Re: [Passwordsafe-devel] File Attachment Feature in V3 Format

[Mark M. <mar...@gm...>]

Ok thanks Rony, I'll hopefully get to work on this shortly.

Cheers,
-Mark

On Sat, 6 Oct 2018 at 16:49, pwsafe.org <ro...@pw...> wrote:

> Hi Mark,
>
> An argument could be made that an evolutionary approach such you propose
> is best.
>
> Even if you don't reuse the V4 core code, you might be able to use (and
> improve?) the classes used to manage and display attachments.
>
> If you care to submit a pull request on the Github repo, I'll start a
> separate "V3Att" branch so that others can review / contribute before
> merging into master and releasing this to the public.
>
> Thanks,
>
>   Rony
>
> On Sun, Sep 30, 2018 at 4:41 PM Mark McGuill <mar...@gm...>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've just been chatting with Rony over email about adding a feature to
>> the V3 format to allow people to store files (e.g. images, etc) as part of
>> a record. He suggested it was best to mail this list with the idea, and see
>> what your thoughts are here.
>>
>> I maintain the Strongbox iOS and Mac app (https://strongboxsafe.com),
>> which are Password Safe clients. I get frequent feature requests from
>> people to allow them to add images or attachments to their safes. This is a
>> feature I'd like myself for my own safes too, I'm sure some of you feel the
>> same.
>>
>> Rony had some concerns about performance, which I think are worth
>> discussing. Also, I know that as part of V4 there is some expected support
>> for file attachments. I think however that getting this feature in V3 would
>> be a big win for all password safe users, and I think it could be done in a
>> way that would satisfy a lot of users.
>>
>> As regards the performance given large file sizes, I think that clients
>> could help protect against this by imposing a file size limit (perhaps
>> 5-10MB), and explaining the consequences of adding many large files to the
>> users. I've tested very large databases on iOS devices, and had pretty good
>> results, but of course your mileage will vary, given the device and client
>> implementations.
>>
>> Rony mentioned that it might be worth trying to back port the V4 work
>> that had been done on this feature, into V3. I haven't had a chance to take
>> a look at the feasibility of this just yet, it seems like a full
>> service/Rolls Royce solution that would deal with the performance issues of
>> large databases very well.
>>
>> Separately, I had my own idea of how to do this, that while not as robust
>> and performant as Rony's model, would require very little design changes,
>> and I think could be a fairly straightforward implementation for other
>> clients/platforms.
>>
>> The idea is simply to create a new Record Field Type and some kind of
>> (pseudo code) data structure like so:
>>
>> typedef struct _FileAttachment {
>>
>>     char fileNameLength[4];   // 4 hexadecimal digit file name length
>> (in TCHAR) - Password History Style Length
>>
>>     char mimeTypeLength[4];   // 4 hexadecimal digit mime type length
>> (in TCHAR) - Password History Style Length
>>
>>     char filename[...];       // The file name
>>
>>     char mimeType[...];       // a mime type such as 'image/jpeg' - to
>> aid with opening / encoding / display etc
>>
>>     unsigned char data[];     // The actual data of the file filled out
>> to the end of the field
>>
>> } FileAttachment;
>>
>>
>> I hope that makes sense. Would love to hear your thoughts. I think this
>> could be a great feature for the Password Safe format.
>>
>> Thanks and all the best,
>> -Mark
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>>
>
>
> --
> Ubi dubium, ibi libertas (where there is doubt, there is freedom)
>