Global Autotype for OS X: at last!

[kar]

Auto-Type patch has been officially adopted.

See end of first message in thread for details.

kar

[Dominus]

Good job!
Thanks again for your work and congrats for getting it accepted.

[slash28]

Auto-Type patch has been officially adopted.

Thank you very much for the patch, and thanks to the rest of the team for putting it through the paces for adoption. It's been working flawlessly on 4.3 for me, and I look forward to it becoming an official part of the build.

[quotidian]

Auto-Type patch has been officially adopted.

See end of first message in thread for details.

kar

Great news, thanks for sticking with this and getting the patch into the main tree.

[milko]

kar you're the best. I have waited a long time for Autotype.
Many thanks from Germany
OSX 10.6.3

[boeserwolf]

Thank you very much, this makes KeePassX so much more attractive and useable for us Mac users. It was really worth the effort. Is there a way to donate to you?

Regards from Germany

[zaxxon]

OMFG!!!!

this is extremely awesome, I've been waiting for this for a HUGE amount of time!!!!!

And it works!

Sort of, actually. I'm using ZOC as a telnet/SSH/serial client, and as it seems it cannot swallow that characters that KeepassX sends quickly enough. When adding a {DELAY 1} between characters, it works like intended:

Auto-Type: s{DELAY 1}w{DELAY 1}agner{DELAY 1}{ENTER}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}
Auto-Type-Window: router.swagner*
(using "use entries' title to match the window" does also not seem to do what I expect, namely the same as Auto-Type-Window)

it goes until the a, then it stops pasting and goes to the password prompt, therefore issuing the username "swa"... doing the username with {USERNAME} just pastes the 's'.

what way is there to add a 'global' inter-character delay that gets used between any character that gets pasted? or per entry, perhaps? (apart from doing everything in cleartext and {DELAY 1} between characters? The "Key stroke delay" does not seem to cut it......

thanks a lot
simon

[kar]

OMFG!!!!

this is extremely awesome, I've been waiting for this for a HUGE amount of time!!!!!

And it works!

Sort of

I uploaded a version built from the official sources available from the links at the top of the first message in this thread. It contains the Auto-Type element {MACSENDKEYCODES} as described near the bottom of that message beginning with the June 5, 2010 date. I think this may address your problem.

As for ""use entries' title to match", it is not just like Auto-Type-Window because it is meant to be a title and not a pattern. Thus it acts as if * were added to both ends of the title hence matching any window title which has the entry title as a substring, independent of case. I personally turn that feature off and always use Auto-Type-Window.

Thanks for the feedback and I hope this solves your problems. Write again if you have any other questions.

-kar

[kar]

I have updated the links at the top of the first message of this thread to a version of KeePassX OS X with Auto-Type built from the official sources in the svn repository. See near the end of the message beginning at the *** June 5, 2010 date for details.

-kar

[galaxian]

This is great news but it doesn't work correctly for me at the moment.
When I use the Auto-Type function, it fills my password in the username field and the username isn't filled in anywhere. Then there is an error logging in due to it trying to submit automatically.
I've tried this on a few sites and it works the same way on all of them.
My Username, URL, and Password fields are filled out correctly for all entries.

Any ideas?

Thank you for making this feature possible.

[kar]

This is great news but it doesn't work correctly for me at the moment.
When I use the Auto-Type function, it fills my password in the username field and the username isn't filled in anywhere. Then there is an error logging in due to it trying to submit automatically.
I've tried this on a few sites and it works the same way on all of them.
My Username, URL, and Password fields are filled out correctly for all entries.

Any ideas?

Thank you for making this feature possible.

You say a few sites so I assume your are talking about a browser. Which browser? In error reports you should always provide as much specific information as possible.

Do you use an Auto-Type string in the Comment section or do you let it default? If the former, provide an example of your Auto-Type string.

When you try Auto-Type on a web site, do you first make sure the focus is in the proper field eg the Username field? Some web sites initialize this correctly and others do not. If the focus - blinking cursor - is not in the proper place when Auto-Type starts then it cannot work properly. If the focus is not in the correct field, just click in it before you engage the Auto-Type.

Also, if a web site does not init focus, hitting Tab one or more times can set the focus. It may be in your examples, there is no focus, the {USERNAME} is thus typed nowhere, the {TAB} then moves focus to the "first" field which in your case may be the Username field, then the {PASSWORD} is typed but now in the Username field, and then the {ENTER} tries to login. If a site does not init focus, you can try typing Tabs and counting how many Tabs it takes to get to the desired initial field and then add that many {TAB}s to the beginning of your Auto-Type string.

If any of these ideas fix your problems, please report back so others can learn from your experience.

[galaxian]

Thank you for the response kar.

Here is some info for you:

OS: MAC OSX 10.6.3
BROWSERS: CHROME 5.0.375.55, SAFARI 5.0 (6533.16)

You are correct in that I guess I did not have the USERNAME field highlighted, as I've tested it a few times now and all seems to fill in correctly - with KeePassX currently active, and pressing CMD+V to fill in my login info.
With KeePassX not active, when I use my Global-Auto-Type shortcut (CTRL+OPT+CMD+V - I have tried others also) it makes the KeePassX window active, but never fills in any login information. I have tried this on every browser I have. The only way KeePassX works is if I have it active, and the specific site selected, and then press CMD+V.

I don't have anything in the Comments section of my logins, am I supposed to? I have all the other info filled in correctly, with my titles being something along the lines of: gmail MYUSERNAME, or for my bank I simply use CHASE.

Hope this information is useful, thanks again for the help.

[kar]

Hope this information is useful, thanks again for the help.

Yes, all of that info tells me exactly what is wrong.

KeePassX is compatible with the original KeePass (for Windows) version 1.x only (ie not 2.x). See Auto-Type for instructions on how to configure and use Auto-Type.

Genearlly, KeePassX Auto-Type types for you. The user defines multiple entries each of which are intended to type in a specific context. So when Auto-Type is invoked, two things need to happen: the proper entry must be determined and the desired typing for that entry must be executed.

Taking the latter first, what is typed can be defined by the user using an Auto-Type: entry in the Comment section which gives precise control or leave out such an entry and use the default mechanism. The default is {USERNAME}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER} if both USERNAME and PASSWORD fields are non-empty; {USERNAME}{ENTER} if only USERNAME is non-empty; and {PASSWORD}{ENTER} if only PASSWORD is non-empty.

However, using the Auto-Type: line in the Comment section, the user can control what is typed. For example, if a site requires two tabs between USERNAME and PASSWORD because it has some extra control like a checkbox between the two, the user can specify in the Comment section:

Auto-Type: {USERNAME}{TAB}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}

See the above link for even more sophisticated use.

Now, for determining which entry to type in a given context, the user can find and select the entry in KeePassX and then use Command-V in the Main menu or the Context menu or Perform Auto-Type from the menus. Note that you can use the wrong entry this way.

With Global Auto-type, KeePassX is invoked and must find the appropriate entry on its own. So it matches all entries against the title of the target window. If it finds no match it does nothing. If it finds one match, it types. If it finds more than one match, it pops up a window with all the matching entries and the user selects one to be typed.

It has two mechanisms to do this matching. The first, which I personally do not use, involves matching the title of the target window against the titles of the entries but only works if "Use entries' title to match the window for Global Auto-Type" is checked in the Advanced section of Preferences. I leave this unchecked. This matching requires that the KeePassX entry title be a substring of the window title for which it should be typed. The way you have defined entry titles makes it unlikely that they are substrings of the window titles.

The second mechanism - the one I use exclusively - is to put an Auto-Type-Window: line in the Comment section eg

Auto-Type-Window: *Email from Google*

for gmail. The value to the right of the colon may have an asterisk at either or both ends or not at all and is a wild card in matching. Note that in default matching, entry titles act as if they have asterisks at both ends. All matching is case independent.

So, if you define your entries properly, I am confident they will work for you. Once you get the hang of it, if you haven't already, read the provided link for the more sophisticated uses to see what you can put in Auto-Type strings (KeePassX does not support ALL of the tokens that KeePass does but all of the most used ones) and how you can define alternative matching and typing in the same entry.

[bohemier]

Hi! Thanks for adding this functionality into OSX... I'm really happy to find it back.

I would like to know if it's possible to instruct Autotype to send Command- keystrokes? For example, I would like to automatically focus the address bar in Firefox before sending out {URL} field and then {ENTER}... What I'm trying to accomplish is to send out {CMD}l{URL}{ENTER}. Of course {CMD} does nothing...

TIA

[galaxian]

Thank you for that explanation kar. Everything works just as it should now