1# Conversations
2
3Conversations: the very last word in instant messaging
4
5[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
6
7
8
9## Design principles
10
11* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
12 privacy
13* Rely on existing, well established protocols (XMPP)
14* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
15* Require as few permissions as possible
16
17## Features
18
19* End-to-end encryption with either [OTR](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/) or [OpenPGP](http://www.openpgp.org/about_openpgp/)
20* Sending and receiving images
21* Indication when your contact has read your message
22* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
23* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
24* Syncs with desktop client
25* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
26* Address book integration
27* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
28* Very low impact on battery life
29
30
31### XMPP Features
32
33Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an
34extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
35XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
36experience better. There is a chance that your current XMPP server does not
37support these extensions; therefore to get the most out of Conversations you
38should consider either switching to an XMPP server that does or — even better —
39run your own XMPP server for you and your friends. These XEP's are:
40
41* XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
42 files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
43* XEP-0138: Stream Compression saves bandwidth
44* XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol for avatars
45* XEP-0198: Stream Management allows XMPP to survive small network outages and
46 changes of the underlying TCP connection.
47* XEP-0280: Message Carbons which automatically syncs the messages you send to
48 your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
49 client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
50* XEP-0237: Roster Versioning mainly to save bandwidth on poor mobile connections
51* XEP-0352: Client State Indication let the server know whether or not
52 Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
53 withholding unimportant packages.
54
55## Team
56
57#### Head of Development
58
59* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/inputmice)
60
61#### Code Contributions
62
63(In order of appearance)
64
65* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer)
66* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb)
67* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea)
68* [M. Dietrich](https://github.com/emdete)
69* [betheg](https://github.com/betheg)
70* [Sam Whited](https://github.com/SamWhited)
71
72#### Logo
73* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Progress)
74* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys) (Original)
75
76#### Translations
77
78* [Sergio Cárdenas](https://github.com/kruks23) (Spanish)
79* [Benoit Bouvarel](https://github.com/BenoitBouvarel) (French)
80* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/iNPUTmice) (German)
81* [Aitor Beriain](https://github.com/beriain) (Basque)
82* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Russian)
83* [Jelmer Vernooij](https://github.com/jelmer) (Dutch)
84* [Anders Sandblad](https://github.com/andersruneson) (Swedish)
85* [Aizaz AZ](http://www.linkedin.com/in/aizazhaider) (Chinese)
86* [Jaroslav Lichtblau] (https://github.com/svetlemodry) (Czech)
87
88## FAQ
89
90### General
91
92#### How do I install Conversations?
93
94Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
95software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use ant to
96build your apk file.
97
98The more convenient way — which not only gives you automatic updates but also
99supports the further development of Conversations — is to buy the App in the
100Google [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations).
101
102#### I don't have a Google Account but I would still like to make a contribution
103
104I accept donations over PayPal, Bitcoin and Flattr. For donations via PayPal you
105can use the email address `donate@siacs.eu` or the button below.
106
107[](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CW3SYT3KG5PDL)
108
109**Disclaimer:** I'm not a huge fan of PayPal and their business policies. For
110larger contributions please get in touch with me beforehand and we can talk
111about bank transfer (SEPA).
112
113My Bitcoin Address is: `1NxSU1YxYzJVDpX1rcESAA3NJki7kRgeeu`
114
115
116[](https://flattr.com/submit/auto?user_id=inputmice&url=http%3A%2F%2Fconversations.siacs.eu&title=Conversations&tags=github&category=software)
117
118#### How do I create an account?
119
120XMPP, like email, is a federated protocol which means that there is not one
121company you can create an 'official XMPP account' with. Instead there are
122hundreds, or even thousands, of provider out there. To find one use a web search
123engine of your choice. Or maybe your university has one. Or you can run your
124own. Or ask a friend to run one. Once you've found one, you can use
125Conversations to create an account. Just select 'register new account on server'
126within the create account dialog.
127
128#### Where can I set up a custom hostname / port
129Conversations will automatically look up the SRV records for your domain name
130which can point to any hostname port combination. If your server doesn’t provide
131those please contact your admin and have them read
132[this](http://prosody.im/doc/dns#srv_records)
133
134#### Conversations doesn't work for me. Where can I get help?
135
136You can join our conference room on `conversations@conference.siacs.eu`.
137A lot of people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
138Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
139you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
140section of this document.
141
142#### I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
143
144I'm available for hire. Contact me at `inputmice@siacs.eu`.
145
146#### How does the address book integration work?
147
148The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
149neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
150address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
151add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
152the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
153your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
154details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
155with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
156permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
157JID from one app to another.
158
159#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
160
161If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
162network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
163later time.
164
165For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
166When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
167being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
168recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
169short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
170connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
171connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
172be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
173
174Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
175criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
176that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
177
178Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
179the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
180instantly.
181
182#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
183
184Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
185works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
186automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
187activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
188something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
189of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
190everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
1914am‽).
192
193In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
194messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
195(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
196whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
197priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
198to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
199supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
200priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
201changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
202the last message) are much better.
203
204Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
205adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
206instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
207implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
208as well.
209
210Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
211Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
212other clients.
213
214#### Conversations is missing a certain feature
215
216I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the [issue tracker][issues] on
217GitHub. Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone
218else already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I
219like it I will leave it open until it's implemented. If I don't like it I will
220close it (usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature
221request that's probably a good sign because this means I agree with you.
222Commenting with +1 on either open or closed issues won't change my mind, nor
223will it accelerate the development.
224
225#### You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
226
227Just write it yourself and send me a pull request. If I like it I will happily
228merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
229
230#### I need a feature and I need it now!
231
232I am available for hire. Contact me via XMPP: `inputmice@siacs.eu`
233
234### Security
235
236#### Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
237
238In most cases OTR should be the encryption method of choice. It works out of the
239box with most contacts as long as they are online. However PGP can, in some
240cases, (message carbons to multiple clients) be more flexible.
241
242#### How do I use OpenPGP
243
244Before you continue reading you should note that the OpenPGP support in
245Conversations is experimental. This is not because it will make the app unstable
246but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for widespread use.
247The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of JID's or email addresses.
248So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of
249JID's. But of course no email or XMPP client out there implements these
250concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of
251downsides: It is vulnerable to replay attacks, it is rather verbose, and
252decrypting and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and
253works well with message carbons.
254
255To use OpenPGP you have to install the open source app
256[OpenKeychain](www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in
257manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
258
259#### How does the encryption for conferences work?
260
261For conferences the only supported encryption method is OpenPGP (OTR does not
262work with multiple participants). Every participant has to announce their
263OpenPGP key (see answer above). If you would like to send encrypted messages to
264a conference you have to make sure that you have every participant's public key
265in your OpenKeychain. Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure
266that. You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
267touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
268to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key. This works best in
269very small conferences with contacts you are already using OpenPGP with. This
270feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only client that uses
271XEP-0027 with conferences. (The XEP neither specifically allows nor disallows
272this.)
273
274### Development
275
276#### How do I build Conversations
277
278Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
279
280 git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
281 cd Conversations
282 ./gradlew build
283
284### How do I update/add external libraries?
285
286If the library you want to update is in Maven Central or JCenter (or has its own
287Maven repo), add it or update its version in `build.gradle`. If the library is
288in the `libs/` directory, you can update it using a subtree merge by doing the
289following (using `minidns` as an example):
290
291 git remote add minidns https://github.com/rtreffer/minidns.git
292 git fetch minidns
293 git merge -s subtree minidns master
294
295To add a new dependency to the `libs/` directory (replacing "name", "branch" and
296"url" as necessary):
297
298 git remote add name url
299 git merge -s ours --no-commit name/branch
300 git read-tree --prefix=libs/name -u name/branch
301 git commit -m "Subtree merged in name"
302
303#### How do I debug Conversations
304
305If something goes wrong Conversations usually exposes very little information in
306the UI (other than the fact that something didn't work). However with adb
307(android debug bridge) you squeeze some more information out of Conversations.
308These information are especially useful if you are experiencing trouble with
309your connection or with file transfer.
310
311 adb -d logcat -v time -s conversations
312
313#### I found a bug
314
315Please report it to our [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
316provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehaviour please provide
317detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
318Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
319your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
320include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
321
322[issues]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/issues