Groups Navigation is very confusing - why not as "folders"?

Feature Discussions
#1

Greetings, AuthPass forumers.

I recently started looking into KeePass alternatives, as I am tiring of the clunky GUI used by KeePass, and I wanted to help a tech-illiterate friend start using a password manager. AuthPass was the only one I could find that supported all major platforms with a consistent user experience across them all (and simple cloud integration).

However, during my experimentation, I have found AuthPass’s navigation of password “Groups” to be very unintuitive. All my carefully carefully grouped passwords are displayed recursively and ungrouped in the GUI?! Navigation to another “group” (I’d call it a folder, coming from KeePass/Windows Explorer, but hey) requires clicking through a hamburger menu? And then I still can’t tell what is grouped with what?!

Why couldn’t groups be displayed as “folders” in the main listview, which expand to list their contents when clicked/tapped upon? It would make grouped logins actually appear to be grouped. It would facilitate moving logins from one group to another. It would make it easier for less tech-literate people to use - I’d imagine most people know how to navigate a scrolling list view, which grows longer if you open up “folders”.

As is, I hesitate to recommend it to my friend, as even I, who work in IT, cannot understand how AuthPass’s GUI works.

Collapse/expand groups
#2

Hello,
first thanks for your feedback. But please keep an open mind, I don’t consider AuthPass to be a clone/fork of KeePass, so i see no need to follow it’s lead on every single UI detail.

This has been discussed a couple of times. I personally dislike hierarchical folder structures and don’t see the value in the added clutter and wasted screen real estate. imho a flat list with labels/tags is superior to a folder structure. (compare gmail’s labels vs. email folders in older email clients).

The groups of password items should be displayed directly in the list.

I highly doubt this. Most users also know how to use gmail and how to change the label of an email inside gmail. The same for e.g. google contacts, which by default shows a flat list, which can be filtered by labels.

I see no benefit in showing a windows explorer style tree. If you need to filter quickly by label, just enter it’s name in the search field :man_shrugging:

(That said, I’d welcome PRs which add an optional tree-like view, but it’s not something which is on my personal roadmap.)

(here is a related entry in the issue tracker https://github.com/authpass/authpass/issues/75)

1 Like
#3

Thank you for your kind reply! Sorry if I was in any way too abrasive with my feedback; I really appreciate your work in making this project.

Perhaps my issue stems from using heavily nested folders everywhere (KeePass, email client, filesystem, web browser bookmarks). I’ve also never used Gmail/Google Contacts Labels, as they didn’t make sense to me; I’ve preferred using Yahoo/eM Client folders for email.

I agree, AuthPass definitely isn’t a clone/fork of KeePass, though I first found the project while looking for alternative password managers that supported KeePass’s KBDX database format; I guess I assumed that anything using said database format would display it in a similar way.

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#4

:+1:if you have any idea how to improve upon the existing style i’m happy to investigate. (e.g. one thing would be to permanently show the group tree in landscape mode and on tablets… without the need for clicking on the burger menu for filtering). Or improving how the groups are shown inside the list… maybe allow sorting by the group, but still keeping it flat… not sure if this would be confusing?

But for now I don’t plan on implementing a fully fledged tree view.

I also wonder how you are exactly using the password manager. because I hardly ever “browse” through my passwords. I always search for passwords. What exactly is a use case where you would “walk” through the tree of groups where you dont exactly know the name of the account/website you are looking for? :thinking:

#5

I can provide an example of using the password manager and needing to Browse and not Search through the items.
First, use a password manager for 20 years and collect all the accounts during that time. For example, dozens of open source projects, companies, hundreds of various online accounts, passwords for applications, pin codes for cards, phones, mailboxes, pagers, and other devices, instructions and other safe notes, etc.
Organize these into Folders, as people have been doing long before computers.
Without adding some context, almost every search results in hundreds of items, because I’m using emails with the same account or domain, various projects have the same account names and descriptions, etc.
Linear structure works only if you have less than 100 accounts. And this is with groups included.

#6

For over than 90% of time, search will suffice. But for the remaining 10% cases, which are usually critical, it doesn’t.
Perhaps someone can share how they organise their accounts so that they can be found and distinguished.
Let’s do a hypothetical case where you register to 1000 accounts with your gmail address. Now, try to find the password for the actual gmail account.

#7

Sounds like we should improve search. 🤷

How is the group called with your gmail password? Lets assume “email”… then just search for: email @gmail
imo this is faster then walking through 10 levels of groups… and if not, just open the drawer :sweat_smile:

For me it still sounds like you are a bit preoccupied from 20 years of using folders :stuck_out_tongue:

To reiterate:

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#8

There may be some truth in there. I will let you know how it goes.
But you have to know that it’s not practical to scroll through hundreeds of levels of folders every time. At least an option to collapse the whatever-you-wanna-call-them in the drawer would be useful. Thanks

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#9

Well, that is the first properly-implemented search in a password manager. Works well so far!
With some minor adjustments in titles, I manage to find the accounts I use frequently at the moment.

#10

I don’t think that folders (in the way that keepass does it) is necessary (maybe an option in preferences), perhaps having a header for each group would be nice.

For example:

Entry1
Entry2
Entry3
------
=== Group1 ===
------
Entry4
Entry5
Entry6
------
=== Group1/Group2 ===
------
Entry7
------
=== Group3 ===
------
Entry8
Entry9
Entry10