Version 4.5.0 is a minor update mostly focused on fixing bugs and tying up some loose ends. However, there are a couple of new additions and some changes that are significant enough they deserve a little more elabloration here.
Displaying an Entry’s Category in the Entries list
When we select a Category in the left-hand side column of the main window, the middle column, titled Entries, is populated with the Entries belonging to that Category. Simple enough! But things get more complicated when we are typing in the Search field in the toolbar, or when we’ve selected one of the Views at the top of the Categories list. At that point, the middle column is populated with Entries that match the Search term in some way, or listed according to the selected View–we don’t know what Category they belong to without first clicking into each one to see it in the Entry view.
That changes in this version. Now when you are looking at one of these other views of Entries, or searching for an Entry, the rows in the middle column are taller to accommodate a new label for each Entry’s Category. This change was suggested by a customer for Codebook for Windows, and after seeing how much we liked it there, we immediately added it to Codebook for macOS as well. We find it to be quite helpful when searching for an Entry that has a name similar to others in the Search results.
TOTP Codes in Password AutoFill
Apple has made it possible for us to hook into the macOS Password AutoFill feature with an extension of Codebook. This allows us to supply basic credentials, i.e. just usernames and passwords. We’ve been waiting for them to announce some means to provide security tokens and TOTP codes since they debuted the feature, as Codebook has been able to generate TOTP codes for many years, but they have declined to do so over the last couple of releases of macOS (please file a Feedback report with Apple if you’d like to see this feature in macOS Password AutoFill!)
A customer recently suggested that we work around this by automatically copying any available TOTP code on an Entry to the clipboard when you select it for Password AutoFill in the interface. Thus, after AutoFill returns the username and password and you hit Submit and are shown a TOTP input form, you can simply Paste the value from the clipboard without going back into AutoFill (where we can’t return it anyway).
It’s not the most ideal solution, but it works pretty well. The feature is not enabled by default, as some users may not wish to copy a security token to the clipboard. For those who do wish to use it, there is a new setting for it under the gear icon in the AutoFill interface. The first time you tap on an Entry to select it for AutoFill, if the Entry has a TOTP code, Codebook will present an alert dialog offering to turn the feature on – we hope this will make it more discoverable despite not being enabled by default.
Changes in this Version
- Adds a new Category name displayed on the Entries list for Search results, Favorites, Recents, and History
- Adds a new option to Password AutoFill that will automatically copy a 2-step (TOTP) code to the clipboard if present when selecting an Entry for AutoFill
- Fixes display of previously selected Entry after clearing the Search field
- Fixes a bug preventing delivery of anonymous usage statistics (when enabled)
- Fixes inconsistent display of the Touch ID Login button on the Login view after changing the setting in Preferences
- Fixes use of wrong text color when inserting a random password into a Note Entry in Dark Mode
- Fixes color of countdown animation for 2-step (TOTP) Fields in Dark Mode
- Fixes failure to persist some edits to Note Entries for Sync
- Fixes a display bug that could be caused by selecting a Category with no Entries
- Fixes a crash that could occur while running Integrity Check
- Autocomplete suggestions of frequently used values while editing a Field can now be chosen by mouse click (previously only pressing the Return/Enter key accepted a suggestion)
- Fixes a row height display bug that could occur for wrapping text when selecting an autocomplete suggestion while editing a Field
- The default name for the TOTP Field Label is changed to 2-Step Code
- The name of the Mode used for TOTP Field Labels is changed to 2-Step Key (TOTP)
- Updates French, German, and Japanese translations of all new and adjusted text labels
- Fixes several memory leaks
- Updates Dropbox API integration for Sync
- Updates SQLCipher to version 4.5.0
