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Comment by xvilka | Hacker News Reader

I wish they stop wasting time by developing this Electron abomination and focus more on the native and mobile clients.

I realize this is a somewhat dismissive answer, but the entire point of Matrix is that it's an open specification. The Matrix team is putting a ton of work into guides that show you how to build support into your own apps. The protocol is being designed, from the ground up, to be easy to implement.

I'm not saying you personally have to build a mobile app. I am saying, in the grand scheme of things, if this is genuinely something that matters to a bunch of people, any one of them can build a mobile app and solve your problem.

There are tons of people on HN that hate Electron. If this is actually a real problem, then someone will eventually solve it, and it'll be fine. On the other hand, if a large, sizable community of native developers with tons of experience on the platforms they want 1st-class solutions for don't ever get around to solving it... then it's probably not a real problem.

Riot-web is a really nice app. Drop it on any web server and you're done. I use it all day long to talk to my family on a self-hosted, non-federated matrix instance. If you use linux, Fractal is a pretty good option for a desktop application. The latest release is "beta" but very usable.

https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fractal.html

Curious if there was a reason you chose to self-host as opposed to using a public one on just starting your own room (I assume this is possible in the same way channels are in IRC)?

What was the drive to use 1, self-host and non-federate an instance of Matrix over another platform, and 2, why? With family especially, I would assume a simple WhatsApp/Signal group would have been easier for adoption.

My extended family of 16 which ranges in age from 5 to 85 uses this Matrix instance. We didn't want pictures of our young kids on Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. These young kids and grandparents don't have smartphones so Signal isn't an option. Also, many of us access Matrix on other devices and computers other than phones.

This is how the internet is supposed to be.

Thanks. I've been tossing up setting up a forum of sorts for some close friends, but I've been going back and forth on the two extremes; an obscure telnet-only accessible BBS for the nostalgia, or a Matrix/Riot page for the ease of use.

I know about Fractal. My point it is not the reference client and not enough love is done for mobile clients also.

Personally the clients are OK. They might not be the most well designed since that is always problem for projects like that but they are OK.

So do i really have to build it?!

the only reason we release the electron app is because it’s practically zero work (and it was a community contribution in the first place). in practice much of the team work on the native mobile clients. hopefully proper native desktop apps will mature from the community, or worst case we’ll get involved as the core team.

Good to hear this, thanks for the answer!

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