6 ms·

What functionality would be broken if clipboards were changed to be completely unreadable other than when the user initiates a “paste” command manually?

Denvercoder9 6y ago
Chrome on Android shows any URL on the clipboard as a suggestion when focusing the address bar. It's a marginal but quite noticably improvement in user experience.
TehCorwiz 6y ago
Password managers. Auto fill forms. Can’t think of anything else
- riffraff 6y ago
  why do password managers need to _read_ the clipboard? It seems they would only need to _write_ to it.
  - eyeball 6y ago
    I see two behaviors in 1Password 1) I go to a site and it auto fills the login. Not sure when clipboard needs to be involved there. Shouldn’t that just be the application taking data from its database, recognizing the associated form, and filling it? 2) I search for a login manually and copy to clipboard. In that case I’d only ever want it to paste when I issue a paste command manually
  - thewisenerd 6y ago
    in my experience, to "restore" clipboard contents after a certain period of time; - read clipboard - write password into clipboard - restore clipboard after X seconds
    - jen20 6y ago
      There’s no reason this couldn’t be a platform-provided function though - a clipboard “stack” would be rather useful anyway.
  - darepublic 6y ago
    They read the clipboard if they autofill.
    - cma 6y ago
      Why?
      - darepublic 6y ago
        To copy what's in the clipboard (hence read access) and then paste it into the destination input
        JoelMcCracken 6y ago
        Still doesn't make sense. It sounds like this is a "hack" to implement some functionality which exposes users' private data. What SHOULD happen is that vendors should expose better APIs which allow the password managers to do what they need to do without exposing the users' data. For example, if the implemented functionality is attempting to make a "temporarily store password in clipboard" feature and implementing it by "reading from clipboard/writing to clipboard/restore clipboard contents after N seconds", there should instead be an atomic "store data in clipboard temporarily" feature.
filleduchaos 6y ago
All copying and pasting relating functionality would be broken, because clipboards literally function by granting programmatic access to applications. "The user initiates a paste command manually" is a requirement that may be trivial for a human to express but near impossible for software to implement.
- cheeze 6y ago
  > "The user initiates a paste command manually" is a requirement that may be trivial for a human to express but near impossible for software to implement. What? No. Sure, there would be changes required, but both Android and iOS could support this pretty easily IMO.
  - filleduchaos 6y ago
    How do you imagine that copying and pasting works on Android and iOS at the moment? "There would be changes required" is a very euphemistic way to phrase what would basically be banning all apps that don't use the high-level views in the OS SDK from having clipboard functionality. Funnily enough, if Apple were to come out tomorrow and say "we're removing the ability to cut, copy and paste from any and all apps that don't use UIKit" this website would have a field day tearing them to shreds and smugly posting about "walled gardens". Convenience, freedom, security. Pick two.

Denvercoder9 6y ago

Chrome on Android shows any URL on the clipboard as a suggestion when focusing the address bar. It's a marginal but quite noticably improvement in user experience.

TehCorwiz 6y ago

Password managers. Auto fill forms. Can’t think of anything else

riffraff 6y ago
why do password managers need to _read_ the clipboard? It seems they would only need to _write_ to it.
- eyeball 6y ago
  I see two behaviors in 1Password 1) I go to a site and it auto fills the login. Not sure when clipboard needs to be involved there. Shouldn’t that just be the application taking data from its database, recognizing the associated form, and filling it? 2) I search for a login manually and copy to clipboard. In that case I’d only ever want it to paste when I issue a paste command manually
- thewisenerd 6y ago
  in my experience, to "restore" clipboard contents after a certain period of time; - read clipboard - write password into clipboard - restore clipboard after X seconds
  - jen20 6y ago
    There’s no reason this couldn’t be a platform-provided function though - a clipboard “stack” would be rather useful anyway.
- darepublic 6y ago
  They read the clipboard if they autofill.
  - cma 6y ago
    Why?
    - darepublic 6y ago
      To copy what's in the clipboard (hence read access) and then paste it into the destination input
      - JoelMcCracken 6y ago
        Still doesn't make sense. It sounds like this is a "hack" to implement some functionality which exposes users' private data. What SHOULD happen is that vendors should expose better APIs which allow the password managers to do what they need to do without exposing the users' data. For example, if the implemented functionality is attempting to make a "temporarily store password in clipboard" feature and implementing it by "reading from clipboard/writing to clipboard/restore clipboard contents after N seconds", there should instead be an atomic "store data in clipboard temporarily" feature.

filleduchaos 6y ago

All copying and pasting relating functionality would be broken, because clipboards literally function by granting programmatic access to applications. "The user initiates a paste command manually" is a requirement that may be trivial for a human to express but near impossible for software to implement.

cheeze 6y ago
> "The user initiates a paste command manually" is a requirement that may be trivial for a human to express but near impossible for software to implement. What? No. Sure, there would be changes required, but both Android and iOS could support this pretty easily IMO.
- filleduchaos 6y ago
  How do you imagine that copying and pasting works on Android and iOS at the moment? "There would be changes required" is a very euphemistic way to phrase what would basically be banning all apps that don't use the high-level views in the OS SDK from having clipboard functionality. Funnily enough, if Apple were to come out tomorrow and say "we're removing the ability to cut, copy and paste from any and all apps that don't use UIKit" this website would have a field day tearing them to shreds and smugly posting about "walled gardens". Convenience, freedom, security. Pick two.