No URL keyboard is shown in in-app browser

jhogervorst

[b]Is this bug reproducible?[/b]

Yes, always.



[b]Which devices did this bug appear on and is it reproducible on any devices?[/b]

iPhone 5 (iOS 6.0.1), iPad (3rd gen., iOS 6.0) and iPad mini (iOS 6.0.1).



[b]A quick summary of the bug:[/b]

The keyboard used in the in-app browser isn't an iOS URL keyboard as you'd expect.



[b]Detailed Step-by-step instruction on how to reproduce it:[/b][list=1]

[*]Open the in-app browser.

[*]Tap the address bar.

[*]The keyboard that's shown isn't a URL specific keyboard.

[/list]

This problem is caused by the fact that you use a unified address bar (with included search function) instead of two separate fields, as Safari does. There's been [url="http://www.cultofmac.com/193368/why-mobile-safari-doesnt-have-a-unified-address-bar-like-in-mountain-lion/"]some speculations[/url] about this:



[quote]With the search bar, you get a spacebar at the bottom of the keyboard, but with the address bar you get a period, a forward slash, and a ‘.com’ button. The first makes it easy to search using more than one word, while the second makes it quicker and easier to enter URLs — without switching between different keyboards manually.



(…)



With that said, you probably won’t see a unified address bar in mobile Safari for quite some time.[/quote]



I agree to that post and I hope you'll change the address bar to match Safari's style. iOS users are used to this.



[img]http://cl.ly/image/38062X0F3u0F/1P4-unified-bar.png[/img]

MikeT

Hi,



We'll take your feedback into our consideration. At the moment, we do not plan to get rid of the unified bar and we may likely go with a custom keyboard like Chrome. Nothing is set yet, and we'll adjust our interface as we listen to our customers on this.



Thanks again!

jhogervorst

I would strongly disagree with that approach, if you allow me. I think the browser is one of the most used apps on an iPhone or iPad (if it's not the #1 most used app). Because of that users have a strong feeling with it.



The browser in 1Password 3 was very simple and it always was a pain to use it. Whenever I had to access a site with the login stored in 1Password, it kind of annoyed me that I had to use this browser, because it just didn't feel like Safari.



If you want to provide a good experience, I believe you should provide a browser that's as close to Safari as possible. Users are familiar with it, so they'll be able to use it without learning a new UI. Furthermore it'd be weird to get used to two different browser UI's at the same time, because in essence they both do the same tasks.



If you (personally) like Chrome's UI, you might make a setting to switch between a Safari-like or Chrome-like browser UI. This would make the experience (while using 1Password and your regular browser) the most seamless.



Hopefully you'll reconsider this decision. I'll try to make a simple mock-up of what I believe would be good in Photoshop later today.

kennonb

I would agree with jhogervorst.



I think a good compromise would be to have an additional bar above the keyboard, similar to how Markdown editors work. That way you could include the "TLD" options, plus some other common protocols ("AND", "OR", "quotation marks", "/", etc...).

jhollington

That's essentially how Chrome for iOS presents the keyboard. The key difference is that Chrome uses an "omnibar" that provides both search and direct URL entry, in much the same way as Safari does not in Mountain Lion. Unfortunately, Safari in iOS 6 still retains the former separation between URL entry and search fields.



Personally, I prefer the Omnibar approach and would like to see 1Password's built-in browser stick with that. As long as Chrome-style URL specific buttons are added at the top of the keyboard, I really don't see this issue causing any needless user confusion. In anything, it's somewhat simpler and more direct. Ironically, experienced Safari for iOS users may be confused by where to go to search, but the advantage of the omnibar approach is that most novice users end up searching in the main URL field anyway -- I've been an iPhone user for five years and even I make that mistake from time to time.

kennonb

[quote name='jhollington' timestamp='1353508901' post='63557']

That's essentially how Chrome for iOS presents the keyboard. The key difference is that Chrome uses an "omnibar" that provides both search and direct URL entry, in much the same way as Safari does not in Mountain Lion. Unfortunately, Safari in iOS 6 still retains the former separation between URL entry and search fields.

[/quote]



Ah ok. I don't use Chrome. I didn't realize that's how it worked. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

MikeT

Hi guys,



That's correct, that's the plan we have, we want to build a very nice custom keyboard and hopefully that'll work. If not, we can always change it to match Mobile Safari's style later on if people are not happy about it.



We do ask that you give us some time and try it first.



Thanks again!

skipdb

I prefer the unified bar. I like the idea of a custom keyboard like Chrome.

MikeT

Hi guys,



We switched back to the URL keyboard for now until we add a custom keyboard later.



Thanks for your feedback!