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elementary
Toggle password visibility
This has become pretty commonplace in password entries and can help it be more accessible to those who might have issues typing. I don't think this is a native GTK Entry feature, but it should be pretty easy to add.
Ah I guess the main design question here is: how? When creating a user, we use a checkbox below the entry. But that seems a bit heavy/ugly in this case. In other implementations, I've seen the right-side input icon used, but we're using that as the login button here.
Exciting, I support your idea! Before your issue, I had often wondered if this was intended as a Privacy by Design feature by elementary, not to offer the possibility to display the password/passphrase. From GNOME, however, I also know another way of dealing with it.
Ah I guess the main design question here is: how?
In case it is helpful, here’s Microsoft’s spec for this feature.
I just notice again how important it would be if I could have the password displayed for a short time. For security reasons, I use a password with many characters that exceed the normal length of the input field. If I mistype, which often happens, but the password field is not cleared directly, it doesn't help if the incorrect string is still displayed. I can't just find and correct the faulty parts. So I first have to clear the input field manually and then re-enter everything. This is a detour compared to the status before the last Greeter change.
This is an important feature request for usability.
On my laptop, sometimes the number lock gets engaged automatically on boot up, so I type the wrong password just because the number pad is overlayed on the general keyboard.
Gnome handles showing the password by right clicking the input field and there's an option in the context menu. I think an even better design has the button on the input field directly, but Cassidy points out that the input for Greeter already has icons on the left and right.
Can the toggle functionality be added "gnome" style in a right click-able context menu as a first step, and then the design of that password input field can be re-visited with this feature request in mind? The icon on the left is just a key hole to indicate it's a password field, I dont know how helpful that is. And most people will typically just hit "Enter" after typing their password right, rather than using the button to submit?
@cassidyjames What do you think about starting with an item in the context menu first and going on from there?
Another note is that I believe the GTK Password entry has this functionality built in, but I'd need to double check. Context menu might be fine, but is far less obvious. We should probably just revisit the login card and decide how we should prioritize/organize:
- Indication to make it clear it's a password (icon + tooltip, or a label?)
- Login action location (inside the entry or a distinct button?)
- Reveal text action (in the entry or context menu)
In my mind, the easiest thing to do design-wise would be to move the login button to a distinct, suggested action button somewhat like this:
_________________________
| |
| |
| Wallpaper |
| |
|--------( pic )--------|
| |
| Cassidy James |
| |
| [!_________________O] |
| |
| [ Log In ] |
|_______________________|
(with the ! being the password icon and O being a toggle visibility icon)
Advantages:
- more explicit/obvious suggested action
- gives us another place to show off accent color
Disadvantages:
- a little more noisy UI-wise
- Might complicate things if we want to distinguish between "Log In" and "Unlock"?
Open to thoughts from @elementary/ux though.
Thanks Cassidy for your design thoughts on this issue!
Probably part of a potential solution: https://github.com/elementary/icons/issues/1060
Could you imagine including the topic of switching the visibility and hiding of passwords in the roadmap for elementary OS 7? As far as I can see, this concerns the boot process (unlocking the hard disk), logging into Greeter and also the authentication dialogue with Polkit.