New Character Set selection interface

[rex]

currenty i have these list i like to see:

- allow me choose which fields shown up at basic options. so i can choose to see username/modifier/etc.. in basic options.
- easy switch to have my password numeric only, with alphabets or allow other characters...


tnx for such great tools!
cant wait for j2me version on my mobile...

[Eric H. Jung]

Hi Rex,

allow me choose which fields shown up at basic options. so i can choose to see username/modifier/etc.. in basic options.

Unfortunately, we won't be able to accomodate this request.

easy switch to have my password numeric only, with alphabets or allow other characters

You can already do this. Go To Account Settings, Extended tab, and change "Characters" to whatever you like.

Thanks for your comments!
Eric

[forbin]

Hi Rex,

Unfortunately, we won't be able to accomodate this request.

You can already do this. Go To Account Settings, Extended tab, and change "Characters" to whatever you like.

Thanks for your comments!
Eric

Eric .. Maybe something more in the line of Password Agent .. Attachment included .. I think it may be a little more clean than listing all possible characters of the alphebet

[Eric H. Jung]

Well, that's an idea. Let me think about it.

[morguns]

Maybe something more in the line of Password Agent .. Attachment included ..

ooh, i like this idea a lot.

[tanstaafl]

Actually, I do too... makes for a cleaner character set selection...

The 'Other', which I assume would be 'special characters' (non-ascii), would still have to be directly editable, though, because there are always some sites that will allow *some* special characters, but not *all* special characters.

[Romeo]

Yeah, what morguns and tanstaafl said.  I do agree that it would make it a lot cleaner.  But then, as tanstaafl says, there should be an input box to put a custom character set.

Backword compatibility might be a little difficult to maintain, no?  

[tanstaafl]

Yeah, what morguns and tanstaafl said.  I do agree that it would make it a lot cleaner.  But then, as tanstaafl says, there should be an input box to put a custom character set.

Backword compatibility might be a little difficult to maintain, no?  

I don't think so, with a little care...

Just have PWM dump the current character set for each existing account into a 'Custom' character set field.

As for the 'Special Characters' set, I've been giving that some more thought too...

I'm gonna bring up an old request i had once, that would fit in quite nicely here.

You could have the 'Special Characters' be treated as an uneditable set, but, have a custom field where you added specific characters that were NOT allowed (call it 'illegal characters'). This field would basically be a negative Diff - anything added to it would be subtracted from the 'Special Characters' set for that account.

[tanstaafl]

Actually, I do too... makes for a cleaner character set selection...

The 'Other', which I assume would be 'special characters' (non-ascii), would still have to be directly editable, though, because there are always some sites that will allow *some* special characters, but not *all* special characters.

And I'm not sure how they differ, but IIRC, there are different kinds of special character sets... ie, the '+_)(*&^%$#@! characters on our keyboards, and other characters that I recall Eric talkinga bout a while back... UTF-8? I can't remember... anyway, maybe these specific special character sets could be enabled/disabled as a group, just like the numbers and letters?

[forbin]

I was originally thinking that the user would have 2 choices .. uneditable choices: Numeric, Upper, Lower and Special OR a editable field with your choices.

tanstaffl also has a good idea of a editable filed of the characters that you do not want.

I think either one is ok.

Another feature Password Agent has is a Template for the password.  Not sure if this is feasible with PWM, but the idea would be what character set the password had to follow a specific order:  ULNSUU

a six character password consisting of Upper, Lower, Numeric, Special, Upper, Upper

Lots of sites have requirements that the 1st character can't be numeric (for example).  this may alleviate the need for the prefix and suffix characters

[Eric H. Jung]

OK, well clearly there's enough interest here to formalize this as a feature request. The only question I have is how will this integrate with Edit the list of predefined character sets?

[tanstaafl]

OK, well clearly there's enough interest here to formalize this as a feature request. The only question I have is how will this integrate with Edit the list of predefined character sets?

Actually, I think it will integrate quite nicely - in fact, this FR should replace that one... I'll post a tentative version to this thread, and we can discuss it before I add the official FR... Look for a post sometime this morning...

[tanstaafl]

Ok, how about this...

New Feature Request: Advanced Password Character Set Characteristics

This Feature Request (FR) is intended to replace and add to the 'Edit the list of predefined character sets' FR, and to incorporate the suggestion above from forbin, to provide similar functionality to Password Agents method for providing character set availabiloity for password generation. This request was originally made by 'forbin' here, and can be broken down as follows:

1. Rename the 'Extended' tab on the Account Specific Settings window to something more meaningful, like 'Password Characteristics' or something similar.

2. Provide a simple way to enable/disable (via check-box) certain character sets, ala Password Agent, ie:

   Numbers
   Upper case (letters)
   Lower case (letters)

Maybe even have a few extra options for ordering each one, ie: 'a-z', 'z-a', 'randomize'

Some additional possibilities (from the PasswordMaker Character Tips in PWM):

   Non-english characters (checking this box selects all three sub-choices below)
      Diacritical marks (each of these sub-choices can be individually enabled/disabled)
      Diacresis marks       "
      Ligature marks        "

3. As currently provided by PWM, provide the combo-box allowing the user to select from some pre-defined characters sets, with the following conditions/additions:

   a. certain ones provided by the system should NOT be editable, but should always be available for backwards-compatability.
   b. add a 'Create New' choice, and provide a pop-up window that allows the user to create their own custom character set using the same options as described above, ie - they can define their new character set to include all characters, by simply checking all 4 checkboxes
   c. Optionally allow the user to name the Character Set. If they leave the name blank, PWM should simply name it with a date/time string.

4. Add a new field: 'Ignore Characters' (or something similar) - any characters placed into this field will be subtracted from the character set that is defined for that particular account. This was previously requested by me here.

The purpose for this last new field is simple:

   a. It makes it very easy to use all of the characters possible, while disallowing the one or more characters that some stupid site won't let you use, and

   b. It makes it very easy to see at a glance which characters are being used - otherwise, you might have to carefully examine a huge, long string of characters to see which ones were individually deleted.

5. Lastly, when a Character Set is created for an Account, a final option should be 'Randomize', which would randomize (after individual 'randomize' options if they were checked), and then once the character set is generated it should automatically be added to the 'Custom Character Sets' list, with a simple date. Or, possibly, PWM could prompt for a name? Regardless, the User should always be able to rename any Custom Character Sets they have created. Also, *Custom* Character Sets should have an 'Edit' option, so that I can rename and/or make changes to it anytime I want.

[forbin]

Ok, how about this...

New Feature Request: Advanced Password Character Set Characteristics

This Feature Request (FR) is intended to replace and add to the 'Edit the list of predefined character sets' FR, and to incorporate the suggestion above from forbin, to provide similar functionality to Password Agents method for providing character set availabiloity for password generation. This request was originally made by 'forbin' here, and can be broken down as follows:

1. Rename the 'Extended' tab on the Account Specific Settings window to something more meaningful, like 'Password Characteristics' or something similar.

2. Provide a simple way to enable/disable (via check-box) certain character sets, ala Password Agent, ie:

   Numbers
   Upper case (letters)
   Lower case (letters)

Maybe even have a few extra options for ordering each one, ie: 'a-z', 'z-a', 'randomize'

Some additional possibilities (from the PasswordMaker Character Tips in PWM):

   Non-english characters (checking this box selects all three sub-choices below)
      Diacritical marks (each of these sub-choices can be individually enabled/disabled)
      Diacresis marks       "
      Ligature marks        "

3. As currently provided by PWM, provide the combo-box allowing the user to select from some pre-defined characters sets, with the following conditions/additions:

   a. certain ones provided by the system should NOT be editable, but should always be available for backwards-compatability.
   b. add a 'Create New' choice, and provide a pop-up window that allows the user to create their own custom character set using the same options as described above, ie - they can define their new character set to include all characters, by simply checking all 4 checkboxes
   c. Optionally allow the user to name the Character Set. If they leave the name blank, PWM should simply name it with a date/time string.

4. Add a new field: 'Ignore Characters' (or something similar) - any characters placed into this field will be subtracted from the character set that is defined for that particular account. This was previously requested by me here.

The purpose for this last new field is simple:

   a. It makes it very easy to use all of the characters possible, while disallowing the one or more characters that some stupid site won't let you use, and

   b. It makes it very easy to see at a glance which characters are being used - otherwise, you might have to carefully examine a huge, long string of characters to see which ones were individually deleted.

5. Lastly, when a Character Set is created for an Account, a final option should be 'Randomize', which would randomize (after individual 'randomize' options if they were checked), and then once the character set is generated it should automatically be added to the 'Custom Character Sets' list, with a simple date. Or, possibly, PWM could prompt for a name? Regardless, the User should always be able to rename any Custom Character Sets they have created. Also, *Custom* Character Sets should have an 'Edit' option, so that I can rename and/or make changes to it anytime I want.

Didn't realize that a random order could be requested .. I'm appending the second window of password agent's password generator that may help with this request.  It has a lot of potential and again is very clean

[tanstaafl]

Interesting - I like it. Once we've heard from Eric on how much of this is feasible, and get his general agreement on the content of the request, I'll definitely incorporate this.

That said, I have quickly scanned the options for Password Agent, and really like some things about the layout that is different from PWM. Specifically, the way Groups are listed in the left frame, and the individual Accounts for the selected Group are shown to the right. I'd like to see PWM rearrange its options to something similar.