Fix Auto-Type modifiers on Windows

[droidmonkey]

Also add documentation on modifiers.

• Fix Auto-Type: modifier for WIN key not working #7626
• Fix {#} doesn't allow to use hash in Auto-Type sequence #7743

Testing strategy

Tested on Windows

Type of change

• ✅ Bug fix (non-breaking change that fixes an issue)

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests ✅

Project coverage is 64.29%. Comparing base (aca197a) to head (91ebc7b).
Report is 461 commits behind head on develop.

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff             @@
##           develop    #7629      +/-   ##
===========================================
- Coverage    64.31%   64.29%   -0.02%     
===========================================
  Files          339      339              
  Lines        43450    43454       +4     
===========================================
- Hits         27943    27937       -6     
- Misses       15507    15517      +10     

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[codonell]

@droidmonkey Why are the existing ASCII sequences used for special charaters? This change in backwards incompatible with all existing auto-type sequences that might have +, ^, % and #, and indeed this breaks a significant number of my auto-type sequences.

[droidmonkey]

Take that up with keepass, they chose this syntax not us.

[codonell]

Take that up with keepass, they chose this syntax not us.

As a career implementer of POSIX and ISO C interfaces, I can certainly understand the "Because the standardizing organization said it was this way", thank you for answering my question. I see that "@" is the Windows Key (as modifier) (https://keepass.info/help/base/autotype.html) where is the specification for "#" to be used as Win/Cmd? I'm just trying to write a cleanup pass to export, process, and import my auto-type entries.

[droidmonkey]

@ is only defined for keepass 1.x. We chose # for keepassxc to provide that capability since @ is way more common to be used in a sequence as a character and not a modifier.

[codonell]

@ is only defined for keepass 1.x. We chose # for keepassxc to provide that capability since @ is way more common to be used in a sequence as a character and not a modifier.

Certainly, if you used @ it would break emails in auto-type sequences and require escaping, which is why I assume Keepass 2.x deprecated @ usage in auto-type, and switched to recommending VKEY.

Does the choice of # (special meaning for standard ASCII character) for keepassxc cause compatibility problems between keepass and keepassxc when it comes to sharing auto-type sequences?

How can # be used for @? Is # a single-key modifier? Are {VKEY 91 D}e{VKEY 91 U} and #e equivalent now?

So if I have #e in my keepass auto-type and I migrate it to keepassxc it will not be interpreted the same?

Is it possible to remove # from the special characters to avoid this incompatibility with upstream keepass?

[droidmonkey]

We don't support the VKEY syntax, and no we aren't going to revert this feature. You should almost never Auto-Type raw characters, placeholders don't apply the modifier logic.

If you define a sequence using # to hold down the win key in keepassxc, you can easily define a second sequence that uses VKEY in keepass.

#e => WIN+E
{#}e => #e
@e => @e