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Techy friend group of mine migrated from Discord to a self-hosted private Matrix server a few months back. No complaints so far, although we didn't use Discord'

by kibwen 3y ago

Techy friend group of mine migrated from Discord to a self-hosted private Matrix server a few months back. No complaints so far, although we didn't use Discord's voice/video/screen-sharing features (which I hear that Matrix intends to support eventually). UX-wise, it made me appreciate the distinction between Discord's "everyone is subscribed to every channel in a server by default" stance, and IRC/Matrix's opposite approach. The latter certainly scales better, but the former is so, so much better for discoverability, so it's probably the better default for small servers. And if you're looking for a Matrix client with a Discord-like UI, try Cinny.

Arathorn 3y ago
The plan on Discord-style voice/video/screensharing features is Element Call (https://call.element.io https://call.element.io) which is built to be embeddable into Matrix clients. It’s already in Element X, and is in Element Web/Desktop behind a labs flag. Meanwhile you can always embed Jitsi.
- solarkraft 3y ago
  As far as I'm able to tell most call functionality is built into the JS SDK (is this true), so what will embedding Element Call actually gain me? The (beautiful!) UI?
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    It will gain you: * The ability to use the end-to-end encryption identity & verification from your normal Matrix account, by piggybacking on the 'host' matrix client. Whereas call.element.io is not remotely designed (at all) to work with your normal Matrix account, and doesn't have any of the E2EE UI hooked up, and instead relies on a shared secret to access E2EE rooms * The ability to place VoIP calls inside existing Matrix rooms from your normal Matrix account. * The ability to reliably background the app & lock the phone when on a call. * The ability to receive inbound calls via push notifications and CallKit/ConnectionService - i.e. presenting the calls in the native dialer UI of the phone, and treating Element X like a VoIP dialer. You get the same beautiful UI whether you use call.element.io directly or embed it inside another Matrix client like Element X :P
Pufferbo 3y ago
How did your friend convince your friend group to migrate over to Matrix? I’ve thought about setting up one but my group isn’t so much into the “do it yourself techies” or privacy conscious crowd.
- TheHappyOddish 3y ago
  The tech skill requirements are fairly low if someone hosts a homeserver everyone joins, or everyone joins a public.
- kibwen 3y ago
  As mentioned, this group is composed of techies who have an innate distrust of proprietary platforms, and the Reddit debacle (following so close on the heels of Twitter's ongoing debacles) was enough to tip the scales against continuing to operate the Discord. For groups of non-techies who care about convenience over all else, sadly I just think you're going to have to wait (or contribute yourself!) until Element/Matrix adds more UX polish. That said, one thing that did help a lot was having the server host a default client. Anyone can still connect to the server using any client they want, but now they can also go to the server's URL and get a good client without any hassle. We chose Cinny as the default client because it's solid and extremely familiar to any Discord users.

by kibwen 3y ago

Arathorn 3y ago

The plan on Discord-style voice/video/screensharing features is Element Call (https://call.element.io https://call.element.io) which is built to be embeddable into Matrix clients. It’s already in Element X, and is in Element Web/Desktop behind a labs flag. Meanwhile you can always embed Jitsi.

solarkraft 3y ago
As far as I'm able to tell most call functionality is built into the JS SDK (is this true), so what will embedding Element Call actually gain me? The (beautiful!) UI?
- Arathorn 3y ago
  It will gain you: * The ability to use the end-to-end encryption identity & verification from your normal Matrix account, by piggybacking on the 'host' matrix client. Whereas call.element.io is not remotely designed (at all) to work with your normal Matrix account, and doesn't have any of the E2EE UI hooked up, and instead relies on a shared secret to access E2EE rooms * The ability to place VoIP calls inside existing Matrix rooms from your normal Matrix account. * The ability to reliably background the app & lock the phone when on a call. * The ability to receive inbound calls via push notifications and CallKit/ConnectionService - i.e. presenting the calls in the native dialer UI of the phone, and treating Element X like a VoIP dialer. You get the same beautiful UI whether you use call.element.io directly or embed it inside another Matrix client like Element X :P

Pufferbo 3y ago

How did your friend convince your friend group to migrate over to Matrix? I’ve thought about setting up one but my group isn’t so much into the “do it yourself techies” or privacy conscious crowd.

TheHappyOddish 3y ago
The tech skill requirements are fairly low if someone hosts a homeserver everyone joins, or everyone joins a public.
kibwen 3y ago
As mentioned, this group is composed of techies who have an innate distrust of proprietary platforms, and the Reddit debacle (following so close on the heels of Twitter's ongoing debacles) was enough to tip the scales against continuing to operate the Discord. For groups of non-techies who care about convenience over all else, sadly I just think you're going to have to wait (or contribute yourself!) until Element/Matrix adds more UX polish. That said, one thing that did help a lot was having the server host a default client. Anyone can still connect to the server using any client they want, but now they can also go to the server's URL and get a good client without any hassle. We chose Cinny as the default client because it's solid and extremely familiar to any Discord users.