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Unfortunately the overall code quality doesn't seem to good - I looked at the Android code and the network layer / retry logic seems to be quite chaotic with we

Unfortunately the overall code quality doesn't seem to good - I looked at the Android code and the network layer / retry logic seems to be quite chaotic with weird exception handling. The UI layer would also need a refresh, a lot of logic is placed in the Fragments directly, no MVVM (e.g. Architecture Components ViewModel) or any other pattern. The sync issues keep coming back. For example you use the Signal desktop app and then at the end of the day you pick up the phone, open Signal and a stream of notifications will start flowing in (even though you read everything on desktop). Also the PC desktop app doesn't sync with iPhone, you need to download an old version, pair the phone and then update to latest to fix it - https://community.signalusers.org/t/my-messages-in-desktop-app-not-showing-in-ios-app/22329 https://community.signalusers.org/t/my-messages-in-desktop-a....

GuB-42 6y ago
I also too a look at the code and wasn't impressed. Signal used to have a feature that allows you to import SMS. It had a few problems but it mostly did the job. But lately, they disabled it with the latest onboarding update, without mentioning anything in the change log. I had to look at the git history to see that, I also found a "won't fix" ticket about the problem. I think they are ignoring an very important feature but anyways, make a decision. Either you officially disable the feature, write it in the changelog and remove the dead code. Or you keep it and hopefully fix it. The way they are doing it is sloppy. I didn't look too much into it but dead code is definitely a code smell and your experience seems to match mine. It is not terrible, but a bit underwhelming considered it is a highly regarded, security sensitive app.
pure_simplicity 6y ago
That's unfortunate. I wonder why Signal suffers from these issues, but I hope it's something we can fix. I think Signal has such great potential. Society needs a successful privacy respecting open source chat app like Signal. Do you have any clue how to make things better?

GuB-42 6y ago

I also too a look at the code and wasn't impressed. Signal used to have a feature that allows you to import SMS. It had a few problems but it mostly did the job. But lately, they disabled it with the latest onboarding update, without mentioning anything in the change log. I had to look at the git history to see that, I also found a "won't fix" ticket about the problem. I think they are ignoring an very important feature but anyways, make a decision. Either you officially disable the feature, write it in the changelog and remove the dead code. Or you keep it and hopefully fix it. The way they are doing it is sloppy. I didn't look too much into it but dead code is definitely a code smell and your experience seems to match mine. It is not terrible, but a bit underwhelming considered it is a highly regarded, security sensitive app.

pure_simplicity 6y ago

That's unfortunate. I wonder why Signal suffers from these issues, but I hope it's something we can fix. I think Signal has such great potential. Society needs a successful privacy respecting open source chat app like Signal. Do you have any clue how to make things better?