[Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Thomas Lohrum
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:32 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:the attachment icon is in a somewhat strange placement, but it is a very clever space usage
I considered a lot of different options, and finally selected this one as one of the best. But if you think there might be problems with this design, please let me know.

I don't think it does suite any UI styleguide. Nevertheless it does not take any relevant space. Let's give it a try.

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:there is no shortcut available for the file attachment icon yet, at least none is mentioned in the context menu
Yes, will be added in Beta 2. I think it will be simply F12.

Fine.

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:there is no shortcut available to focus the attachments list in the editor yet
Do we need one? You can navigate there using Tab.

There is a shortcut for every control in the editor, except the attachments list? I'd add one.

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:translation of "BkSp" in German should be "Rücktaste"
Even in menus? E.g. "Vorwaerts/ Shift+Ruecktaste oder Alt+Rechts"?

Not sure myself. But "BkSp" itself is an abbreviation. "Backspace" is no common german word either ;) My guess is that "Rücktaste" would be best to be consistent in translations.
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:41 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:exclusive lock works a lot faster on large imports

Yes, it is generally noticeably faster. And contrary to my expectations, doesn't impede Dropbox syncing. That's why I decided to make it the default, and even made some changes to the code so that it never needs to open a second connection to the DB.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:please, can you explain what mode was used previously and what are the advantages and disadvantages of exclusive lock (besides faster writes)

I will hardly explain it better than the creator of SQLite. In short, exclusive lock makes operations a bit faster, but doesn't allow simultaneous connections to the database. In practice this means that you won't be able to open the DB in SQLite browser tools while CN is running. Also it won't be possible to open the same DB in two different CN instances at the same time - the second instance will display the "database locked" error.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:the drawing of the notes attachments list does not look well on the bottom in the editor; maybe a divider can be added

Ok, will do, thanks
Thomas Lohrum wrote:having the list of notes attachments beneath the editor (rather than on the right side) would allow to show filenames without word wrap

I have plans to display nice full-width previews for attached images (instead of just icons), and horizontal layout won't be great for this IMO.
But we could implement auto-sizing, so that the width of the attachments list automatically increases (up to a certain percentage, of course) when you attach files with long names.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:there is no warning when adding the same attachment twice; but that's probably ok. On the other hand a dialog can be helpful. "The file is attached already. Replace it with the file from the external disk?"

Behind the scenes that file is attached, its hash is calculated, and if CN sees that the hash matches the hash of an already attached file, the operation is cancelled. On the other hand, if file contents is different, it will be attached even if it has the same name. I think the best approach would be to display this warning only if the note already has an attachment with the same name, but different contents. If contents also are the same, I think it would be ok just to silently focus the corresponding attached item. What do you think?
Thomas Lohrum wrote:dragging to resize the notes attachment area is nice :) However, the value is not saved in the settings file yet. Probably because it depends on the window (size) which was used at edit time.

Yes, I considered that it probably should either be saved for each note individually, or not saved at all. And we can't save this info into the notebook, since it essentially is view state and should work for read-only notebooks as well. Probably the auto-expansion feature will reduce the necessity to save this info.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:a file size of 3.38184 Mb should be shown with two digits only, e.g. 3.38 Mb

Will be fixed in Beta 2, thanks
Thomas Lohrum wrote:a file size of less than 1 Kb should be shown in bytes (right now zero is displayed which is not helpful)

Will be fixed in Beta 2, thanks
Thomas Lohrum wrote:When minimizing the attachments list area, so that only the icons will be visible, a hint should be available with the attachment's filename.

Yes, I planned to do this. Will do in Beta2.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:Maybe showing only icons (and hints) should be the default, thus minimizing space requirements. It also looks quite nice. The only drawback i can think of is, when there are many attachments. Personally i expect many people to have one attachment per note. But as the feature is implemented nicely, people might use it with many attachments per note.

I'm not sure about this, I guess the current default width is better for displaying image previews. But this could be an option. Let's leave it as an idea for a future improvement.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:Removing (deleting) an attachment should require a confirmation, which can be turned off optionally.

The attachment is not really deleted until you save the note. Just press cancel and the attachment is back. This makes it a double confirmation - do you think it is necessary?
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:56 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:docs: search in attachment's filename is exclusive (search in all text fields is not supported)

What do you mean exactly? Could you give an example please? Did you try it with "Search across fields" turned on or off?
Thomas Lohrum wrote:docs: opening attachments from the main window of notes list is not supported

Yes. Probably we won't be able to implement it in 2.9, but we plan it for 2.9.1
Thomas Lohrum wrote:The feature here http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/102220-show-size-of-note-when-sorting-for-size/ should be implemented now, showing the total size (text and all attachments) of the note.

Yes. But will probably have to be in 2.9.1
Thomas Lohrum wrote:i second: "Search highlights in attachment previews" is what i wanted to ask for already

Will be in Beta 2.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:bug: when starting minimized to the tray and i press the main shortcut for the notes list, the main window is hidden behind the current application. CN does not get shown in the foreground.

I confirm. Will fix in Beta 2, thanks.
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:11 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:please, can you explain what mode was used previously and what are the advantages and disadvantages of exclusive lock (besides faster writes)
I will hardly explain it better than the creator of SQLite. In short, exclusive lock makes operations a bit faster, but doesn't allow simultaneous connections to the database. In practice this means that you won't be able to open the DB in SQLite browser tools while CN is running. Also it won't be possible to open the same DB in two different CN instances at the same time - the second instance will display the "database locked" error.

Thanks a lot.

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:having the list of notes attachments beneath the editor (rather than on the right side) would allow to show filenames without word wrap
I have plans to display nice full-width previews for attached images (instead of just icons), and horizontal layout won't be great for this IMO. But we could implement auto-sizing, so that the width of the attachments list automatically increases (up to a certain percentage, of course) when you attach files with long names.

Auto-resizing sounds very reasonable.

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:there is no warning when adding the same attachment twice; but that's probably ok. On the other hand a dialog can be helpful. "The file is attached already. Replace it with the file from the external disk?"
Behind the scenes that file is attached, its hash is calculated, and if CN sees that the hash matches the hash of an already attached file, the operation is cancelled. On the other hand, if file contents is different, it will be attached even if it has the same name. I think the best approach would be to display this warning only if notes already has an attachment with the same name, but different contents. If contents also are the same, I think it would be ok just to silently focus the corresponding attached item. What do you think?

Technically very interesting. On the other hand you're trying to keep things away from the user. Imo it does not hurt to always ask the user and simply don't care about an implementation that tries to figure out such details. If the user attaches the same file twice, let him know he already did attach it before. Still, in case the file changed, you might want to ask the user "The file changed. Replace with current file from disk?"

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:Removing (deleting) an attachment should require a confirmation, which can be turned off optionally.
The attachment is not really deleted until you save the note. Just press cancel and the attachment is back. This makes it a double confirmation - do you think it is necessary?

You're probably right. I didn't think about it this way. There is no undo support for it though. Removing an attachment and canceling the editor will lead to loss of changes made to the notes text. Is this a real-life scenario? One can argue that you can attach it again. For simplicity let's keep the current implementation.
Thomas Lohrum
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:15 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:docs: search in attachment's filename is exclusive (search in all text fields is not supported)
What do you mean exactly? Could you give an example please? Did you try it with "Search across fields" turned on or off?

Mode=All text fields
SAF=ON
SIW=ON

This will not find notes containing the search text in the attachments name only. I might need to rerun my test though, since attaching databases can change the settings.

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Re: Bug on exporting attachment

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:29 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:---------------------------
Exportfehler
---------------------------


Thanks, already fixed this. Will be released with Beta 2.
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Re: Encryption

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:30 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:This does not make sense. CN should just close itself.

Do you mean close back to tray, or exit?
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Re: Encryption

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:57 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:This does not make sense. CN should just close itself.
Do you mean close back to tray, or exit?

Exit, since closing to the tray with no database opened does not make sense.
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Re: Encryption II

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:28 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:suggestion: show password strength when entering a new password

Thanks for this suggeston, but I wonder if this is really necessary - I've always felt that this was something sending users to a guilt trip for using simple passwords, even when complex passwords are not really necessary and take a lot of time to type, again and again. I mean, to keep notes away from co-workers' or family members' prying eyes, a simple 4-letter password is usually more than enough.
Thomas Lohrum wrote:I suggest to use an edit box allowing values from 1 to 60 for the "minutes of inactivity". This is more flexible.

It is more flexible, but is it more convenient? Which value to you need that is not there? Maybe it would be better just to add a couple more options, like 1min, 15min, 20min, 40min, 90min?
Thomas Lohrum wrote:The password is not stored in the settings file nor in the database file itself, right? Respectively sqlite3 itself is aware of the password. The password is used as an access key when opening the file itself?!
The password is not stored anywhere. Immediately after the user enters the password, CN calculates from it a 256-bit hash which is used as key for decryption. Theoretically if you dump the process memory after the user has entered correct password, you can find this hash and decrypt the database, but you can't restore the original password. Also you won't be able to do this if correct password has not been entered during this CN instance's running lifetime. For convenience, we have to keep the hash in memory even when the notebook gets locked in UI again, to enable background operations such as backup and sync. The caveat here is that backup and sync won't run until you enter correct password, even if CintaNotes is running in tray (when it is set to start up minimized, for example).
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:43 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:for now i will close my tests on 2.9 beta 1. As you did suggest not to use the release in production i uninstalled, restored my database and installed 2.8.5 again. This is the first time i am not using a beta for production. Please give advice when you think the version is stable, so it can be used on production data.

Thomas, thank you very much for such thorough testing! your help is very, very valuable!
I hope that Beta 2 should already be stable enough to use in production, however there will be one addition that could potentially be dangerous: Simplenote sync support for attachments. So I guess it's best to wait till Beta 3 (=RC).
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Re: Encryption II

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:53 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:suggestion: show password strength when entering a new password
Thanks for this suggeston, but I wonder if this is really necessary - I've always felt that this was something sending users to a guilt trip for using simple passwords, even when complex passwords are not really necessary and take a lot of time to type, again and again. I mean, to keep notes away from co-workers' or family members' prying eyes, a simple 4-letter password is usually more than enough.

a) it looks a lot more professional :)
b) if you use CN as a password manager, safety can not be high enough!!!!

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:I suggest to use an edit box allowing values from 1 to 60 for the "minutes of inactivity". This is more flexible.
It is more flexible, but is it more convenient? Which value to you need that is not there? Maybe it would be better just to add a couple more options, like 1min, 15min, 20min, 40min, 90min?

Ok, lets add the suggested values :)

CintaNotes Developer wrote:The password is not stored anywhere. Immediately (...)

Thanks for your explanation :)

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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:55 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:for now i will close my tests on 2.9 beta 1. As you did suggest not to use the release in production i uninstalled, restored my database and installed 2.8.5 again. This is the first time i am not using a beta for production. Please give advice when you think the version is stable, so it can be used on production data.
Thomas, thank you very much for such thorough testing! your help is very, very valuable!
I hope that Beta 2 should already be stable enough to use in production.

Thanks for your ongoing support. I appreciate a lot!

From what i have read in the forum today, i decided to use 2.9 starting with beta 2.

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Re: Decode attachments to disk

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:01 pm

Thomas Lohrum wrote:A warning can be implemented when opening an attachment. "Warning: The attachment will be temporarily saved to disk in decrypted mode, to be able to open it with its associated application."

I think we better implement auto deletion of extracted attachments after the handling application exits. Probably the warning will be needed if the user decides to close CN while still editing/viewing the attachments.
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Re: Decode attachments to disk

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:04 pm

Thomas Lohrum wrote:A warning can be implemented when opening an attachment.

For example:

"Warning: The attachment will be temporarily saved to disk in decrypted mode, to be able to open it with its associated application.

[ ] don't show this message again"


Not a bad idea :)

Would having an option to ask for the password when restoring from the system tray make sense? At the moment, you can unlock a DB, minimise CN, and when you restore it, your database is still decrypted.

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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:07 pm

Thomas Lohrum wrote:I don't think it does suite any UI styleguide. Nevertheless it does not take any relevant space. Let's give it a try.

Let's;)

Thomas Lohrum wrote:There is a shortcut for every control in the editor, except the attachments list? I'd add one.

Would Alt+A do ok?

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Not sure myself. But "BkSp" itself is an abbreviation. "Backspace" is no common german word either ;) My guess is that "Rücktaste" would be best to be consistent in translations.

Ok I'm not going to argue here, especially with someone from Germany;) Will change to Rücktaste.
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Re: Encryption II

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:09 pm

CintaNotes Developer wrote:Thanks for this suggeston, but I wonder if this is really necessary - I've always felt that this was something sending users to a guilt trip for using simple passwords, even when complex passwords are not really necessary and take a lot of time to type, again and again. I mean, to keep notes away from co-workers' or family members' prying eyes, a simple 4-letter password is usually more than enough.


Warning - writing a password strength meter is not as easy as it sounds. There is no standard for password strengths, so every single program that has this feature writes it in a slightly different way, meaning that the same password in different applications is shown with wildly varying strengths - which may make the results meaningless (app1 says my password is really weak, but app2 says it is really strong - which is correct?). I'm not against the idea if you want to do it, but I personally don't think it is worth it myself.

CintaNotes Developer wrote:It is more flexible, but is it more convenient? Which value to you need that is not there? Maybe it would be better just to add a couple more options, like 1min, 15min, 20min, 40min, 90min?


I'd like to see 1 minute personally.

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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:14 pm

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:There is a shortcut for every control in the editor, except the attachments list? I'd add one.
Would Alt+A do ok?

Yes.
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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:16 pm

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Auto-resizing sounds very reasonable.

I like this idea as well. Will try to squeeze it into Beta 2.

Technically very interesting. On the other hand you're trying to keep things away from the user. Imo it does not hurt to always ask the user and simply don't care about an implementation that tries to figure out such details. If the user attaches the same file twice, let him know he already did attach it before. Still, in case the file changed, you might want to ask the user "The file changed. Replace with current file from disk?"

I hear you, but on the other hand, I like it very much when software silently does the right thing without bothering the user. If the user attaches the same file second time, it means that he simply forgot that he had already attached the file. In any way he simply wants the file attached, and if it really is the same file, CN should do nothing but focus the already added attachment.
Of course if the user attaches a file with same name but different content, two options are possible: 1) it is a newer version of the same file => attachment should be updated; 2) it is a different file that happens to have the same name (like "1.jpg") => add as a new attachment. In this case software can't make decision on its own, and this gives us moral permission to ask the user.

You're probably right. I didn't think about it this way. There is no undo support for it though. Removing an attachment and canceling the editor will lead to loss of changes made to the notes text. Is this a real-life scenario? One can argue that you can attach it again. For simplicity let's keep the current implementation.

I agree.
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Re: Encryption II

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:17 pm

usbpoweredfridge wrote:
CintaNotes Developer wrote:Thanks for this suggeston, but I wonder if this is really necessary - I've always felt that this was something sending users to a guilt trip for using simple passwords, even when complex passwords are not really necessary and take a lot of time to type, again and again. I mean, to keep notes away from co-workers' or family members' prying eyes, a simple 4-letter password is usually more than enough.
Warning - writing a password strength meter is not as easy as it sounds. There is no standard for password strengths, so every single program that has this feature writes it in a slightly different way, meaning that the same password in different applications is shown with wildly varying strengths - which may make the results meaningless (app1 says my password is really weak, but app2 says it is really strong - which is correct?). I'm not against the idea if you want to do it, but I personally don't think it is worth it myself.

You are correct. However, in terms of computers being able to crack a password i think a strong password should be defined as having at least 12 characters, having upper- and lowercase characters, as well as special chars.

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Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 2.9 Beta 1!

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:20 pm

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Mode=All text fields SAF=ON SIW=ON
This will not find notes containing the search text in the attachments name only. I might need to rerun my test though, since attaching databases can change the settings.

Of course it won't, since attachments are not one of the text fields of the note. Or do you think otherwise? Searching with "Anywhere" or specifically "Attachments" will find them.
Alex

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