License Key never picked up

alanackerman

<div class="IPBDescription">License Key never picked up when I drag Application to 1Password</div>When I drag an application Icon, or a bunch of them, to 1Password in the dock, it never picks up the License Key or other useful items. All I ever get is the application icon and the application name. Why doesn't this work?



This renders dragging multiple items at once pretty useless, as I still have to update them one at a time to fill in the License Key, etc.



Your documentation "[url="http://help.agile.ws/1Password3/software_licenses.html"]1Password Vault type: Software Licenses[/url]" says:



Ways to create a new Software License item in 1Password:

• Drag and drop an application onto 1Password’s Dock icon or sidebar

Tips and things to know

• You can drag multiple applications at once into 1Password 3 to quickly add new Software Licenses for each of them. This is probably the fastest way to get started with Software Licenses if you were not already cataloging them in 1Password 2’s Wallet.



So it seems it should work.



Mac OS X 10.6.6

1Password 3.5.8

brenty

I think there might be some misunderstanding. Unfortunately, I don't believe it would be possible for 1Password to automatically import your license keys or other proprietary data from other applications when you drag their icons to 1Password. This would require 1Password to know where and how to access this information on a per-application basis.



Not only would this be infeasible with so much new software being released all across the globe, I kind of find the idea a bit creepy -- cool, but creepy. <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />



I guess I'm just a bit paranoid, so I prefer to pick and choose what is and is not stored in my 1Password keychain. And my OCD streak demands that it be entered meticulously... <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':P' />



At any rate, I am fairly certain that what the knowledgebase article is referring to is the ability to have any number of individual Software License items automatically created with their name, version number, and icon by selecting them all and dragging them onto the 1Password window. This is only possible because these things are standard metadata within the filesystem. I can see how this could be kind of disappointing, given that you were expecting the license keys themselves to be added as well, but it's still much easier than manually creating an item for each and entering all of the application names and versions one at a time.

[Deleted User]

Thanks brenty! You're right on the money, 1Password can't pull your actual license details from the applications file, there's just no way for us to do that without every developer switching to a common licensing system, which is probably not a good idea in the long run, or our developers spending hours and hours digging through the code of other apps to find where the license details are stored, and I'm not sure that's a valuable use of their time.



Of course, the exception to that is the Mac App Store, where your license is handled via your Apple ID, so there is no actual license key. Do those apps need to be stored in 1Password? Probably not, unless you want to make a note of which Apple ID you used to purchase them.



We are looking into ways to improve the import of software licenses, for example we're looking into ways to let you drag an e-mail containing your license details into 1Password and have it parse everything for you, I don't have a timeframe for when this will be available though.

brenty

[quote name='stu' timestamp='1299498570' post='21960']

We are looking into ways to improve the import of software licenses, for example we're looking into ways to let you drag an e-mail containing your license details into 1Password and have it parse everything for you, I don't have a timeframe for when this will be available though.

[/quote]



That's an awesome idea, but I fear that I may have to start using an actual email client for that to work. For some reason I'm just really attached to webmail. <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':unsure:' />



I've heard good things about [url="http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/"]Sparrow[/url]...

[Deleted User]

[quote name='brenty' timestamp='1299572016' post='22040']

I've heard good things about [url="http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/"]Sparrow[/url]...

[/quote]



Sparrow is now my full time mail client, because all my accounts are either gMail or Google Apps based. They are looking to add IMAP support in a future update, so it may become more useful to non Google folk, but I fell in love with the app very quickly, especially the Growl notifications.

alanackerman

I guess this is just semantics, but you say it creates a Software License items, so I assume it will include the license. Maybe you should just call them Software items. Or explain that they will have to add the license manually. I don't think I would have bothered dragging all my applications in, as the documentation suggests, if I had known that.



I don't know enough about writing Mac apps to know whether it is easy or hard. I guess this is not a facility supplied by Apple, but has to be reinvented by each app developer. Presumably the app owner does not want it to be easy to extract.

khad

[quote]Presumably the app owner does not want it to be easy to extract. [/quote]

That's the crux of it right there. <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skype_worried.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':S' />



A Software License item is like a shoebox. It doesn't necessarily have a license key in it just like a shoebox doesn't necessarily have shoes in it. It is but a container. In fact, I have several Software License items that contain no license key at all but a file attachment which I drag and drop into the application to register it. <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skype_bigsmile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-D' />



I'm sorry I don't have better news, but I hope that clarifies the situation a bit.



Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.



We are always here to help!

Monzterdk

[b]Hi there[/b] ( my first post here)



as I have been using 1password almost from the very beginning, I recently realized that there was a lot more usability in this app.

i started to use the software section and i love it even though i also have other apps. that specialises in this.



the other apps uses mail import for easy registration of the software. some have a button on Macupdate that lets you import all info that way,

would it be possible to implement this in 1password or make it as an addon or something



Most Respectfully

Monzterdk

brenty

Hiya, Monzterdk; and welcome to the forums!



I hope you don't mind, but I've merged your post into another similar thread.



I really like the idea of importing licenses from email (if I understood correctly.) I am not certain if this is a good fit for 1Password, but if we do go down that road in the future it would certainly be a neat addition to our Software License support.



As was discussed above, software license keys and how they are stored varies greatly between applications, so it's a difficult thing to pull off without a huge resource commitment. I would imagine that MacUpdate benefits from having a relationship with a wide cross-section of the Mac developer community. It may be a situation where they have proposed a standard format that many software developers use in their apps so that MacUpdate can access the data in a reliable way.



I may be premature in saying so, but with the Mac App Store around now software licenses may be on the way out -- for the majority anyway. Despite some drawbacks, I kind of like having Apple keep track of some of my software that way. Only time will tell. <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />





[quote name='Monzterdk' timestamp='1303908795' post='25730']

[b]Hi there[/b] ( my first post here)



as I have been using 1password almost from the very beginning, I recently realized that there was a lot more usability in this app.

i started to use the software section and i love it even though i also have other apps. that specialises in this.



the other apps uses mail import for easy registration of the software. some have a button on Macupdate that lets you import all info that way,

would it be possible to implement this in 1password or make it as an addon or something



Most Respectfully

Monzterdk

[/quote]