This Week in Matrix 2025-02-28

🔗Matrix Live

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Very interesting news reported today

You find there the document "Cyber Blueprint - Proposal Council Recommendation" for download that contains on page 17 a recommendation to use the matrix call for inter-gov communication on cyber topics.

In the next step, The European Council must discuss and then possibly adopt this proposal.

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/cyber-blueprint-draft-council-recommendation

Robin Riley (m.org) says

Please join me in welcoming the Blender Foundation and iKono Telecomunicaciones as the newest Silver Members of the Matrix.org Foundation!

We’re grateful for their support, and delighted at the number of individual donors who have signed up since last week’s blog post. The team at the Foundation is firing on all cylinders to raise revenue, reduce expenses, and balance the budget so that we can continue investing in Matrix for the benefit of the entire ecosystem.

Time is of the essence – we are at a crossroads. If your organisation depends on Matrix, please join us as a member today.

🔗Dept of Community

Nico says

Two months late I published the community review of 2024, which is the third retrospective I posted every year. You might have already forgotten about new years and at the current pace, I will publish the 2034 review in 2036, but enough of that...

If you want to see what some of the community was up to in 2024 and some of their expectations for 2025, check out the blogpost at https://blog.neko.dev/posts/matrix-year-in-review-2024.html.

Have a nice day and see you in 13 months!

🔗Dept of Spec 📜

uhoreg 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:

• MSC4270: Matrix Glossary
• MSC4269: Unambiguous mentions in body
• WIP: MSC4268: Sharing room keys for past messages

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• MSC4183: Additional Error Codes for submitToken endpoint
• MSC3765: Rich text in room topics

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

🔗Dept of Servers 🏢

🔗Synapse (website)

Synapse is a Matrix homeserver implementation developed by Element

Devon Dmytro reports

This week we released Synapse v1.125.0.

This release adds the following new features:

• Add functionality to be able to use multiple values in SSO feature attribute_requirements. (#17949)
• Add experimental config options admin_token_path and client_secret_path for MSC3861. (#18004)
• Add SYNAPSE_HTTP_PROXY/SYNAPSE_HTTPS_PROXY/SYNAPSE_NO_PROXY Docker image environment variables to pass through specifically to the Synapse process (instead of needing to apply http_proxy/https_proxy/no_proxy globally). (#18158)

... and a whole lot more!

Thank you to all our contributors for helping to make Synapse the best it can be. As always, feel free to stop by #synapse:matrix.org to join in on the discussion and if you encounter a bug make sure to report it here.

🔗Dept of Bridges 🌉

Cadence says

I have released version 3.0 of Out Of Your Element, a Matrix-to-Discord bridge that pays special attention to making formatting look perfect and supporting as many platform features as possible. I've been running public betas for a while, but now that 3.0 is stable, here's the highlights since the previous version:

Bridge features:

• Finally, you can bridge an existing Matrix space with a Discord server instead of it making a new space.
• Optionally use the website to add the bot, invite people, and change settings. Log in with either Matrix or Discord.
• Setup process is interactive, and checks that everything will work.

Discord/Matrix features:

• Support d->m forwarded messages
• Support m->d pins
• Attachment links do not expire
• Support read-only channels
• Text commands have all been moved to Discord interactions
• Right click on Discord to see which Matrix users reacted
• Hundreds of bug fixes

I hope you enjoy the new release! In my humble opinion, this is probably now the best option for bridging to Discord due to complete feature coverage (apart from Direct Messages). If you agree, please help us with the entry on matrix.org bridges so that it shows up-to-date information. If you'd like to migrate from an existing bridge to OOYE, the ability to bridge to an existing space and keep your message history should make this easier than ever before. ❤️

Repo | Full release notes | Install or upgrade | Join chat

🔗Dept of Clients 📱

🔗FluffyChat (website)

The cutest instant messenger in the [matrix].

Krille-chan announces

Hey there! I'm thrilled to announce the release of FluffyChat 1.25.0, packed with exciting new features, significant improvements, and some fixes. My primary focus with this release is to enhance the user experience, bolster security, and provide greater customization options. Let's dive into the key highlights of this update!

🔗New Features

🔗Dynamic Color Gradient for Chat Bubbles

Add a splash of color to your conversations with the new dynamic gradient for chat bubbles. This visually appealing feature ensures your messages stand out, making your chats more lively and engaging.

🔗Enhanced HTML Rendering for Messages

FluffyChat has replaced an unmaintained dependency for the HTML rendering with an in-house solution, which should fix a lot of bugs and problems and also improve performance. Fun fact: The configuration of the external dependency had more code than the complete in-house solution.

🔗Granular Key Sharing Controls

In encrypted chats, you can now define which devices you want to share keys with. The options available are:

• All devices - This is the default (for now) and means you share keys with all devices in a room as long as you have not blocked them manually.

• Cross verified if enabled - The more secure option is this. It basically means, if a user has enabled Cross Signing, then we consider all devices as not trustworthy, which are not signed by their cross signing key as long as those devices are not directly verified.
• Cross verified - An even more strict mode which treats all devices of another user as not trustworthy by default if they has not enabled cross signing at all.
• Direct verified only - The most strict but also most secure mode which makes sure that keys are only shared with directly verified devices. Means you have to verify a device (or the user with cross signing enabled) before this device receives the encryption keys.

This added flexibility enhances your control over encrypted messages, ensuring your communications are as secure as you need them to be. For inexperienced user I recommend to not change the default.

Is the default going to change? Well, maybe. In some other matrix clients like Element X or Fractal the user is already forced to enable Cross Signing before they can even use the app. If this is going to take over the majority of the user it might be a good move to change the default key sharing security level to Cross verified if enabled or even Cross verified.

🔗Comprehensive Push Rule Management

FluffyChat now displays all push rules in your account, and you can enable or disable them as needed. This comprehensive management feature gives you greater control over notifications, allowing for a more tailored user experience.

We hope you enjoy the new features and improvements in FluffyChat v1.25.0. As always, we are committed to providing the best messaging experience for our users. Update to the latest version today and let us know your thoughts!

Read the full changelog here:

https://github.com/krille-chan/fluffychat/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#v1250

🔗Element X iOS (website)

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

Mauro Romito says

• Join room by alias has been implemented and will be in the next RC
• Room and event permalinks will now be rendered as pills in the timeline, this is in the current RC
• We made some improvements to align with web, we show now that the room is encrypted in the composer, and the verification badges in room members details and DMs
• Some overall improvements to structure of the project were made alongside a bunch of small bug fixes

🔗Element X Android (website)

Android Matrix messenger application using the Matrix Rust SDK and Jetpack Compose.

Benoit says

• Join room by address has been implemented and will be in the next RC
• We have started to work on rendering room and event permalinks as pills in the timeline. We will soon say good bye to all those long and techie matrix links: tiny shiny pills FTW!
• We will advertise a bit more when user is typing message in an encrypted room by adding a lock next to the composer
• We've made some change in some icons used along the app, to use what's provided by the Compound tokens. Some colors have been updated too, but it's barely visible.
• As usual, fixing lots of "small" bugs and working to always use the latest dependency versions!

🔗Cinny (website)

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

Lozenge announces

Cinny v4.4.0

We’re excited to share the latest update. This release includes several fixes and new features to enhance functionality and usability.

First, we’ve resolved issues with unknown rooms in the space lobby and fixed link visible inside spoiler tags. The room activity indicator only show when other users are typing, and search results for emojis, usernames, and rooms have been enhanced for better accuracy.

Additionally, we’ve introduced a button to select all room packs as a global pack, added a toggle for email notifications, and enabled scrolling to the bottom in unfocused windows without sending read receipts. Markdown escaping is now supported, and spoilers for images (MSC4193) have been implemented. Finally, fallback replies have been removed, and intentional mentions are now supported.

A detailed changelog is available on Github release. Feel free to join #cinny-space:matrix.org to get involved.

🔗Dept of SDKs and Frameworks 🧰

🔗Rory&::LibMatrix (website)

.NET 8 matrix bot/client library/SDK

Emma [it/its] reports

Hi all! We've been working on rewriting how homeservers are resolved! Part of the new design is having a lot of intrinsic diagnostics, and giving the user far more control over what actually happens.

I hope to get some feedback on the API for this, and on it's diagnostics.

• New resolver features:
  • Diagnostic return values (timeouts, errors, ...)
    • Apps will be able to tell you exactly what went wrong, instead of leaving the user stranded looking at console logs.
  • Include support record support
  • Configuration:
    • Falling back to plaintext HTTP is opt-in now
    • The ability to use DNS (and DoH) is being worked on, and a major part of the configuration
    • We're also thinking about adding support for using a dedicated lookup server (ofcourse, user-configurable), which would be able to give even more diagnostics, such as CORS warnings for browser clients.
    • Allow configuring fallback subdomains to try (incase regular lookups fail, due to ie. temporary downtime of the root domain)

And, as always:

• The code is available at cgit.rory.gay (or Github - read only, may be outdated)!
  • All contributions are more than welcome, be it documentation, code, anything! Perhaps, example usecases, bots, ...?
• Discussion, suggestions and ideas are welcome in #libmatrix:rory.gay (Space: #mru-space:rory.gay)
• Got a cool project that you're working on and want to share, using LibMatrix? Be sure to let us know, we'd love to hear all about it!

🔗matrix-rust-sdk (website)

Next-gen crypto-included SDK for developing Clients, Bots and Appservices; written in Rust with bindings for Node, Swift and WASM

poljar announces

This week saw a mix of improvements, refactoring, bug fixes, and feature additions across various parts of the SDK, particularly around the event cache, OIDC authentication, and logging.

Development around the event cache has swapped from feature development towards bug fixing and performance improvements which means that it's almost ready for prime time.

🔗Event Cache Updates

• Consolidated logic for retrieving the latest gap (#4733)
• Improved room pagination by calling /messages directly (#4731)
• Fixed RoomEventCache::event to look inside the store (#4708)
• Ensured duplicated events are always removed (#4706)
• Enabled automatic shrinking of a room's linked chunk when all subscribers leave (#4703)

🔗OIDC & Authentication Enhancements

• Improved the OidcAuthCodeUrlBuilder to align with next-gen auth MSCs (#4699)
• Moved the qrcode module inside the oidc module (#4687)
• Updated the logout behavior to align with MSC4254 (#4674)
• Correctly indicate OIDC support when fetching metadata fails (#4717)
• Run the integration tests for the experimental OIDC feature (#4727)
• Use MatrixMockServer and MockClientBuilder in the OIDC tests (#4712)

🔗Features & Enhancements

• Introduced support for the shared history flag from MSC3061 (#4700)
• Used DecryptedOlmV1Event when encrypting to-device events (#4690)
• Add the report room API (#4713)

🔗Dept of Bots 🤖

🔗NioBot v1.3.0 alpha 1

nex (she/it) reports

With a host of new features, changes, bug fixes, and other improvements, NioBot v1.3.0 alpha 1 has been released to the standard release channels! Previously, I wrote a TWIM section to announce the release of NioBot v1.2.0. For those not in the know, NioBot is a Matrix bot library written in python using matrix-nio that aims to simplify the processing side of handling to reduce boilerplate and allow you to write the code that actually matters, rather than faffing about with parsing etc.

NioBot v1.3.0a1 includes a whole host of improvements over v1.2.0, including (but far from limited to):

• lazy loading, to improve sync times
• A faster, more efficient, and smaller state store (huge improvement for larger accounts)
• Support for Python 3.13 (⚠️ Python 3.9 is no longer supported!)
• Refactored support for attachments, including automatically encrypting attachments sent in encrypted rooms
• Significantly improved argument detection

And of course, a very pleasing number of bug fixes (with more to come). If you have used NioBot in the past, please give these alphas a spin (if you have time) to help me root out any further bugs that may be nestled in the code. There have been significant and drastic internal changes since the v1.1.1 release, however everything should be backwards compatible, so hopefully it won't be too much weight on your shoulders. Feel free to reach out and give me a ping if you need any help with updating!

NioBot v1.3.0 will release in June 2025. Read the full changelog here: https://docs.nio-bot.dev/v1.3.0a1/changelog/#unreleased pip install nio-bot==1.3.0a1

Contact us here: #niobot:nexy7574.co.uk | GitHub: https://github.com/nexy7574/nio-bot | Documentation: https://docs.nio-bot.dev/v1.3.0/

🔗baibot

Slavi says

Version v1.5.0 of baibot has been released.

It contains various improvements like:

• bringing it up-to-date with the latest mxlink library (v1.6.1), based on matrix-rust-sdk (v0.10.0)

• taking inspiration from Matrix Hookshot's CI pipeline and switching to native building for arm64, which decreases total build times from ~40 minutes to ~8 minutes.

• replacing the Anthropic library with another one, for better compatibility with newer models, like Claude 3.7 Sonnet (claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219)

• a bunch of other usability enhancements and features. See the v1.5.0 changelog for more details

🔗Dept of Events and Talks 🗣️

🔗Matrix User Meetup Berlin

saces says

Next Matrix user meetup 5.3.2025, 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.

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 [don't DM] reports

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

As of today, 10697 Matrix federateable servers have been discovered by matrixrooms.info, 3183 (29.8%) of them are publishing their rooms directory over federation. The published directories contain 20317 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	codestorm.net	194
2	conduwu.it	241
3	bi-vibes.com	261
4	catvibers.me	277.5
5	envs.net	347
6	maunium.net	552
7	nexy7574.uk	602
8	halogen.place	921
9	everypizza.im	946.5
10	tomfos.tr	969

🔗That's all I know

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

To learn more about how to prepare an entry for TWIM check out the TWIM guide.