1175987 - only showing password when clicking/holding "SHOW" under doorhanger

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Password Manager, defect)

Description

[Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak]]

This is just a thought and a proposition relating to the "SHOW" password feature that's currently in Nightly/Aurora. Currently, when a user selects the password field, the password stays visible the entire time until you either close the doorhanger or switch back to the user name field. I know that work is being done in bug # 1175273 that will hide the password if someone clicks anywhere on the password doorhanger which will make things a bit better.

I personally think we're showing the password for too long and like the way Microsoft has done it when you're logging into Windows. The password will only be visible and stay visible while you're clicking/holding on the "SHOW" button. Example:

- Click SHOW and hold -> Password visible
- Let go of the click -> Password is instantly hidden again

Sounds silly, but I found myself really nervous with my password just being displayed for a few seconds when clicking on the password field. I felt a bit more comfortable using the MS way as I felt like I had more control over the visibility. I'm assuming other users will feel the same.

Thoughts?

Comment 1

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

(In reply to Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak] from comment #0)
> Thoughts?

If the user wants to correct the password that we captured (e.g. if the value was munged by the website before submission), should the user be able to see what they're editing without having to hold down the mouse button on the icon? Having to hold the mouse down with one hand while typing with the other in order to see the edits would be a bit unusual but maybe users just want to double-check if the password is correct and if not, they will just replace the whole value.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't copy the password out of the field when the value is hidden so we should keep that in mind if we want the user to easily be able to copy it to another password manager (e.g. Word doc.)

Comment 2

[Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak]]

Thanks Matt, those are some good points. I haven't really thought about those particular cases. I can definitely see how this would cause problems when users try to either edit/copy their passwords. It would definitely be a pain if the user had to constantly press the "show/view" password while trying to do something with the password.