Password Management

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Starting the password management dialog

Entering data

Changing data and deleting entries

Using the password entry

The password management dialog is like any other grid processing dialog, but some additional features make password management easier. The dialog is meant to be kept active for a longer time; it would be tiresome to extract the data from the basis image each time a password is required.

The following description deals mainly with the differences between working with the password management and with other grid processing.

The used fonts, colors and the arrangement of the columns is fixed in the application program; they do not need to and can not be customized. In fact, the data does not contain any field description; if someone enters field descriptions in a text editor as the first record, that entry will be displayed as a data record. The sequence and size of columns can be changed during the dialog; however, these changes will not be saved, i.e. when starting next time, the original sequence and size of columns will be displayed.

The sequence of entries can be changed by sorting, and the resulting sequence can be saved by clicking on the header of the edit column and selecting Keep and save the current row sequence.

The grid processing dedicated to password management is based on a very simple grid, consisting of only four fields:

• UserId is an optional single-line character field limited to 80 characters,
• Passphrase is a required single-line character field limited to 80 characters; it is declared as a secret field,
• Usage and Comment are optional multiline character fields.

The main advantage of the password management compared to the common grid processing is, that it offers a specifically for the password management designed subdialog for entering/changing the data.

If someone wishes to have a different password management in grid form, one can define and customize a grid to his/her own liking and use that as any other grid.

Starting the password management dialog

By clicking on the arrow of the drop-down list labelled Data type, the list of available integrated applications will be displayed:

When selecting Password and clicking on the View/Edit button, an an empty grid will be displayed:

Entering data

When there is no data row in the grid yet, the only action one can do is start entering data. When right-clicking on the header of the edit column (this is always the very first, narrow, unnamed column), a selection of possible actions will be displayed:

Click on Insert row on top of this page; this will start the subdialog for data entry:

The password has to be repeated to ensure, that no typo gets recorded. Usage and Comment can contain multiline text; a new line can be started by pressing Ctrl-Enter.

There are two options, selectable by checking the respective checkboxes:

• Continuous insert causes this dialog to appear again after having inserted an item; this is useful when inserting several entries in a serie.
• Show causes the passwords appear in clear-text; if this option is not selected, an asterisk appears for every character of the password.
  Seeing the passwords in cleartext can be helpful to make sure, that the correct password will be entered; on the other hand, showing the password may not be a good idea if people may see the monitor while entering the data.

For this demonstration, we select both options. Now the data of the first password entry can be entered:

After typing Enter or clicking on Insert, the first entry becomes visible in the grid and the data entry dialog window appears again:

We enter four more entries; when entering the fourth entry, we uncheck the option Continuous insert. The initial set of passwords in the grid looks like this:

Note, that the initial data can be entered in a plain text editor (for example using the text editor in CryptoBola JPEG) or it can be imported from somewhere, as long as it is in comma separated form. The entries entered above appear in the plain text editor's dialog like this:

The relevant commas and quotation marks are shown in red (the latter are required for values containing line breaks).

Changing data and deleting entries

Individual field values can be changed in place just like in the common grid processing, by double-clicking or clicking on a field and pressing F2. In order to edit the password this way, it has to be unlocked by checking the Permit editing password checkbox:

However, some changes may be done more comfortably in the password management's editing subdialog. For example, it is a good practice to change the password with retyping it, and typing in longer texts is easier in the larger edit box.

The fields Usage and Comment are accepting multiline-text; this will be achieved by typing Control-Return instead of Return.

The editing subdialog can be started by using the edit button of the entry:

• double-clicking on it,
• clicking on it and pressing F2,
• right-clicking on it and selecting Edit row

The window of the edit subdialog is the same as for inserting entries, but now the fields contain the actual values (we selected the Show option, so that we can verify the password):

Changes of field values will be accepted by pressing Enter or clicking on Update.

The Insert button can be clicked on as well; in effect, the existing entry can be used as a template for a new entry.

An entry can be deleted by clicking on it's edit button and then pressing Del or by right-clicking on the edit button and selecting Delete row, like in the common grid processing. Additionally, an entry can be deleted from the update subdialog as well; this way one can verify all data before deciding if to delete the entry or not.

Using the password entry

Whenever a password (and perhaps an identification too) is required by an application, it is not necessary to type in these, not even to mark and copy them for pasting. Copying via the customary way (marking the field and pressing Ctrl-C) does not work with a concealed password anyway, for only the asterisks would appear on the clipboard.

Instead, the grid processing's built-in feature "copy the content to the clipboard" should be used. When selecting a field and pressing Enter, or right-clicking on the field and selecting Copy, the content of that field will be copied to the clipboard; this works even with the hidden password. The effected field will be displayed with a red frame around it. Note, that as soon as another field becomes selected, the red frame vanishes from the display, but the content remains on the clipboard until another copy operation takes place. The following example shows the grid after having copied the password to the clipboard:

Now the password can be pasted directly in the field provided by the application.

Home Modified: 2005-03-28