Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

FWIW, there was a lot of discussion recently on GNOME's desktop-devel-list about Telepathy and Matrix.

• https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desk...ead.html#00047
• https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desk...ead.html#00112

Messaging is not a field I'm familiar with, but it seemed to me that people have issues with Telepathy and that Telepathy's design is not considered a success -- red flags to me regarding choosing what to build on.

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Very interesting reading, thank you for sharing it!

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Well, no. From observations so far (2013-now) basically every time a community initiative hit any UI work in the closed source components only Jolla developers can do things ground to a halt and have not moved since. In some cases developers switched to alternative solutions (all the UI patches, various IM clients).

Just from top of my head:

• one category in the latest coding competition was won by patch adding GPG to the email client
• SIP is still waiting for UI integration (5 years and going strong!)
• third party applications still can't put settings pages to settings
• no multituser chat support (also quested by many users from day one)
• someone even tried to submit patches to the closed calendar UI "upstream" via the mailing list, only to be ignored
• usb tethering is still more or less hidden (by not being installed by default) for years due to missing UI elements (as discussed on a community meeting a while ago)
• AFAIK no new accounts or messaging providers have been added to the build in messaging system by a thirparty since Sailfish OS launched

So given this track-record it seems to me like a totally sensible idea to develop all these UI elements as the effert will not be blocked for years by requiring overworked Jolla developers to participate in it. I'd like to be proven wrong (and everyone is certainly welcome to chime in with any counter examples!) but it really seems to me like the only way to go.

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

@MartinK, my point was exactly the same - UI for messaging and accounts would have to written within this project. There is no hope to rely on closed source Jolla components.

From reading Gnome list archive posted by @otsaloma, I would have considered any multi-protocol messaging program carefully. Looks like lead telepathy dev had a rather large number of issues with it. I guess, unless you handle it according to the lowest denominator, as for SMS.

@Modulebaan, you are involved in developing Matrix client, right? Do you still plan to develop it separately into the full-featured one or want to merge relevant code over into this project?

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

@Everyone

I understand what you mean Rinigus: Telepathy would integrate much better and requires 'less' effort to develop the backend due the integration with the OS.

As MartinK pointed out: Waiting for Jolla is going to harm this project that's why I want to take the Python/QML approach. The UI is already written for messaging and contacts (it's a shared component between Transponder and Sailfinder).

I want to integrate the Matrix client into Transponder, the first release of Transponder will only support Matrix, for the next versions I plan Telegram and other providers. Matriski will be deprecated as soon as Transponder with Matrix hits stable.

The beauty of the Python plugin system is that other people easily can add new backends to Transponder. Only a bridge file needs to be written as with Otsaloma's Pan Transit app.

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Very nice project. Just out of curiosity (maybe i've overread it): is transponder working in the background (e.g. daemon)?

It is a main showstopper for me using a messaging application and needing it to have it running in foreground.

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Indeed, that's something we definitely need. No promises for the first versions but it's almost certainly it will have some kind of daemon.

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Do you plan for the matrix client to be fully functional (i.e. support exchange of pictures and videos, and have VOIP)? It would be fantastic to have all this natively rather than with Alien Dalvik. (Riot.im only partially works in my hands.)

I am already a matrix patron, and I would be happy to buy you a coffee if it helps the full functionality of matrix to land on SFOS ;)

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Sending files and stuff is on the roadmap. VOIP isn't at the moment since I lack the knowledge and time to implement this. Also the Python SDK doesn't support this.

Re: Transponder, a native messaging client
 

Are you sure that using python is a good idea?

I'm not talking performance here. I mean the maintainability. I've worked on a 50+KLOC python project and maintaining a bigger python codebase is a nightmare.

Python linters suck. Pylint is unable to properly handle classmethods, mypy had some problems too (I don't remember what kind of). The rest of linters will only scream at your style. Unless you have a giant test suite, with a really, really big test coverage and have a CI checking it all at every commit, the project will be unmaintainable. And even with this whole infra, it's a nightmare.

I'm not a fan of C++ either (Rust FTW) but when using a statically-typed language, the compiler at least pays attention that you're not doing utter nonsense.

/edit: btw. I see gajim spewing errors from time to time because the types don't match :P

besides, if shmoose were to be integrated into transponder (not discussed this yet with the main dev) - we're using swiften, so using python here would rule out the possibility of integration