.
@merrybit…The export is for moving data elsewhere…what is needed is a fully featured encrypted with the Master Password local backup of the complete dataset that users can clone or Time Machine to back their data up and the capability to create a new online vault and import that backup in the event of some catastrophic event on either the server end or the device end.
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@neil_laubenthal I totally agree with your response to @merrybit. But does not the local copy of the data (which does exist) something that Time Machine or CCC copies in a usable fashion? Or is it a cache that does not get copied by such procedures?
Early versions of 1PW kept zipped daily backups. I was assuming that was what you were referring to, and I don't see the need for that.
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The one glaring change that I hate is the removal of the 1Password Mini in the menu bar and replacing it with a stupid search window. With the M1 Macs and the ability of being able to run iOS apps that require passwords and even macOS native apps, it was great to just click the the menu bar icon, select favorites and then copy and paste the password. Now it is type in enough letters to shorten the list to find the password info required. Also, the stupid search box doesn't even have the option to just open the 1Password app which was also handy. A step backward in my opinion.
Also, no longer any option in preferences to enable running 1Password on start.
Yet more. Gone is the listing of all the categories! Now if it is not in one on your "Favorites" list, you need to scroll down a list of everything instead of selecting selecting say "Credit Cards", "Documents", etc, and then choose what you are looking for!
In addition, running across multiple inconsistencies when using Safari and the 1Password extension when logging into websites that weren't there in 1Password7. I know that betas are going to be rough around the edges in some respects so I expect this to improve, I hope.
The major changes, like many others have pointed out, are a definite retrograde of a great app. In way too many ways this is looking like a version 1.0 beta back when the idea of a password manager was in its infancy.
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@danco - Apparently the local copy is in a SQLite database which is useless to most people. Yes…Time Machine (probably) and CCC might copy it but it might be skipped if the file is open and in use…don’t know but it’s pretty obtuse and hard to call it a backup. V7 still makes backup zipped copies of the vault daily…why would you not see the need for that…they’re backup copies of the vault, encrypted, and useful for restoration if needed.
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Gone is the listing of all the categories!
@woodmeister50 from any list of items, you can filter down by category using the menu above the item list.
Then show us all the new amazing features this is going to allow. Not just allude to it, actually show the killer new features.
@FCNV I think you're right; so far we've been mostly working on feature parity, and once we're able to move beyond that, the proof will be in the pudding, as they say. This is a rewrite that's meant to set us up for plenty of killer features, but we can't focus too much on those until the app meets the expectations of our current customers. That said, there are quite a few things we've been able to sneak in along the way:
My favorite new feature day to day so far is vault collections. I'm looking forward to those making their way to the browser.
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