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I think he understands UX is important; the majority of recent changes are to the UX since the crypto is more or less stable. OWS probably has much fewer develo

by janimo 11y ago

I think he understands UX is important; the majority of recent changes are to the UX since the crypto is more or less stable. OWS probably has much fewer developers contributing to Signal than either Telegram and WhatsApp, so that could be one of the reasons they have to play catch-up. There are also features some consider good UX but Signal shuns because they create confusion regarding the security properties (i.e. self-destructing messages). Signal's number one priority is security while that is not nearly as important for Telegram in practice. A lot of the UX advantages the latter has can be traced back to this essential difference. I agree though that something like messaging multiple people without creating a group first is more or less UX-only and would probably make sense (groups are anyway a client-side abstraction only in Signal, servers have no concept of them, so making anonymous or automatically named groups on the fly should be doable) Also probably getting in touch with OWS on their mailing list is more effective than hoping they notice random posts on HN. It is not the most contributor-friendly project on the planet but clearly articulated and focused posts are usually answered and so are issues/pull-requests that conform to their stated guidelines (do not add extra options, do not put security second, etc.)

newman314 11y ago
I'll use an example that has been confusing for me. The contact list alternately shows some people in gray text and others in black while having a separate phone icon. 1) It was not immediately obvious to me that I have to select the name to msg. iMessage deals with this by having a specific messaging icon that makes it clear. 2) I was able to guess that the grayed out names meant no messaging but then again I tried to call multiple of these contacts and it does not seem to work properly in that that I can't seem to reach those people. Not sure if this is broken... Part of this is the legacy of Redphone/Textsecure so as Signal spreads as a single app across platforms, I'm hoping this issue somewhat goes away. [1] 3) It would certainly be nice to have the whole contact list be visible instead of just the known contacts with Signal/Textsecure/Redphone along with the ability to easily share an invite to others to use Signal via iMessage, email etc. (use the standard iOS share dialog) I'm willing to bet this gets a lot more people to see/use/invite others. 4) I would argue that groups/multi-device is the same abstraction in this case (each device would be a hidden subcontact) hence it should be possible to get multi-device support in short order if group support is already there. I don't believe any of the things I've listed above have security implications but I could always be wrong. Maybe I'll file some tickets this weekend if I have some time. I did some digging and found the link below. Requiring people to understand and handle an issue around a bloom filter is a bit much. That part should just work. [1] http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/212743488-Why-are-my-contacts-different-colors-in-my-contact-list- http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21274348...

by janimo 11y ago

newman314 11y ago

I'll use an example that has been confusing for me. The contact list alternately shows some people in gray text and others in black while having a separate phone icon. 1) It was not immediately obvious to me that I have to select the name to msg. iMessage deals with this by having a specific messaging icon that makes it clear. 2) I was able to guess that the grayed out names meant no messaging but then again I tried to call multiple of these contacts and it does not seem to work properly in that that I can't seem to reach those people. Not sure if this is broken... Part of this is the legacy of Redphone/Textsecure so as Signal spreads as a single app across platforms, I'm hoping this issue somewhat goes away. [1] 3) It would certainly be nice to have the whole contact list be visible instead of just the known contacts with Signal/Textsecure/Redphone along with the ability to easily share an invite to others to use Signal via iMessage, email etc. (use the standard iOS share dialog) I'm willing to bet this gets a lot more people to see/use/invite others. 4) I would argue that groups/multi-device is the same abstraction in this case (each device would be a hidden subcontact) hence it should be possible to get multi-device support in short order if group support is already there. I don't believe any of the things I've listed above have security implications but I could always be wrong. Maybe I'll file some tickets this weekend if I have some time. I did some digging and found the link below. Requiring people to understand and handle an issue around a bloom filter is a bit much. That part should just work. [1] http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/212743488-Why-are-my-contacts-different-colors-in-my-contact-list- http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21274348...