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Kleopatra: improve info on private key location in details
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Description

Follow up of T7128.

In the upper part of the certificate details window there is a line starting with "Private Key:" just above the tabs.

The info here is misleading if not all subkeys are stored in the same location.
See e.g. the picture below, where the primary key was moved to a smart card and deleted on disk, but the subkey is still on disk:

It seems only the storage location of the primary key is taken into account.

Edit 2025-03-20: We decided to leave off the "Private key" line with location info for OpenPGP Keys. The location can be found in the subkey details.

But for S/MIME keys we keep the line, as those do not have subkey information like the OpenPGP ones.

Details

Version
VSD 3.3.0, Gpg4win 4.4.0

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Event Timeline

• ebo created this task.Feb 27 2025, 9:37 AM
• ebo renamed this task from Draft: Kleopatra: information on private key location in details to Draft: Kleopatra: improve info on private key location in details.Feb 27 2025, 9:40 AM
• ebo mentioned this in T7546: Kleopatra: wrong info on private key location in case of multiple .Feb 27 2025, 9:50 AM
• ebo triaged this task as Normal priority.Feb 28 2025, 2:28 PM
• TobiasFella added a subscriber: • TobiasFella.Mar 4 2025, 4:02 PM

In the spirit of making the UI less cluttered, I'd be in favor of removing this line entirely.

If we keep it, then I think some phrasing like in the second case makes most sense: it should tell both that the keys are stored in different places, and where to find this information. But I'm not entirely happy with the exact phrasing yet

• ebo added a comment.EditedThu, Mar 13, 11:02 AM

I noticed a wrong location info ("On this computer and on a smart card") in case of an S/MIME certificate which only resides on a card.
(It started out as "on this computer" and then changed to "On this computer and on a smart card" after a second)

This seems to me a point in favor of ditching the location altogether. Better no information than wrong.
If we don't, please remind me to make a ticket for that case. I made a gif showing it.

As we do not show subkey info for S/MIME certificates I've made that ticket already: T7566

• ebo renamed this task from Draft: Kleopatra: improve info on private key location in details to Kleopatra: improve info on private key location in details.Thu, Mar 20, 4:03 PM
• ebo updated the task description. (Show Details)