Start a new topic

Getting Beorg encryption to work less awkwardly

Hi all,

I am trying to love the encryption feature in Beorg and while it's great that it's there, I think the workflow is pretty awkward and I'm wondering whether that is my fault or if Beorg could be made to make it a bit easier to use. I'm also aware that encryption is per item and not per file, so this places certain restrictions. Nevertheless I think there are a few UI issues that could be worked out.


Concretely:

  1. Is there a way to make the padlock icon more prominent? On my iPhone the toolbar shows just the todo state and scheduling icons, the padlock is in the second row of icons behind a "more" button. Two extra clicks for every operation on an encrypted note.  
  2. Is there a way to make Beorg encrypt a new item by default? Currently I have to create the item, and then encrypt it with two extra clicks.
  3. Is there a way to make Beorg decrypt encrypted items automatically by default? I can see that there could be an argument about convenience/security tradeoffs here, but I would prefer convenience, at least within the time window where the key is valid. Maybe a configuration option? 
  4. Is there a way to decrypt *all* the encrypted items in a file automatically already in the file view, so that I can see the file content a whole? Currently I open a file and see a lot of PGP blocks. Then I have to open each item, then three extra clicks, two to find the padlock and another to select unlock/reencrypt.
  5. Is there a way to view subitems of an encrypted item automatically, like in the regular file view (i.e. outside of the item editor where the content is cramped in by the whole editing UI)? 



For your first point I would be interested to know what model of iPhone you have - and also if you have display zoom turned on. If you could post a screenshot showing this that would be great. I'm guessing you must have a first-gen iPhone SE as I haven't seen the toolbar collapsing items before on iPhone 8 display or larger.


For the other points they are all good and I've made a note to look at these in more detail and hopefully implement some/most of these in a future update.


Thank you for your detailed post!


1 person likes this

Thanks for your reply. Here is a screenshot of the Beorg editing window. This is on an iPhone 11 Pro set to Standard display, not Zoome (see 2nd screenshot). 


As you can see in the Beorg window, the whole editing UI is really cramped, and opening all that each time I want to read an encrypted note is not very convenient, and having more access to encrypted content also from other places within the app would make the encryption feature a lot easier to use without compromising much on security, and for the more security-minded users you can always make it customisable.

Thank you for posting the screenshot.


I would ideally like to completely rewrite the outliner. The current separation between the selected item in the outline view and the editable 'portion' of the screen is a little clunky. However failing that I will be doing some thinking about improving the current UI.

Login or Signup to post a comment