Password Generator creates objects when copying

Backspaze

When I use the Password Generator and click the copy button it creates a password object in my default vault.

I guess this is the intended behavior, just to make sure that you always have a backup of the password until you've actually created the object for which you were going to use it.

A pop up message of some kind, telling about the object that was created, would be nice. I just happened to stumble upon this when I found a bunch of password objects when I was scrolling through the list in my vault. I couldn't quite figure out where they came from until I found the method above by trial and error.

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1Password Version: 6.1.296d
Extension Version: 4.6.1
OS Version: Windows 10
Sync Type: Families
Referrer: forum-search:password generator

AGAlumB

@Backspaze: I'm sorry for the confusion there! It's interesting that you brought this up. It's a long-standing 1Password feature, and I don't recall similar requests in the past. It's certainly something we can consider, but popups are really kind of annoying. We definitely think that this is an important safety net, as it has helped a lot of people who changed a password but didn't save a login. Ultimately though, what we want is for the new 1Password app to manage this for you in the background, saving the password item when it's generated, but if and when you save a login using that same password, it should delete the corresponding Password item. Thanks for your feedback on this!

Backspaze

I've only been using 1Password since the Teams beta began so I wasn't familiar with this feature since it wasn't that long ago that you implemented the Password Generator in the new app.

Yup, popups are annoying, at least if you have no control over them. Maybe this could be like a first use popup; "When you copy a generated password a password object is created in your default vault" and then that message never shows up again, or there's a check box below with "OK, stop bugging me!" or something in that fashion.

An alternative to this could be mouse over pop up when you hold the mouse pointer over the button, with an option to turn mouse over pop ups off in the settings.

Getting 1Password to handle more stuff in the background is certainly preferable, but there are situations where I don't want to save an object but just want to generate a good password for use outside of 1Password.

dszp

To chime in I've been noticing this as well (I'm familiar with it from Mac and Win v4), but it doesn't really work well for me either. I end up with a ton of Password entries I can't jump to easily and don't know what they're for, last time I tried to find one I'd just generated to copy again it wasn't the right one (trying to look at the dates of the entries). Right now I just generate a password, paste it into a blank Notepad.exe instance, create my login at the site, log out, log back in and let 1Password autosave, or if that fails, I create the entry manually from the full application. Not ideal but it seems to be the least "mess" (except I need to go delete all the temporary Password entries).

I also don't love to save entries from the Chrome plugin during account creation, I prefer to save a login form as the fields are generally more accurately saved.

I think I'd like the password generator to not go away on copy, or if I click "copy" just stay open and push a little ticker at the bottom showing "you just copied password X to the clipboard" with a Copy button to let me copy it again, and it shouldn't go away unless I clear it or close the Password generator manually (I'd like to hide the password that was copied by default but have a Show option in case I need to visually see to type it in somewhere). Or, ideally, I'd like to have a button that says "save as new site" and a new entry opens for me to fill in site name/URL/username, if I'm not going to do so through the browser. This would let me use my Notepad workflow without needing to use Notepad or worrying about accidentally copying something else and losing the password in the copy buffer after the generator disappears so I can't find/copy it again easily.

AGAlumB

@dszp: @Backspaze: Thanks so much for your feedback on this! You're absolutely right, it isn't a great experience currently. The most important thing is not losing a password, but we have a lot of work to do when it comes to making it usable.

For example, 1Password for Mac makes it pretty easy to sort and search to find what you're looking for. In the new Windows app, both of these need some work. So what is an important feature to have is currently difficult to use, and I'm sorry for that.

I also don't love to save entries from the Chrome plugin during account creation, I prefer to save a login form as the fields are generally more accurately saved.

I feel exactly the same way, but I think we really need to design for most users, which won't be doing it that way. I'm not sure that improving with a sort of "Notepad workflow" in mind is the best thing. I think what's most important is that it's consistent and easy to use, in additional to serving the primary function of saving our passwords — and our a**es. ;)

I'd really like to hear from both of you more about where you're finding that Password items get in your way the most. Is this searching? In 1Password mini? I think maybe excluding them there (or making them less visible) might help. I don't even notice them in 1Password for Mac, but they're always there if I need them. So I feel like this is mostly an area of the UI we need to improve. Let me know what you think.

dszp

@brenty I wonder if a small, normally-collapsed dropdown at the bottom of the password generation screen to access "previously saved passwords" (maybe the last 2-3?) and if a new account is created manually in the app or via web-save, and the password matches one of the saved "Passwords" items previously generated, it deletes that password item automatically? I don't think this would affect normal user's workflow but would pretty much address all my issues. As long as the "Copy" button in the generate password box didn't also auto-close the box (or there was a separate Copy and Close button--but that starts adding complexity to the UI).

As far as things that get in the way...most of this is stuff that doesn't yet work like the Mac version:

• For example, no top list so the scrolling list of big items is useless (with 1200 items). Think macOS and 1Password 4 on Windows main views, more of a table.
• Favorites can't be ordered so my 22 favorites are't in my preferred iOS/Mac order so they're a pain to use from muscle memory (they take more than two full screens to scroll through since each letter heading takes up a space as well), so I just end up searching for everything.
• No "clear search box" button/shortcut I'm aware of for a new search.
• No way to filter All Vaults to my preferred list.
• Mini closes after copying a value so have to re-search to copy username then password if I need to login to an app or something.
• No app filling or autotype (related--I figured this wasn't going to be a first-version feature back when the work was starting, and I was right :-)
• Filling credit cards or identities doesn't seem to work well, at least with the shortcut key. Ctrl+\ (instead, if I try to use the shortcut key twice to bring up the list of identities and not just matches, it ends up first trying to fill the credentials, so I'll end up with my username in the Name field or something and still can't quite seem to get the Identity filling to work. It seems to do better when I use the Chrome extension button to fill identities for now :-)
• Mini needs several improvements which I know are in the pipeline.
• Right-clicking the tray icon, it would be nice if there was a "check for updates" in that menu since I manually check for beta updates daily and have to open the main app, go to options, and check manually. Yes, I'm impatient as I it checks ever 24 hours automatically :-) I'd be fine if this menu option only showed up for people with Betas enabled. Also, I'd love to be able to do this update check without having to unlock my vault first. I check first-thing each day, and I have to type my password, check for updates and install, then open and unlock again--no need to unlock the first time just to update ideally.
• I'd like a keyboard shortcut to open the password generator (too lazy to right-click the icon in a perfect world ;-)

I think that's everything that I can think of that I run into that seems to affect my daily usage in a significant way, though some are more frustrating than others. None of the items are things I can't or don't work around, but you asked for the pain points in my workflow! I know for sure some of the above items are under consideration or being worked on from other forum posts, so this isn't necessarily a list of stuff I think you don't already know about.

MikeT

Hi @dszp,

Thanks for writing in with great suggestions.

I wonder if a small, normally-collapsed dropdown at the bottom of the password generation screen to access "previously saved passwords" (maybe the last 2-3?)

That is something we already have in the macOS version of 1Password and will plan to bring to the Windows version. Here's a screenshot:

Once we implement category groupings in 1Password mini soon and adding Password Generator to that view along with favorites and tags, this will be more accessible to get the last generated password.

if a new account is created manually in the app or via web-save, and the password matches one of the saved "Passwords" items previously generated, it deletes that password item automatically?

Same thing here, the macOS version already does this and we will bring it to the Windows version but for now, we can't do this until it works more consistently first.

For example, no top list so the scrolling list of big items is useless (with 1200 items). Think macOS and 1Password 4 on Windows main views, more of a table.

I assume you mean the category groupings in 1Password mini? If yes, it will be implemented soon.

Favorites can't be ordered so my 22 favorites are't in my preferred iOS/Mac order so they're a pain to use from muscle memory (they take more than two full screens to scroll through since each letter heading takes up a space as well), so I just end up searching for everything.

Favorites is a special category that we need to split out from other categories and optimize it properly. No sorting as it is a fixed list, which means no alphabetical headings are needed and so on. Adding it to 1Password mini's default view will help as well.

No "clear search box" button/shortcut I'm aware of for a new search.

The button will be added in a future update to clear the field. For now, you can press "Control + F" to focus the search field, which should also select all text for you to easily delete with the delete key. This isn't perfect yet in 1Password mini.

No way to filter All Vaults to my preferred list.

The Always open to this option will be implemented in a future update.

Mini closes after copying a value so have to re-search to copy username then password if I need to login to an app or something.

The ability to anchor the 1Password mini is coming in a future update as well, so you can keep it open like you can on macOS.

No app filling or autotype (related--I figured this wasn't going to be a first-version feature back when the work was starting, and I was right :-)

Yep, it's on our list but for now, we have to complete the item editor to support adding additional URL fields before we can even implement auto-type.

Filling credit cards or identities doesn't seem to work well, at least with the shortcut key. Ctrl+\ (instead, if I try to use the shortcut key twice to bring up the list of identities and not just matches, it ends up first trying to fill the credentials, so I'll end up with my username in the Name field or something and still can't quite seem to get the Identity filling to work. It seems to do better when I use the Chrome extension button to fill identities for now :-)

Control + \ is only meant to directly fill your Login item when you only have one Login item for the site (skips bringing up the mini) and/or bring up the list of Logins if there's more than one. For other purposes, the shortcut you want is Control + Alt + \. Once we implement category groupings, you'd just do Control + Alt + \, click on the Credit Card or Identity category to select the one you want to fill with.

Right-clicking the tray icon, it would be nice if there was a "check for updates" in that menu since I manually check for beta updates daily and have to open the main app, go to options, and check manually. Yes, I'm impatient as I it checks ever 24 hours automatically :-) I'd be fine if this menu option only showed up for people with Betas enabled. Also, I'd love to be able to do this update check without having to unlock my vault first. I check first-thing each day, and I have to type my password, check for updates and install, then open and unlock again--no need to unlock the first time just to update ideally.

We'll keep that in mind. For now, we probably will change the automatic check to 8 hours or sooner for beta users.

I'd like a keyboard shortcut to open the password generator (too lazy to right-click the icon in a perfect world ;-)

Once category groupings are implemented, you'd be able to use Control + Alt + \ to bring up 1Password mini and a few arrow key presses to select the Password Generator.

We might be able to add more shortcut options to 1Password but first, we need to implement the full shortcut key editor before we do that.

Thanks again for bringing these up.

Backspaze

@brenty I really don't have much to add other than what I've already stated, @dszp and @MikeT ticked of most if not all points on my list.

As a relatively new user I wasn't aware of the workflow behind the scenes with the copy button and would like to see some kind of improvement to the UI that explains to new users what's happening in the background. I only noticed this when I found some password objects that I couldn't remember creating and had to investigate to see if I could safely delete them, as I regularly delete all objects I don't have any use for anymore.

mohamedosman

Thanks for getting back to us @Backspaze! The suggestions and feedback that you and @dszp have brought forward will help us continue to improve 1Password. We take your comments and ideas very seriously and do our best to make 1Password an awesome experience for all our users.

Thanks again for bringing this up, and don't ever hesitate to tell us how you think 1Password could be better for you :)

dszp

Thanks @MikeT, I'd missed that feature on the Mac (less-used for me) but that pretty much is what I want on Windows! And I appreciate the keyboard shortcut clarifications as well, I wasn't clear on the differences of the main one with and without the Alt added, which I really haven't used much.

For example, no top list so the scrolling list of big items is useless (with 1200 items). Think macOS and 1Password 4 on Windows main views, more of a table.

I assume you mean the category groupings in 1Password mini? If yes, it will be implemented soon.

No, I mean the table view above the details, where you can see rows with additional information in more columns, and smaller spacing. I know there's an ongoing recent discussion about large touch targets vs. high information density in the UI and I understand the trade-offs (I use a Surface Pro 3 and appreciate good touch targets well enough!) but especially when I want to do some heavy duty review/updating/cleanup or even if I'm just browsing for something specific, I really want to see a table that looks more like an Excel spreadsheet with an attached detail blowup of the selected item than a scrolling list with 7-10 items visible and barely any additional fields :-) I tend to do my cleanup on my Mac where I accomplish much more it feels like. I know some of it is due to Windows immaturity but I want to see it become equal in ease of use for big cleanups and daily use both. And I know Mac avoids needing touch-sized stuff by making you buy a tablet to touch anything (TouchBar notwithstanding), but it is true most Windows users are working non-touch, or primarily non-touch at least even on touch devices.

Great to hear on the rest, some I knew and some I didn't--I do miss stuff but I follow the discussion forums relatively closely depending on the week or the month, so I tend to know when stuff is planned. However, it's nice to regroup and take inventory about what's missing based on current state once in a while, so my list was without regard for whether I knew you were contemplating it :-) But I did pick up several tidbits, and more frequent update checks for beta users would be nice as you mentioned as well.

I didn't add additional fields to my wishlist (though you mentioned them in your reply about autotype) because I know they're just a base feature of the system that's just not there yet. Frankly I can drop to the browser if I really need to add a secondary URL or other fields, but this would come in handy as more sites require PINs or security questions or some such.

I would find it interesting to have a "field template" option, either custom templates or even just some predefined ones, and specifically I'm thinking of an "add custom fields for security questions" addition where it loads two fields, a text question and a password-type answer field that I can use to save from typing the field names "security question 1" and "security question answer 1" is a lot to re-type three times and that's not taking the answers into account, or the sometimes long-winded questions! I can think of more hence my template idea, but maybe do some predefined ones first with an option to build in custom later. But work on all the other stuff first, I know multiple fields creation is coming to Windows at some point.

Thanks!

MikeT

Hi @dszp,

No, I mean the table view above the details, where you can see rows with additional information in more columns, and smaller spacing.

Ah, the column interface from 1Password 4 for Window and the top layout option in the macOS version of 1Password.

We're looking at adding the column/top layout as an additional interface option in the future but for now, we need to build up the app first and optimize for the current default interface that is consistent with the web app, the default interface option on macOS and identical to the mobile apps. Consistency is what we're looking for right now.

This isn't related to the touch screen as you may have read in other posts, we're just starting with this first and iterate through it later. We've decided on a general design that works best on all screens, touch-enabled or not, also consistent with other 1Password apps.

I would find it interesting to have a "field template" option, either custom templates or even just some predefined ones, and specifically I'm thinking of an "add custom fields for security questions" addition

Custom template is currently available as a beta option for 1Password.com Teams plan and we hope to bring it over to everyone in the near future.

A custom section is an interesting idea, it is related to something else we want to do in the future where you can embed a specific item into another item, like a Login item embedded into the Email Account item or a Bank Account item embedded into the Credit Card Item, which could also be in a Login item, etc. We don't want to complicate the UI too much but this is an interesting idea.

dszp

@MikeT Honestly I didn't know the Mac interface didn't have the top table by default, it's been that way on my Mac so long :-) I understand the reasons (heck there's no need to be touch-friendly on the Macs ;-) and I'm not complaining (much), just sharing what I'd like to see.

I'll have to pop over to my Teams account (gotta reserve one at the cheaper price until it spreads at work :-) and look at the templates, thanks for the tip! Plenty of ways to do this sort of stuff, obviously usability is key, which AgileBits is pretty good at overall. As an advanced user I'd definitely love for some of the more advanced stuff that would make my workflow easier but--at the moment I'm happy the Windows app is usable and I can open, unlock, fill and log in to three sites (two with TOTP) and still come in under the time it took to just wait for my 1Pass 4 keychain to unlock. So no real complaints (about to convert my mom's 1P to 6 in fact, and my son's already upgraded), just reporting any issues since I'm running the beta, and helping to mold things with any input I can think of!

Oh, speaking of my son's....he's not a local admin and it won't install/update without admin rights on his system but I thought I saw where it shouldn't need admin rights to install for a single user. Is that the case & should I post about it separately, or are admin rights actually required?

AGAlumB

@dszp: We definitely want a lot of these advanced features too! Right now we just want to focus on the core and make everything nice, and then build on that as we go. And you're not imagining things: our goal is to have 1Password not require admin rights, and in fact it already doesn't. However, currently the MSI installer we're using does, so it's a bit of a drag. That may sound like I'm splitting hairs I don't have, but it's significant in that once we're able to switch to a new installer, that limitation will go away. But for now at least the installed will need to elevate to run. I can't give a time frame on this, but it's something we're actively working on. Hang in there, and keep giving us this awesome feedback! :)

MikeT

Hi @dszp,

In addition to what Brenty said, make sure the latest .NET 4.6.2 framework is installed first before performing the install/update. If it is outdated, the install process can fail and revert back to the previous version silently, which sometimes look like an admin right issue. The MSI installer that we use doesn't really do a good job with the .NET versioning and informing users of install issues, so we're in the process of investigating for a better one.

dszp

Thanks, all good to know! At the moment my son is the only family member with 1P who doesn't have local admin rights, but I have to upgrade everything else on his system so it's not a big deal. Just curious since usually stuff that installs in the user profile does so to avoid needing admin rights when installed for a single user :-)

Thanks for the other notes as well! Back to using more than commenting for a short while... ;-)

MikeT

Hi @dszp,

Just curious since usually stuff that installs in the user profile does so to avoid needing admin rights when installed for a single user :-)

Correct, that's the only reason we're using the user profile directory, to avoid admin rights. In fact, you could just copy the %LOCALAPPDATA%\1Password\app folder to any user account in the same directory and it'll work, no installation required. You just have to make your own shortcut manually.

It's the MSI installer itself that is requesting the admin rights when we aren't asking for it.