Change Password Generator UI

scottsb
scottsb
Community Member

Feature request: please change the UI used to generate a new password when editing an entry. Currently this is a gear icon that when clicked immediately replaces whatever password is in the blank with a new entry. This is doubly problematic:

  1. A gear is not an intuitive icon to indicate password regeneration. By convention a gear normally opens a settings menu.
  2. The action is destructive (replacing the current password in the field) without warning or an ability to undo*. This is extra problematic in conjunction with #1 because if you're expecting a settings menu by convention, you're expecting a menu, not any immediate action.

Despite using 1Password for years, I still semi-regularly click that button without remembering what it does. (This generally happens thinking it will let me change the type of a field but when I'm on one of the built-in fields that can't be modified.)

* I know there is a partial ability to undo in that if the entry had already been saved it will be available in the history. However, this doesn't help if you're creating an entry for the first time and hadn't yet saved it.


1Password Version: 8.2.5
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

Comments

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @scottsb - thanks for the feedback, and I'm sorry for the confusion!

    A gear is not an intuitive icon to indicate password regeneration. By convention a gear normally opens a settings menu.

    What settings would you expect to find attached specifically to a password field? I can't think of any others that don't involve (re)generating a password. Clicking the actual obfuscated password itself in Edit mode results in what you (or at least I) expect: the password is revealed and you are able to manually edit it. The gear icon generates a new password using the last-chosen parameters for symbols, digits, length. Those are the settings for generating a new password.

    The action is destructive (replacing the current password in the field) without warning or an ability to undo.

    I'm not sure I follow. Using the gear icon does indeed generate a new password, replacing the old one. But if this is done accidentally and/or is not wanted, clicking the "Cancel" on the item followed by "Don't Save" allows you to easily discard any such new, unwanted password without saving it. Even if you were to further accidentally click "Save" by mistake instead of "don't save," as you note, the previous password would be available in (and restorable from) the Password History section of the item. Hope that's helpful! :)

  • scottsb
    scottsb
    Community Member

    What settings would you expect to find attached specifically to a password field?

    This is what I explained further on: "this generally happens thinking it [the gear icon] will let me change the type of a field but when I'm on one of the built-in fields that can't be modified." I know that there is a different interface (a drop-down) for selecting a type for the field when that is actually available, but when it's not there, I tend to interpret the gear as the type selector.

    If the gear icon just opened the password generation settings but didn't immediately replace the value entered, that would be fine. It wouldn't do what I sometimes I expect it to, but it would be immediately clear and nonharmful.

    But if this is done accidentally and/or is not wanted, clicking the "Cancel" on the item followed by "Don't Save" allows you to easily discard any such new, unwanted password without saving it.

    The issue is that this discards everything entered on the entry. If we're talking about simple website logins that's not a big deal, but when I'm working with server entries or other more complicated types, I may have entered a bunch of other data that I would be throwing away.

    The other factor is that in these cases I'm often entering an API key or some other credential from an external source rather than generating it inline. While I've learned to avoid closing/discarding the source I'm copying from until I've finished saving the 1PW entry (largely due to this frustration I'm talking about here), that bit me a number of times at first. Most of the time I can reopen the source data if need be to recopy it, but there are cases where it's a one-time display (such as generating an IAM access key) that can't be recovered, so the easy possibility of accidentally wiping out what I've pasted is a poor UX.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @scottsb - thanks for the clarification. I'll pass along your suggestions. :)

  • tetardbleu
    tetardbleu
    Community Member
    edited April 2019

    Hi,
    as a user that was facing the same issues (before the learning curve did its job), may I suggest that the gear icon keep the same behavior, but appears only if the password is clicked / revealed in edit mode ? This would avoid creating a new password by mistake.
    Sorry for barging in ! :)

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @tetardbleu - you're not "barging in." These are public discussions, and we welcome user input! Actually, not just "welcome," we treasure it. Without getting too Hallmark card about things, we feel very lucky to have one of the more involved user-bases in software. And many of the features you see today in 1Password come at least in part from a suggestion from the user community. We're well aware that we don't have a monopoly on good ideas, and when someone writes even a few lines about what they'd like to see (or even NOT see) in 1Password, we consider it a gift and and and an honor that someone shares our enthusiasm for the current and future state of 1Password enough to take their own time and effort to share their views/wishes with us. We don't always adopt every user idea (that would be straight-up impossible, since sometimes different users literally want entirely opposite things from each other), but we will always listen and always be appreciative of it. So, thanks for being part of the best user community in software. You guys rock. :)

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