a virtual keyboard bookmarklet with SuperGenPass support

One. I like bookmarklets. I started to explore and grow on them when I became aware that my dozens of Firefox addons make it poorly responsive.

Two. I like SuperGenPass. For me it is the simplest and most effective way to manage my passwords (Chris, thank you).

Three. I am so, so lazy and mouse dependent that when I surf the web I get annoyed with having to put my fingers on keyboard, and I would happy if the mouse could totally replace the keyboard.

Four. Sometimes it happens to me to surf on computers that aren’t mine, where twharting keyloggers should be necessary even not sufficient.

Five. I find Javascript a bit complicate and mysterious, but I’m ostinately attempting to have more feeling for it.

All these facts have led me to take a stab at converting the great JavaScript Virtual Keyboard Interface (VKI) by GreyWyvern into a bookmarklet and in the meantime adding SuperGenPass integration to it. People surfing with Firefox and GreaseMonkey addon can already install VKI script but I really miss a bookmarklet that can be used in whatever browser. Now I’m quite satisfied by the fruit of my labour (which, after all, has required just few code lines added or changed).

Here below is the resulting bookmarklet that attachs a virtual keyboard to every input box (text, password and textarea) of the current web page. A click on the six-pointed-star in the top tool line of the virtual keyboard run automatically SuperGenPass script. I’ve tested it without finding any problem in Firefox 3.6 and 4.0, Internet Explorer 8.0 and Iron (Chrome) 4.0.

If you want to try it, you can right-click the button above and add it to your bookmarks or drag it to your bookmarks toolbar. But if, after that, you like it and want to use it regularly, please copy the following two files to your own website rather than linking to them directly and then change properly the bookmarklet source.

The bookmarklet can be customized. In fact, it allows to specify three parameters inside its code:

  • the keyboard layout set when virtual keyboard is displayed; if it is omitted, the default is US International
  • the image mode; if it is true, then a little keyboard image is put just next to each input box, overwise no image is displayed and the virtual keyboard is displayed when focusing an input box; if it is omitted, the default is true
  • the support of SuperGenPass script; if it is true, then the six-pointed-star button is displayed on the top line of the virtual keyboard to run SuperGenPass, overwise nothing is displayed; if it is omitted, the default is true

So, if you want to instruct the script to use Italian keyboard layout, no image mode and no SuperGenPass support, then you have to open the bookmark Properties window and replace the occurrence of
/keyboard2.js?,,with
/keyboard2.js?Italiano,false,falseinside the url box.

The Virtual Keyboard Interface bookmarklet is released under BSD license, and therefore the same is for mine.

Post Scriptum: As VKI author suggests me, I offer just below a direct link to the pure virtual keyboard bookmarklet for people that are not interested in SuperGenPass integration. According to previous explanation, it is identical to the first one apart for a false added after the second comma in bookmarklet URL property.

11 thoughts on “a virtual keyboard bookmarklet with SuperGenPass support

  1. This is great. Can the virtual keyboard be used to enter URLs and search terms in the browser’s navigation and search boxes?
    Thank You for this!

  2. I display the virtual keyboard on your site using IExplorer 8 without any problem.
    Anyhow, you are using the original script by GreyWyvern. Have you already asked him?

  3. Great script!

    I am also a fan of supergenpass. One thing that concerns me is if a site you are logging into suspects you are using it they can capture the master password using javascript, since the field name for the master password has a known name. I changed the field name in my copy, but even if you could use a random name every time a smart script could figure it out.

    A keyboard could eliminate the need for the master password field, perhaps making it more secure. But I don’t know if you can prevent other scripts from listening to your keyboard. Also, the keyboard would have to be integrated into the supergenpass bookmarklet. And they may already be pushing the firefox bookmarklet size limit.

    There are several improvements that I would like to see in supergenpass.

  4. Zobell, you are right. I did recognize that SGP is potentially subjected to a malicious site hijacking, since it works on the same space of the web page DOM. SGP author says that there is no solution for this weakness. I’m working on a modified version (more precisely: a caller script which uses the same SGP bookmarklet) which hopefully should deny such a claim, but I haven’t the time to publish it until the next August.

  5. Great news that you may have a solution! If you can pull this off you’ll defeat both hijackers and keylogers. Thanks for making your wonderful bookmarklets available to all of us.

  6. Zobell, in the past days I’ve worked on my project about supergenpass but I’ve recognized that it has a major flaw. I don’t feel up to make my work public now, but if you want I can describe it to you privately.

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