This Week in Matrix 2024-08-02

Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} says

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4174: webpush push kind
• MSC4173: test pusher

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• MSC4163: Make ACLs apply to EDUs (merge)

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• MSC3464: Allow Users to Post on Behalf of Other Users

Spec Updates

It's another week, and there's been steady progress on a few MSCs. Other than those listed above, there was a partial implementation of MSC4133: Support for custom profile fields for Synapse. Personally I find the prospect of finally being able to attach arbitrary profile information to users. Very exciting!

Dept of Clients 📱

Fractal (website)

Matrix messaging app for GNOME written in Rust.

Kévin Commaille says

Because we know you can’t get enough of us, we are back again, and this time, as foretold, it’s to announce Fractal 8!

There have been little changes since our release candidate, so let’s recap the main improvements since Fractal 7:

• Mentions are sent intentionally
• Authenticated media are supported
• Draft messages are kept per-room and persisted across restarts
• More links are detected in messages and room descriptions
• Collapsed categories in the sidebar are remembered between restarts, with the “Historical” category collapsed by default
• A banner appears when synchronization with the homeserver fails too many times in a row
• The verification and account recovery processes have been polished
• HTML rendering has been improved, with the support of new elements and attributes

As usual, this release includes other improvements and fixes thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to Damned Lies.

This version is available right now on Flathub.

We have a lot of improvements in mind for our next release, but if you want a particular feature to make it, the surest way is to implement it yourself! Start by looking at our issues or just come say hello in our Matrix room.

Element X iOS (website)

A total rewrite of Element-iOS using the Matrix Rust SDK underneath and targeting devices running iOS 16+.

Ștefan says

• RC 1.7.2 is out for fixing a signout crash and adding the inviter name to the join room screens
• We're making good progress on adding support for pinned timeline items
• as well as introducing message crypto shields
• and support for completely resetting one's crypto identity is close to making an appearance

Cinny (website)

Cinny is a Matrix client focused on simplicity, elegance and security

Lozenge announces

Cinny v4: Fresh Features and Important Fixes!

We’re thrilled to announce a major update that brings a range of new features and important fixes designed to enhance app experience. This release adds several improvements across the board, making it easier to navigate and manage your space.

One of the additions is the Lobby feature, which helps you manage and navigate space rooms more efficiently. You can also now organize your spaces into folders, allowing for a cleaner and more structured space sidebar. For those managing large spaces, we’ve also added the ability to customize the order of rooms and subspaces and the same order is visible to all space members. Space member can also float rooms with unread messages and activity to the top of room list by collapsing the category. Additionally, a new multi-room message search with filters is now available, making it simpler to find specific conversations across multiple rooms.

We've redesigned the Explore Community section, making it easier to discover and feature rooms, as well as add predefined servers to your list. There is also new Notification Center, consolidating all notifications including highlights (pings and keyword notification), and invites into a single place in the sidebar. For improved readability, you can now adjust the font size to suit your preferences, and mark Home and People folders as read to keep things organized.

This update also introduces key-based account registration, where homeserver can provide key to user beforehand for registering through the app. Additionally, we've added support for password reset, making it easier to recover access if you forget your credentials.

Overall, this update brings a host of enhancements and fixes that we believe will greatly improve your interaction with the app. We’re excited for you to explore these new features and improvements and look forward to your feedback!

You can read more about update at https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny/releases/tag/v4.0.0 and join our space #cinny-space:matrix.org to get involved!

Extera

OfficialDakari says

We are announcing a new client - Extera, based on Cinny with improved mobile support and new features!

There are some features we made:

• Intentional mentions are now working, except "room" mentions.
• matrix.to links are now supported in messages
• Added poll and captions rendering (Sending polls and captions will be supported later)
• Recovering redacted messages for Synapse admins
• Improved chat list: Last message in the chat is now visible under the chat name
• Added multi-language support: A large amount of strings were moved to different file; Russian and English are supported
• Profile banners: Now you can add an image to your profile, like in Discord!
• Remade text editor: Now it is based on normal textarea; the editor now is not WYSIWYG, but it improves mobile compatibility a lot!
• Pinned messages support
• Presence support: now you can see other user's statuses, including status messages; you also can set your status - Online, Offline or AFK!
• Ghost mode: An option to stop sending read receipts and typing statuses.

This is only beginning of Extera, that list will grow through time!

Its room is here and you can try it here

Dept of SDKs and Frameworks 🧰

vodozemac (website)

An implementation of Olm and Megolm in pure Rust.

Matthew says

Heads up that we have officially marked the original C/C++ libolm implementation as deprecated, as warned back in May 2022 when we announced the Rust vodozemac implementation as the successor to libolm. The rationale for doing so now is that all of the SDKs maintained by the core team at github.com/matrix-org now support vodozemac, and the majority of apps built on top of them have now successfully switched over to vodozemac. Meanwhile, we simply don't have bandwidth to maintain and support both vodozemac and libolm, so all our maintenance will be focused on vodozemac going forwards. You can find the official deprecation notice here.

tusooa announces

Because libolm is deprecated and potentially exploitable [Edit: the issues that Soatok is referring to prior to the agreed disclosure timeline are not exploitable to our knowledge or being accorded high severity --Matthew], this makes clients written in C++ [theoretically] vulnerable. I am on my way to fix vodozemac-bindings for C++, see https://iron.lily-is.land/project/board/10/ and https://lily-is.land/kazv/vodozemac-bindings for more details. See also https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko/issues/1786 and https://github.com/quotient-im/libQuotient/issues/780 and https://iron.lily-is.land/T125.

Trixnity (website)

Multiplatform Kotlin SDK for developing Clients, Bots, Appservices and Servers

Benedict says

I added some minor performance fixes in Trixnity this week. They basically remove a (database related) delay, when putting message into the outbox.

Dept of Events and Talks 🗣️

Matrix User Meetup Berlin

saces says

Next Matrix user meetup 7.8.2024, 8 pm @ c-base

Meet other matrix users, chat about Matrix, the rest, and everything else, discuss your Matrix ideas, sign each other in persona, and maybe spice the evening with a good mate or beer.

Also when the bbq is lit you may wish you brougth your favorite item :)

Every first Wednesday of the month in the c-base at 8pm ('til the next pandemic).

Matrix room: #mumb:c-base.org

Matrix Federation Stats

Aine says

collected by MatrixRooms.info - an MRS instance by etke.cc

As of today, 9650 Matrix federateable servers have been discovered by matrixrooms.info, 2943 (30.5%) of them are publishing their rooms directory over federation. The published directories contain 21589 rooms.

Stats timeline is available on MatrixRooms.info/stats

How to add your server | How to remove your server

Dept of Ping

Here we reveal, rank, and applaud the homeservers with the lowest ping, as measured by pingbot, a maubot that you can host on your own server.

#ping:maunium.net

Join #ping:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.

Rank	Hostname	Median MS
1	doctoruwu.uk	195.5
2	conduwu.it	199
3	tchncs.de	249
4	envs.net	314.5
5	codestorm.net	335
6	yuri.im	400.5
7	computerlie.be	437
8	uwu.sulian.eu	450
9	nahfe.dev	667
10	explodie.org	729

#ping-no-synapse:maunium.net

Join #ping-no-synapse:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.

Rank	Hostname	Median MS
1	conduwu.it	107
2	doctoruwu.uk	108
3	uwu.sulian.eu	174
4	craftingcomrades.net	326
5	inu.is	327.5
6	gemeinsam.jetzt	444
7	reallyaweso.me	477
8	explodie.org	514.5
9	cwt.grin.hu	656.5

That's all I know

See you next week, and be sure to stop by #twim:matrix.org with your updates!