Major improvements to Auto-Type

[droidmonkey]

• Cleanup entry level Auto-Type menu

  • Show the sequence that will be typed when performing the default action
  • Combine default sequence action with Username / Password options
  • Fix Add confirmation prior to entry-level Auto-Type #4939 - confirm prior to performing entry level auto-type if "Always Ask Before Auto-Type" is enabled

• Improve Auto-Type Select Dialog

  • Significant improvements to the Auto-Type select dialog. Reduce stale and unnecessary code paths.
  • Close select dialog when databases are locked.
  • Close open modal dialogs prior to showing the Auto-Type select dialog to prevent interference.
  • Never perform Auto-Type on the KeePassXC window.
  • Only filter match list based on Group, Title, and Username column data (ie, ignore sequence column)
  • Always show the sequence column (revert feature)
  • Show selection dialog if there are no matches to allow for a database search
  • Close Allow to Auto-Type entry password or username from selection dialog #3630 - Allow typing {USERNAME} and {PASSWORD} from selection dialog (right-click menu).
  • Close Allow to select entry if window not found on auto-type #429 - Ability to search open databases for an entry from the Auto-Type selection dialog.
  • Fix Set default size of Auto-Type selection dialogue #5361 - Default size of selection dialog doesn't cut off matches

• Overhaul Auto-Type Action Handling

  • Close Auto-Type key modifiers not implemented #2603 - Add support for modifier syntax (+, ^, and %)
  • Fix Auto-type does not allow references in syntax #2633 - Allow reference syntax {REF:...} in Auto-Type sequences
  • Close Auto-Type - Notify User which part of sequence is invalid #5334 - Tell the user which part of the Auto-Type sequence is invalid for easy correction
  • Fix Autotype picks the wrong window in multi-monitor setup [MacOS]  #2401 - Select the right window on macOS prior to starting Auto-Type
  • Allow for nested placeholders

• Implement Auto-Type {PICKCHARS}

  • Closes Make {PICKCHARS} possible [$50] #725
  • Support Auto-Type {PICKCHARS} placeholder. Open a dialog that lets you pick characters of an entry's password by their position. Supports typing {TAB} in between characters to move between fields (if necessary). Also supports using arrow keys to quickly navigate around the choice grid.

• Auto-Type support for T-CONV, T-REPLACE-RX, and Comments

  • Close Auto-Type add support for {T-CONV:/Text/Type/} and {T-REPLACE-RX:/.../.../} syntax #1825 - Add full support for T-CONV and T-REPLACE-RX placeholders. Exception is support for the "raw" type in T-CONV.
  • Close Auto-Type - Missing Auto-Type code: {C:Comment} #5333 - Allow comment syntax to be present in the Auto-Type sequence

TODO:

• Add documentation for T-CONV and T-REPLACE-RX
• Add documentation for new Auto-Type select dialog

Screenshots

New Auto-Type Select Dialog

Showing database search

Drop down menu, same as context menu

Drop down menu for entry-level Auto-Type

Entry-level confirmation dialog

Pickchars Dialog (short password)

Pickchars Dialog (long password)

Testing strategy

Tested across all three platforms.
Added test cases for new features.

Type of change

• ✅ New feature (change that adds functionality)
• ✅ Refactor (significant modification to existing code)

[droidmonkey]

Documentation has been updated, ready for review.

[phoerious]

We capitalise Auto-Type.

case-sensitive with hyphen.

Linking to KeePass for documentation for how KeePassXC works is also kind of ridiculous.

[droidmonkey]

Why reinvent the documentation wheel? There are a ton of useless placeholders that are defined and not relevant to 99.9% of users. I don't want to clutter our documentation with those, let them live in KeePass' documentation. Our documentation contains the essentials, I updated the verbiage to reflect that.

[phoerious]

The documentation should be self-contained. It could go into an extended section or something, but our documentation should include everything we implement, useless or not.

[hifi]

Indeed, we can't skimp on documentation and we can't assume an internet connection is available.

[droidmonkey]

OK, I added a "References" section to the UserGuide and moved all the extensive, technical bits into this section. I removed the external links to keepass.info and replaced with internal links within the UserGuide.

[droidmonkey]

Made an additional improvement, when an Auto-Type sequence has an error in it you will be warned and the Auto-Type will be canceled:

[phoerious]

I gave it a rough re-review. Most of the changes look good to me. I unresolved two discussions where I am still a bit sceptical about the solution. One other thing is that Cmd+Shift+V is still broken on macOS, since you are only targeting the top-level menu item and not the one that actually performs the action.

Other than that, this is probably good to go and needs time testing.

[droidmonkey]

Final changes are completed.

[ccoenen]

Can I navigate this dropdown by keyboard? (i.e. does it have a shortcut itself?) It should be possible to never leave the keyboard for this (and without any larger amount of tab mashing).

For example, can I do a auto-type, then up/down to choose the right entry, then (for example) Alt+S to open the sequence dropdown, use up/down to select the desired sequence, Enter to send that selected sequence to the application waiting for it?

Of course, any other short keyboard-only way would also be fine.

[ccoenen]

Two other keyboard-only workflows were also described here: #3630 (comment)

I don't care much which one works, as long as there is a keyboard-only way with very few keystrokes.

[droidmonkey]

The dialog is totally keyboard accessible but does not include the shortcuts linked

[wereia]

@droidmonkey

Just want to write down an idea I had reading this thread.

What about to show the window target/title were AT is performed in the 'Entry-level confirmation dialog' ?

Might be nice to know the target? But it's just a nice to have and possible that it's not a good idea because of other reasons or too time consuming to implement.

[droidmonkey]

I wanted to do that, but we need to keep an internal track of which window was last active. I saved that for a future enhancement.

[paddylandau]

I have a situation where I need Shift+Tab, because the website in question places tick-boxes after the login button (which would otherwise register when pressing {ENTER}).

The further complication is that login takes place over three screens, so my Auto-Type has a complex entry with a couple of {DELAY n} statements. The part where I need Shift+Tab is on the second of those three screens.

(I know that websites do this multi-screen login in order to reduce bot-style hacking, but it's still a pain!)

Is there any way that I can implement Shift+Tab before this request has been implemented?

Thank you

[droidmonkey]

Use a snapshot build from https://snapshot.keepassxc.org

[paddylandau]

@droidmonkey

Use a snapshot build from https://snapshot.keepassxc.org

Thank you, Jonathan.

I confirm that +{TAB} to indicate Shift+Tab works.

I don't wish to use the unstable version, so do you have a timescale of when this is likely to be released, please? Or, can I subscribe to some sort of automatic notification for this?

Thank you

[droidmonkey]

By the end of this month we'll have a release candidate ready. I wouldn't call it unstable, i use a develop build as my daily driver just fine for the past 6 months.