First I have to say KWallet is not user friendly but only friendly for KDE applications. What does it mean? It means using it as password data base for KDE applications is a good idea because we don't have to bother anything but sometimes open a wallet and this is not a problem.
Problem comes when we want to use KWallet as a personal information data base. Then using KWallet is a bad idea. Why? I have not noticed differences in structure in both cases. It is the same wallet good for apps not user. I would call it an application centric.

What's wrong with it? Let me give you a simple example. When you want to create a normal directory within KWallet you get redundant sub-dirs like maps (more below), binary data or nothing meaning "unknown" directory. But I only wanted to create a simple directory to keep my passwords! Let's go further. Assume I have an account on KDE forums. My nick is foo and password, bar. "Passwords" sub-directory calls me to keep it there. So I want to add two entries: user name and password. But we've got a problem. I can only add one title entry then I have to press button "show content" and write the password down. Maybe it works for application using api but definitely it's not user friendly.

Having been curious about "maps" sub-dir I took a look at it. It turned out quickly I can add my desired entries. I could but this doesn't matter. I had to do it manually - there were no predefined entries like title, user, password, url, comment, etc.

I wanted to give KWallet a try but gave up after (literally) a few minutes. As a reference I have used keepassX, an application that kicks KWallet **** when it comes to keeping personal information. There're few applications that keep me away from KDE counterparts. Really I'd like to use KDE applications but in this case I can't.

Could it be done something about it?

PS
Please try out keepassX and compare it with KWallet. Thanks.

That should probably retitled to KWalletManager.

Anyways, I am kind of curios how many people actually interact with KWallet at that level, i.e. through the manager UI.

I prefer getting the data through the interfaces of the applications using the respective passwords, e.g. changing KMail account passwords in KMail, Kopete account passwords, in Kopete, etc.

I bet you have many passwords associated with accounts on web. What about PINs? Other private data? Maybe I was wrong. Aaron Seigo "illuminated" me KWallet is not for end users but it's exactly app centric.

So we miss an important application. If KDE is supposed to conquer the world we need it!

I think what you are looking for is called kjots, which is a note-taking application. I think it will support encrypting individual notes eventually, although exactly when I am not sure (it may be as early as KDE 4.5).

See here: http://dot.kde.org/2010/02/17/kjots-tak ... t-platform

Nope, never use it. One of the first things with a new install is to make sure the wretched thing is definitely turned off. Too many programmes are linking to this and forcing users to use it. Like the original poster I had a go a couple of releases ago, but gave up in frustration at the hoops and the number of times it kept jumping up in front of me. Passwords and security are obviously important, but levels of it and need should be fully left in the hands of the users.

I prefer a secure storage, so I use KWallet all the time. Also, it can be integrated in some non KDE apps too (extension for Firefox, for example):

For me kwallet is just an annoying and useless popup windows, I just press the x in the window all the time because I have no idea what its use is. I tried using it once but every time I filled it in for some app kwallet popped up and I had to fill out my password again!

Then take a look at gnome-keyring, it actually works, it stores your usernames/passwords and you don't have to continuously fill them out again

aapgorilla wrote:Then take a look at gnome-keyring, it actually works, it stores your usernames/passwords and you don't have to continuously fill them out again

This is how KWallet works as well.
You only need to provide your wallet password once or not even that if you have a password-less wallet.

Applications can then conveniently retrieve authentication information from there without having to ask the user

Cheers,
_

For those who have problems with KWallet, I would recommend checking your KWallet closing settings in System Settings.