setting up password fields

[Dave Cragg]

At 12:39 pm -0800 21/3/03, Chris Sheffield wrote:

>I know this one has been discussed a while back.  I
>found some posts in an old archive, but I was
>wondering if anyone has a better (newer) way of
>setting up a regular field to accept a password entry
>(i.e. put a '*' in place of each character).  I tried
>some code from an old archive something like:
>
>on keydown whichKey
>    global thisPassword
>    put whichKey after thisPassword
>    put "*" after field "passwordField"
>end keyDown
>
>But this doesn't quite work.  If the user has to
>modify what he's typed, or if he highlights the entire
>password, deletes it, and starts over, the value in
>thisPassword just keeps building on itself.

Here are some scripts I use for this. In this case, the "real" text 
is stored in a custom property instead of a global. It takes account 
of cases where the insertion pont is not at the end of the field and 
when there is a selection. But you would also need to decide whether 
to allow pasting/cutting in the field, and if so, how to handle it. 
(I disallow it.)

on keyDown pChar
    if pChar is in "-1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" then ##or whatever
      put word 2 of the selectedChunk into tCh1
      put word 4 of the selectedChunk into tCh2
      put the cpPassText of me into tPassText
      if tCh1 > tCh2 then
        put "*" after  char tCh2 of me
        put pChar after char tCh2 of tPassText
      else
        delete char tCh1 to tCh2 of me
        delete char tCh1 to tCh2 of tPasstext
        put "*" after char tCh1 -1 of me
        put pChar after char tCh1 -1 of tPasstext
      end if
      set the cpPassText of me to tPassText
    else
      beep
    end if
end keyDown

on deleteKey
    put word 2 of the selectedChunk into tCh1
    put word 4 of the selectedChunk into tCh2
    put the cpPassText of me into tPassText
    if tCh1 > tCh2 then
      delete char tCh1 of me
      delete char tCh1 of tPassText
    else
      delete char tCh1 to tch2 of me
      delete char tCh1 to tch2 of tPassText
    end if
    set the cpPassText of me to tPassText
end deleteKey

on backspaceKey
    put word 2 of the selectedChunk into tCh1
    put word 4 of the selectedChunk into tCh2
    put the cpPassText of me into tPassText
    if tCh1 > tCh2 then
      delete char tCh2 of me
      delete char tCh2 of tPassText
    else
      delete char tCh1 to tch2 of me
      delete char tCh1 to tch2 of tPassText
    end if
    set the cpPassText of me to tPassText
end backspaceKey


Cheers
Dave