Re: Matrix - clients
 

@r0kk3rz - please correct me, but it seems that https://github.com/r0kk3rz/harbour-matrix is Matrix client which is in the best shape at this moment.

While you seem not to be keen in publishing at OpenRepos at this stage, would you mind if we start collecting issues at your repository? So, when something gets annoying enough, we can all chip in and fix few things.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

fork it it it it it it the matrix @rinigus and take my money. :D

Re: Matrix - clients
 

fork as a part of contributing, maybe. but I have other projects that have to be maintained ....

Re: Matrix - clients
 

I haven't had the time to do anything with it recently, but it looks like Alexey might be sending some more PRs my way.

I should create some issues on github myself with the current status of various things that people commonly ask about, and i'm happy for others to do so.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

It's great to see things moving again. Thanks a million r0kk3rz, Alexey and rinigus! You rock! :-)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

@rinigus, I just noticed the issues you submitted here: https://github.com/r0kk3rz/harbour-matrix/issues

What a relief. I also found it a little unsettling at first when my messages wouldn't show up. Thanks for clearing that up.

By the way, I've been using the client for a few days now. It really has a lot of potential. Can't wait to see it making progress. ;)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

i already forget to a good matrix client, its more healthy : /

Re: Matrix - clients
 

As aspergerguy already noticed elsewhere, I tend to be somewhat late on many occasions. So, pardon me if the following idea is outdated or downright silly. :cool:

I just came across a report on Matrix "experiments" involving Ubports (I realize I might just have said "Jehova" :p ) and nheko at this URL. To my deepest regret, I am a complete ignoramus :( , but couldn't this serve as a recipe to port nheko to Sailfish?

Re: Matrix - clients
 

I was listening to the Ubuntu Touch Audiocast in my car yesterday (https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-blo...krillekast-189). And they featured an interview with Christian Pauly (aka Krille) who recently released a Matrix client named FluffyChat for ubports (https://github.com/ChristianPauly/fluffychat).

This made me think about that point in history a long time ago when Sailfish, Ubuntu Touch, FirefoxOS and WebOS (don't know for sure if that one was still around?) were advertised as the bright future of Linux on the phone. One thing I remember in particular. Someone commented that application development would be pure bliss as QML code would natively run on all of these devices (if memory serves me right). Develop once, run everywhere. A fantasy? For real? Who knows?

Again, being a total ignoramus, I wonder how much of an effort porting FluffyChat (a native QML app) to Sailfish might be?

While I dearly hope for r0kk3rz' Matrix client to flourish, I was thinking there might be some code that could be adapted, thereby saving some of the effort.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

The issue is with things like Qt versions, component sets, and system APIs.

Ubuntu uses a newer Qt framework version than sailfish does, and so not all APIs are available that might be used in any given ubuntu touch application.

The next thing is component sets, apps are typically built with the native component set and in the case of Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish they are quite different and so chunks of the UI might need to be completely designed if you want a native look and feel.

Then there's some more platform specific stuff like multitasking, notifications, power management, that work differently on Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish that you will need to take into account if you want the app to work well.

From what I can see, the *real* issue isn't the work required, but its people with the skills giving time and effort that is currently somewhat lacking in the Sailfish Community right now.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Indeed, just QML is insufficient for full compatibility. You have to redesign to make it cross-platform or use some cross-platform approach from the start (as modRana) or "translate" the app. Not sure whether translating that UBPorts app would be better than continuation of the available code. Have you tried to make some comparisons between them?

I agree with @r0kk3rz assessment - we are currently lacking people with skills taking the time for development. And its not clear how that could be resolved.

As for Matrix clients, lots of them are discontinued. Not sure why, but it looks to be all over the place when I checked at matrix.org. The client maintained developed by @r0kk3rz isn't the simplest piece of software, but I haven't looked deep due to commitments in navigation apps and will probably not be able to do so in a while.

But if you are interested in development of the client, even investing 0.5h per day could make a huge difference.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

totally agree with @rinigus about: 0.5h. = )

Re: Matrix - clients
 

@r0kk3rz and @rinigus, thank you so much for all the detailed information. It is a little sad to see that all the efforts made by the Sailfish and ubports communities cannot be suitable combined to achieve some synergy for both OSes. But that probably can't be changed any time soon.

@rinigus, I noticed all the discontinued Matrix clients as well. This may be a key problem as to why "people" choose certain commercial chat protocols over XMPP, Matrix etc. Too many clients, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Ironically the best XMPP client I experienced was the native one that came with the N900. From that point of view, it might actually be best to get Riot.im working on Sailfish (i.e. hosting your own copy of riot-web on the Sailfish device). But I feel the foundations for that may first need to be laid by Jolla (?).

Alas, I wish I were able to code. At present, I'd need hundreds of half-an-hours to just cover the basics of QML, JS etc. :rolleyes:

Re: Matrix - clients
 

@dubliner why not to donate at few RedBull to: @r0kk3rz, for coding matrix.? :rolleyes:

Re: Matrix - clients
 

The matrix guys recently did a talk at CCC about the current state of the matrix platform and where they are going next.

https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9400-mat...d_year_to_date

Re: Matrix - clients
 

The project lead also had a talk on FOSDEM:

https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/eve..._french_state/

This talk also goes over the current state and future plans besides they work they did for the French government. With the 1.0 version and specs out of the door, this seems to be going somewhere now?

Re: Matrix - clients
 

I followed that, too. It's quite amazing to see lots of things happening there.

I was also delighted to see that r0kk3rz has already commented on the issues listed on Github. My hopes are high for some further progress there now that some of the factors have been pinpointed.

As for "all we need is everybody spending some time on development", I am sorry to have learned that time is not the only constricting factor. I don't want to go OT too much, but I spent two afternoons installing the SDK, getting the examples running, only to find out that I cannot seem to manage to make harbour-matrix start in the VM. So, apart from time, one also needs lots and lots of background knowledge and presumably a ton of talent - neither of which I do seem to sport. :(

Re: Matrix - clients
 

There was a bit of good news, albeit well hidden, on TJC: cy8aer has been working on a Matrix client (and he posted it yesterday, i.e. it does not seem to be an April fools' joke ;)). Yay!!! :D

Here is the link:

https://gitlab.com/cy8aer/bluepill

Now, an RPM would be nice for testing. :cool:

@cy8aer you made my day!!!

Re: Matrix - clients
 

yep my post was done on march 31... As I wrote: that is early stage. You can compile it with an actual sdk and if you have an account somewhere you can already chat. But there are many things missing:

• register
• upload of any pictures music data
• no e2e - I need to know how to get this done with matrix-python-sdk - and how to pack the libraries to make them harbour compatible
• no room manipulation
• no m.read receiving by now (sending works but cannot be switched off - prefs missing)
• many preferences stuff (with up/download to server)
• does anyone used the gstreamer webrtc stuff? No voip.
• no unread status
• no notifications
• no logo. Need to convince Daniel to make a new one with blue pills...

And there must be much caching stuff done. When you first login it will be waaaay slow because I pre cache the room data.

Of course: rpm when it is useful ready. Probably there will be a non crypto version first on harbour and e2e will follow on openrepos lateron because I guess they never will accept the binary python cffi stuff.

Much stuff to do...

Re: Matrix - clients
 

I investigated the gstreamer webrtc stuff when I was getting the plugin ready for inclusion into mer.

https://github.com/r0kk3rz/gstwebrtc-demos

Audio should work fine, video would need to be H264 as the hardware encoders for VP8 arent enabled in gst-droid yet

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Regarding e2e, this has recently come into existence: https://github.com/matrix-org/pantalaimon

If nothing else I like the name.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Just some information what I can tell about python matrix:

With python you have two (better three) choices:

1. matrix-python-sdk with a special e2e-branch
2. matrix-nio
3. any client with pantalaimon (rhis is a proxy based on nio)

I compiled all the stuff for the e2e branch of matrix-python-sdk and the same for nio. The sdk needs stripped about 20MB, nio needs >60MB. Because pantalaimon is a proxy based on nio it would need >60MB too. The nio stuff is nio - not io. You need to build the networking socket asiohttp stuff on your own. There are library parts for this but it is quite rudimentary. Pantalaimon should work but it is not fully implemented: some events are not right mentioned.

The e2e stuff of the sdk is done about june 2018 and the patches are on review for the main branch since then. It should work too (because many people using it somehow according to #matrix-python-sdk:matrix.org and #matrix-clients:matrix.org. It should work more or less transparent. Let's see. For the voip stuff I first need to buildup a lab.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

So, here's the thing. I tried compiling Bluepill with the SDK, only to find out that I am rubbish at that (no huge surprise there). :( In the VM, I got to the splash screen with the [matrix] logo, but that was the end of it.

That made me think that having a solution on OBS might put me out of my misery. Something along the lines of r0kk3rz' project there. So, I thought I'd just ask. Would that be very complicated? :)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Sounds like you built it just fine, its that the application doesn't work properly.

Id expect the same result if you built it on obs, but thats is still a good idea

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Hi @dubliner, as I told: the thingie is not stable by now: it works with my own server but may do silly things on other constalations. Please tell me: Which account did you use (matrix.org or any other synapse server). Did you try to check "Custom server" and did not fill the server fields (that is a bug I just fixed!).

The login sequence should be:

If the login button busy indicator stops and there is no matrix page: login failed (there is no notification implemented now!)

if the matrix start page shows it first says:

Starting engine

and then room by room: syncing roomname
(At this point I just found a race condition that could crash - order field may not be in tag when favourite - fixed with change 1da9734a3382cb3d3cc16e7c1f18defae785bcc0)

After this you should see the dashboard.

Nothing works anymore: All your data is in ~nemo/.cache/harbour-bluepill. If deleting this directory you will be at the start point again.

I am happy for everyone who sometimes compiles and looks into the system. I also offer you #bluepill:g3la.de as my discussion room for everything about bluepill.

[Update] @dubliner: (looks like you are on an earlier point) you saw the splash screen but not the login screen a second later? Or did you already see the login screen? There might be another behaviour OBS.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

They kicked out the pyotherside support from the emulator 2.0 somehow...

Re: Matrix - clients
 

and a dependency to pyotherside does the trick.

@dubliner: If you like try it again with the newest patches. I tried it out with the vm and it works for me. If you want to start from scratch:

Re: Matrix - clients
 

@cy8aer, thank you so much for your detailed replies. My apologies, this is going to be a rather short answer as I am a little busy at the moment unfortunately.

I would agree, I suspected a Python problem when I first ran Bluepill in the VM (again, being a dilettante myself, this was more of a "feeling" than anything based on real knowledge). I got to the "starting engine" stage. On the console, the output was basically two lines. The first one was "running" and the second one "execution failed" (quoted from memory).

I'll look into the newest patch as soon as I can.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

(he now can work, just look at #bluepill:g3la.de)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Indeed, Bluepill compiled like a charm in the SDK. And the resulting application is just amazing! I know, cy8aer keeps stressing the alpha status, however, it has proved to be remarkably handy and useful indeed ever since I installed the resulting RPMs on my N5 yesterday evening. Just brilliant!!!

To everyone out there: You really might want to give Bluepill a try. :)

@cy8aer, thank you so much for the application and all your help!!!

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Do you have any screenshots you can share, and/or an alpha RPM?

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Give me some days for the screenshots. I am really using it with real users/groups. So I need to setup a fake user and fill it with stuff.

[Update] https://g3la.de/dl/harbour-bluepill-0.1-5.armv7hl.rpm but

• this is a pre-alpha snapshot
• it is full of stars/bugs
• do not expect too much
• do it on your own risk
• you need a matrix account (on matrix.org or own server) - no registry is implemented yet

This thingie will create the directory ~nemo/.cache/harbour-bluepill. If anything goes wrong than you may need to delete this directory (never happened to me...)

I will not build another pre-version. Better you compile it by your own from https://gitlab.com/cy8aer/bluepill ... Maybe I will write a manual for do this on the README on gitlab in the next days [another update] done

Re: Matrix - clients
 

https://build.sailfishos.org/package...rbour-bluepill

Or if you want I can show you how to set up a build on gitlab-ci to do automatic builds

Re: Matrix - clients
 

Hm, didn't know that it is quite easy with obs. But I would appreciate some gitlab-ci description too (didn't work with it but it is time to do...)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

@cy8ear and @r0kk3rz, a huge THANKS A MILLION to both of you! This is so cool! :)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

And thanks from me too, this is such a promising start! Don't be shy about getting it listed on the try matrix now page

Re: Matrix - clients
 

I have contact with benpa - it will be mentioned in the next twims (https://matrix.org/twim)

Re: Matrix - clients
 

a big thanks @krille for FluffyChat-app it is a nice matrix client to a nice o.s.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

For the meantime, how about a simple giant blue pill as icon?

https://mosushi.de/misc/bluepill/har...l-overview.png

Svgs attached. CC-BY-3.0, feel free to change anything you like.

Re: Matrix - clients
 

That sounds like a great idea. Thank you!

However, silly-me kind of always imagined that blue pill to be in the shape of a rhombus (well, you know, the term "blue pill" does evoke certain associations :p)... maybe with an [m] for [matrix] embossed in it. But that might be more difficult. :rolleyes: