Codebook 4.1 Early Access Beta

Update: We have begun expanding beta testing to the first group of our regular beta testers. If you no longer wish to participate in beta testing, please send us an email and we’ll remove you from the list.


We are making the first Codebook 4.1 beta available to anybody who has signed up for early access. This is so we can do an initial round of testing on the new Operations features it includes before we begin distributing 4.1 to our regular beta testers.

Early access testers should have received an email with information on installing 4.1. Please install the betas at your earliest convenience and review the information below about the new Operations before trying them out.

There is no change in minimum operating system version compatibility in this update: it is available to all customers that are able to run Codebook 4.0.

Note: Codebook 4.1 updates the protocol used during Desktop WiFi sync. Make sure all your devices are updated to 4.1 to continue syncing Codebook on your mobile device with Codebook on your desktop.

The new Advanced Sync Operations feature is similar to the Operations feature previously available in Codebook 3, with a new addition that we hope will be particularly helpful in support and recovery scenarios. It allows you to select one of four different modes of operation for Sync.

Available Operations:

  • Sync (the default exchange operation)
  • Overwrite
  • Restore
  • Merge

Codebook uses the standard Sync operation to swap local changes with changes from your desktop or a cloud service, using a last-update-wins method of conflict resolution. This is the operation we recommend all customers use during normal operation. We understand that there were initially some issues with this replication in 4.0, along with some historical bugs in 3.x, however we have tracked them all down to the best of our knowledge, and this release patches the last of them.

The additional operations, Overwrite, Restore, and Merge, are intended to help with cleaning up any remaining problems. They’re also useful if you happen to have known good data and wish to use it to override data on another device or cloud service, or wish to combine databases in order to avoid data loss.

Because these operations are intended for advanced usage they’re not displayed in the UI by default, but they are easily enabled. Instructions for displaying the Operations menu on your device are available on the Help page.

The Overwrite and Restore operations should be fairly self-explanatory: they cause Codebook to replace all the data on one side of a sync operation with all the data on the other side. So, if you set Codebook on your iPhone to Restore, and sync with Codebook on your desktop, Codebook will replace all the data on your iPhone with all the data on your desktop. If you set Codebook on your desktop to Overwrite and sync with Dropbox, Codebook will replace all the Codebook data in your Dropbox with the data from your desktop. Because one side is essentially clearing out the data on the other, Overwrite and Restore should be used carefully to avoid unintentional data loss.

The Merge operation allows you to combine both the local and remote databases to create a new unified set of records, but it requires you to choose either the local or the remote database as authoritative for any conflicts Codebook cannot resolve on its own using the last-update-wins strategy. An additional feature of the Merge operation is that it avoids processing any un-seen deletes, meaning that merging two databases won’t cause data deleted only on one side to be deleted in the resulting database after the merge operation.


Additional Changes in Codebook 4.1

There have been numerous other changes to Codebook on all four platforms we support.

Android:

  • Updates External Links section of the Settings view with links to the latest documentation and a link to the Codebook mailing list
  • Improves capture rate of QR code by enabling autofocus of camera
  • Improves local service scanning behavior for WiFi sync to desktop
  • Adds support for loading Codebook Help within Codebook instead of sending the user out of the app to the system web browser
  • Adds support for scanning QR codes for capturing TOTP secret keys directly within application
  • Presents confirmation dialog when choosing to not backup Sync Key

iOS:

  • Adds a button for toggling the masking state of the password field on Master Password authentication prompts for decrypting a Sync Key
  • Updates External Links section of the Settings view with links to the latest documentation and a link to the Codebook mailing list
  • Adds support for loading Codebook Help within Codebook instead of sending the user out of the app to the system web browser
  • Improves caching and local network address resolution of selected Desktop WiFi computer on the Sync view

macOS:

  • Updates the Help menu with links to the latest documentation and a link to the Codebook mailing list
  • Help menu items have been rearranged and grouped according to function
  • Help menu validation improved, making all items available when Codebook is locked
  • Updates the Sync menu, making the Start Sync item more clearly visible at the bottom and grouping other related menu items together
  • Fixes validation of Sync menu items when Main Window is not the active window
  • Updates the title of the Start Sync menu item to reflect any non-standard Operation (Overwrite, Restore, or Merge) that the user has selected for the next sync
  • Updates the Entry menu, specifically the group of field-specific items at the bottom to match changes to the Fields table context menu for the currently selected field
  • Updates the Fields table context menu:
    • Displays the Show/Hide option more visibly at the top, with a new mask/unmask icon on the menu item
    • Improves the grouping and separation of related menu items
    • No longer displays Show/Hide option during editing (doesn’t really make sense!)
    • Improves title casing for Password Generator menu items
  • Fixes regression on Create New Category to drop user directly into the name field without any default title once the sheet presents
  • Presents confirmation dialog when choosing to not backup Sync Key

Windows:

  • Updates the Help menu with links to the latest documentation and a link to the Codebook mailing list
  • Help menu items have been rearranged and grouped according to function
  • Updates the Sync menu, making the Start Sync item more clearly visible at the bottom and grouping other related menu items together
  • Updates the title of the Start Sync menu item to reflect any non-standard Operation (Overwrite, Restore, or Merge) that the user has selected for the next sync
  • Presents confirmation dialog when choosing to not backup Sync Key
  • Disables main window during synchronization

Not sure if this is the place to post this but here goes. I am testing 4.1.1 and when I try to invoke the secret agent it only brings up the dialog for the master password then when enters goes away. Never allows me to try to get the login for the site I am trying to logon to. I have captured a video of this if you would like to see what I mean. It is doing it on all three machines I am testing this on.

This is Windows 10.

Hello @lwetzel

We have just replied to your separate thread here. Thanks!