Attached documents - degraded user experience
Since upgrading from standalone vaults to 1Password accounts, I noticed that the user experience relating to attachments has degraded in several ways.
1. Related items are now listed in random order. This means a long list of related documents (e.g. with dates in their filenames) appear all jumbled up, making it much harder to find the right document. This issue was previously fixed in version 5.3 back in 2015 so must be a regression.
2. Many clicks are now required to open document in its native app. It used to take one double-click. For example a PDF now requires: 1. click the related item, 2. click “Click to Download & View”, 3. click “Quick Look” 4. click “Open with Preview”. A Microsoft .xlsx file now requires: 1. click the related item, 2. click “Click to Download & View”, 3. click disclosure triangle next to “Quick Look” 4. click “Open with Microsoft Excel.app”.
3. Opening a document loses your navigational location in the app. For example if you select a Tag and then an Item, your effective “navigational location” is the selected Tag and Item. If you then view a document attached to that Item, the selection in the LH navigation pane changes to the Documents category, and the selected Item changes to the document itself. From there it’s quite difficult to get back to where you were. I find myself wanting to click “back”, but there is no back button.
I know there's a link to the parent item underneath the document - but if you click that, the left-hand navigation switches to the Category of that item. That’s NOT where I was! I was looking at all the items under a specific Tag, not a Category. Opening multiple documents attached to an Item is a nightmare, as you have to keep navigating back to the Item to open the next document.
4. Opening a document maximises the Categories list. This is particularly annoying if you like to keep the Categories list minimized at all times, for example if you use Tags as pseudo-categories (with tag names like “/items/drives” and "/items/mobile-devices"). 1Password keeps reverting that preference. There are several other situations where it does this, but I can't list them exhaustively. Anyway I'm fighting a constant battle with 1Password to make the Categories list stay minimized. I minimize it, at some point 1Password maximizes it, I minimize it again, at some point 1Password maximizes it again, etc. What is the point in giving the user the option to minimize the Categories list if the app doesn’t honour that? This is another issue that was fixed in version 5.3 back in 2015, but has now returned.
1Password Version: 6.8.8
Extension Version: N/A
OS Version: 10.13.3
Sync Type: 1Password.com
Comments
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To illustrate points 2 and 3, let's say I want to open three documents linked to the same Item in Excel.
Steps required in 1Password for Mac with standalone vaults
1. Select the parent item's Tag e.g. "/notes/financial"
2. Select the parent item itself (e.g. a Note called "Tax Returns")
3. Double-click the first linked document - it opens in Excel
4. Double-click the second linked document - it opens in Excel
5. Double-click the third linked document - it opens in ExcelSteps required in 1Password for Mac using a 1password.com account
1. Select the parent item's Tag e.g. "/notes/financial"
2. Select the parent item itself (e.g. a Note called "Tax Returns")
3. Click on the first linked document
4. Click “Click to Download & View”
5. Click disclosure triangle next to “Quick Look”
6. Click “Open With > Microsoft Excel.app”
7. Navigate back to the parent item's Tag e.g. "/notes/financial"
8. Navigate back to the parent item itself (e.g. a Note called "Tax Returns")
9. Click on the second linked document
10. Click “Click to Download & View”
11. Click disclosure triangle next to “Quick Look”
12. Click “Open With > Microsoft Excel.app”
13. Navigate back to the parent item's Tag e.g. "/notes/financial"
14. Navigate back to the parent item itself (e.g. a Note called "Tax Returns")
15. Click on the third linked document
16. Click “Click to Download & View”
17. Click disclosure triangle next to “Quick Look”
18. Click “Open With > Microsoft Excel.app”So it takes far more steps to accomplish the same thing, and makes me kind of lose the thread of what I was doing.
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@semblance - thanks for the detailed report of your experience! I can't really agree with "regression" except in the strictest sense, since what was being referred to in that three-year old thread was attachments to items in local vaults, whereas what you're describing now is the experience/workflow/functionality surrounding Documents in a 1password.com account. The two can function similarly via Related Items, but they're very different at their core.
For one thing, the reason you would have to click to view on a Document would be if you don't yet have a local copy of it. We don't automatically download every document to every client; you have to download them on an as-needed basis, the first time. Once you have the document available, it should remain in the local cache, but it's not there initially. Try it: return to any document you've downloaded already and see if you're required to do it again. You shouldn't be.
We're always looking for ways to improve 1Password, and that means not just in terms of the technical security aspects, but also in terms of the functionality and user-friendliness. You're certainly not wrong in your observation that it now takes more clicks with a Document in 1Password.com accounts than it used to with a direct attachment to an item in standalone 1Password, but I'm not sure how much (if any) of that is avoidable, while maintaining the increased functionality Documents provide over standalone's direct attachments. However, this is valuable feedback, and I will definitely pass it along to the developers. Thanks for taking the time to lay it all out so thoroughly! :)
ref: web/support.1password.com#1316
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Hi @Lars,
Actually I only used the term "regression" in relation to Issue 1, regarding display order of related items - but I appreciate a lot has changed under the covers.
Most of these issues would seem to have reasonable solutions:
- Issue 1 could be fixed by displaying related items in name order, rather than random order - or giving an option to do that
- Issue 2 I appreciate a document may or may not be cached locally, but it should still be possible to open one with less than 4 clicks
- Issue 3 could be improved by providing a "Back" button which restores the parent item and your navigational position within the app such as your selected Tag or Category
- Issue 4 could be addressed by not maximizing the Categories list, if the user previously opted to minimize it
I'm not saying these are the only solutions, just the first that spring to mind.
Anyway, thanks for the quick response and for passing this along to your developers. I fully understand that these may or may not be addressed depending on priorities and other factors, but I just wanted to share my experience.
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Likewise, thanks for your feedback on this! I'm not sure exactly what we'll settle on, but we definitely want to continue to make Documents — which are wonderful because of their flexibility — easier to work with. Cheers! :)
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