this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Matrix

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Hey. Im thinking about creating matrix client based on telegram. I think their UI/UX is one of the best among messengers. Plus their android app is open source.

I have to take couple of things in consideration, like: licensing, technical details and some more. Its very possible from the technical perspective and pretty unclear from the licensing/legal perspective (since they could change license any moment or even go private).

In this post i would mostly like to know if open source community even wants anything related to telegram. Not everyone likes it. The project would target mainly open source community and will be public as well.

So the questions: Do you think we would want it? And would you personally try it?

Thank you <3

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

@majestic
Maybe a Rust App with multi account with Telegramm UX is fine. Rust is a secure language and multi platform.

Can't be enough Open Source Clients.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Neat idea, I personally never used telegram but heard a lot of positive feedback about their ux. I only have a feeling that, at the protocol level, the two ecosystems might be too different to make it viable.

That's just a feeling tho, so go for it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I am not sure how feasible it is to do, but the coolest would be if both Telegram and Matrix could be used from the same app with the original Telegram UX/UI.

In the sense that after installing the app you can choose whether to log into a matrix server or a Telegram account. And then you could also add more accounts of either service later, as you already can add multiple Telegram accounts in the Telegram app now.

Probably quite a complex task to make an app like that but it would be cool.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Lets see if there is more ppl interested in that feature. Personally i dont like telegram as a product, but like their mobile UI/UX

Edit: It is feasible, but would require more work and would make codebase even more unintuitive

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I think it could be another gateway for more people to start using matrix, because they don't need to bother with two apps and wouldn't need to learn a new UI for matrix.

But maybe also not since it would require another app install anyway.

I guess its not really worth it if maintainance becomes too complicated.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

From what I understand, Matrix is a pretty hard service to write clients for because they're constantly updating the server architecture and so clients end up very much behind very fast.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

considering telegram is basically the only modern and stable non-electron chat that runs buttery smooth, such a matrix client would be a game changer.

i'm stuck with telegram for now because i have an m1 mbp and an ideapad tablet with linux, neither which can run more than 1-2 electron apps simultaneously without screeching to a crawl and putting itself on fire.

like, 99% of my life revolves around hating on electron; it feels like electron has become standard for modern much needed productivity software. and it makes using computers that aren't super high end basically useless. developers need to start reconsidering their end-users, because electron will never be optimized for non-highend hardware (i'm not even convinced electron run snappy on a highend computer, but i would love to be proven wrong because currently i just assume coders have gotten too lazy to care about the end-user).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There are a couple of non-electron matrix clients I enjoy: gomuks (TUI, therefore really light-weight), and nheko (Qt-based native app that's about as snappy as telegram, but with less animations and crap).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

i haven't used gomuks, i'm not a big fan of terminal applications

nheko has so many issues. one version it was impossible to login. then when they fixed that, the encryption kept breaking and a lot of messages from my friends were lost. it also lacks a lot of features. last time i tried nheko was in january. so maybe they have fixed the stability issues and added some modern features; but otherwise it can't compete because it can't be used as a daily driver.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Please! I think that all mobile matrix clients are either bad or just somewhat good with many caveats. For me, Element X develops at a glacial pace and it seems the philosophy is to just make a minimal client and nothing more. FluffyChat is too opinionated and rough everywhere for me. Beeper is by far the best client however you're limited to a beeper account.

We really need more clients that aren't just Element or trying to reinvent the wheel.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Telegrams UX is excellent.

Bringing some of that to matrix would be neat.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

I like telegram, I like matrix, I'll give it a shot

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

@majestic would be an interesting project to port #telegram user interface to a #Matrix client. The design and animations in telegram are very advanced.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

it would probably be easier to take an existing matrix client implementation and make it look like telegram.

i don't think the ui will be much of a problem, the backend stuff: communication with the server, enryption, device validation will probably be the most complicated to implement.

But if you do it, I'd probably try it. The existing matrix clients are all not very good.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, the thing is, even tho telegram is horrible to work with, it has all needed widgets and ui elements. It would be very convenient to have telegram as starting point. (Not the most horrible codebase i worked with btw hehe)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sorry, I've never used telegram and don't typically use IRC type stuff because info is lost in the void, and I need time to collect my thoughts. I tried a matrix client around a year ago, but do not recall which one. I don't use it often enough to have an app. I don't like anything that keeps a persistent icon on my phone. I don't even like the Andy WiFi and mobile data visible. IIRC the Matrix client I tried put an icon on my status bar, reduced my battery life substantially, and defaulted to notifications for nonsense.

I might use a matrix client if it were very light weight and didn't intrude in any way. I would use it like SMS but for the internet. I'm weird though, like completely degoogled, use a whitelist firewall, and only accept messages and notifications of any kind if they are human messages by people in my contacts. I have a dozen FOSS apps total on mobile and do most things in browser... So probably not your best measure of user base, but no comments yet and I think what you're doing is great.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Neither the Matrix clients nor servers are lightweight—largely by design. All of the clients take literal minutes to start up if you don’t use it regularly & chew thru data. Even if they managed to hide how slow syncing is, it is just being hidden & taking just as many resources in the background. The whole decentralized eventual consistency + chat history is permanent is a model that makes it this way. At least IRC understood the chat was ephemeral & the protocol—even v3—isn’t bloated.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Ofc you are welcome to share any of your thoughts about it. I would be really glad if you would do so