I am looking for a way to store an email password in a datafile (for emailing of course) but after the password is entered (or while entering) I would like the characters to be replaced with asterisks (*). Upon saving the layout should never show the password in plain text.

TIA,

Jim

Jim:

You can use a bullet font for the purpose - just remember that if someone can copy the bullets, they can still pull the data out just by changing the font. There's a version called Bulletz out there somewhere, which is free. I can't find the link right now.

-Stanley

You could also just set the password field as no access in permissions, then use a script with full permissions showing a custom dialog (and you can have the data show up as asterisks in the options there) in order to enter the data.

You could then set a display field on the layout as a calc field to display asterisks if the password field isn't empty. That would prevent the cut and paste issue.

Hi, Jim. Another alternative is to use the hidden portal trick to make the password disappear when entered correctly:

1. Make a field named "IncorrectPassword" which is a calc number field that evaluates to 1 whenever the password is incorrect.

2. Make a field named "AlwaysOne" which is a calc number field that evaluates to 1 (always and forever). I include such a field in every database i create, because it has many uses.

3. Create a relationship from IncorrectPassword to AlwaysOne. Whenever the password is incorrect, this relationship will be valid.

4. Make a portal based on this relationship and place the password field inside of it. (You should not use the password field pulled through the relationship -- use the parent-level, that is, the native field.)

5. When the password is incorrect, the password field will display because the relationship from IncorrectPassword (=1) to AlwaysOne (=1) is valid. Once the correct password is entered, the password field will disappear because it will suddenly be located within an invalid portal.

HTH,

Jerry

If the table has a large number of records in it, then it's faster to use a calc that returns the serial, and make your relationship from this field to serial.

Good point, JT. I had limited my thinking to a global field, which was part of a project i was just working on. The example i gave would really only work well for one record.

You would need to double-key the relationship on the serial and the IncorrectPassword, no?

I don't think so. A calc of Case( test for incorrect password; serial ) related to serial should be sufficient.