Common Mac and Windows interface?

And I am not saying this because I am a Mac bigot.

That's just incidental is it? :tongue: :lol:

Is there any consideration at AgileBits of moving to a much more common user experience? Right now its like having completely different software and multiplies the learning time (i.e. wastes my time.)

I've heard mentions on the forum of a re-vamp but nothing firm I'm afraid.

@BobMc @MikeT I'd also like to poke in on this if I might, as I've been a long-time user of the Mac version (seven or eight years) and about a year and a half on the Windows version. There are UI things that annoy me to this day.

In some ways I have to disagree with Bob though, as I find myself more often in the Windows version than the Mac, specifically because the interface is more accessible. Sure, it's easy to say the Mac version is more streamlined, but to me, that's because there's a lot of things the Mac version DOESN'T LET ME DO that the Windows version does.

First and foremost: deleting old history data. Yes, it's great to have a copy of an old password, or a history of a changed credit card entry, etc. etc., but eventually I like to clean this up when I know the old data is of no use and I don't need to save it "just in case". I can delete this history data in the Windows UI, and very easily. I cannot delete this at all in the Mac version. There appears to be no option whatsoever to remove history data in Mac.

Second: the entry list view. This one is where Mac wins with me, but only slightly. I prefer the Item List Layout to be in "Top" mode. This is the ONLY way Windows displays it, but that's okay because I like it, and I select that view in Mac as well. I like how it gives me details of ALL my entries on a single screen, instead of having to look at them individually like the "Left" mode for Item List Layout on Mac works. However, there appears to be no option to control what columns are displayed. The Mac shows columns for Title, Website, Username, Password Strength, Last Modified, and Created. The Windows version only includes Title, Location(Website), Strength, and Modified. I wouldn't mind being able to add the Username column to Windows, at a minimum. And be able to remove the Created column in the Mac version, so it's less cluttered.

Third, TOTP. Windows and iOS only at the moment. It annoys the hell out of me that I can't sync my TOTP entries to Mac, and I don't understand why this feature wasn't rolled out across all versions simultaneously. It's very weird that the Mac version got no love on this feature. On a tangent, adding TOTP to an entry in Windows is annoying too. The UI falls down here. Adding it in iOS and syncing it to Windows is easy, but really, it ought to be just as easy to do it right there in Windows, and it isn't. It can be done, but I had to add an entry via iOS to figure out HOW to add it in Windows (by seeing what the resulting entry looked like in the Windows editor). Once I understood how to do it, it wasn't hard; it just wasn't obvious or intuitive. Since I do not sync iOS to Mac, I don't know if these entries would actually work on Mac or not. There sure doesn't seem to be a way to add TOTP directly within the Mac interface though.

Fourth, general syncing. I guess this isn't so much a UI issue as more of an issue with the "streamlined experience" in general (like TOTP really). I do not use automated methods of syncing (like Dropbox or Folder Sync). I prefer to just do a 1PIF export, because my vaults don't see a lot of change (nor frequently). However, my Mac will not import a 1PIF from Windows, period. Never has, not from the first day I started using the Windows version (which was September 2013). I have no idea why. The Mac version doesn't give me an error or anything, it just reads the file and then.. does nothing. However, Windows can read the 1PIF files from the Mac no problem. That's how I created my Windows install in fact. I simply exported my existing vault from my Mac as a 1PIF and then imported it into my new Windows install and boom, done.

I can still to this day import 1PIF from Mac to Windows, but cannot go the other direction. I don't know if it's because I have agilekeychain on Mac and opvault on Windows, but really that shouldn't matter, because 1PIF SHOULD be a defined, consistent output format regardless of the vault type. Otherwise there's no point in calling both export files 1PIF. If they are known not to be compatible they should be called different names, which would fall under a UI issue and streamlined experience issue both.

I also have a couple little quibbles with the Firefox plug-ins for Mac and for Windows, that are UI issues. Namely, and I guess this is probably again in the name of "streamlined", the Mac plug-in doesn't show me everything the Windows plug-in does. Or it hides it in the Settings (the little Gear) menu. Windows lets me see Favorites and Tags. Mac plug-in doesn't. The Mac plug-in hides the "Lock" function in the Gear menu where the Windows version puts it right on the main menu for the Extension, in easy and proper reach. Also it'd be nice if the Mac version had an option for "lock 1P when browser closes" like the Windows version has.

Sorry to ramble on so extensively, and this all might come across as kind of negative. So let me finish by saying I think 1P is a fantastic product and I plan to keep on using both versions (and iOS!). These are just thoughts on what would make an already good product, even better to me. :)

I can add the QR scanner to Windows, but you would have to feed it a (JPG or BMP) image. It will probably never be as easy as on your mobile device.

You should probably include the abililty to use a scanner or webcam to capture the QR code, although that is somewhat more complex that using iOS or Android's camera.

@MikeT,

This isn't because of an interface issue, this is mainly because we don't think history should be editable in the first place and yes, there are inconsistencies about this across platforms.

The history is useful for security auditing, 1Password shouldn't generate the same password it used in the past. If you start deleting them, then 1Password has no history to compare to.

Fair enough, difference of opinion then. I don't use the auditing like that and tend to clean up the history instead, but I certainly accept "we don't want it to work this way" as an answer. :)

Were you using 1Password 4 extension? 1Password mini ever since 1Password 4's release shows the tags and favorites

1Password mini powers the front-end of the browser extensions, so it is consistent among all the browser extensions on Mac.

Nevermind on that; I feel like a bit of an idiot on that one. I hadn't synced my tags from Windows to Mac. My Mac didn't have any. :P Soon as I fixed that I see the tag list in the extension/mini now.

We haven't seen many feedback to put it in the same location on the Mac, Mac users are used to letting 1Password auto-lock on its own or just simply press the lock shortcut via Command + Shift + Control + L. This is one of the areas where different platforms have users doing things differently. For cross-platform users, they'd prefer the consistent experience but for many Mac users, they prefer minimal settings and so, we put all settings inside one area via the gear button.

Fair enough. I've never been a big keyboard shortcut type. I liked hitting the menu and hitting Lock. It's not exactly a huge extra step to hit the Gear then Lock. :)