Feedback from a new user

Codebook
1

I’m trying out Codebook because I wanted something easier on the eyes than the other app that I’ve used for years. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll stay with it, as I would be settling for some loss of functionality at the gain of a much nicer interface.

I’ve read the FAQs and some of the posts, which cover some of the points I’m about to make. But I’ll reiterate those because I think they’d greatly improve the app if you decided to move on them. Some you’ve said are works in progress.

Things I want to see:

-PW expiration dating and flagging. No PW should exist forever, and Codebook should have a background calendar or counter to enable PW outdating and a reminder-to-change function.

-Minimize to taskbar notification area while unlocked. I don’t want it in the taskbar when I’m not using it, but I want to click on the icon to get it back up. Secret Agent is great and all that, but I don’t want to have to log in each time I want something from the app.

-Sync when closing/locking. Manual sync only is clunky and primitive. You can do better. I want the db to sync by itself when I close the app for the session.

-Sub-categories. Come on, you know you want to do this, and the users want it, too. Put some dev time on this and make it happen.

You’ve got a nice looking app here in its formative stages. Make these suggestions happen, especially the first and fourth, and you’ll improve it 200%.

2

Hi @Gatto,

Thanks for considering Codebook for your needs and sending us your thoughts.

-PW expiration dating and flagging. No PW should exist forever, and Codebook should have a background calendar or counter to enable PW outdating and a reminder-to-change function.

To make a small step in this direction we’ve added the History view to Codebook for macOS and we’ll be adding it soon to Codebook for Windows. The History view shows you when a record was last updated which can help you identify accounts that could use a password reset. In the future we’d like to revisit this, but it’s not something we’re pursuing in the immediate term, as we have some other goals with a higher priority.

-Minimize to taskbar notification area while unlocked. I don’t want it in the taskbar when I’m not using it, but I want to click on the icon to get it back up. Secret Agent is great and all that, but I don’t want to have to log in each time I want something from the app.

We’re not planning to adjust the existing minimization, closing, and locking behavior in Codebook for Windows at the moment. You might find the app easier to use if you were to extend the auto-lock period in the Settings view.

-Sync when closing/locking. Manual sync only is clunky and primitive. You can do better. I want the db to sync by itself when I close the app for the session.

Automatic background syncing is something we are working on right now, so we don’t plan on changing the current sync functionality in the meantime.

-Sub-categories. Come on, you know you want to do this, and the users want it, too. Put some dev time on this and make it happen.

We don’t, actually! We’ve had the request here and there over the years, but from a very small segment of our customers (off the top of my head I think we get more requests for a Linux port). Once you have so many records that you need subcategories to find them you are better off using the Search feature—that’s how we use the app ourselves. We don’t think adding the ability to subcategorize records is worth the effort, that effort would be quite substantial, and we see it as an undesirable design complication.

You’ve got a nice looking app here in its formative stages.

Codebook has been around for some time, and runs native on four different platforms, we do not consider it formative! However, we do appreciate the feedback. We’ve been continuously making lots of improvements to all four apps, and we’ll have a recap of some of the more recent additions posted here soon.