Security questions

mitro6
mitro6
Community Member

Hi,
I use randomly generated security question answers a la this blog post. However, I find storing them in 1Password a bit frustrating. So, I am wondering if I am just doing it wrong, or if there is a feature request here.

How I currently do it is that I rename a new default "Section" to "Security questions" and then on the left I make the "label" the security question, e.g., "What is your favorite color?" Then I make the "new field" of type password and auto-generate a secure value that I can easily copy and paste when I need to.

My issue is that the "label" portion of 1Password trims the text about 10 characters and then puts ..., which does not work well for security questions because sometimes the only security questions you can choose might all start with "What is your", which means to figure out which security question I need to choose, I have to press Edit, then click on the "label" of each security question and go to the end to see what the last word is. I don't love having to press Edit in case I accidentally change something.

So, am I doing this wrong? Is there a better way that will show the actual question without pressing edit? If not, perhaps the feature request here is that if you hover over a truncated "label" with your mouse, it will show you the full text.

Thanks!

Comments

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @mitro6,

    Thanks for bring this up! Don't worry, you're not doing anything wrong, and you'll be happy to know we already have open feature request tickets to improve this (show full field names for long labels, show tooltips when hovering over the label with a mouse, and so on). I don't have any definite information for if/when those things will be added, but for now, it's possible to see more of that field label if you make the entire window wider by dragging the right window border to the right (it's not ideal, but might be helpful).

    However, there's another way to do this which might make this even easier for you. Instead of putting the security questions in the field labels, you can put them in their own fields, like this:

    I hope that helps! If you have more questions or need anything else, just let us know. :)

  • mitro6
    mitro6
    Community Member

    Hi @Drew_AG, thanks for the suggestions, they are all really helpful. I think I am going to just go with the make window larger option for now with the hopes that those new features make it in sooner than later, rather than going through and adjusting all of my Q&As. Thanks again!

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    No problem @mitro6, I'm glad the suggestions were helpful! :) I can't make any promises about a timeframe for those features/improvements, but I certainly agree they'd be nice! In the meantime, I hope making the window wider will work well for you. We're here for you if you need anything else!

    ref: OPM-2632
    ref: OPM-1870

  • hejish
    hejish
    Community Member

    I am really glad this is already in as a feature request. I request it as well.

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @hejish,

    Thanks for letting us know! I'll be happy to add your feedback to the ticket. :)

    ref: OPM-985
    ref: OPM-1870

  • MrC
    MrC
    Volunteer Moderator
    edited April 2015

    For those of you who have TextExpander, here's a script that will create a sequence of security questions.

    Copy the script below, create a new TextExpander snippet, set the content type to be Shell Script, and paste the code into the script area. I set the snippet's abbreviation to be ;1pqa. To use it, edit an item, for example, a Login, and place the cursor in a Section's title. Type in the snippet name ;1pqa, the expansion will start, and the script will give you the opportunity to overwrite the default values of how many numbered Q & A fields should be created, and you can change the default labels. Hit OK to complete the expansion to create the Q and A fields.

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w
    
    %values = (
        'Number of Q and A fields' => "%filltext:name=n:default=1%",
        'Section Label'                   => "%filltext:name=slabel:default=Security Questions%",
        'Question Label'                 => "%filltext:name=qlabel:default=Q%",
        'Answer Label'                   => "%filltext:name=alabel:default=A%",
    );
    
    unless ($values{'Number of Q and A fields'} =~ /^\d+$/) {
        print "Error: Number of Q and A fields must be numeric";
        exit;
    }
    
    $| = 1;
    print $values{'Section Label'};
    for (1..$values{'Number of Q and A fields'}) {
       print '%key:tab%', $values{'Question Label'} . $_, '%key:tab%';
       print '%key:tab%', $values{'Answer Label'} . $_, '%key:tab%';
    }
    

    Note: I'm seeing a weird interaction with 1Password and TextExpander when the number of Q&A fields is 8 or greater - sometimes some of the script contents goes into the last field label or field value.

  • rlgleason51
    rlgleason51
    Community Member

    One way I get around the question length is to drop the "what is your" portion of the question. Almost all questions start with that phrase. That just leaves the main part left to enter. I.e., "your spouses middle name", etc.

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    @MrC, thank you for the snippet! I haven't tried it yet but it sounds like it will be really helpful, I'll give that a try later. I know that will save me some time in the future!

    @rlgleason51, thank you for your tip! That will really help those who want to enter the security questions as field names.

    We really do have the best customers ever!! :love:

This discussion has been closed.