matrix-appservice-discord VS element-x-ios

In my experience Mautrix has been very easy to run and can bridge new channels automatically as they're created. I use Matrix exclusively to chat with my friends on Discord.

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-discord

If you're fine with discord and matrix having access to new content, you can use a bridge such as https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-discord with a homeserver or use https://t2bot.io/discord/ (unreliable, sometimes laggy) to automatically copy new messages to both.

To be clear, I don't mean this as an attack, you already deserve huge respect for developing free software, but if you really want to try other options for the whole "community infrastructure" I think you will find some pretty good ones. For example in your case you could explore mirroring your GitHub repo on Codeberg or Gitea, then making a Matrix bridge to your Discord server.

Is there going to be more muscle put into polishing up the various bridges? Matrix has an amazing opportunity to be the glue protocol between various communication silos, but there's a few things I've encountered that have been preventing me from using it further.

One issue I hit is this:

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack/issues...

I tried pinging the people that were committing to the repo on the matrix channel for that bridge, but never got a response and now I'm just stuck with a room with a dead bridge. It's not a huge deal since the Matrix side of things still works, but having some way to reach out for stuff like that would be really helpful.

The other thing is this issue:

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-discord/issu...

It's not a showstopper since the bridge still works, but it's a lot of management to sync all of the rooms initially, and keep them in sync with any changes. I'm going to wait before that's implemented before suggesting that we try bridging Discord and Matrix for my friend group that's stuck on Discord.

Hopefully this doesn't come across as negative, I still use and love Matrix myself. All I want for Christmas though is to have one communication app in my life that talks to everyone everywhere effortlessly :)

I don't have discord and matrix via element is better anyway. Are you guys interested in opening a room or bridging it to discord?

If the choice would be Matrix, a bridge between Discord and Matrix could be used (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-discord).

https://progress.opensuse.org/issues/97673 is already known, however looking at https://github.com/Half-Shot/matrix-appservice-discord it seems, upstream did the last commit 8 months ago.

github.com/Half-Shot/matrix-appservice-discord

Be careful though. Discord is known to ban accounts that use unofficial clients. The bridge mentioned (matrix-appservice-discord) uses the official bot API so should be relatively safe.

Element X is not finished or intended for average users yet, as https://element.io/labs/element-x makes clear. It’s a preview of the future of Element.

Matrix itself is a big messy thing, much like the Web - this is both its power and a potential weakness.

Element X is indeed a fancy new client - but it hasn't hit a 1.0 yet. Think of it a lot like Firefox was pre-1.0; it's unrecognisably faster and better than the previous generation... but not all features are there yet. Meanwhile, there are loads of entirely unrelated independent excellent clients out there too; it's not just about Element v Element X.

> But I wasn't able to set up the encryption with my recovery key, there was only the online validation which I couldn't use because I was on the go and didn't have access to my desktop.

This bug is an accidental thinko however: it's placeholder UI which is about to be replaced by implementing login-via-scanning-QR-code (which is almost there), but obviously that also needs the ability to enter recovery keys too. Eitherway, it's being fixed: https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/issues/2424

> also seems to still lack TOFU for my private server

Yup, sorry, TOFU for TLS isn't implemented yet in EX.

> The same with the homeservers, there's synapse and dendrite is supposed to take over at some point but that point is forever far in the future. And then there's conduit, so which one is it?

Synapse is a stable server where the core team is putting its effort currently. Dendrite is a 2nd gen server from the core team, but is beta and a) ended up being focused on P2P and embedded homeservers and experimental MSCs, b) is starved of resource atm due to funding pressure (c.f. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5BrVVf0B1I&t=316s). Conduit is an independent server implementation in Rust, which is promising but beta.

It's like asking whether you should use Apache httpd or beta versions of nginx or lighttpd in the early days of the Web.

> The strategy doesn't really feel well thought out in that sense.

The strategy at Element (which employs most of the Matrix core team) is pretty clear right now:

1. Improve Synapse as the most mature and stable server implementation (and package it in Element Server Suite for those needing an enterprise Matrix distro: https://element.io/server-suite)

2. Finish implementing sufficient features in Element X that it can replace the old classic Element mobile apps asap - converging on a single Rust codebase, so that bugs & audits & new features can all land in one place.

3. Keep building Element Web/Desktop and Element Call.

...and that's it.

If it seems confusing, that's either because we're in the middle of the Element -> Element X shuffle... or because the nature of Matrix is that there's loads of other independent implementations running around too. But that's what makes it fun, too :)

i’d have been in danger of agreeing a year ago, but thankfully we proved otherwise with Element X: https://element.io/labs/element-x. Bit embarassing that we didn’t get there sooner, but human fallibility and all that.

Yep, a good example is the element X rewrite

They use Jetpack on Android

https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android

And SwiftUI on iOS

https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios

But both use the same underlying Matrix Rust SDK

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-rust-sdk

So they share the core part of the app between platforms, but everything user facing is native

And the cake under the cherry is… Element X is open-source[1][2]!

I really can't wait for Beeper[3] to rebuild their fork on top of Element X (it's currently based on Element, formerly called Riot). If this happens this will be an absolute game-changer in the messaging ecosystem.

[1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios

[2] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android

[3] https://www.beeper.com/

Yes, eventually. Right now the sliding sync MSC is still in flux (e.g. we just realised today that it's missing an explicit flag to notify once the client has caught up with the server, rather than guessing via heuristics: https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios/issues/1269#issue...). As a result, the implementation (which is in golang) is being kept separate from Synapse for now while we iterate on it; plus it's a separate set of folks working on it. This also means that SS can be used with any existing server (dendrite, conduit etc) as needed.

It'll get added natively to Synapse eventually, but it'll likely be quite a way off.

Element X is an entirely new client written in Rust + Swift UI/Jetpack Compose (https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios and https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android) which will eventually replace the legacy Element apps (https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios and https://github.com/vector-im/element-android).

The features already exist serverside; we're just working on getting them out of beta.

Yep, it's definitely been frustrating in the past. The number of iOS Element bugs was overwhelming at times too. It's a lot more stable now, but the bubble layout still isn't the default - I think that's what most people expect from a personal messenger. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Rust rewrite [1] brings for performance/stability.

FluffyChat also has quite nice UX and a bubble layout by default, but threads are still a while off [2]. On iOS it worked flawlessly through the iOS 16 betas while Element had some show stopping bugs, a couple of my friends moved over if they were on the beta.

I haven't had any friends ask me about the verify session buttons. I don't see any prompts on latest iOS Element but it's still too prominent on Element desktop for my liking.

SchildiChat [3] is my daily driver and feels more friendly than Element on desktop (unified DMs & group chats, no verify UX, chat bubbles), but it doesn't have any update mechanism built in, so I'm wary to recommend it to non-technical friends. It was also my goto recommendation on Android before the Element redesign.

I'm confident the ecosystem is moving in the right direction though, and so thankful for the amount of choice.

[1]: https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios

iOS is still not great, but they are making a new one.