206 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
206 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
# Conversations
|
||
|
||
Conversations: the very last word in instant messaging
|
||
|
||
This is a fork of the official [Conversations](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations) app with some modifications described under features.
|
||
|
||
Conversations can be downloaded from github [releases](https://github.com/kriztan/Conversations/releases)
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
## Design principles
|
||
|
||
* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
|
||
privacy
|
||
* Rely on existing, well established protocols (XMPP)
|
||
* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
|
||
* Require as few permissions as possible
|
||
|
||
## Features
|
||
|
||
* End-to-end encryption with either [OTR](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/) or [OpenPGP](http://www.openpgp.org/about_openpgp/)
|
||
* Send and receive images as well as other kind of files
|
||
* Share your location via an external [plug-in](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations.sharelocation&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub)
|
||
* Indication when your contact has read your message
|
||
* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
|
||
* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
|
||
* Syncs with desktop client
|
||
* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
|
||
* Address book integration
|
||
* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
|
||
* Very low impact on battery life
|
||
|
||
our individual changes:
|
||
* accounts are hard linked to pix-art.de
|
||
* increased avatar-sizes in account- and contact-details with prefering XMPP-avatars over addressbook avatars
|
||
* in-app self updater with dayly check for updates
|
||
* moved writing info from chatwindow into actionbar-subtitle
|
||
* display group chat members in actionbar-subtitle
|
||
* images are transfered as JPEG
|
||
* support more file-types for file-transfer (pdf, doc, docx, txt, m4a, m4b, mp3, mp2, wav, aac, aif, aiff, aifc, mid, midi, 3gpp, avi, mp4, mpeg, mpg, mpe, mov, 3gp, apk, vcf, ics, zip, rar)
|
||
* show contacts name in locations shared in conferences
|
||
|
||
### XMPP Features
|
||
|
||
This Conversations works only with `pix-art.de`. However XMPP is an
|
||
extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
|
||
XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
|
||
experience better. Our XMPP-Server is prosody and supports all of the listed XEP's:
|
||
|
||
* [XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0065.html) (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
|
||
files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
|
||
* [XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html) for avatars
|
||
* [XEP-0191: Blocking command](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0191.html) lets you blacklist spammers or block contacts
|
||
without removing them from your roster.
|
||
* [XEP-0198: Stream Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0198.html) allows XMPP to survive small network outages and
|
||
changes of the underlying TCP connection.
|
||
* [XEP-0280: Message Carbons](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html) which automatically syncs the messages you send to
|
||
your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
|
||
client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
|
||
* [XEP-0237: Roster Versioning](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0237.html) mainly to save bandwidth on poor mobile connections
|
||
* [XEP-0313: Message Archive Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html) synchronize message history with the
|
||
server. Catch up with messages that were sent while Conversations was
|
||
offline.
|
||
* [XEP-0352: Client State Indication](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0352.html) lets the server know whether or not
|
||
Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
|
||
withholding unimportant packages.
|
||
* [XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0363.html) allows you to share files in conferences and with offline
|
||
contacts. Requires an [additional component](https://github.com/siacs/HttpUploadComponent)
|
||
on your server.
|
||
|
||
## Team
|
||
|
||
#### Head of Development (original Conversations)
|
||
|
||
* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/inputmice)
|
||
|
||
#### Head of Development (modified Conversations)
|
||
|
||
* [Christian Schneppe](https://github.com/kriztan)
|
||
|
||
#### Code Contributions (original Conversations)
|
||
|
||
(In order of appearance)
|
||
|
||
* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Artreffer+is%3Amerged))
|
||
* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Astrb+is%3Amerged))
|
||
* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Aalethea+is%3Amerged))
|
||
* [M. Dietrich](https://github.com/emdete) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Aemdete+is%3Amerged))
|
||
* [betheg](https://github.com/betheg) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Abetheg+is%3Amerged))
|
||
* [Sam Whited](https://github.com/SamWhited) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3ASamWhited+is%3Amerged))
|
||
* [BrianBlade](https://github.com/BrianBlade) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3ABrianBlade+is%3Amerged))
|
||
|
||
#### Logo
|
||
* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Progress)
|
||
* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys) (Original)
|
||
* [fiaxh](https://github.com/fiaxh) (OMEMO)
|
||
|
||
#### Translations
|
||
Translations are managed on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/conversations/) for original features
|
||
|
||
Translations for our own features are managed on github. If you would like to help translation the app create a pull-request.
|
||
|
||
## FAQ
|
||
|
||
### General
|
||
|
||
#### How do I install Conversations?
|
||
|
||
Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
|
||
software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use ant to
|
||
build your apk file.
|
||
|
||
Our modified version of Conversation can be downloaded from github [releases](https://github.com/kriztan/Conversations/releases)
|
||
|
||
#### How do I create an account?
|
||
|
||
With our Conversations app you can only create and use accounts on `pix-art.de`. You can create your own account for free. Aftre creating your own `pix-art.de` account you'll find me in your contact list. If you have any questions about our app or our service feel free to ask me.
|
||
|
||
You can join our conference room on `support@room.pix-art.de`.
|
||
|
||
#### How does the address book integration work?
|
||
|
||
The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
|
||
neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
|
||
address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
|
||
add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
|
||
the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
|
||
your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
|
||
details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
|
||
with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
|
||
permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
|
||
JID from one app to another.
|
||
|
||
#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
|
||
|
||
If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
|
||
network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
|
||
later time.
|
||
|
||
For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
|
||
When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
|
||
being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
|
||
recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
|
||
short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
|
||
connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
|
||
connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
|
||
be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
|
||
|
||
Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
|
||
criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
|
||
that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
|
||
|
||
Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
|
||
the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
|
||
instantly.
|
||
|
||
#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
|
||
|
||
Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
|
||
works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
|
||
automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
|
||
activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
|
||
something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
|
||
of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
|
||
everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
|
||
4am‽).
|
||
|
||
In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
|
||
messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
|
||
(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
|
||
whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
|
||
priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
|
||
to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
|
||
supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
|
||
priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
|
||
changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
|
||
the last message) are much better.
|
||
|
||
Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
|
||
adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
|
||
instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
|
||
implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
|
||
as well.
|
||
|
||
Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
|
||
Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
|
||
other clients.
|
||
|
||
### Security
|
||
|
||
#### Encryption methodes
|
||
|
||
At the moment we have disabled the end-to-end encryption methodes because we force TLS encrypted connections. Unecrypted connections were denied.
|
||
|
||
#### I found a bug
|
||
|
||
If you have troubles or problems please report them first into our support chat `support@room.pix-art.de`, so we can decide if it's an issue caused by our features or a global issue.
|
||
|
||
Only global issues should be reported into the Conversations [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
|
||
provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehaviour please provide
|
||
detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
|
||
Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
|
||
your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
|
||
include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
|
||
|
||
[issues]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/issues
|