The one silver lining of commercial apps shitting the bed (or shitting on their users) is that it helps accelerate development of FOSS/decentralized/federated alternatives because of the sudden interest.
Give your Matrix account a Discord UI with Commet
Submitted 2 weeks ago by artyom@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
scytale@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I was immediately gonna comment “but does it support element-call” and to my surprise:
Supporting both, 1:1 calls over WebRTC, and voice channels with MatrixRTC + LiveKit
So to my knowledge this is the first non elenent fork client that supports the new call systen 🎉
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
afaik both fluffychat and cinny support it, but they don’t advertise it well.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
FluffyChat from my testing just now only supports the legacy 1:1 p2p calls not the new element-call system that supports large group calls and performs much better. I dont think cinny supports element-call either if i look at their changelogs from the last year.
pennomi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This seems like the better alternative to discord than the other centralized platforms
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Maybe that would help because I have a really hard time understanding how matrix works.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Ive been using it for many years now. Do you have any specific questions that i might be able to answer?
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
I appreciate your help. I might reach out to you soon.
Maybe I should also look up some YouTube videos about it. That always helps as well.
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
So I guess my problem is that I’m used to Discord’s paradigm. You have servers and in the servers you have chat rooms, video conference rooms, and DMs. it pretty much reflects what’s on IRC.
When it comes to Matrix, I have trouble making the parallel. Maybe because of the terminology?
I was wondering if you could help me out in that regard. Knowing that I’m familiar with IRC and Discord, can you explain to me the different terminology in Matrix and how it works?
FYI: Commet really is easier to navigate than Element.
Evotech@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Like lemmy more or less
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
honest question, what is there to understand? it sounds you already got through registration so you are through the hardest part which is choosing a provider.
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What is there to understand? It’s just a decentralized protocol - in fact, you don’t need to understand to use it. Just connect to chat server like you’d connect to one in discord.
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Gee, thanks. That’s so helpful. 🙄
Bababasti@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Looks good, I fiddled around with it for a bit. For now, I prefer FluffyChat. I‘m actually wondering how little it is mentioned in the recent pop up of discord alternatives / matrix clients given how polished and easy to use it is.
northernlights@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Good on mobile but on desktop the UI is way too big i find
operationalHazard@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It is insane how big it is, there’s a slider for text size but that only affects the text inside of chats. The difference in the UI between Fluffy and Element on desktop means I’ll probably end up with Fluffy on mobile and Element on Desktop
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
You’re just never going to convince me to use an app called “FluffyChat”. Same for “Contunuwuity” or other baby-speak “cute” names. Sorry.
wavebeam@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
the UI of discord is not why I’ve been using it.
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
It’s certainly part of it, for many people. Try to sell your friends on using that old IRC client and tell me they don’t take one look at it and turn their nose up at you.
whelk@retrolemmy.com 2 weeks ago
Glad people who like the UI can get it in Matrix too but personally yeah, the Discord UI has never been one I’ve liked. Way to insist on being fullscreen at all times
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Saving this post for later when the inevitable happens.
Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
It’s cool that it “supports threads”, but - as so many other clients - it forgets to actually expose threads! As in: once the initial comment starting a thread slides up in the chat, the only way to access the thread is to scroll all the way up there again.
Fake edit: OK, Commet shows all threads if you type “thread” in search. Still, having a button to do just that would be infinitely better.
Also: no support for polls? :(
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The age old matrix problem, every client is uniquely shitty and poorly put together.
I swear the day a feature rich and actually competent matrix client is released is the same day gnome devs will stop having stupid takes and Wayland devs will stop arguing.
Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
And KDE devs will stop assuming they know better than their users…
What kills me is that even the “official” clients (Element, and Element X) are not full-featured. What kills me even more is that Element X (the official “new” app and the “replacement” for Element) supports some additional features over Element, but not all - as in, some things are not possible in it, but are possible in Element.
It’s like it’s run by an insane asylum…
Xylian@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But no friends list :(
whelk@retrolemmy.com 2 weeks ago
Return to Pidgin
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Thank you so much! Always down to try a new matrix client. So much potential.
gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Is there a reason for not being centrally distributed like on flathub and fdroid?
Magnum@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
Someone has to maintain that.
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
No idea.
9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No macOS or iOS support, but looks clean.
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Just install as PWA.
9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You’re a freaking genius, you know that?
Ill do that and give it a whirl. Thanks for the PWA tip, i had completely forgotten about that.
Zeoic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The ui still kind of feels unpolished in commet. I tried it out two days ago, but ended up going with element instead. Just felt better to use
epicshepich@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
My best friend used to go by @comet on Discord. He’s the one who made my friend group’s server, and he’s essentially the only reason I ever got it in the first place (now, he’s one of the first to join my Matrix instance). The fact that this project is named Commet is NOT good for my “main character syndrome”!
Shayeta@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
If the Matrix protocol actually implemented E2E encryption properly I would love to use something like this.
Mio@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
Please explain. They don’t have that?
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If it’s the problem that I’ve seen people complain about in the past, it’s effectively the same as HTTPS ‘not supporting’ end to end encryption because it runs over IP and IP packets contain the IP address of where they need to go, so someone can see that two IP addresses are communicating, which is unavoidable as otherwise there’s nothing to say where the data needs to go, so no way for it to get there. Someone did a blog post a couple of years ago claiming Matrix was unsecure as encrypted messages had their destination homeserver in plaintext, but that doesn’t carry any information that isn’t implied by the fact that the message is being sent to that homeserver’s IP.
Shayeta@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Message metadata - such as sender, recipient, device ID, and timestamps - is not encrypted at the transport layer, and in many cases remains visible to the homeserver
mp3@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Samsy@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
This looks promising. For my self host/privacy friends, this one simply has unifiedpush support (simple-x still hasn’t).
PS. This app isn’t listed here: unifiedpush.org/users/apps/ Time to tell them.
eodur@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Ugh. Another one that doesn’t support OIDC.
HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Thanks, that actually looks like a nice android alternative to cinny
Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Maybe I am just stupid but I can’t verify my commet session.
artyom@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Welcome to Matrix
Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I have tried Element, element x, element web, fluffychat, neochat, polycule, cinny… and could always verify my sessions. Yet I can’t in commet. So it’s not a matrix issue.
bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Flutter? No thanks
thehamzan6@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What’s wrong with flutter?
one_knight_scripting@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Saved for later, will probably try once it publishes to flathub.
spez@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
God please let matrix figure out text channels and better calling 🙏
timestatic@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
But… They already have text channels pretty much figured out and are on better calling rn with Element Call
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
The messaging experience between Discord and Element is night and day. On Discord, I open the app, go to a server, and can see all the rooms and all the messages almost instantly.
On Element (at least on Android), chats from different communities intermingle with my groups. I tapped on a large and slown group, and watched messages slowly lurch into view as most of the messages were “join” and “leave” ones.
UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The last couple updates made it better, but I wouldn’t exactly call Element a smooth experience. For example it recently began to try and access a keyring that doesn’t exist, ignoring the one that I already have readily available, and that works for everything else.
This is the latest in a long series of frustrating experiences with Matrix in general. To this day, Element isn’t stable, and Element X is somehow worse. It is, imo, a very promising option, but it is also far from perfect.
Zeoic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah I just set up a synapse + livekit server last night. Voice, video, and screen share rooms work flawlessly
Billygoat@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Isn’t that its purpose?
vermaterc@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Yeah, that’s the idea, but they are still not there