Feedback on the interface for Windows Desktop Beta

MikeT
edited April 2023 in 1Password 7 for Windows
This discussion was created from comments split from: Feedback on the new 1Password desktop beta.

Comments

  • dmds99
    dmds99
    Community Member

    Well, some of this is disappointing news.. Our family is 100% windows + iphone -- I signed up early on Families and paid a year to lock in early bird - just out of confidence and how much I like my existing windows version + dropbox setup. I've wanted to share it (and some passwords) inexpensively with the kids. I haven't moved my stuff into families yet due to a lack of browser integration.. and I haven't set up them with accounts either pending some movement on Windows.. so for now I'm just draining $4/month (not that big a deal.. I've been happy to support development while I wait.. think of it like kickstarter, heh.)

    Well now I hear that what we were waiting on, whatever it was, has been abandoned.. and the future is this windows 10 UI (?!) It's just an opinion but I have a hard time even looking at the windows 10 style UI on my desktop.. Everything is too big, so much wasted / white space. I assume eventually it won't crash as much and will add some features.. but it doesn't seem like it's changed in the quite a while since I first saw it and deleted it.. i like putting 1password in a corner of my 2nd screen and older version is basically fine that way.. the new version's huge fonts, spacing, and 3 column layout (as opposed 3-pane email style with details below table) provide a lot less useful info for the space. I can't even make it as small as the old window, and despite its size, I can't see as much information. Especially for secure notes, I'd like a wider detail view than 3 column can display in the same space.

    I've seen talk on here that windows 10 (and by extension that UI style) is the future.. and that UI design is where windows is going.. but notice that even Microsoft recently had to back away from what I consider a false start in windows8/10 and went back to providing a more traditional start menu again. There's just a huge difference between what is nice and functional on phone/tablet vs. desktop/keyboard/mouse.. 1 UI/layout does not fit all device types! I think a lot of 1password users are probably desktop "power users" who would agree (? maybe not.)

    I do hope you get there but this shakes my confidence a bit. The $4/month (since it was prepaid) will obviously keep ticking til the year is out.. I assume its too late for a refund - but based on this progress report, I'm feeling tempted to shop around again and if I've moved on to something else before it renews next April that's obviously the end of that. :)

    I have seen mention that "if you like the old app/way of using existing version and drop box, etc, then that's not going anywhere.. e.g. we didn't take anything away, just added something new.." but I think eventually software that isn't a focus of improvement is effectively gone. I wonder if the desktop apps for families accounts will always support a local or dropbox only vault option. Since it's read-only for now I wonder if the priority for local vault support is only to enable a 1-way migration from old vaults into the 1password cloud and not indicating any real long term support for that way of working with your own files.. I hope not.

    Anyway, this got too long. I just wanted to get some things off my mind.. Thanks for listening.

  • Hi @dmds99,

    Thanks for your feedback, we do appreciate it.

    Right now, nothing is set in stone, these are early betas and we are not halfway done. The UI polishing comes later after the core features are implemented first and when we're ready to ship it as the stable version, we'll begin polishing the interface.

    Well now I hear that what we were waiting on, whatever it was, has been abandoned.. and the future is this windows 10 UI (?!) It's just an opinion but I have a hard time even looking at the windows 10 style UI on my desktop.

    This is the identical interface we use on 1Password.com and on Mac, it's not exclusive to Windows 10. The other Windows desktop project we were working on would had the same three-column interface, it was not going to be the same as the dense top layout that the current 1Password 4 for Windows program have.

    We are working on bringing the same 1Password experience on all platforms, which means consistency is the core feature for us.

    Right now, the desktop app's UI is not as flexible it can be and the details view is going to be overhauled completely.

    I assume eventually it won't crash as much and will add some features..

    Correct, we're only focusing on the core foundation for the moment, the database and syncing, plus the stability. Once that's all good to go, we'll move on to adding features on top of it and UI polishing comes later.

    the new version's huge fonts, spacing, and 3 column layout (as opposed 3-pane email style with details below table) provide a lot less useful info for the space.

    What's your resolution and what scaling factor are you using? We've seen some weird glitches where it may scale incorrectly on some PCs.

    I can't even make it as small as the old window, and despite its size, I can't see as much information.

    The internal views are not re-sizable yet, so when you resize, it doesn't scale with it. Once it is fixed, it'll resize properly but it won't be as dense as the top layout like in 1Password 4 for Windows.

    Especially for secure notes, I'd like a wider detail view than 3 column can display in the same space.

    I suspect this is because of the details view, we haven't optimized it yet. This details view will be completely overhauled in a future beta update.

    I wonder if the desktop apps for families accounts will always support a local or dropbox only vault option. Since it's read-only for now I wonder if the priority for local vault support is only to enable a 1-way migration from old vaults into the 1password cloud and not indicating any real long term support for that way of working with your own files.. I hope not.

    Full write support is coming soon to local vaults, that's for sure. The reason it is not here yet is because of the way we've built Families/Teams data structures. We are able to reuse the same database schema file that was already built for 1Password.com and in other 1Password apps, which it made it easier and quick to add full support for them. We didn't have to tailor each category manually.

    For local vaults, we must explicitly add support for each category by hand, which will take some time.

  • dmds99
    dmds99
    Community Member

    "the new version's huge fonts.."

    What's your resolution and what scaling factor are you using? We've seen some weird glitches where it may scale incorrectly on some PCs.

    Hopefully that is it, but I'm not sure. And with "huge" I was probably overstating it, but let's see. The main monitor is 30" 2560x1600 (no scaling, just 100%).. the 2nd where I usually keep the application is 20" 1600x1200. (no scaling, just 100%) It looks about the same size on either one.

    With the old application, I can place/dock it on the right half of that 2nd screen and resize the details view to about 3/4 of the screen height. This results in a secure notes text area of ~600x~800 pixels.. In a secure note, I count that this can display about 60 lines of text, each with almost 100 characters width. _**I can read/copy/paste from those notes and it's very nice amount of data to reference.
    **_

    Contrast with newer version. I can try to place/dock it on the right side of the 2nd screen, but it takes 2/3 of the screen width at a minimum instead of 1/2. (can't resize) Now, 2/3 of that 2/3 is wasted for me.. 1/3 is a list of vaults, categories, and tags. 1/3 is the list of sites.

    In the left column, I can see a total of 1 vault, 3 categories, and 21 tags without scrolling. Does this indicate incorrect scaling? For the middle column, if I pick "logins" which is best case, I can see about 21 sites.. For secure notes, the middle column only fits 8-10 because of the extra detail, first few lines of each that is mixed in. These are the columns where the vertical spacing and font size feel excessive to me. Old program can fit more than 2x the sites vertically if sized the same.

    Now, none of the above would matter much.. it's just wasted space and unfortunate, but I can ignore that. The more pressing use case is to copy/paste from the secure notes. Sized like this, 2/3 of screen width, it only displays 20 (!) characters of width for the notes instead of 100. It might seem we get more lines, being 100% of height instead of previous 75%, but the 20 character word wrap means I see fewer than ~half the lines of text I can see in the other program. (AND the window is bigger than before, which is why I refer to wasted space.) (For this part, the font sizes seem comparable.. perhaps slightly more line spacing in the new version.)

    Now, I could sacrifice the entire screen and maximize the window instead. Does it help? Well, now the detail section takes up more than half of the screen.. in other words, more than the entire old application did, just for the useful part. This sounds good, but the left 25-30% of that right column is blank just to display the word "notes" at the top.. and the other 70% of the right column only provides 79 characters of width. (There is then an empty margin that might fit 10 more..) This is obviously much better than 20, but it's still not 100 characters, despite the program taking entire monitor instead of half of it. And who wants their password manager to take a full screen? I've said I dock to the right half, but I can usually shrink it even further to just a 1/4 and the old version is still very usable.

    I used to keep monitor 2 in portrait mode (Using 1200x1600 on the side screens meant it matched the vertical resolution of my main screen. I imagine that would make this new situation even worse so I'm glad I stopped doing that :) Also, I'm sorry about all the numbers, but once I got started.. )

  • dmds99
    dmds99
    Community Member

    when we're ready to ship it as the stable version, we'll begin polishing the interface.

    Makes sense.

    Right now, the desktop app's UI is not as flexible it can be and the details view is going to be overhauled completely.

    The internal views are not re-sizable yet, so when you resize, it doesn't scale with it. Once it is fixed, it'll resize properly but it won't be as dense as the top layout like in 1Password 4 for Windows.

    This details view will be completely overhauled in a future beta update.

    That's great! I did notice the web version is a bit more responsive as you make a narrower. I like flexibility of Outlook which allows you to move reading pane below email list or to the right. But I think I could get used to it always on the right with some tweaks.

    Full write support is coming soon to local vaults, that's for sure.

    This is excellent.

    In my previous response I grabbed onto your one question and went too deep in detail. But I wanted to acknowledge and thank you for making these other points as well. Let's give it some time and see future betas :)

  • MikeT
    edited May 2016

    Hi @dmds99,

    I've split our conversation out into its own thread because it is a long one that deserves its own thread.

    Does this indicate incorrect scaling? For the middle column, if I pick "logins" which is best case, I can see about 21 sites.

    No, that sounds about right. There's a lot of padding involved in the interface, add to the fact that it doesn't resize and the details view hasn't been re-implemented yet, it's a bit chunky.

    We do want to minimize the padding, white-space and so on as much as we can. But as I mentioned before, these will worked on much later in the development process, it doesn't make sense to make these minor adjustments now when we may overhaul the whole interface as well.

    For secure notes, the middle column only fits 8-10 because of the extra detail, first few lines of each that is mixed in.

    That's not right. It is the same number of items for all categories. Logins have the same subtitles where it lists your username just like Secure Notes for the first line.

    The only thing I can think of is that is the alphabetical headings, they do take up more space. Could that be the case here?

    The more pressing use case is to copy/paste from the secure notes. Sized like this, 2/3 of screen width, it only displays 20 (!) characters of width for the notes instead of 100. It might seem we get more lines, being 100% of height instead of previous 75%, but the 20 character word wrap means I see fewer than ~half the lines of text I can see in the other program. (AND the window is bigger than before, which is why I refer to wasted space.) (For this part, the font sizes seem comparable.. perhaps slightly more line spacing in the new version.)

    Yea, the details view will be completely overhauled but we'll keep this in mind. When you can resize the columns, you'll get more space per line.

    Here's what the UWP version does (also not a final design) when resizing:

    We hope we can do the same for the desktop app and if not, make it compact as much as we can.

    But I wanted to acknowledge and thank you for making these other points as well. Let's give it some time and see future betas :)

    You're welcome and stay tuned, there's plenty of updates to come. We've just implemented All Vaults in recent updates, which is something the current Windows program couldn't do in its state.

  • dmds99
    dmds99
    Community Member

    Thanks for the attention and responses.. I saw just one question I can answer:

    That's not right. It is the same number of items for all categories. Logins have the same subtitles where it lists your username just like Secure Notes for the first line.

    The only thing I can think of is that is the alphabetical headings, they do take up more space. Could that be the case here?

    For the logins, yes, each one shows 1 line which is the user name. But for secure notes, they are actually often showing several lines from the note each. Sometimes 10-12 lines per note in my case.. I thought it might be taking the first N characters, but I tried counting them and it seems to vary for each note. Maybe it is the first N lines at/below a certain length? I can't find the pattern but it's definitely not just 1 line each. I'm guessing a glance at the code would determine this more easily :)

    I do have a little more feedback on the detail view for secure notes, especially copy/paste. I know you have already said multiple times that this is being reworked, so much of this will be redundant. (and I don't require a response. :) )

    While counting letters trying to answer above, I noticed the "copy" button on the right side in the notes detail view. In the screenshot above the copy button looks better and is located in a better place. But I still had some thoughts:

    1) For some of my notes, I need to be able to select some portion of the text and copy it vs. having to copy the entire note at once. As of now, I'm not sure it's practical to add/organize it with a separate "section" for everything I might want to copy.

    (It's an interesting idea to explore though, so I think I'll try to reorganize one of them and give it a fair shot. I was lazy initially migrating them into here with copy/paste.. and it worked with the old interface so I stayed lazy.)

    2) The copy button is centered halfway down the note. The screenshot above is an improvement. Having it up top means I don't have to scroll to find it.And..

    3) Currently scrolling a note is not working. (Mouse wheel doesn't work, dragging the scroll bar doesn't work.) Clicking below the scroll bar moves beyond the entire note to the next attribute (so you still can't see copy button or even the bottom/rest of the note.)

    I guess the only real feedback here is please try to add some extra long text notes to the sample data so the designers / testers can see how it works in that use case. I'm possibly abusing this feature a little bit, but it's been convenient.

    Thanks again..

  • MikeT
    edited May 2016

    Hi @dmds99,

    . Sometimes 10-12 lines per note in my case.. I thought it might be taking the first N characters, but I tried counting them and it seems to vary for each note. Maybe it is the first N lines at/below a certain length? I can't find the pattern but it's definitely not just 1 line each. I'm guessing a glance at the code would determine this more easily :)

    That's definitely a bug. I went through all of my secure notes and found only two items that did inline more than one line that shouldn't happen. We even double-checked the code, it says one line only.

    Is this an OPVault file you're using?

    1) For some of my notes, I need to be able to select some portion of the text and copy it vs. having to copy the entire note at once. As of now, I'm not sure it's practical to add/organize it with a separate "section" for everything I might want to copy.

    We do want to let you select text inline without having you copy the whole thing or edit > select. However, it all depends on what we can with the UI, we'll see what's possible when we finish redesigning this.

    2) The copy button is centered halfway down the note. The screenshot above is an improvement. Having it up top means I don't have to scroll to find it.

    Will be fixed in the future.

    3) Currently scrolling a note is not working. (Mouse wheel doesn't work, dragging the scroll bar doesn't work.) Clicking below the scroll bar moves beyond the entire note to the next attribute (so you still can't see copy button or even the bottom/rest of the note.)

    I can confirm, will fill a bug report on this. This only affects the desktop app, the Universal Windows Platform app has no issues scrolling through it.

    GIF showing the issue

  • SergeyTheAgile
    edited May 2016

    Please restart app, subtitles should be single line now.
    We are looking into other issues too :)

  • dmds99
    dmds99
    Community Member

    Please restart app, subtitles should be single line now.
    We are looking into other issues too :)>

    Yes, I can confirm that part is fixed now. When I read the first comment, I wondered whether something was "wrong" with my line endings. I believe many of the notes were originally imported from another product via CSV file.

    Is this an OPVault file you're using?

    Yes it is OPVault. I had a CSV from (lastpass) which I imported using a script from the forums. At that point it was agilekeychain. Then some time later I moved everything into OPVault format. Any of those steps might have had something to do with it.

    Thanks to both of you - and deploying fixes over the weekend? I appreciate the dedication. but do hope you keep a "sustainable pace" :)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Thanks to both of you - and deploying fixes over the weekend? I appreciate the dedication. but do hope you keep a "sustainable pace" :)

    You concern is appreciated, but what it comes down to is we love our customers, and we love what we do! Glad to hear that the update helped. The best is yet to come. ;)

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member

    Double clicking still reveals a password (Nice, BIG on the screen... for all to see). I can just shake my head at this. I cannot believe anyone thought this is a good idea... ever. I have mentioned this before on the App store edition app... it was not a good idea there, even that one was made for smaller devices... it is especially not a good idea for a desktop app.

    (This is even though I have concealed passwords checked.)

    Please remove this "feature"...

  • MikeT
    edited June 2016

    Hi @RandomMarius,

    Large Type has been largely requested by our customers even on desktops, we have no plans to get rid of this. It is extremely useful when you need to manually type in password fields that cannot be pasted or filled by 1Password, such as banking sites.

    However, we can make it less easy to trigger as double-clicking might not be the best option for this. We'll see if we can redesign this a bit.

  • ntimo
    ntimo
    Community Member
    edited June 2016

    @MikeT I would like to give my heads up for finding a different way to trigger large type. I sometimes trigger it by accident witch is kind of annoying.

  • I agree, it is annoying.

    I've filed a bug report to change this because it is too easy to trigger. I'm hoping we can add it as a third button or present a menu instead like on the Mac / iOS platforms.

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member
    edited June 2016

    Well, there is already a "Reveal" button... common sense would dictate:

    1. Click reveal button to reveal confidential text.
    2. Double-click on text (that is now revealed) to show it big.

    Double clicking on any already revealed text can enlarge it... no problem.

    Double clicking on hidden text should never, ever just print it big on your screen (especially on desktop) where all your coworkers can see your confidential information, leaving you to scramble frantically to try and figure out how to get rid of it. (tip: just click on the big text again)

  • MikeT
    edited June 2016

    Thanks for your suggestion, I've added it to the bug report. I suspect that to remain consistent with all platforms, we're going to add an extra button or a menu rather than double-clicking a revealed field.

    Unfortunately, common sense doesn't always equal an intuitive UI for everyone and not everyone's common sense is the same. For an example, some would dictate that double-clicking the field should copy the field instead.

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member

    I only meant common sense insofar that for a security-focused application: Security > UX.

    So first secure the data without question, then figure out how to make it display prettily (and/or copy it to clipboard, which would have been better when it comes to data security, imho.)

    For any other desktop application I would waive that need, opting for a more lax approach to privacy and data security.

    So all I'm asking is that focus should be given on protecting and securing information first and foremost as this will reflect well on the nature of the product. The old Windows and Mac apps were pretty good when it came to this; not so much the new Windows 10 App store app (and the Beta Desktop version which shares a codebase).

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member

    I'm only mentioning it because I care.

    ;)

  • MikeT
    edited June 2016

    Hi @RandomMarius,

    I'm only mentioning it because I care.

    We do understand and we love hearing your feedback.

    So first secure the data without question, then figure out how to make it display prettily (and/or copy it to clipboard, which would have been better when it comes to data security, imho.)

    We would never release such a beta if it wasn't going to be secure. However, I do have to point out that the concealment is only an illusion of security, the content of the item that's being viewed is decrypted in memory. So while it may look concealed, that doesn't mean the password isn't in memory. In addition, neither password concealment or Large Type is more or less secure if there's no one behind you and Large Type would be less risky than the clipboard because any app can access the clipboard as it is open to all apps. Copying to clipboard by default is also a risky move we have to avoid.

    However, if you're in a public area or you have people walking behind you all the time, then the Large Type is more risky than the clipboard. So, it's always a balancing act depending on where you are, what you're doing, and so on.

    We do agree that Large Type must be hard to trigger to the point that it needs the user's consent explicitly before showing up.

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member

    Yup, agreed, passwords in clipboard always makes me uneasy. I try and avoid that if I can. Mostly the Chrome plugin works great for me however... I've not yet gotten the beta one to work yet. Holding thumbs.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Indeed! We've still got work to do still on improving the UI so that no one is accidentally clicking and making 1Password do something they don't want it to. Thanks so much for your feedback on this, and we'll continue improving the new browser integration! :chuffed:

  • Hi @RandomMarius,

    For the 1Password 6's browser integration to work in its current state:

    1. The main 1Password program has to be unlocked while running
    2. The older 1Password 4 Helper (Agile1pAgent.exe) has to be terminated in the task manager
    3. Restart the browser and the extension should work with the 1Password 6 app now

    If you want to switch back to 1Password Helper, open the 1Password 4 program, and go to the Help Menu > Restart 1Password Helper.

    It's really rough at the moment, not a lot of things have been implemented yet such as saving, auto-submit, and so on. A lot of updates are coming to improve this and we do want to improve the compatibility between both 1Password versions when trying to use the extension.

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member

    Ok, so things I noticed. I've done all of these things, but perhaps not in the right order:

    • I need to restart Chrome each time I unlock 1Password it seems (not 100% confirmed).
    • Also, it seems that if I have a search active in 1Password at the time, it does not to find my login. I have to have all my available password entries listed to choose from by removing my search filter, then it works.

    Otherwise it seems to work so far! Woo!

  • Hi @RandomMarius,

    That's great, thanks for letting me know.

    I need to restart Chrome each time I unlock 1Password it seems (not 100% confirmed).

    That is true, the connection handling is not yet 100% as we most likely have to update the extension later to be compatible with 1Password 6 for Windows.

    Also, it seems that if I have a search active in 1Password at the time, it does not to find my login. I have to have all my available password entries listed to choose from by removing my search filter, then it works.

    That means sense. Right now, the matching is limited to what the program is showing in its view. We're working on an update where the extension can use the whole database regardless of what the view is.

  • @RandomMarius as @MikeT just noted we used to scan screen instead of database when matching items. It's changed about 2 minutes ago, please restart app to give it a try :)

  • RandomMarius
    RandomMarius
    Community Member

    Cool, that's working now. Also tested it with another Vault selected. That works too.

    As long as I can do some auto-filling I'm pretty happy. I'm the only one in my family with a Windows Client, so that's cool.

  • Hi @RandomMarius,

    That's great to hear, thanks for letting us know. Improved auto-filling is coming soon, we have a lot of updates planned just for the extensions alone.

This discussion has been closed.