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GPGP as a general text encryption/decryption service in OS X

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Joe Dyndale

14 Mar, 2012 12:49 PM

Hi,

I find it kind of strange that the approach of creating a Mail plugin was taken, but it sure is an extra convenience, so I'm not complaining :O)

However, I'd really like to see it implemented as a general text encryption/decryption service in OS X so that it would be available for any type of text input field in OS X applications via the Services sub-menu, preferably able to encrypt only the selected text. That would be immensely useful!

I'm a programmer myself, but I haven't really gotten my toes wet in Objective-C yet, let alone the OS X APIs - but if nobody else has the time to prioritize such a feature it could be a cool (albeit possibly over-ambitious) first Objective-C project for me. No doubt it would go several orders of magnitude faster if an expert did it though... ;O)

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Luke Le on 14 Mar, 2012 01:14 PM

   

   Hi Joe,

   did you have a look at GPGServices already?
   http://www.gpgtools.org/gpgservices/index.html

   The Mail plugin focuses completely on ease of use for the
   average user. Not everyone is comfortable to do encryption/decryption etc.
   manually and they shouldn't have to be.

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2. 2 Posted by Joachim Dyndale on 14 Mar, 2012 01:23 PM

   

   Hi,

   Yes, and none of the tools appear in the services menu in TextEdit (whether text is selected or not) or in Chrome or Safari. I'm on 10.7.3, so maybe this is an incompatibility with the latest OS release?

   I absolutely agree people shouldn't really have to do this manually, which is why I said I liked the Mail plugin as a convenience.

   I love what you're doing with GPGTools, 'cause I tried MacGPG a long time ago and hated the experience. Things are looking much better now - so keep up the great work!

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3. 3 Posted by Joachim Dyndale on 14 Mar, 2012 01:27 PM

   

   Aha... Saw now that this wasn't turned on by default. Working now. Awesome :O)

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4. Support Staff 4 Posted by Luke Le on 14 Mar, 2012 01:29 PM

   

   Thanks, we're trying to make it as painless as possible :)

   Could you try the GPGServices from nightly.gpgtools.org and let
   us know if that works?
   Services in OS X are very fragile unfortunately.

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Luke Le on 14 Mar, 2012 01:31 PM

   

   Perfect! Great to hear!
   I'll close this discussion. Feel free to open a new one if you run into problems again.

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6. Luke Le closed this discussion on 14 Mar, 2012 01:31 PM.