The browser extension refresh preview has been updated with the following enhancements. Check out the instructions on how to download the extension preview. Thanks again for all the feedback!
Key Updates
1. Search FieldThe search field now auto-focuses as soon as the extension opens, allowing searches to begin immediately without extra clicks.
2. AutoFill ButtonThe “AutoFill” button has been updated to “Fill” for a more compact design. This adjustment frees up space to display email addresses and item names more clearly.
3. Launch Website ButtonThe Launch Website button has been moved to the main item action bar, making it quicker and easier to access frequently visited websites.
4. Compact ModeA new compact mode has been added for those who prefer to see more vault items at once. This setting can be found in Settings > Appearance.
5. Vault FiltersAn option to toggle the visibility of vault filters is now available. The preference to show or hide filters is saved between sessions.
6. Notes FieldThe notes field in the item view now has an expanded height, allowing larger notes to be viewed and edited with less scrolling.
7. Generator BugsSeveral bugs in the password generator have been resolved to improve functionality.
@Kevin_Harris Thanks for the update - and it’s good to see some of the improvements!
Without going through the entire list of “open issues” we raised here: drag & drop is still not there - and that is more painful than I realised before, because sometimes and at the same time frequently I “need” that.
@Kevin_Harris I have to say that the long-awaited “Compact Mode” is underwhelming, at best. We get to view a single additional item in the vertical direction, and 3 extra characters in the horizontal direction?
(yes, I did see that there is an option to extend the viewport width, which is nice, but has its own drawbacks, and certainly does not qualify as a “compact” presentation of information)
→ about six characters more now (in German… so, obviously dependent on language/translation)
An improvement, no question, but more and more I, too, desire a “symbol”.
PS: Ahhh… I just found the possibilty to choose the width of the extension window (standard, wide, extra wide). That is interesting - and may compensate here. (if in daily use, an (extra) wide window doesn’t serve other severe disadvantages…)
We’ll continue to monitor the feedback for compact mode and adjust as needed. You can also toggle the visibility of the filters under the search bar to get more items above the scroll.
Not really that compact… The vertical density has been increased by at most 20% (if one hides the filters), and the horizontal density has been increased by 6–15% (depending on viewport width), for a total (area) density increase of no more than 40%.
For comparison, in the “Pre-Modern” UI, the information density was 100% higher in the vertical dimension, and 25% higher in the horizontal direction, for a total increase of 150% in information per area (i.e., the information density used to be 2.5× higher than in the current default mode, and around 1.8× higher than in the new pseudo-“compact” mode).
Yes, the visibility toggle is a good option, but I think you missed the point about the “compact” mode. This would be a mode used by individuals who prioritize efficiency in information presentation (and ability to access items without scrolling), and who do not care about the latest fads in UI visual design (large margins/padding, rounded corners, etc.). Call it “Ugly” mode if you want, but please make it more usable for power-users!
Why not solicit user feedback about how to make the compact mode more compact? In addition to reducing padding and margins (which seems to be the only change introduced in the beta version of compact mode), how about:
Using fonts with smaller aspect ratio (to improve horizontal information density)?
The “Fill” button only appears when an item is shown in the “Autofill suggestions” section. In the other categories (Favorites, and All items), the Launch action is shown instead.
Passkey handling seems to be even more broken in version 2024.11.9991 than it had been in version 2024.11.999. For example, attempting to use “Sign in with passkey” on GitHub no longer triggers a Bitwarden prompt (whether the vault is locked or unlocked). The login form briefly shows “Waiting for input from browser interaction”, and then displays “Authentication failed”. There is never a Bitwarden prompt, nor does the operating system (Windows Security) prompt for use of passkeys.
Bug Report: Autofill Does Not Prompt To Unlock Vault
If the browser extension is locked, and the user initiates an autofill action using the Ctrl+Shift+L keyboard shortcut, or by selecting Bitwarden > Autofill Login > Unlock Your Vault in the right-click context menu, nothing happens. The expected (previous) behavior is for the browser extension to pop-up a prompt to unlock the vault, followed by automatic closing of the prompt and automatic completion of the requested autofill action. None of this happens in version 2024.11.9991.
Bug Report: Unlocking Vault Causes Unexpected Change in Window/Tab Focus
This is not 100% reproducible, but probably 95% reproducible on my system. Open multiple Chrome browser windows, and within each, open multiple tabs. Lock the extension, then select (focus) one of the first tabs in one of the browser windows (not sure if the tab sequency is important). Now open the browser extension using Ctrl+ Shift+ Y, input the unlock credential (master password in my tests), and press the Enter key.
We expect the vault to unlock, the browser extension popup to remain open (and in focus), and the active browser tab to remain active and in the foreground
Instead, in version 2024.11.9991, the vault unlocks, but when this happens, the browser extension popup loses focus, the previously open browser tab disappears from the foreground, and instead, focus is given either to a different browser tab (in the same browser window) or to a different browser window altogether (I was unable to work out what conditions trigger each possible outcome). If the focus changes to a different tab in the same browser window, then the browser extension popup window is closed. If the focus changes to a different browser window, then the browser extension popup window remains open (but not visible, as it is attached to a browser window that is now in the background).
Somewhat related, the text in the settings currently use a preposition (“on”) that seems incorrect in this context; surely, “…on Vault View” should be “… in Vault view”.
*Update: The missing card & identity items are evidently a new feature, but this is a feature that is not working consistently. As explained below the new feature sometimes fails (false negative) in detecting credit card form fields tha do exist, and therefore hides the vault card items from the autofill suggestions even when they should be shown.
The “fill” button autofill process is a bit slower in this update. It takes a second longer to fill the credentials with a loading animation inside the extension. It wasn’t this noticeable and was near instant autofill in the previous update.
The vault filters are super handy. The filter button appear blurry on external monitors though.
Cards and identities appear in autofill suggestions when the user is on a page with a form that we detect as a valid place to fill that data. So if you are on a page with no credit card entry form, we do not show your cards in the autofill suggestions. This is a change over the current behavior.
@Micah_Edelblut Thank you for clarifying. Are you doing the same thing for login items on a page that has no detectable login entry form (independent of the URI match check)? If so, it’s not working.
P.S. I do really like the reduced clutter that has resulted from this new (but unexpected) behavior.
Though that has nothing to do with the redesign directly, but this post Allow manual language selection in the Bitwarden extension brought to my attention, that you can’t select the language for the browser extension manually (latest stable and latest beta browser extension alike). I never noticed this until now. (e.g. on the mobile apps, you can manually select the language for the app)
Maybe this should be incorporated into the new extension? Having consistency between all apps is always also good for the UX, I think.
@grb no, the behavior for showing autofill suggestions for the ‘login’ item type has not changed. It’s an interesting suggestion though, I’ll pass it along.
(Sorry, sometimes things have to be “processed” by humour…)
- and may compensate here. (if in daily use, an (extra) wide window doesn’t serve other severe disadvantages…)
