umurmur VS element-ios

>...its server side is still written on Qt, which requires hundreds of megabytes of additional libraries to build it up.

See:

https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur

I've tried to make this argument in the past and gained no traction. What I did instead was to create self hosted chat things as a fallback for the times when Discord or Slack have a green status page but their applications fail to operate. Even light-weight daemons like uMurmur [1] or devzat ssh-chat can be handy in a time of need if a quorum know to fall back to it. Self hosted tools are also handy when one wants to share links or text that should not be on 3rd party sites forever and for eternity

[1] - https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur/wiki/Configuration

[2] - https://github.com/quackduck/devzat

Adding a more private self hosted option, there is uMurmur [1] which is light-weight enough to run on a Linux router. One of the mobile apps that works with it is Mumla.

There is of course the full blown Murmur [2] install that works a little more like Discord in that people can create channels and there is a permission system.

[1] - https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur/wiki/Configuration

[2] - https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page

For the other layers one can front-end IRC with TheLounge [1][2] or Convos [3][4]. TheLounge only persists history in private mode meaning that users are created in that front-end and chat messages are in Redis. For small networks or groups of friends this is probably fine.

Notably missing is voice chat. I use the Mumble client [5] with the Murmur or uMurmur [6] server which is light-weight enough to run on ones home router. I use it on Alpine Linux, works great. It's not a shiny and attention grabbing as Discord but probably fine for everyone else. For people to create their own voice channels would require the full-blown Murmur server.

[1] - https://github.com/thelounge

[2] - https://thelounge.chat/

[3] - https://github.com/convos-chat/convos/

[4] - https://convos.chat/

[5] - https://www.mumble.info/

[6] - https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur/wiki/Configuration

I suppose people should decide for themselves if they take the word of a centralized service. Convenience is a factor after all.

For those that have small circles of friends they wish to chat with and minimize the number of ISP's their traffic traverses, I would suggest tinkering around with uMurmur [1] There are pre-built packages in several operating systems package managers. The configuration is dirt simple [2] and the daemon is very light weight, designed to run on home routers. Use certbot to generate LE certs or just use self-signed. One TCP and one UDP port must be forwarded to the daemon, default port being 64738. One can set a server-wide password to keep strangers off of it, or set passwords per-channel.

uMurmur is not E2EE but if it is running on your own router and you are talking with your friends that you know and trust then maybe that is less of an issue. The mobile client is Mumla. Just put in the IP or hostname of the uMurmur instance.

[1] - https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur

[2] - https://github.com/umurmur/umurmur/wiki/Configuration

I like https://umurmur.net/ since it can run totally headless at the cost of some of Murmur's features. Mainline Murmur (the Mumble server) requires QT5 and mDNSResponder and various DB drivers and even D-Bus if you look at it crossways

I believe quite a few people use umurmur for stuff like this. Note that it's encrypted and I don't believe that can be shut off, so don't run it over, say, HamWAN, but I don't imagine that was the plan anyway.

There are quite a few issues that they've stopped fixing in the Element app in favor of doing it in Element X, the one I've been following is where the iOS app causes a breakage in E2EE when you use the share extension, so they just disabled the share extension entirely and said they'd fix in X - https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/7618

But X requires Sliding Sync on the server, which is still a separate service to run alongside the homeserver and doesn't have a stable API, much less a spec (?). I am increasingly disappointed with how centralized Matrix is becoming, since AFAIK there isn't really an alternate client close to the same level of quality as Element.

I probably would've made all of the same decisions myself though, so I don't blame them I'm just a bit disappointed in how it's shaking out.

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.

You're being downvoted, but I originally had the same question.

It's actually a native app. It's mostly Objective C, but increasingly written in Swift. https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios

There is clearly room for improvement, but apparently they just hired a handful of new iOS developers to work on it. Good things should be coming soon.

afaik, there is no "official" way to do it: https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/590

Sure. Element for Android, iOS, and web

Every issue I had with Signal, and listed here, is solved.

One issue I have with the Element iOS client is that it doesn't respect system font sizing. So, for older relatives, that app can't be used. I put my mom on something called "Fluffy Chat" though, which does respect font sizes. If Element fixes that, I'll move her back again. It's kinda nice having multiple clients to choose from, though Element is by far the most polished.

https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3245

That lets me assume that they either have a restyled fork of Element, or are directly telling us to use Element.

Here’s the iOS pull request for example: https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/pull/3890

There's a GitHub issue mentioning the same domain, but it doesn't suggest it's used for verification

4. While core functionality is both broken and undocumented, the maintainers announce rabbit hole features that no one asked for and seem very much like distractions, like their recently-announced microblogging view/client[4]

In short the Element maintainers have shown little interest in making the platform accessible to the people who need its differentiating features the most, and have prioritized the "mad science"/technical aspect of their platform at the expense of the human element (end-users and operators).

It'd be cool if Element used their resources to hire some UX folks and community advocates whose sole focus is addressing the horrid accessibility of their platform. I think most users would rather see that than further "mad science".

[1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3762