Algorithms for the Masses by Julian M Bucknall

In the post I wrote a couple of weeks ago on SplashID, I mentioned that I'd converted my data from Passwords Plus using CSV files. At the time I only mentioned the format of the VID files for SplashID, but didn't provide any information on how to do the conversion. You will require Excel, or any program that can open a CSV file in a spreadsheet-like form.

First of all, get a USB drive that you can reformat. We're going to be creating plaintext (that is, readable) CSV files containing all your passwords. We should really wipe them once the conversion is over and not leave them hanging around on your hard disk (say, in the Recycle Bin).

Open Passwords Plus. Select File | Export. Dismiss the warning dialog, and then save the CSV file to your USB drive. Close Passwords Plus.

Open the CSV file in Excel. You'll see that the first row is just version information. Ignore. The second row are the column headers (or the field names, if you like) for the fields in each record. At the top of the actual records are all the individual data items from Passwords Plus (the entry in the first column is 0), and if you scroll down you'll see the template records (the entry in the first column is 1). Delete all the template records.

The columns are:

Is Template
Title
Category
Field 1 Label, Field 1 Value, Field 1 Hidden
Field 2 Label, Field 2 Value, Field 2 Hidden
...
Field 10 Label, Field 10 Value, Field 10 Hidden
Note

Leave the column header row, since it'll help identify the fields once we start rearranging the columns, since SplashID expects the fields in a different order.

First, put an 'F' in column A for each data row. That's the record identifier for SplashID.

Insert a new column B. Set each cell to 22. This is the image number of the "head" from SplashID's image list. (Choose whichever you want, of course. Images are numbered from 0 in the image list in SplashID. Instead of counting across and row by row, count down and column by column. No, I don't know why.)

Column C (Title) is now in the right place for SplashID's item name/description.

Now it gets messy since we have to rearrange the columns, and furthermore we have to delete the columns for fields 9 and 10 (SplashID has no "room" for them). You need to look at those two columns to see if you've used them at all for any data records. Make a note of which records will have to be patched up (for me, there were 6 out of about 300). Delete all 6 columns that deal with those two fields now.

Move all the "Field X Label" columns over to the right, in order. To do this, select the column with the mouse (hover over Excel's lettered column header until the mouse pointer turns to a downarrow and then click), press Ctrl+X to cut the column, move over to a blank column way over on the right, and press Ctrl+V to paste. The Category column will have to be moved as well in the same manner, of course.

Then move all the "Field X Hidden" columns over to the right, again in order. You'll now have all the "Field X Value" columns with blank columns in between.

Move the eight "Field X Value" columns over to the left in order. "Field 1 Value" will occupy column D and will become SplashID's field 2, since Title became SplashID's field 1 in essence. Set all cells in column L to a string representing today's date (say "July 10, 2009"); this will be the last modified date for SplashID.

Set all cells in column M to zero for now (the masked fields).

Now we can move the custom field names as SplashID puts it, or the "Field X Labels" as Passwords Plus terms them. Set all cells in column N to "Description", and then move the "Field 1 Label" column to column O, "Field 2 Label" to column P, and so on. Set all cells in column W to "Date Mod". Move the Category column to column X, and the Notes column to column Y.

Almost done, only the masked fields column to fix up. This is a bit field with bit 0 for field 1 (set it's masked or hidden, clear it's visible), bit 1 for field 2, etc. To set this you need to write a formula to convert the "Field X Hidden" values into a bit field. Pretty simple: suppose you moved the "hidden" columns over to BA to BH, then the formula for row 3 would be:

+(BA3*2)+(BB3*4)+(BC3*8)+(BD3*16)+(BE3*32)+(BF3*64)+(BG3*128)+(BH3*256)

(We start with 2 as the multiplier since you can mark the record description, field 1, as masked in SplashID.) After doing this, you need to fix these values. Select the column, cut it, and Paste Special back into the same place. The formulas will have gone, replaced by their values. Now you can delete everything to the right of column Y.

Finally, you need to have three new rows at the top, above the data records, instead of the two current ones. Clear rows 1 and 2, insert a new row 3, and set them to:

SplashID vID File -v3.0
F
T, 21, Imported, Description, Custom 1, Custom 2, Custom 3, Custom 4, Custom 5, Custom 6, Custom 7, Custom 8, Date Mod, 0

(Note: in the first two rows the values go into column A, and in the third row set column A to 'T', column B to 21, column C to "Imported" , and so on.)

Save the file as a new CSV file, say called "DataImport.VID" on the USB drive. Close Excel.

Open SplashID desktop, and import this VID file.

Once you're happy with the resulting import, reformat your USB drive, and don't use the "Quick Format" option. You can also now change each item in SplashID if you want to flag each record with something other than "Imported". I tend to do this for a given record when I need to retrieve it.

Possible Issues

I've already mentioned the problem about fields 9 and 10. Nothing for it but to fix the records up in SplashID manually, I'm afraid.

I ran into an issue where Passwords Plus accepts returns in fields (that is, field values can be multiple lines), but SplashID does not. If you've used this "feature", there is nothing for it but to go back to Passwords Plus and change all those values to single lines. If you don't the import will go wildly wrong, since the SplashID CSV file reader doesn't know what to do with carriage returns in quoted field values. In fact, unlike me :), I'd recommend you check your data first before you start the laborious column moving stuff in Excel.

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