Faux "password entry prompt"

How did you happen upon this little trick?

Well, because I just made like you at first and some other folk pointed me out to that same property.

Don't forget the ESTK Object Model Explorer and look carefully at the scriptUI components "properties" section. It can includes gems like this.

Loic

Hey guys! Thanks so much for your input.

I got stuck working on a different project shortly after i posted this so i haven't had a chance to try out your suggestions, but I'll let you guys know how it turns out ASAP.

Thanks again.

You can try to use this method, which uses ScriptUI and its 'keydown' event on an edittext element. It uses the "preventDefault()" method to not put the native key's text into the field, so that a custom text can instead be placed. I used the 'keyName' property which puts out uppercase names of the keys, and writes out verbose key names of keys such as "Escape". There's also a 'keyIdentifier' property which provides a character code, which you could also use somehow. In my example, it just gives a basic way to use the keys, but I'm not sure how you'd get the 'text' of the keys such as the !@#$%^&*() characters without having to have some function which takes a keyName or identifier and checks for the alt/cmd/shift buttons also being pressed at the same time to arrive at this text.

In this example the correct password is going to be "bingo" -note case-insensitive- and this hard-coded string can be obscured from the user if your script is exported as binary.

#target illustrator
function test() {
    function getMaskedPassword(charAmt) {
        var str = "";
        for (var i = 0; i < charAmt; i++) {
            str += "*";
        }
        return str;
    };
    var w = new Window("dialog", "Fake Password");
    var s = w.add("statictext", undefined, "Enter Password:");
    var e = w.add("edittext", undefined, "");
    e.characters = 20;
    e.password = "";
    var btn_ok = w.add("button", undefined, "Ok");
    e.onChange = function() {
        if (this.text == "") {
            this.password = "";
        } else {
            this.text = getMaskedPassword(this.password.length);
        }
    };
    e.addEventListener("keydown", function(ev) {
        if (ev.keyName == "Tab" || ev.keyName == "Delete" || ev.keyName == "Escape" || ev.keyName == "Enter") {
            this.notify("onChange");
            return;
        }
        ev.preventDefault();
        this.password += ev.keyName;
        this.text = getMaskedPassword(this.password.length);
    });
    btn_ok.onClick = function() {
        if (e.password.toLowerCase() == "bingo") {
            w.close();
            alert("Success!");
        } else {
            alert("Access DENIED");
            e.text = "";
            e.password = "";
        }
    }
    w.show();
};
test();