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Show HN: Cordless, a Discord terminal client written in Go

105 points by guessmyname 7y ago

qwsxyh 7y ago
Sure can't wait for anyone using this to be banned practically instantly.
- bios-marcel 7y ago
  Well, that's why I put a warning in the readme. However, I've been using this for 7+ months or so?
notamy 7y ago
Do note that this is very much against the Discord TOS; the README does say "WARNING: Self-bots are discouraged and against Discords TOS.", but for clarity, anything considered "user account automation" is disallowed, including custom clients and similar. See ex. https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002192352-Automated-user-accounts-self-bots- https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500219235... (Obligatory disclaimer: I don't work for Discord, I just use it heavily and make a bunch of proper bots for it)
- Y_Y 7y ago
  How dare they!
- tombh 7y ago
  I wonder if a browser is considered a self-bot? Because the text-based browser https://www.brow.sh https://www.brow.sh supports modern web applications.
  - untog 7y ago
    Presumably a browser would not be, but an automated browser would be. They're concerned about the end result, not how it's done.
- noirscape 7y ago
  Whilst it's not an endorsement to do any of this, from experience, they only take action if another user reports you or if you start spamming their servers with requests.
- aflag 7y ago
  Bummer, I was about to start using discord. There are a few servers that I'd like to join, but I find their app slow and annoying. This could've been a good compromise. I don't want to break their TOS, though.
  - mathgeek 7y ago
    Could you elaborate on why a custom client is the different between using their service and choosing not to at all?
    - aflag 7y ago
      I think the main reason is just performance. The official client is slow and slows down my computer. I have signed up and joined a few servers like Mario maker ones and the one for the diablo disassembly project (which I always forget the name). Currently, once in a blue moon I open it in search for mario maker IDs. However, I never spend any time there, as the chatting experience is not very good. It's not very good because: - notifications work badly for me (notifying a lot more than I'd like, I briefly tried to get it to only notify me when someone called me specifically, but I can't couldn't find a way that wouldn't involve going through all the channels - it's slow and uses too much memory for my puny little pc - it's hard to keep track of the last read message and current latest message. It requires clicks and it's clunky to use. - this is a personal one, I find the interface really ugly and I value beauty in my UIs If there was a server I was incredibly excited about I could put up with it. But given my mild interest, I end up never logging in. If there was a terminal UI that I could leave running in the background, not taking too many resources, I'd definitely leave it on a tab and interact on topics I found interesting, just like I do currently with IRC.
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        Have you tried running it in a browser? Most features work, and Firefox/Chrome have much better notification systems and performance.
        7y ago
- ameliaquining 7y ago
  Where exactly does it say that custom clients are against the TOS? Those aren't a form of automation. Discord deliberately offers (and this project uses) an API for posting from non-bot accounts, which implies that there are at least some legitimate use cases for using it.
  - empyrical 7y ago
    They discourage custom clients and also they discourage browser extensions that modify the discord interface (like Better Discord) https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/846597021431713792 https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/846597021431713792 https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/972529263269371904?lang=en https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/972529263269371904?lan... https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/908000828690182145?lang=en https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/908000828690182145?lan... I don't think they will send the banhammer down on you unless you use it for spamming or "self-botting" but it still seems a bit risky Ripcord seems to have survived this long without incident for its users, for example https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ But they might start cracking down if a certain % of people start using other clients
  - notamy 7y ago
    > Discord deliberately offers (and this project uses) an API for posting from non-bot accounts, which implies that there are at least some legitimate use cases for using it. The official client uses the exact same API as bot accounts, with the exception of a few endpoints being restricted to certain account types. Any form of "use a user account via API endpoints" outside of OAuth is discouraged, to say the least, although in general they won't actively hunt down people who do so.
half-kh-hacker 7y ago
This is a cool project, but it's kind of ruined by Discord's inane TOS. I hope we can get people to move to something open.
- dmix 7y ago
  I've never understood these tech company's intolerance to 3rd party clients, which are almost always niche or used by the ad-blocker using tech savvy subset of their userbase. Open clients is how most of the internet was built and will continue to be built. They should spend more time focusing on building their own best-in-class clients themselves. If they're not able to accomplish that for the vast majority of their users it's a sign of a bigger problem than some monetization optimization strategy which will only push people away. The valuable power users have multiple clients anyway and bring in more regular users (who just use the standard clients) than they're worth individually.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Well, keeping it this way encourages lock-in.
  - notamy 7y ago
    > I've never understood these tech company's intolerance to 3rd party clients, which are almost always niche or used by the ad-blocker using tech savvy subset of their userbase. In the case of Discord specifically, iirc there has been issues in the past with abusive behaviour coming from people automating their own accounts (spambots etc.), which was one of the main reasons it was prohibited.
    - dmix 7y ago
      Banning all 3rd party clients and shutting down apis seems like an overreaction to spam... just give them keys which can be disabled.
      - dylz 7y ago
        They already do disable keys. The official client collects a ton of hardware information and posts it back to Discord and a third party repeatedly.
avinassh 7y ago
On a related note, there is also a nice Slack terminal client (written in GO) - https://github.com/erroneousboat/slack-term https://github.com/erroneousboat/slack-term
- Fnoord 7y ago
  With Vi keybinds!!
Fnoord 7y ago
Another TUI Discord client written in Go, called 6cord [1] I'm using Ripcord [2] because it is written in Qt, cross-platform, and works for both Discord and Slack. It also has voice chat support. It is not FOSS though, not feature complete either, and against ToS of Discord and Slack. [1] https://gitlab.com/diamondburned/6cord https://gitlab.com/diamondburned/6cord [2] https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/
- auscompgeek 7y ago
  What is it about Ripcord that violates Slack's ToS? AFAIK Slack are pretty accepting about custom clients, to the point where they even mention wee-slack [1] in their docs [2]. [1]: https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack [2]: https://api.slack.com/community#python https://api.slack.com/community#python
  - gsich 7y ago
    They even had XMPP and IRC one time ... which they shut down for bullshit reasons.
rocky1138 7y ago
I'm more interested in a server side reimplementation than a new client. When discord goes out of business I don't want to lose everything so I want to be able to redirect discord requests to my own server.
- SpaceManiac 7y ago
  In this scenario you'd be losing all your backlogs and user registrations anyways, so why re-use the existing client with a stapled-on redirector over switching to something you can actually deploy yourself?
  - rocky1138 7y ago
    The client is actually pretty good, so we could continue using that and I believe that for popular discords with lots of fans it wouldn't be the end of the world to have them re-register if everyone knew the alternative is losing the community.
0xb100db1ade 7y ago
Cordless is awesome! I've been using it for the past few weeks due to a problem with the Discord electron client spinning up my fans. Using Discord in the terminal fixes the problem (and scores major geek points!) The main developer of Cordless is super nice. Each issue I've filed has been an absolute pleasure to discuss.

105 points by guessmyname 7y ago

qwsxyh 7y ago

Sure can't wait for anyone using this to be banned practically instantly.

bios-marcel 7y ago
Well, that's why I put a warning in the readme. However, I've been using this for 7+ months or so?

notamy 7y ago

Do note that this is very much against the Discord TOS; the README does say "WARNING: Self-bots are discouraged and against Discords TOS.", but for clarity, anything considered "user account automation" is disallowed, including custom clients and similar. See ex. https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002192352-Automated-user-accounts-self-bots- https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500219235... (Obligatory disclaimer: I don't work for Discord, I just use it heavily and make a bunch of proper bots for it)

Y_Y 7y ago
How dare they!
tombh 7y ago
I wonder if a browser is considered a self-bot? Because the text-based browser https://www.brow.sh https://www.brow.sh supports modern web applications.
- untog 7y ago
  Presumably a browser would not be, but an automated browser would be. They're concerned about the end result, not how it's done.
noirscape 7y ago
Whilst it's not an endorsement to do any of this, from experience, they only take action if another user reports you or if you start spamming their servers with requests.
aflag 7y ago
Bummer, I was about to start using discord. There are a few servers that I'd like to join, but I find their app slow and annoying. This could've been a good compromise. I don't want to break their TOS, though.
- mathgeek 7y ago
  Could you elaborate on why a custom client is the different between using their service and choosing not to at all?
  - aflag 7y ago
    I think the main reason is just performance. The official client is slow and slows down my computer. I have signed up and joined a few servers like Mario maker ones and the one for the diablo disassembly project (which I always forget the name). Currently, once in a blue moon I open it in search for mario maker IDs. However, I never spend any time there, as the chatting experience is not very good. It's not very good because: - notifications work badly for me (notifying a lot more than I'd like, I briefly tried to get it to only notify me when someone called me specifically, but I can't couldn't find a way that wouldn't involve going through all the channels - it's slow and uses too much memory for my puny little pc - it's hard to keep track of the last read message and current latest message. It requires clicks and it's clunky to use. - this is a personal one, I find the interface really ugly and I value beauty in my UIs If there was a server I was incredibly excited about I could put up with it. But given my mild interest, I end up never logging in. If there was a terminal UI that I could leave running in the background, not taking too many resources, I'd definitely leave it on a tab and interact on topics I found interesting, just like I do currently with IRC.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      Have you tried running it in a browser? Most features work, and Firefox/Chrome have much better notification systems and performance.
      - 7y ago
ameliaquining 7y ago
Where exactly does it say that custom clients are against the TOS? Those aren't a form of automation. Discord deliberately offers (and this project uses) an API for posting from non-bot accounts, which implies that there are at least some legitimate use cases for using it.
- empyrical 7y ago
  They discourage custom clients and also they discourage browser extensions that modify the discord interface (like Better Discord) https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/846597021431713792 https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/846597021431713792 https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/972529263269371904?lang=en https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/972529263269371904?lan... https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/908000828690182145?lang=en https://twitter.com/discordapp/status/908000828690182145?lan... I don't think they will send the banhammer down on you unless you use it for spamming or "self-botting" but it still seems a bit risky Ripcord seems to have survived this long without incident for its users, for example https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ But they might start cracking down if a certain % of people start using other clients
- notamy 7y ago
  > Discord deliberately offers (and this project uses) an API for posting from non-bot accounts, which implies that there are at least some legitimate use cases for using it. The official client uses the exact same API as bot accounts, with the exception of a few endpoints being restricted to certain account types. Any form of "use a user account via API endpoints" outside of OAuth is discouraged, to say the least, although in general they won't actively hunt down people who do so.

half-kh-hacker 7y ago

This is a cool project, but it's kind of ruined by Discord's inane TOS. I hope we can get people to move to something open.

dmix 7y ago
I've never understood these tech company's intolerance to 3rd party clients, which are almost always niche or used by the ad-blocker using tech savvy subset of their userbase. Open clients is how most of the internet was built and will continue to be built. They should spend more time focusing on building their own best-in-class clients themselves. If they're not able to accomplish that for the vast majority of their users it's a sign of a bigger problem than some monetization optimization strategy which will only push people away. The valuable power users have multiple clients anyway and bring in more regular users (who just use the standard clients) than they're worth individually.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Well, keeping it this way encourages lock-in.
- notamy 7y ago
  > I've never understood these tech company's intolerance to 3rd party clients, which are almost always niche or used by the ad-blocker using tech savvy subset of their userbase. In the case of Discord specifically, iirc there has been issues in the past with abusive behaviour coming from people automating their own accounts (spambots etc.), which was one of the main reasons it was prohibited.
  - dmix 7y ago
    Banning all 3rd party clients and shutting down apis seems like an overreaction to spam... just give them keys which can be disabled.
    - dylz 7y ago
      They already do disable keys. The official client collects a ton of hardware information and posts it back to Discord and a third party repeatedly.

avinassh 7y ago

On a related note, there is also a nice Slack terminal client (written in GO) - https://github.com/erroneousboat/slack-term https://github.com/erroneousboat/slack-term

Fnoord 7y ago
With Vi keybinds!!

Fnoord 7y ago

Another TUI Discord client written in Go, called 6cord [1] I'm using Ripcord [2] because it is written in Qt, cross-platform, and works for both Discord and Slack. It also has voice chat support. It is not FOSS though, not feature complete either, and against ToS of Discord and Slack. [1] https://gitlab.com/diamondburned/6cord https://gitlab.com/diamondburned/6cord [2] https://cancel.fm/ripcord/ https://cancel.fm/ripcord/

auscompgeek 7y ago
What is it about Ripcord that violates Slack's ToS? AFAIK Slack are pretty accepting about custom clients, to the point where they even mention wee-slack [1] in their docs [2]. [1]: https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack [2]: https://api.slack.com/community#python https://api.slack.com/community#python
- gsich 7y ago
  They even had XMPP and IRC one time ... which they shut down for bullshit reasons.

rocky1138 7y ago

I'm more interested in a server side reimplementation than a new client. When discord goes out of business I don't want to lose everything so I want to be able to redirect discord requests to my own server.

SpaceManiac 7y ago
In this scenario you'd be losing all your backlogs and user registrations anyways, so why re-use the existing client with a stapled-on redirector over switching to something you can actually deploy yourself?
- rocky1138 7y ago
  The client is actually pretty good, so we could continue using that and I believe that for popular discords with lots of fans it wouldn't be the end of the world to have them re-register if everyone knew the alternative is losing the community.

0xb100db1ade 7y ago

Cordless is awesome! I've been using it for the past few weeks due to a problem with the Discord electron client spinning up my fans. Using Discord in the terminal fixes the problem (and scores major geek points!) The main developer of Cordless is super nice. Each issue I've filed has been an absolute pleasure to discuss.