[fryguy]

How many dots/stars should one display for a password? That's a question that can't be answered by your two valid question. Are you suggesting that dots/stars shouldn't be displayed for passwords, since you can't ask how many "characters" it is?

[slededit]

You could divide the length of the string by the length the '*' character in a monospaced font. It doesn't really make sense for a combining or other invisible character to get its own asterisk.

[toast0]

If you have an entry indicator, it should probably be about the same width as the entered text; or if you're concerned about leaking precise length information for fields that aren't monospaced, you could add a dot each time the rendered text would increase in width.