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waydabber / BetterDisplay

Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more!
https://betterdisplay.pro
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Add something like "Secure input activated by: X. Limited shortcut functionality." (if relevant) #2054

Open 0xdevalias opened 1 year ago

0xdevalias commented 1 year ago

I'm not sure if this is something that is relevant to BetterDisplay, but I figured I would ask all the same (and to pre-empt the question, I know these are different products by different devs, but I just want to use the feature as an example, and comparison is the easiest way)

In BetterTouchTool, sometimes shortcuts aren't available when a 'secure input' is activated, and there is a section at the top of the menu of the menubar item that says:

Usually this would only show up briefly while a login field is present or similar; but it seems that sometimes it gets stuck that way (unsure if it's a macOS thing or a BetterTouchTool thing; but that's sort of irrelevant for this issue). Running with the theory that it's 'stuck' at a macOS/system level, and that impacting some shortcuts in BetterTouchTool, it's nice to be able to see that warning on the menu, so that I get some 'signal' as to why those shortcuts might not be working.

So I guess the directly relevant questions are:

waydabber commented 1 year ago

I am not sure whether this is relevant, to me it seems like the app can use shortcuts just fine when entering passwords (tried triggering password inputs in System Settings) but I might just jet to encounter an app that sufficiently triggers secure input. If you let me know about a password prompt when you know for sure secure input is activated and this causes a problem, let me know!

0xdevalias commented 1 year ago

No worries, it could just be that BetterTouchTool does something 'fancy'/'tricky' for some of it's shortcuts in a way that isn't compatible with secure input.

The 'root' issue I noticed recently that caused me to think about this was that the brightness up/down shortcuts didn't seem to be working for my external monitor; and then I noticed the warning in BetterTouchTool; but given the secure input was apparently being kept active by 'loginwindow', I suspect there is something else weird happening on my system at the moment, so potentially just needs a reboot/similar.

0xdevalias commented 1 year ago

Though.. weirdly.. just noticed that the brightness keys are working again; and the warning is gone from BetterTouchTool.. so maybe there is something to this..

Will see if I can 'force' a situation again to test this and let you know.

0xdevalias commented 1 year ago

Ok, opening the 'passwords' section of my macOS settings notifies my apple watch with the "double click to approve" easy signin thing; and while that is active, it seems to trigger the BetterTouchTool warning:

image

While that warning is present, the brightness up/down keys on my magic keyboard aren't making BetterDisplay change the brightness of my external monitor; and when the BetterTouchTool warning goes away again, they seem to be able to work again. So there definitely seems to be something weird happening here.

Versions:

waydabber commented 1 year ago

Hmm. Just checked the "Passwords" section and the shortcuts seem to work while the OS is waiting for password. Last time I tried on Sonoma, now on Ventura. Maybe somehow BTT is interfering? I am not sure.

waydabber commented 1 year ago

(I tried both custom shortcuts and the native brightness keys as these are handled by two separate mechanisms.)

waydabber commented 1 year ago

Hmm. I think I was able to invoke the mechanism. If I click outside of the Passwords window in System Settings and click again on the window shortcuts start not to work. Now when I click outside again and click on it again, shortcuts start working again (even though the password input is the active window and is accepting password). The feature generally seems to be buggy in macOS? :)

waydabber commented 1 year ago

For the future, this is how the relevant process info can be found:

https://alexwlchan.net/2021/secure-input/

BenJohnsonGranicus commented 10 months ago

I am pretty sure the "Secure input activated" is coming from MacOS making sure you don't have malware listening to keystrokes when it is asking for the user to input a password. I get it frequently after locking the screen for an extended period, then unlocking with the fingerprint reader. I just need to lock the screen and unlock to clear it.

It would be really nice to get a red dot on the BTT menu bar icon at the top of the screen as a warning when this mode is engaged