It seems to pretty much still be in transition. Element X lacks still many features, and cannot be used with some homeservers that still use the old style SSO.
I already use use Matrix for many public chat rooms, but it still needs some work before I can recommend it to other people.
I’m excited and super happy about stuff like this coming forward! It seems like the Matrix team is finally addressing some of the glaring UX issues which make it unusable for me and many others. Thanks for the hard work!
However, me being myself, of course I must complain (with the most productive of intentions):
Is it really “here” if it isn’t officially released and there are only 2 implementations (if you’re generous)? It sounds a lot more like it is (finally) entering a beta phase in which adventurers can try the new features than it being ready for everyone to happily use. If this is the case and you still tell people it’s ready, that costs precious trust and goodwill.
I think there’s a need for a huge effort to get rid of as many of Matrix’s paper cuts as possible to get the experience on par with commercial solutions. The need is greater than ever and it just keeps increasing. I’ve definitely seen some of it happen and these updates keep me cautiously hopeful, I just wonder how long I’ll have to wait until the core experience is good enough to recommend to non-technical people who are used to the obsessively polished core user flows of Whatsapp, Discord and Telegram.
I just had another look at Element X for iOS and the progress is significant! The login flow is so much improved (QR code login is EXACTLY how to do it) and all the chats were magically just there (no loading screen AT ALL?!?!). I’m not sure I’m not dreaming right now, even with sliding sync it used to take so long to load the room list or individual rooms.
I really like that you can verify using the recovery key (I thought we agreed on “security key” for a while, but I do like this name better), as that’s all I had on hand.
Huuuuge props for all the details that are just right now. So much more user guidance than I’m used to (it told me to re-login to upgrade protocols and that I can’t send messages because one of my devices isn’t verified - the latter was a bit confusing).
It’s not quite on the level of the offerings I mentioned before, but it’s honestly much closer than I thought it’d come in the medium term. That’s great stuff, I’m impressed (... now we need similarly good clients for other platforms ...)!
Thanks for the positive feedback :) There's still a lot of polish (and features) planned out for Element X, so it should only get better!
> I thought we agreed on “security key” for a while, but I do like this name better
Yes, sorry for flipflopping on this. On the plus side, we've finally locked down encryption terminology and are going to get it in the spec to ensure that UX is consistent between clients: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/and...
In terms of clients for other platforms - it's worth noting that GNOME Fractal uses matrix-rust-sdk and so benefits from all the work that goes into Element X on the rust-sdk side, and so is shaping up increasingly well :)
TIL about Element X. Is this app ready to use or not? The website says:
> Element X is the mobile messaging app that almost all Element users should now be using.
But the commenters here disagree.
Also, the Element app and its App Store listing doesn't indicate there is another version I should switch to, so looks like they don't want people to switch after all?
Honestly, this is infuriating. I keep my Matrix account just for that one friend who prefers using that platform, so I grit my teeth and suffer from bugs (lost media attachments, missing notifications), and now it turns out all of that could have maybe been avoided with this new app that they aren't telling us anything about? I am not going to read developer blogs for an app that I use once a month...
They could have went the Google Hangouts route. Rename existing app to Element Classic, put up new one as Element.
The commenters are wrong (unless you consider threads or spaces to be absolutely critical to your current workflows).
> and now it turns out all of that could have maybe been avoided with this new app that they aren't telling us anything about?
Element X was only just declared ready for primetime in the last few weeks. It can't replace the classic app entirely yet because it doesn't have spaces/threads.
I already use use Matrix for many public chat rooms, but it still needs some work before I can recommend it to other people.