Suggestions to improve on the 1Password 6 program

mnmr
mnmr
Community Member
edited January 2017 in 1Password 4 for Windows

I've been using 1Password for quite a few years by now, but have only recently switched to the new subscription plan and v6 of the desktop software. Sadly, it's been a major disappointment.

You'd think the software would improve, look nicer, get smarter and do more as time goes by - but instead I found that the reverse seems to be the case. It's less smart, even more annoying (yes, 1Password on Windows has always been quite bad), still ugly (albeit differently so than the older client) and basically a pain to use. Let me elaborate on all of that.

General usability issues:

  • It happily creates and shows entries with just a password (no username), usually created if you use a "forgot password" page. No smartness to query for the additional information before saving, and nothing to hint that the record is incomplete when browsing logins.
  • Many sites move their login pages when they redesign or allow you to login on any page. 1Password copes poorly with this - it basically thinks you have no logins for the site. It could at least suggest logins with a matching domain.
  • If on a payment page and you open the 1Password window, it just gives you the search dialog. No smartness to know that I probably need to pick a credit card to fill the form. Very tedious to use. Try it out on your very own payment page.

Popup and tray windows:

  • There is no category filter available, which forces you to ALWAYS use keyboard search. It's good that search is across categories but bad that you MUST use it to get anywhere. If I've activated the tray icon, I have the mouse in my hand - don't force me to switch to the keyboard to search, then back to mouse to right-click. I get a headache just from typing out how bad interaction design this is.
  • Entries don't show much information (name and URL), so for sites where you have multiple accounts you have to manually assign custom names just to tell them apart. Again, very tedious in real life usage.
  • It doesn't remember last viewed/used entries, so to copy both username and password (e.g. when you need credentials outside of the browser) you need to find the entry twice. Double trouble: now you're making people repeat an already tedious task. This does not contribute to ease of use and certainly doesn't make 1P a time saver.
  • No shared entry/search history with desktop app. In fact, no search history at all as far as I can tell. Smart programs know what I want and help me do it. Dumb programs ignore my input and just show me their default views every time.

Right-click menu:

  • Using a popup that closes when you choose an option makes for a really annoying user experience. You've painfully searched and located the entry you need, open the popup, copy an item and boom, back to square one. Search, locate, open menu, copy, boom. Very painful. Maintaining a list of recently viewed entries might help with this, but is it really necessary with a right-click menu? How about expanding items when selected, providing instant access to relevant options without using a flimsy menu?
  • Why would you ever want options to Select All or Move to Trash in the tray? It's not a management interface, and I cannot fathom why anyone would want to select everything. What could you possibly do with that selection other than accidentally move it all to trash? Just fail.
  • Instead, I wonder, why is there no Open in Desktop App option? You can trash it but not edit it. This seems like a regression in features from the older v4 desktop client.
  • The popup even has an obscure More sub-menu. Nested context menus for an already flimsy (easy to mistakenly close) tray window is just poor UX. Whatever that More menu provides, it probably has no place in the tray dialog.

Design:

  • It really looks awful. Inconsistent font sizes and styles. The blue search bar with a slightly lighter tone of blue than the vault selector part to the left of it. Some very ugly scroll bars separate the three panes. The two dates in the details panel look like they're centered inside some container, but don't align with anything else. I can best describe it all as "amateurish" or "really, really poor". Take your pick.
  • The details panel excels by being both ugly and a pain to use. Even though there is lots of space, the functionality you might need is stuffed (of all things!) in a dropdown menu (another regress from the older desktop client, where you at least had visible buttons). If you maximize the window, the dropdowns will happily float off somewhere far to the right, as if they had no kinship with the rest of the information on the panel. And finally, even though there is plenty of space, it's not used for anything useful - like a password strength indicator, last password change, last usage, or other such relevant information for a password manager. Was "Show web form details", which mostly just shows you a copy of what you were already seeing, really the best thing you could come up with?

I could probably go on (you really make it too easy), but even if this list is not exhaustive, I believe it quite clearly shows that 1Password for Windows is.. let's stay friends and just call it "bad". It's usable, if you can live with all the pain points and forgive the clumsy UI, but you're not going to make anyone love it. And I really wish it wasn't so.

Sincerely,
Morten


1Password Version: 6.2.333d
Extension Version: 4.6.2.90
OS Version: Windows 10
Sync Type: Not Provided

Comments

  • Hi @mnmr,

    Thanks for writing in.

    1Password 6 is relatively a new program that's limited to 1Password.com customers only but it doesn't have all features available yet. We're continuing to improve the app as fast as we can but it will take some time before it is an effective upgrade to 1Password 4 for Windows.

    It happily creates and shows entries with just a password (no username), usually created if you use a "forgot password" page. No smartness to query for the additional information before saving, and nothing to hint that the record is incomplete when browsing logins.

    When you're on the forgot password page, they rarely include the username on the page, so we can't get the username. However, we do provide an option to "Update the Login" instead, it should replace the password but not the rest. Unfortunately, this is not yet implemented in 1Password 6 for Windows, so it creates a separate new Login item instead with just the password + site's address only. This will be added in a future update in the near future.

    I agree on the incompleteness suggestion, it would be nice if we can provide feedback that the Login items do not have a username stored. We'll look into that.

    Many sites move their login pages when they redesign or allow you to login on any page. 1Password copes poorly with this - it basically thinks you have no logins for the site. It could at least suggest logins with a matching domain.

    It does suggest all items with the same domain name. In fact, the only thing we haven't implemented yet is subdomain matching, meaning that if you're on a.b.c, it would show all items with b.c, including d.b.c, not just a.b.c first then the rest.

    Since this is supposed to work properly, can you provide an example of where this happened, so we can test it.

    If on a payment page and you open the 1Password window, it just gives you the search dialog. No smartness to know that I probably need to pick a credit card to fill the form. Very tedious to use. Try it out on your very own payment page.

    I agree, it would be nice to detect if you're on a credit card or registration form and show you Credit Card/Identity items. We have plans to build some kind of an AI to detect these more complex forms.

    For now, if you open 1Password mini, search for the name of the credit card item and select it, 1Password will fill it.

    In the near future, we will start to work on 1Password mini to add category groupings, so that you can click on Credit Card category right away to find the item you want to fill.

    There is no category filter available, which forces you to ALWAYS use keyboard search. It's good that search is across categories but bad that you MUST use it to get anywhere. If I've activated the tray icon, I have the mouse in my hand - don't force me to switch to the keyboard to search, then back to mouse to right-click. I get a headache just from typing out how bad interaction design this is.

    Category groupings in 1Password mini will be implemented in the near future.

    Entries don't show much information (name and URL), so for sites where you have multiple accounts you have to manually assign custom names just to tell them apart. Again, very tedious in real life usage.

    It does show the username in the subtitle below the titles like so:

    Did you import a local vault into your 1Password account?

    It doesn't remember last viewed/used entries, so to copy both username and password (e.g. when you need credentials outside of the browser) you need to find the entry twice. Double trouble: now you're making people repeat an already tedious task. This does not contribute to ease of use and certainly doesn't make 1P a time saver.

    Agreed, this will be implemented in a future update, this is not implemented yet.

    No shared entry/search history with desktop app. In fact, no search history at all as far as I can tell. Smart programs know what I want and help me do it. Dumb programs ignore my input and just show me their default views every time.

    1Password isn't a smart program yet, it has no predictive features like this. It is something we'd like to expand over time but we're not there yet, we're still working on the core features first.

    We will have additional settings over time to remember the last view you're in, retain the search views and so on but it will be a while. The 1Password 6.3 update will be able to retain the search view as it auto-locks/unlock, switch between categories and stop refreshing to All Vaults due to certain data events. We will expand on this in future updates as well.

    Using a popup that closes when you choose an option makes for a really annoying user experience. You've painfully searched and located the entry you need, open the popup, copy an item and boom, back to square one. Search, locate, open menu, copy, boom. Very painful. Maintaining a list of recently viewed entries might help with this, but is it really necessary with a right-click menu? How about expanding items when selected, providing instant access to relevant options without using a flimsy menu?

    That's coming in the future for 1Password mini, the ability to view and edit item's details inline, anchor the view so it doesn't dismiss and so on. 1Password mini hasn't gotten any TLC yet, we're still working on the core features that needs to be complete before we can start overhauling 1Password mini.

    Why would you ever want options to Select All or Move to Trash in the tray? It's not a management interface, and I cannot fathom why anyone would want to select everything. What could you possibly do with that selection other than accidentally move it all to trash? Just fail.

    1Password mini shares the same view as the item list in the main program, so the options are pulled from there. This will be removed in future updates as we start to separate 1Password mini into its own customized view.

    Instead, I wonder, why is there no Open in Desktop App option? You can trash it but not edit it. This seems like a regression in features from the older v4 desktop client.

    1Password 6 has zero commonality with 1Password 4, it is not yet an upgrade for it. It is only a limited build for 1Password.com customers and once we finish adding all the features that matches/exceed the feature parity of 1Password 4, then we'd start offering it as an upgrade for everyone using 1Password 4 with local vaults.

    As you probably see by now, the trash is pulled from the item's list in the main program. We'll remove this in a future update and add inline editing support to 1Password mini.

    The popup even has an obscure More sub-menu. Nested context menus for an already flimsy (easy to mistakenly close) tray window is just poor UX. Whatever that More menu provides, it probably has no place in the tray dialog.

    Do you mean when you right-click on the item? The more submenu is for copying other data such as in the custom fields that isn't commonly used for copying. This is added to help with quick copying of your data while we work on adding inline details viewer/editor to 1Password mini, this isn't the final design and will be improved.

    It really looks awful. Inconsistent font sizes and styles. The blue search bar with a slightly lighter tone of blue than the vault selector part to the left of it. Some very ugly scroll bars separate the three panes. The two dates in the details panel look like they're centered inside some container, but don't align with anything else. I can best describe it all as "amateurish" or "really, really poor". Take your pick.

    I'm sorry to hear that, the UI certainly isn't finalized but we'll continue to improve the UI in each update. We dislike the scrollbars but there are limitations in the Windows' UI library we're using that doesn't allow this to hide, same for the date fields. We're looking into different solutions for these.

    The details panel excels by being both ugly and a pain to use. Even though there is lots of space, the functionality you might need is stuffed (of all things!) in a dropdown menu (another regress from the older desktop client, where you at least had visible buttons).

    The good news is that this has already been improved in 1Password 6.3, we no longer use the drop down menu. The first beta has been shipped this morning and we hope to ship it soon. It looks like this now:

    We'll continue to improve the UI in each successive update.

    PS: I've exceeded the character limit in the post, more to come in the next reply.

  • MikeT
    edited January 2017

    . And finally, even though there is plenty of space, it's not used for anything useful - like a password strength indicator, last password change, last usage, or other such relevant information for a password manager.

    Agreed, they're coming in future updates.

    Was "Show web form details", which mostly just shows you a copy of what you were already seeing, really the best thing you could come up with?

    Web form details are the raw content that 1Password extensions saved into your item that is used for filling accuracy. It is supposed to have some redundant information like the username/password. Since the users aren't expected to use them, we've hidden them to clean up the details view. For certain users who know what they're doing, they can edit the web form details to improve the filling algorithm.

    I could probably go on (you really make it too easy), but even if this list is not exhaustive, I believe it quite clearly shows that 1Password for Windows.

    We do appreciate you taking the time on giving us the feedback on 1Password 6 and your suggestions, we do agree with you on all of them. 1Password 6 is absolutely a work in progress and nor is it finished enough to serve as any type of upgrade to 1Password 4, which is why we've limited it to 1Password.com only that doesn't have any available Windows program. For these customers that are on cross-platform, they are finding it usable for the moment. For Windows-only customers, 1Password 6 is not the best choice yet.

  • Hi @mnmr,

    Thanks for writing back, your screenshot definitely looks like the import didn't go in right. How did you originally import it? Did you copy it manually from the local vault you added in 1Password 6 or did you export from 1Password 4 as 1PIF and import it into 1Password 6?

    it boldly claims "Award-winning apps" (including for Windows)

    I do agree that's misleading. I'll pass it on to the marketing team to change it.

    The versioning also doesn't help - how am I to know that 6.2 is in fact a major step down from 4.6 and in quality-terms more of a 0.6.2?

    I agree and we wanted to go with the beta branding and different versioning but the app stores and other situations required a locked down branding/versioning scheme that we can't rename/change later.

    I'm not sure how many people you have working on this, but I've been using the old Windows client for a looooong time so kind of figured you'd have made some headway on the new version by now.

    We are the smallest team but there were a few other projects before this 1Password 6 started that didn't work out, we've only started this new 1Password 6 project nearly a year old right now and the first stable release was back in October. We've making progress as fast as we can and we hope to share more details on our progress soon.

    perhaps you should consider abandoning it in favor of a thin native wrapper around a web view, which would allow you to leverage whatever you have already built.

    It would have too many compromises that it wouldn't be better than what 1Password 6 now. Complete native code gives us far more powerful integration with Windows, we just need more time to get it done.

    It wouldn't be any better than what we already have with the 1Password.com web app in your browser. It will not have better security nor would it have any deeper integration with Windows allows us to perform many security features we have. Not to mention, there would not be any browser extensions support either.

  • rcdeck
    rcdeck
    Community Member

    Wow, I'm happy I came across this thread! I purchase 1Password 6 for my mac laptop but also have a Windows desktop. The Mac applications/extensions are hands down better than Windows, to the point where I actually hate using 1Password on Windows. I really wish you guys would get it up to speed with where the Mac client is. Hope to see that coming sooner rather than later.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @rcdeck: We're working on it. Thanks so much for the encouragement! It's really inspiring to hear from passionate Windows users like you as we build the new app. :)

  • Greg
    Greg
    1Password Alumni

    @mnmr: Thanks for writing back! It is great that we are having this conversation. :+1:

    A better handling of tags in 1Password 6 is definitely on our list of improvements. However, we don't make any assumptions and can't give you any forecast or calendar of the upcoming updates. Software is hard to predict. Moreover, it is always better to under-promise and over-deliver than vice versa. :)

    Is there anything else you want to see in 1Password 6? Please let us know. Thank you! :)

    Cheers,
    Greg

  • MikeT
    edited February 2017

    Hi @mnmr,

    I don't find that to be a very compelling argument. You can't really over-deliver on something you haven't promised anything about, and if anything, this is more like making-up for over-promising in the first place.

    It wasn't meant to be, I think Greg was trying to use the common phrase "under-promise/overdeliver" to explain that we don't share details until we know we can deliver it.

    We've done this before to share more details, roadmaps and so on with the public but when sometime we get behind, we'd get lawsuit threats and more for not delivering something we didn't technically promise to be on time. So, unfortunately, we changed our policy after that and only talk about actual code that has been internally implemented, tested and ready to go, we just can't release more details before that stage of development. By that time, our public beta updates is the roadmap for the immediate future.

    Internally, we do have roadmaps, milestones and so many things to keep us on track but these are things that will not be shared in public. We may change our mind in the future as we continue to get all platforms in alignment with 1Password.com services because our end goal is to release updates on all platforms at the same time.

  • Hi @mnmr,

    Yep, unfortunately, we always did mention things are subjected to change but that wasn't enough. As a small private company, something like that can put a lot of hurts on us, we would still be forced to defend it even if it would be dismissed right out of the box. Regardless, that wasn't the sole reason but it had a huge impact.

    However, with the 1Password.com web service that will be helping determine the feature sets for all 1Password platforms at the same time, we may have an easier time starting there and we'll see where it takes us from there.

  • dked
    dked
    Community Member

    Really need version 6 for windows
    I can't sync to network folder in windows 4 with data that was created by Mac version 6 locally
    I use local password storage instead of web based for greater security by never having the passwords ever stored on the web even if they lack keys to decrypt them on web that is not enough for serious security users

  • Hi @dked,

    If you use a local sync tool to sync the network folder to a local drive, 1Password 4 will work with it really well. 1Password 6 does the same thing, it's syncing from the network folder into its local database, so you wouldn't need that external sync tool.

    We'll get the local vault support done as fast as we can but it may be a while.

    I use local password storage instead of web based for greater security by never having the passwords ever stored on the web even if they lack keys to decrypt them on web that is not enough for serious security users

    We do understand your concern and we also understand that 1Password can't fit every requirements on the list that some security-focus folks have. A lot believes open source is critical and thus 1Password can't be on that list.

    To go into it a bit further, encryption isn't the problem (AES is verifiably solid with PBKDF2 and other tools we use with not a single breach in more than a decade), it's the ability to guess your password that's the greatest weakness and the implementation of the said encryption protocols. For 1Password.com web service, we rely on two separate keys that that are never transmitted to us in any way or shape, your master password and your account key. You can find out more here and our technical security whitepaper. With that, the next is the implementation, 1Password.com has been security-audited by three separate companies as shown on our list here. Even if you don't trust our implementation, I would encourage giving the technical security whitepaper a read, just to see what we're doing, even if you have no plans to ever use it.

  • dked
    dked
    Community Member

    But win version 4 uses older v4 format password file unlike version 6 right? I do have another file sync tool but it syncs files not content in files like I'm guessing version 6 macs sync does

  • MikeT
    edited February 2017

    Hi @dked,

    There are no changes for both AgileKeychain and OPVault formats between 1Password 4 and 6 on all platforms. In other words, both 1Password 4/6 for Windows read the same formats.

    The main difference is that 1Password 4 defaults to AgileKeychain and shows the older wallet/account groupings that doesn't exist in the data formats but merely a cosmetic feature in 1Password 4 that other 1Password apps including 1Password 6 do not do anymore.

    The only reason we don't default to OPVault in 1Password 4 is due to performance issues where it is no longer an issue in 1Password 6.

    As for your sync tool, which one are you using? You should be able to configure to sync all the content of the folder. AgileKeychain/OPVault are just folders of encrypted files stored within it.

  • dked
    dked
    Community Member

    I use syncback free for windows
    How can I sync local data from 1pswd win to network share folder made by Mac 1pwd

  • MikeT
    edited February 2017

    Hi,

    @dked,

    From what I see on their site, that does seem limited and it might not support the sync you want to do. Usually, you create a folder inside your Documents > 1Password directory and then configure SyncBack to sync your network folder to this new folder and keep both in sync. Be sure to back up your network folder before you try this.

    We can't provide more technical help on third party tools like that but that should be usually enough.

    mnmr, I'm sorry to hear that but we do hope you'll reconsider us in the near future. We have some projects to help speed this up but we can't share more until later.

  • amertner
    amertner
    Community Member

    I have to agree with @mnmr - I share all of the same concerns about the Windows v6 version. I still use v4 on Windows, but it's becoming increasingly painful as I start making more use of the shared vaults that v4 does not support - so I reluctantly also have v6 installed, but it's a terrible user experience.

    I have the same problem with import too; all of my entries show the URL again in the subtitle of the entry, rather than the user name. It's just one of a very long list of problems I have with it.

    As a software professional, I understand that there can be a challenge with roadmaps, though it's possible to overcome it by making the commitment vague - calling it "the current priority order, subject to change" should do the trick. Either way, I'd like to see much faster delivery of the features we need to have the new version be something you can be proud of than seems to be the case.

    I think I've been patient, but I have to say that rewriting the app from scratch seems like a terrible choice. If you don't bring the new app up to feature, look and usability speed much, much faster than seems to be the case, you'll lose many more frustrated customers to the competition :(

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @amertner: Thanks for the feedback on this! Personally, I feel like if we adopted that strategy we'd be spending a lot of time updating everyone on our plans frequently and, more significantly, trying to justify every change in roadmap/priority/etc. when users' pet projects/features get delayed/canceled/etc. Starting from scratch wasn't an easy choice, and one we probably waited too long to commit to fully because of the difficulty it would cause both us and our customers, but the changes we needed to make to be able to adopt newer technologies that would allow 1Password to have a long, bright future on Windows were either impossible or so much work as to effectively amount to a rewrite anyway. Things have "slowed down" a bit externally since there's some stuff under the hood we've had to work on lately, but that's to allow us a firmer foundation to iterate faster going forward. I'm sorry that it's taking time to do all of this, but 1Password's future on Windows can be great because of it, and that's ultimately what we're all after I think.

  • Hi @mnmr,

    Thank you very much for this follow-up and your feedback. We're happy that you're continuing to compare 1Password with Dashlane.

    We're even more happy about the progress you're seeing in 1Password 6 for Windows. I can tell you that we're working hard on making it into the product that our customers deserve and expect.
    The app is evolving at a very quick pace right now and if you want to take a peak at what's coming to the stable release very soon, activate the beta updates. We're in the process of reworking the extension user interface and it's turning out nicely.

    As always: if you have more feedback, please tell us.

    Cheers and have a great week!

    Alex

This discussion has been closed.