1P notes editor - typing a string of hyphens turns them into em dashes

jasimon9

For example, typing ---- results in ——.

What if those those characters are part of some secure information? Notes editing in your product should not be "word processor like" but at least for me provide the ability to contain all kinds of codes, symbols, and abbreviations, such as strings of hyphens and I don't want it acting "smart" for me. Why would you have it act this way?

At a minimum, you could have a General Preference to enable/disable "smart editing".

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1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
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Sync Type: Not Provided

Stephen_C

In OS X System Preferences > Keyboard > Text do you have Use smart quotes and dashes checked?

Stephen

littlebobbytables

Hi @jasimon9,

I'm feeling confident that Stephen_C has probably isolated the cause. I don't know if that's something that can be programatically turned on or off as the application needs. It might be it's possible though.

If you're storing answers to security questions or similar though can I suggest the use of custom fields set to the type password? What I do is I use the field label for the question and the password field for the answer. I like this because:

1. It hides the answer just like your password.
2. Clicking on the field copies it to your clipboard - no selecting the text and then using the copy command.

Could that be useful at all to you?

jasimon9

@Stephen_C -- yes, that system-wide setting seems to have changed the ability to enter -- and not have it changed. Too bad there is not more granularity. Some places would be nice to have the smarts (word processors) but not in others (text editors).

jasimon9

@littlebobbytables -- could be helpful. I was really referring to secure notes, where there is a lot of stuff I want to be literal and not smart. Would be nice to have a per-application setting for smartness. Some apps do have their own settings I believe.

Drew_AG

Hi @jasimon9,

Thank you for the feedback about that! Although I can't make any promises, I can let our developers know you'd like to have a setting for that in 1Password.

In case it helps, if you type ---- and it turns into ——, you can use Undo to change it back to ---- (either go to Edit > Undo, or use the ⌘Z keyboard shortcut). That should work in 1Password as well as other text editing apps (or at least the ones I've tried). I believe it also works for other things such as smart quotes. I know you'd prefer for the change not to happen in the first place, but if you want to keep that system setting enabled, I thought perhaps this would be a helpful tip.

We're always happy to help if you need anything else! :)

jasimon9

Ok, having Ctrl-Z in my toolkit is helpful.

The problem is that I often type without looking at the screen. So many funny changes happen that way as one just does not see the "helpfulness" of the corrections. Disabling corrections completely is not really the answer, as in maybe 80% of the cases you benefit from the correction. And as a fast typist, it is unnatural to have to be ready to undo in the unexpected cases.

Drew_AG

As someone who also often types without looking at the screen, I know exactly what you mean! ;)

I'm not sure if there's much we can really do if you want it to work sometimes but not other times. The "Undo" trick is probably your best bet for the times when you don't want the corrections to work, although I know it can be difficult to get into the habit of doing something like that since it might slow you down a bit. It's similar to an auto-correct feature - it's handy for correcting legitimate spelling/typing mistakes, but can get in the way when you don't want it to change a word it thinks is incorrect.